![]() Wallace notes that “American fiction remains deeply informed by television” and that they interact in a realm of self-conscious irony. The ironic part is that Joe Briefcase then goes out and buys more Pepsi he has transcended nothing, and is certainly not above mass-consumption. He writes about a Pepsi commercial that invites “Joe Briefcase,” Wallace’s personification of the individuals sitting alone at home, all together watching TV (E Unibus Pluram), to feel like he has transcended the masses that Pepsi is advertising too. Ironic ads offer us a way to feel like we’re in on the joke. Wallace goes on to argue that television has co-opted irony. He argues that critics disdain TV’s “vapidity”, but they also watch with “beady-eyed fascination” “they simultaneously hate, fear, and need television”, which seems to be quite powerful indeed. ![]() While Wallace acknowledges that TV is fun, most evident from the fact that the average American watches up to six hours of television a day, he also claims that fiction writers do not take TV “seriously enough as both a disseminator and a definer of the cultural atmosphere we breathe and process.” He laments tv critics for their uncaring attention to the effects of long-term television viewing and how it will begin to affect the average American in ways not seen before. The title “E Unibus Pluram” means “from one, many” and is a solipsistic play on the American motto, “E Pluribus Unum,” which means “out of many, one.” Originally published in The Review of Contemporary Fiction, this essay sketches a loose history of the American television industry advertising, U.S.
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