I fear that the cryptobros have somehow managed to fund actual art.

Aside from the sharpness with which it has encapsulated modern Britain’s economic conditions (or, more specifically and importantly, how it feels), I feel that this ad is in itself emblematic of why the issues will never truly be resolved.

It is well-known to anyone that studies political theory and how ideologies form that recognising a problem exists is not necessarily difficult. It is not hard to recognise, for example, that young people in developed economies today are increasingly unable to afford housing and that this is a global issue. We all know that “employment” among platform companies that do ride-hailing or food delivery services is counter-cyclical; that the hordes of gig workers thronging the streets in China is a symptom of some great malaise, some level of mismatch between the skills base it has cultivated and the industrial base available for them.

The reason I distinguish between how economic conditions actually are and how economic conditions actually feel like is because it matters in discourse. Specifically, lay people care more about how it feels than how they actually are, and there is no faster way to annoy someone than to attempt to invalidate their feelings about the economy, to disprove the vibecession. One recent example that annoyed me was Mothership reporting, likely recycled from Indian news outlets, that a Nanyang Technological University PhD graduate named Ding Yuanzhao had committed full-time to becoming a delivery rider. This specific example that keeps getting brought out to validate the claim that even PhDs are finding it hard in the job market, to the extent that they are becoming gig workers, is a fabrication – at least according to Ding’s LinkedIn. Yet we all know that the job market is hard. People in academia constantly tell me about how the job market is hard for PhDs. It is certainly competitive, and I do hear horror stories from those near me, but it tickles me that the one story that the media has latched onto to demonstrate this point to the world is – as far as I can tell – completely false.

Everything is Fine is absolutely beautiful as a piece of art telling this story about the British economy. The sheer whimsy of the choreography and lyrics, exceedingly reminiscent to me of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (most people would enjoy Every Sperm is Sacred) pulls me in completely as a fan of musical theatre. The short time I spent in London a couple years back (and the longer time I hope to spend there soon) also vindicate the imagery of one of Vera Lynn’s country lanes, walls awash in mold and streets filled with garbage. It is, somehow, the purest expression I have ever seen of vibes surrounding the plight of the modern Briton.

But here’s the kicker – you notice its sponsor is Coinbase? That’s right, this ad was released by a cryptocurrency exchange, who advocates at the end for a change to cryptocurrency. Taking aside the complex monetary arguments for why cryptocurrency in its current form is not going to work as a currency in the way Coinbase is advocating for, what this ad offers is an issue and a solution: a political problem. In order to onboard a third party into your political programme, you have to have them buy into your political problem, to agree with you that the contours of the issue that they feel is in actuality such-and-such, mechanically caused by so-and-so things, and best resolved by policies to do x, y and z.

When issues are widespread and commonly-felt, it becomes easier to propose that some solution is necessary; the divergence then becomes what the solution ought to be. For Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, the mechanical nature of the issue is the “current financial system”, which therefore “needs to be updated.”

But the magic of the ad appears to be that, because the focus was on the crafting of the vibe to pull the viewer in, because the solution really only comes in at the end, really anybody can come in and append their own preordained conclusions to it. The dismal state of the UK for the average person is going to be attributed to anything and everything: high immigration, Pakistani grooming gangs, lack of unskilled workers, the housing crisis, tax policy, too much Brexit, not enough Brexit, and so on. Among these issues, views on the mechanical causes of them – and therefore the solutions for them – are going to splinter even more. Every single voter who is on some level plugged into these issues is going to have a loosely-formed buffet plate of opinions on the things that they think would make The Economy and The Country (read: their personal lives) better. Anyone and everyone with a bone to pick with the system will be able to use this specific ad as a cudgel with which to attack their political opponents

All of which is to say: I love this Coinbase ad, it causes me great anguish that I do and this should be studied in classes.