I've been trying to get a grip on this for a while.
So it all started with last year's South Park season. That recurring theme with the Memberberries. The season before that which was the one where they introduced PC Principal, at least to me that season was like really good. Nailed a lot of things in typical South Park fashion. What can I say, I'm a fan. Anyway, last year's season wasn't that good. I remember hating the memberberries thing and not getting it, and kinda thinking all season how I'm sure it'll end up making sense in the end. Then it kinda didn't. But then way later I read some theory or whatever somewhere about how they probably assumed Trump wasn't gonna actually win, and so when he did they had to shift some story stuff around for everything to make sense, and that's why it turned out shitty.
I don't know, but anyway, the point is I spent a good amount of time trying to figure what that whole thing was about, beyond the obvious. Now though, I don't think it ever really had any deeper meaning beyond being social commentary about how we're living in a time where there's a lot of nostalgia being sold. So then I've been thinking a little bit about that and why that is. Like, I'm sure everyone hits a nostalgic phase a few times throughout their life, but that doesn't explain what's going on I don't think., Like over here we got television shows that used to air when I was a kid making their return to the waves after 20 year hiatuses.
I'm open to this all being nothing. Like maybe it's my perception and not the world that's different, or maybe random coincidences should have it that it would seem like the world is tripping when in fact it's just a few isolated incidents in succession.. I've tried to compensate for those ideas and it still feels like, no, there's something going on. There was another joke on South Park last year about how they got JJ Abrams to basically save us all by making a great Star Wars movie that would satiate our nostalgic needs. And then there's just.... Yeah, typical, I can't think of any more specific things other than those, but this definitely feels like an ongoing thing that is happening right now, in "the world" say. Oh wait, another thing is Trump's "make America great again".
Does this make sense to anyone? Anyone else feeling this? What do you make of it? Like, what do you think the thing is? Why is everyone so goddamn nostalgic right now, to the extent that it's part of every layer of western popular culture? The epochs just cycle and now is that time for our culture (again)? Or are we hitting some kind of ceiling with our technology, or our wealth, or as a culture, and then as we approach it, every process of development around us is slowing down incrementally, so as a culture we're kind of longing for something to even that out, and the answer is...whatever used to make us feel good when that was going on? Like a final act of clinging on until the last second? Or could it be that modern technology like the internet affects culture to change so rapidly that people are left with feelings of unease and insecurity, prompting them to watch the same old shit over and over again just to obtain that tiny sensation of control before having to face the chaos that surrounds us all *screams loudly* ?
So it all started with last year's South Park season. That recurring theme with the Memberberries. The season before that which was the one where they introduced PC Principal, at least to me that season was like really good. Nailed a lot of things in typical South Park fashion. What can I say, I'm a fan. Anyway, last year's season wasn't that good. I remember hating the memberberries thing and not getting it, and kinda thinking all season how I'm sure it'll end up making sense in the end. Then it kinda didn't. But then way later I read some theory or whatever somewhere about how they probably assumed Trump wasn't gonna actually win, and so when he did they had to shift some story stuff around for everything to make sense, and that's why it turned out shitty.
I don't know, but anyway, the point is I spent a good amount of time trying to figure what that whole thing was about, beyond the obvious. Now though, I don't think it ever really had any deeper meaning beyond being social commentary about how we're living in a time where there's a lot of nostalgia being sold. So then I've been thinking a little bit about that and why that is. Like, I'm sure everyone hits a nostalgic phase a few times throughout their life, but that doesn't explain what's going on I don't think., Like over here we got television shows that used to air when I was a kid making their return to the waves after 20 year hiatuses.
I'm open to this all being nothing. Like maybe it's my perception and not the world that's different, or maybe random coincidences should have it that it would seem like the world is tripping when in fact it's just a few isolated incidents in succession.. I've tried to compensate for those ideas and it still feels like, no, there's something going on. There was another joke on South Park last year about how they got JJ Abrams to basically save us all by making a great Star Wars movie that would satiate our nostalgic needs. And then there's just.... Yeah, typical, I can't think of any more specific things other than those, but this definitely feels like an ongoing thing that is happening right now, in "the world" say. Oh wait, another thing is Trump's "make America great again".
Does this make sense to anyone? Anyone else feeling this? What do you make of it? Like, what do you think the thing is? Why is everyone so goddamn nostalgic right now, to the extent that it's part of every layer of western popular culture? The epochs just cycle and now is that time for our culture (again)? Or are we hitting some kind of ceiling with our technology, or our wealth, or as a culture, and then as we approach it, every process of development around us is slowing down incrementally, so as a culture we're kind of longing for something to even that out, and the answer is...whatever used to make us feel good when that was going on? Like a final act of clinging on until the last second? Or could it be that modern technology like the internet affects culture to change so rapidly that people are left with feelings of unease and insecurity, prompting them to watch the same old shit over and over again just to obtain that tiny sensation of control before having to face the chaos that surrounds us all *screams loudly* ?
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