This week, for the first time ever, Any Given Sunday is being hijacked — in the best possible way — by the endlessly brilliant Antony Micallef. I've known Antony for years; we first bonded in 2016 over his Trump’s Fags series. He first broke through via the BP Portrait Award and has since earned global acclaim for a style that fuses political chaos with painterly finesse.

His work dives deep into our relationship with consumerism, branding, and the pop culture fluff we’re all complicit in. He recently sent me something he’d written — and instead of offering it to the New York Times, he’s kindly agreed to share it here.

 

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I was recently invited to take part in a panel discussion at the RCA for the MA Painting course. The title was “How Do We Cut Through the Noise?” Students were asking: how do we make an impact — how do we compete with the ever-growing onslaught of imagery to say something meaningful in this modern age? In a time of hyper-saturation and visual overload, our cultural environment can feel overwhelming and bewildering. I could easily understand why the question was being asked — the conflict of a creator striving to have their voice heard amid the flood of visual profusion.

 

With the introduction of AI, we can now say and depict any scenario we choose — we are living in a post-truth world. I feel we’ve surpassed the writings of George Orwell and now live in the epoch of J.G. Ballard, who explored how technology alienates rather than empowers. His prose is non-linear and disorienting. Syntax is confused and altered; states of reality exist side by side. We've fallen into a disintegration of narrative, a collapse of conventional logic or chronology that echoes Trump’s Truth Social posts and speeches.

 

The idea that art imitates life has gone full circle. Politics, particularly from the current White House administration, is now run through the prism of entertainment, parodying a Paul Verhoeven film. We’ve fully entered our own science fiction age.

On 12 July, the official White House Instagram account posted an image of the President of the United States as Superman, parodying a poster for the new James Gunn movie. In my opinion, it defined a new cultural reckoning — a shift in how we relate to government and supposedly trusted institutions. The way we share information and instructions is no longer sensical. There was an outcry online.

 

The ambiguous, satirical nature of memes — historically born in the shadows of 4chan and Reddit — has gone mainstream. These were once image-based forums for anonymous users, often caricatured as neurodivergent teenagers who don’t get enough sunlight and are into video games. Like all traditional forms of subversive art — punk, for example — everything eventually eats itself, gets regurgitated, and resurfaces in a “palatable” form, devouring the original context.

Memes aren’t new. But what is new — and extraordinary — is that they're now used by the most powerful government on the planet as a tool of communication.

What I find fascinating is this: how did we get here? What road led to this cultural shift that enables the American administration to speak to voters in this way?

Marketing has long been a political tool. J.G. Ballard once said:

 

“Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent, they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.”

 

You could argue the first impactful political meme happened in 1997. New Labour, New Danger was a Conservative campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi, brainchild of Martin Casson. It portrayed Tony Blair with big red demonic eyes in photomontage style on huge billboards — echoing the stylistic influence of Barbara Kruger. It was a postmodern shift: satirical tabloid-style images leapt from newspapers onto the street. Billboards usually sold consumer goods. Suddenly, they were weaponised with familiar advertising language for political aims. You could even call it the first true example of “guerrilla marketing” — a style that went mainstream in the 2000s.

 

Barack Obama’s ascent to power had a different veneer but used the same principles. Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok didn’t exist in 2008. Instead, Obama’s campaign embraced Facebook, blogs, email, and stylistic ads on the web. It connected with early social media users — mostly young, savvy voters. Edelman Research said:

 

“Obama won by converting everyday people into engaged and empowered volunteers, donors and advocates through social networks, email advocacy, text messaging and online video.”

 

The campaign created a feeling of inclusion — a groundswell. Like discovering a new artist, people wanted to spread the word. This delivery system met people on their own feeds, igniting support for a relatively unknown candidate. Obama’s campaign was so effective that he was named Advertising Age “Marketer of the Year,” surpassing Apple and Zappos.com.

By 2016, smartphones had made social media omnipresent — and another political shift followed. Donald Trump used Twitter to speak directly to potential voters. It was revolutionary: voters could read in real-time what a candidate was thinking. It bypassed edited media, bringing speed and informality. Once in office, Trump normalised this mode of communication — dictating national and foreign policy in 140 characters. Other nations followed suit.

