Steve Bowbrick

@bowbrick.bsky.social

346 Followers 655 Following

GROSS is a materialist history of Hollywood.

Early NBC radio logo with lightning bolts.
Smiling young man models a red t-shirt with the logo of New York socialist radio station WEVD printed on it. WEVD includes the initials of socialist leader Eugene Victor Debs.
London Bagel shop with two spellings of Beigel and beigal
Count Binface, novelty election candidate, wearing his distinctive dustbin-themed costume, at a microphone
Screenshot of BBC TV studio for 2026 World Cup
Black and white photograph from some time at the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th Century, showing North Main Street and the Clock Gate in Youghal, County Cork, Republic of Ireland.
Computer mouse - original patent drawing with the name of the inventor Douglas C. Engelbart
The words ADORNO - FRANKFURT SCHOOL in a wordmark that looks a lot like the Netflix logo - against a black background
Clip from 1979 Hollywood divorce drama Kramer vs. Kramer overlaid with Steve Bowbrick's BIG STUPID HEAD talking about the movie
Clip from 1979 film Kramer vs. Kramer overlaid with Steve Bowbrick's BIG STUPID FACE talking about divorce
Grid of books Steve Bowbrick is selling on eBay
Graphic based on a flyer for 1970s Bologna radio station Radio Alice
Opening paragraph of a blog post by Steve Bowbrick: So it has come to us, in a kind of dissilusioning rush, and much too late really, that the Internet (which we still deferentially capitalise, as if it were an institution of repute or an actual proper noun) is not a good thing, not a good thing at all. The first universal network, connecting everyone and everything – premised on openness, on flattening hierarchies, on eliminating friction and permissions and coordination costs and barriers to participation and all that – turns out, ultimately, to be the domain, literally the property in fact, of hyper-pragmatic, parasitic hyper-capitalist accelerationists intent on diminishing and dehumanising us.
Male and female models wear shirts with the slogan 'Destruction and Destroy'
Original radio station logo for New York's WEVD, printed on a white sweatshirt
Screenshot of Redbubble store showing designs for four different radical radio stations from around the world: WEVD, WERD, Radio Portugal Livre and EAQ
A thick tangle of fallen branches, leaves and plant stems in a wood in Hertfordshire. A brightly lit patch in the foreground
Outdoor ad for investment company IG. Illustration of a fat cat waeting a suit. Text reads: 'Forget fat cat brokers clawing your gains.'
Grid of items for sale on eBay - includes a biography of Groucho Marx, To Hell With Poverty by Gang of Four, a graphic novel called Patience…
Two detectorists work the beach at Great Yarmouth, behind them the stripey hot-dog stand and the sea. A high-contrast black and white 35mm photograph.
Clip from 1978 movie Grease - Sandy and Danny fly away into the sky in their hopped-up Ford
Still from 1978 film Grease with text overlaid: 'GROSS/69 - 1978 - Grease is a miserable thing but it has a magic realist ending that I can’t stop thinking about'
The regal gold emblem of Donald Trump's Board of Peace with the words 'Board of Peace' replaced with 'Bored of Peas?' in a similar style
Zoomed in video of a young man dancing solo to his bluetooth at a London railway station
Clip from the mid-point of 1975 film Jaws, showing holidaymakers arriving on Amity Island from a ferry
White, spiral-bound notebook with the phrase 'Nationalise Taylor Wimpey' printed on the front cover.
Smiling young woman models a t-shirt with a design using a still from 1956 film Moby Dick and a quote from 1975 film Jaws: "we're gonna need a bigger boat, right?"
A social clip that includes clips of the shark from Jaws and the climactic hunt scene from 1956 film Moby Dick
Stills from The Towering Inferno arranged in a grid
Clip from 1937 animated movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Short edit from 1973 film The Exorcist - doctors meet in a big hospital meeting room and priests attempt an exorcism
Framed black and white photo of a boat steaming on the ocean, against a scruffy painted wall in a cream colour
Clip from 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood
Clip from Villeneuve's Dune 2 - desert scenes, machinery
Watch with only one hand - advert for watch brand Breguet
Words by Steve Bowbrick, from his post 'Paragraphs about AI': Some say we shouldn't be polite to the AIs - no 'pleases' and 'if you don't minds' - but some of us are worried that, come the singularity, there'll be an accounting and those of us who weren't sufficiently deferential in the early years will be rounded up and shipped off-planet to work in one of Mr. Bezos's mines. 5 October
