By a measure of miles, The Project co-host Waleed Aly is one of the most provocative, interesting, sometimes polarising, but indisputably intelligent people in the Australian media industry today – if not ever.
“I’m not struggling with it [celebrity] so much as… well, ‘bemused’ is probably a better word. I still don’t regard myself as a celebrity and I find the whole notion laughable, really. I come from a world where the thing that’s mattered most is the content or the issue, not the personality, and I still approach it that way.”
But going further, it’s Aly’s constant sense of worry and analysis about the work he – and The Project team writ large – produces that provides the more provocative moments in the interview. Particularly the idea that Waleed doesn’t view himself as being on any particularly side of any political ledger.
“I don’t walk out on air feeling the burden of representation. I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of being representative… of anything! I have no authority to claim I’m representative. I haven’t won an election or anything.”
“If there’s one perception of me I relate least to it’s the perception that I’m advocating for something in particular. And I’m just not. There are certain issues where I have a position and I will, when the moment calls for it, argue that position, but I don’t expect people to just flatly believe in it. It’s more an offer. This is my analysis, do with it what you will.”
And, even more interestingly, is Aly’s disdain for the cult of social media and the pitfalls of constant performance.
“I’m very concerned about what being a performer does to character. I think daily performance is a dangerous thing for humans to do, and an unhealthy mode for people to be in regularly. One of my philosophical objections to social media is that it transforms our entire existences into one-off performances. I think that’s a really unhealthy development.”
A quote which, goddamn, I love so FREAKING MUCH.