 

Now we’re in 2025. Trump 2.0. The White House’s communication strategy has evolved again, mirroring the rapid cultural changes in how we talk to each other. The meme of Trump as Superman feels like peak Instagram politics. As someone interested in the history of political imagery, I find this cultural moment incredibly perplexing.

As we each become our own personal channels, we’ve grown accustomed to the inconsequential. Everything’s binary now. Opinions warp under the weight of it all. We’ve unintentionally become parodies of ourselves. Whether it’s wellness or politics, our views feel meaningless — dizzied by noise. Everyone wants to cut through. We’ve hit a collision point. This meme marks a zenith of absurdity that makes the presidency look like a house of cards. It represents a breakdown — an institutional shrug. If they don’t take themselves seriously, how can we? It’s a parody of a parody — like a South Park episode.

The brilliance — and danger — of the meme is its simplicity. It can mean anything. Its ambiguity gives the sender plausible deniability: they can walk it back, reinterpret it, or let it hold contradictory meanings at once.

As Steve Bannon said in 2018:

 

“You have to flood the zone.”

 

Well, the zone is flooded. The content is now empty. But it still goads us into reacting — even when there’s nothing to react to. The White House Instagram post is a perfect symbol of how our information systems have metastasised. As J.G. Ballard’s writing describes: it’s laughable, ridiculing, confusing, shocking, and meaningless all at once.

 

 

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If memes are now the official language of government, what does that say about the state of our institutions? We haven’t just flooded the zone — we’ve tripped the fuse box and left the grown-ups in the dark.

Did Antony manage to answer those poor MA students drowning in pixels, begging for meaning? Maybe. But the question is: what would you have said?

Personally, I keep circling back to Empty Day — the idea that maybe the most radical act left is to simply log off. Starve the algorithms. Temporarily. Hit the gatekeepers where it hurts: their ad revenue.

We act powerless, but we hold all the power in the muscle memory of a swipe. The revolution isn’t in our feed — it’s in resisting it. Less scrolling, more flipping. Fewer tabs, more pages. Try it. The internet will survive without you. The question is: will you survive it?

 

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You probably feel like you need one after this :) Of course you do, we don't really like reality so this week is brought to you by Maxell. Because nothing says progress like spending $130 on a plastic cassette player. Bluetooth? Sure. USB-C? Why not. Sounds like nostalgia - in jorts. A perfect gift for someone you don’t like.

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The below is a mixture of suggestions from myself and Antony :) 

 

🧁 = (cupcake) Treat brain – easy to consume

🦪 = (oyster) More challenging - not for everyone

 

🦪

Co-Matter is a great little team, sharp as the edge of a razor clam. They have a great platform for distributing material called Meta Label and have just published ‘New World Order.’ The Return of Hard Power and Soft Beliefs is a 35-page research memo about what happens when power, infrastructure and ideology collide.

 

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Tuesdays with Morrie. Mitch Albion rekindles his friendship with his favourite college professor from twenty years ago. A Beautifully heartwarming, tender book on how to be grateful about life and see the life in the ordinary.

 

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Pavement licker. A fantastic Zine based on street culture featuring art, fashion and music. It's raw and feels at homemade with great art direction with interviews with fantastic artists. 

 

🧁

Just Make Magazine. Just Just Jones is the author of a magazine about magazines. A field guide to publishing your own magazine.

 

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New constellations. Hot blooded: Just listening to this on repeat.

 

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Blind Boy Podcast. Excellent commentary and hot takes from Art to social culture and how they merge. Very funny and one of most insightful people (in my opinion in the podcast world).

 

🦪

Notes on blindness. A beautiful atmospheric, uplifting film shot like a documentary about a person losing their sight but has an ecstatic epiphany as his senses adapt to his new environment. Beautifully crafted and full of human spirit. It sounds melancholic but trust me, it will be one of the best things you have watched.

 

Emiliana Henriquez: Beautiful, half-soft, half-tender paintings — richly saturated glimpses of her everyday life in LA.

 

Thanks for reading to the end. Any suggestions or comments?

If you'd like to follow Antony on Instagram you can here or check his website here.
 

That's it. Cheerio.