leaflet asking for donations from New Jersey radio station WFMU
Vertical clip from a 1947 Hollywood costume drama. A man addresses a young woman
I used to revere My Dinner with Andre. I thought it was some kind of high point for cerebral New Hollywood introspection, for downtown Manhattan intellectual self-confidence. The kind of cool New Yorker dialogue that the rest of us were just meant to admire. Then, a few years ago I decided, in a flash, watching it again, that actually it was a terrible, pretentious, involuted mess. The worst of American intellectual hubris. A dreadful, contemptible work of art. And it was kind of a relief (I gave it one star on Letterboxd and moved on). Then, last night, I went to see it again, at a live event put on by David Runciman for his Past Present Future podcast, and now I’m all over the place. I might have to write a proper review. Runciman’s guest, playwright Lee Hall, opened up the movie’s complexities, providing historical, theatrical and biographical context that gives the bloody thing a new validity for me. Blimey. Might have to revise that Letterboxd rating too.
Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal face off in an empty New Mexico street. Text overlaid reads: "EDDINGTON Catherine Liu, author of Virtue Hoarders discusses Eddington with Steve Bowbrick, editor of GROSS, live on Substack 11am PDT (2pm EDT, 7pm BST Tuesday 16 September 2025"
Two priests shout with all their strength while trying to exorcise a demon in possession of a young woman on a bed - a scene from 1973 film The Exorcist
Big close-up of Bob Hoskins' face in the final scene from 1980 gangster film The Long Good Friday. He is frightened.
White out of black advertising card from Facebook reads: 'We're looking for 10 men in Watford who want to complete a body transformation in the next six weeks'
Still from horror film Weapons - a child silhouetted against a moon-lit street runs with arms extended to the sides. Text overlaid: GROSS DISTRACTION - Weapons - an embarrassment of genres. There's genre fluidity and then there's genre hoarding.
sleeps more soundly than he, no one is more downright frivolous and lazy, no one more apparently forgetful. Yet in this he is not to be trusted. He is prone to indolence of every sort, but when there is glory at stake he is a wonder, capable of all kinds of fury. Give him a pike, he will deliver the tenth of August.199 Give him a gun, you will have Austerlitz. He is Napoleon’s mainstay and Danton’s200 powerbase. Is his country at stake? He enlists. Is liberty at stake? He rips up the cobblestones. Beware! His hair bristles with epic rage, his shirt hangs about him like the chlamys. Watch out! He will make Caudine Forks of any Rue Greneta.201 If the hour strikes, this working-class Parisian will grow in stature. This little man will rise up and his gaze will be terrible and his breath will become a hurricane, and from that poor puny chest will issue wind enough to reshape the contours of the Alps. It is thanks to the working-class Parisian that the Revolution, taken to the army, conquers Europe. Hugo, Victor. Les Misérables (pp. 122-123)
Message from academia.org reading: 'Dear Steve, "S. Bowbrick" was cited by "Gunther van Loon".
Smiling woman wears white t-shirt with a design including a cat walking purposefully in a formal suit and bowler hat and the words 'become givernment'
a man gone mad walks around in front of a burning house on a scrubby, green island. Two men in white coats chase him around until they get him into an ambulance
Dry cleaner's called Sparkling in London with many new bikes stacked outside for sale. Two kids with bikes are hanging around in front too. Dry cleaning can be seen hanging in rows inside
Close-up of black phone case with the words 'Stockhausen serves Imperialism' printed on it, just below the rear camera
A green show cushion with the words 'Stockhausen serves Capitalism' printed on it
Smiling young woman models a black t-shirt with the logo of New York Radio station WEVD
Woman with long dark hair models a white t-shirt with a design that reads 'Gogol'
Chaotic corner of a building in London. Various textures: brick, wood, metal fencing, signs, windows
Front cover of a collection of photographs by Bill Brandt. White text out of black and a sombre portrtait of a very serious man in a large greenhouse
Montage of images from amazon's homepage - secateurs, a safety helmet, work trousers and goggles
Advert for a commemorative gold-plated 50p piece. The coin has been superimposed on a photo of the Mall in London and has an apparent height of several metres.
Sign in a hotel lift lobby says ‘DRINK - level 3’
Saxophone player, blurred and out of focus against a background of instruments and equipment, in a jazz club