Maximillian Alvarez University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)—2014 1 Disruption On October 23. 2013. the BBC aired an interview between veteran news presenter Jeremy Paxman and British comedian/actor Russell Brand during a telecast of the weekday current‐affairs program Newsnight. Brand. (in)famous in his stand‐up and film roles for his hyper‐sexualized. ex‐heroin‐addict. rock‐and‐roll comic persona. launched articulate. at times angry. at times playful diatribes against hierarchical and exploitative politico‐economic paradigms in the U.K. and U.S. Among the most controversial points of the interview was Brand’s admission that he has never voted. followed by a direct call to others to refrain from voting: “you have a disenfranchised, disillusioned, despondent underclass that are not being represented by [the current] political system, so voting for it is tacit complicity… Stop voting. Stop pretending. Wake up. Be in reality now… Why vote? We know it’s not going to make any difference. We know that already.” 1 Within hours. video clips of the interview went “viral” across independent news sites. blogs. and other social media. Reposts of the video came with titles ranging from the tame to the ecstatic. including one article on Gawker. entitled “Russell Brand May Have Started a Revolution Last Night.” Absurd claim? Probably. But it is not my aim here to discern whether or not a comedian did. in fact. start a revolution. Nor do I aim. for that matter. to endorse or rebut the explicit political critiques articulated in Brand’s comments. at least not directly. Rather. what is more crucially at stake is a critical re‐examination of the very cultural and philosophical disjuncture that makes such a claim absurd in the first place. To narrowly ask 1 Brand, Russell. Interview by Jeremy Paxman. BBC Newsnight. BBC. London: 23 Oct. 2013. Television. Breaking the Habitus: The Revolutionary Potency of Comedy