That’s just a mini-sampler of the full menu of insanity we have been served over the last 12 months, which has given 2024 a sort of hyperreal feel. A girl who became a meme over a blowjob joke has her own cryptocurrency, anything can happen now. Though I suspect what we’re actually experiencing is the true aftermath of the pandemic. It’s nailed on now that any hopes of society emerging from those years of upheaval improved – that we would learn the error of our ways and slow down, consume less, prioritise better – were way off. Looking around, it’s obvious that things got a lot better for, like, six guys, and much, much worse for everybody else. That clash of emotion – rage over incomprehensible short-term idiocy, but also a sense of futility that leaves you with no option but to say ‘fuck it, we ball’ – has underscored this entire year, and will probably continue into 2025.
There has been a fracture between cause and response. Stupid evil things keep happening, and we simply endure how stupid and evil they are while working 50 hours a week and listening to Brat. There is no coherent logic to anything. No do this, get that. No 2+2=4. As a result, the social contract has broken down. That’s why everyone has responded to the murder of a healthcare CEO with whimsy and delight – fancam edits, lookalike competitions, frilly underwear with “deny”, “depose”, “defend” stitched on the front – and it’s also why a 26-year-old man who could have done anything with his life chose to pick up a gun and murder a healthcare CEO in the first place.
We’re in full Joker mode. We could be told that a comet will hit Earth in two days and our immediate response would be to make it into a meme and, somehow, AI porn. This probably doesn’t bode well for the fabric of society going forward, but at the same time it could have been avoided if people weren’t handing most of their earnings over to medical, energy, and water companies just to have an EpiPen, cook pasta, and get a parasite from swimming in the ocean because it’s full of poo. So, you know… your move, “society.”
