Perform-At Versus Perform-With

Venkatesh Rao calls this one of the greatest Twitter replies ever (and I’m inclined to believe him):

In case that image doesn’t work, Nassim Taleb says, “Mediterraneans know how to enjoy themselves without necessarily getting drunk.” Arno Sosna replies, “As a Slav, we have mastered the inverse - getting drunk without enjoyment. Life is pain, only potato.”

You really should read Rao’s full analysis, but I want to highlight a few ideas:

“In the grim darkness of the unevenly distributed future, there is only potato.”

What?

OK, so it’s an identity thing, or at least that’s what Rao is saying. Taleb is being his normally extra-performative self, and making a profound sounding statement about Mediterraneans. Sosna is also making an identity argument, but in a anti-performative, self-depreciating tone, expertly stopping at the point of not even mentioning wine or vodka, just… potato.

We live in a world where far too often people are performing at you as opposed to performing with you.

Stating a group of people know how to enjoy themselves without getting drunk is performing at you. It’s an, “uh, OK?” type of thing. It’s not engaging, it’s deliberately aspirationally baiting, and it’s Instagram-empty-calorie standard fare.

Now, “potato” is different. It’s a perform-with as opposed to a perform-at. For starters, Sosna uses it for engagement. And specifically, since everybody knows about potatoes, he takes Taleb’s perform-at and turns it into something anybody else can now join in on and perform-with.

Rao gets into the potato as metaphor, as an ultimate cultural and socio-economic bridge, and perfect invitation to perform-with, as well as joke about. These communication metaphors compound. Spot them when you see them, and up your jokey comment game while you’re at it.