It’s 2025, the US is currently having a nervous breakdown, and my coping skills are off the charts. I’m reaching levels never theorized to exist, excavating the depths of my mind, and dimension-shifting to avoid the terror from above. Things might be scary right now, but my ability to dream has never been so alive.
I never completely questioned the cultural optimism in the early 2010s as I first grew up. Technological advancement was celebrated, and our liberal institutions were still mostly successful in convincing people that incremental policy change and capitalism were sufficient to continue to satisfy the social desires of The People. While yes, I was aware of many problems (and unaware of more), there was a general sense that, given enough time, we would eventually reach our socialist Star Trek utopia. Clearly, this liberal optimism was naive at best. We may still make it to the other side of this technofascist climate crisis hellscape with humanity intact and more empathetic, albeit it will be because we fought for it with the unabashed desire to leave our world better than when we found it. I once would have felt embarrassed for even voicing such a trite thought, but with the state of everything, I find it more important than ever not to be ashamed of such things. When the basic edicts of 20th-century PBS programming1 have been forgotten with such ferocity and empathy increasingly being seen as a weakness by many, the basic tenets of a common humanity must be eternally emphasized.
From Deep Space Nine S3E11 – Past Tense, Part 1. Set in 2024 San Francisco.
In Star Trek canon, 2024 marks a point in history with similar socioeconomic conditions to our own “timeline.“
The perpetual barrage of information, propaganda (which is more obvious than ever), and daily historical events have desensitized and collectively traumatized our society. People never had to process so much so fast. For example, we still have not collectively mourned the over 1 million Americans who have died from COVID-19. Where are the memorials? Why have we become more divided instead of coming together to help each other during this time? Algorithmic political polarization, necropolitics2, and the forces of capital have pushed us to move on like nothing happened so we can continue to consume and forget. It doesn’t have to be like this.
Before we can effectively fight for a more compassionate world, we must first change the way we think by critically analyzing our thought patterns to rid them of all the limiting beliefs the oppressive hegemony put there to hinder us from growing into what we can be. No, you likely won’t be a millionaire, and by thinking that your value as a person is dependent on your financial success, you will inadvertently apply that to how you view other people. Instead of seeing all of us as just people struggling together in an oppressive system, you move through the world with a voice at the back of your head that puts down yourself and others for not living up to these problematic standards. It not only hurts yourself and others, but it also continues to perpetuate beliefs that keep the machine of exploitation going. In order to move beyond limiting beliefs such as these, we must cognitively travel back in time to our early childhoods before they were conditioned into us. In doing so, we can reconnect with our most authentic selves and formulate our belief and value systems without such harmful external influences.
As children, we are fascinated by every new experience. The novelty of the shape of clouds, pill bugs, savory soup, learning about whales and the moons of Jupiter, among everything else, allowed us to indulge our endless curiosity. The freshness of everything slowly became eroded as we age, which has been exacerbated by new technologies, fundamentally altering the way in which many people interact with the world. Removed from the freshness of childlike wonder and inundated with a new media ecosystem and continuously accelerating development of technology, our attention has shifted away from being grounded and experiencing the world around us toward the digital machinations of forces within cyberspace. This attention-demanding succubus of algorithms and online interactions has diverted our collective attention away from the organisms in which we inhabit, our planet, and ourselves.
In reconnecting with my younger self, I have found whimsy to be vital. It allows me to feel creative wonder and find a day-to-day stride to move through the world. A core component of my whimsy is the ability to exist in the moment and view the world through a lens of silliness. That’s silly, you might say, and you would be right! I am indeed quite silly! :3 Letting myself exist in such a way is a radical act when many people would rather see me dead for my identity, especially. It is an ongoing process that can be incredibly difficult at times, but it is also one I know is worth it and is a form of resistance all on its own. Just have fun! Go skipping gaily along the path3, bake weird desserts, imagine you’re a sea monster terrorizing the lake fish while swimming, and otherwise let your curiosity and imagination take the reins. It isn’t efficient. It isn’t productive. It doesn’t make you a good consumer. It does, however, give you joy, and nobody can take that away from you. When we strip away the layers of conditioning from our “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy,” as bell hooks described4, we can begin to understand how our experience matters. While we might not yet be free from the constraining mechanisms of the current socioeconomic hegemony, at least we can choose to experience this life freely inside our minds.
Unfortunately, our society often demonizes and ridicules people who present an authentic expression of self that is antithetical to culturally expected behavior. The feeling of embarrassment and cringe for both ourselves and through others often comes from shame within our own ego. Much of 2010s culture involved socially punishing anything perceived as cringe, leading to growing cynicism and groupthink. This cultural shift is particularly prominent within right-wing ideology and was also a mechanism for its growing political power. The weaponized social pressure that this creates catalyzes conformity among those who use such external motivators to guide the way they live and can hold people back from expressing themselves authentically. Our cultural and economic institutions would prefer to keep people ashamed and afraid of fully realizing their unique creative power in the world. Simply put, the honesty that comes from not being afraid of being perceived as cringe can be a threat to such forces. It is because of this that cringe culture is used as a mechanism for maintaining the status quo and restricting personal growth.
It’s easy to be cynical—it’s a form of self-protection after all. “If I’m cynical, then I don’t have to worry about other people judging me for my interests and passions.” When people ridicule and make fun of the way other people express themselves, it stems from their insecurities and inability or unwillingness to know themselves. The last thing we should allow to drive us day-to-day is fear. It’s easier to be detached than to be real. Be brave and reject those thoughts; they have no place in any of our lives. If we want to exist freely, we must seek our creative energy from within ourselves.
As someone who is autistic and formed a strong mask over the course of years out of a subconscious need to survive, I ended up losing sight of who I was, my desires, and what I enjoyed. Authentic expressions of myself were often socially punished, and my being was diminished as my emotions were often not validated. A lesser version of myself was formed as I learned that it wasn’t safe to be my fullest self. While many factors played into this, especially my transness, it is a common experience nonetheless. I was so concerned with doing the right thing that I neglected to do my thing. So what if I’m not perfect? Nobody is, and we should be okay doing our best with any given moment, regardless of how effective our communication, embarrassment, or half-baked ideas. There’s nothing to prove to anyone else; only ourselves. The primary thing we can do to try to change this toxic culture of people mirroring their insecurities onto others is to be open with ourselves to the world and allow others to do the same! Be honest about our desires and support other people when they are being authentic, especially when what they did could be seen as cringe. Following this, we can slowly move ourselves away from projecting this unnecessary internalized shame onto others.
As fascism uses AI to further its means5 and capitalism flails during its final form, we must reintegrate whimsy and wonder into each of our beings. For us to make broad shifts in our collective consciousness toward a world of empathy, we must first change the way we think so as to exist in that state of wide-eyed wonder and re-associate with our experiences. Use our whimsy as a means to let us exist as the freest version of ourselves. With the worldwide open assault on human rights, it is more imperative than ever that we speak truth without fear, and also not be afraid of being a little silly about it and letting our whimsical selves soar.
- I’m especially referring to LeVar Burton’s Reading Rainbow and Fred Rogers’ Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, both on PBS. Sadly, just this month, the current administration has slashed all funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which funds PBS. ↩︎
- More on Necropolitics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necropolitics
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-is-necropolitics ↩︎ - Skipping is the most efficient method of getting from point A to point B—fight me. ↩︎
- More on bell hooks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_hooks
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/1994/07/01/bell-hooks/ ↩︎ ↩︎ - Fascists love AI…
https://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/ai-the-new-aesthetics-of-fascism/ ↩︎