"Whether someone like Trump — or whichever far right European leader — can pay off these dreams is besides the point because so many people inside and outside the aesthetic sphere (or youth sphere, for that matter) voted to become rich, to become white, to have a future that was like the past, where they too get to profit off someone else’s suffering. Why fight for climate change when you can fly above it? Why be “brat” when you can be an even more nihilistic, saying “Fuck this shit: pay me.” as you turn red? It’s so obvious that a fantasy was on the ballot and people chose an idealized past instead of a potential futuristic utopia."
Kyle, this hit me HARD. Too too often the desire (even for me, sometimes!) is "to go back to the way things were," without a care of what that amazing life we want really costs, without realizing what we thought was the norm might've just been the exception, you know? Crazy to think that there's so MUCH going out in the world—words, pictures, everything—yet how impoverished our imaginations are. I'll be thinking about your post for days to come.
😭 this was one of the weeks where it was like "this brings me no joy to share" but it had to be shared. i've been meaning to write something for months and months about utopias and how we don't think about them (in media, in our own minds) because there is "no conflict" there, that it's easier to imagine the terrible than the sublime. i forgot who said this, but someone (on twitter?) posited at some point in the past few years that it's easier for us to imagine the collapse of the planet than the end of climate change. that...really summed it up. maybe we'll get into utopias next week because we need SOME brightness to hold onto!!!! thank you for reading, zoe!!!
(also: i think when some — or I — thinking that the "1980s were going to make a comeback" was purely aesthetic thinking — and didn't consider this also meant the welcoming of excess and greed, which such 1980s visual semiotics conjure. foolish to have thought it was "just going to be" preppy shirts and no preppy politics.)
I hate to ring the alarm about "the youth" too much, but you're absolutely right about the values we bake into culture. Aesthetics, or even language, can be sneaky, cutesy, and easy to buy into but we shouldn't underestimate their influence. Thank you for this one!
"Whether someone like Trump — or whichever far right European leader — can pay off these dreams is besides the point because so many people inside and outside the aesthetic sphere (or youth sphere, for that matter) voted to become rich, to become white, to have a future that was like the past, where they too get to profit off someone else’s suffering. Why fight for climate change when you can fly above it? Why be “brat” when you can be an even more nihilistic, saying “Fuck this shit: pay me.” as you turn red? It’s so obvious that a fantasy was on the ballot and people chose an idealized past instead of a potential futuristic utopia."
Kyle, this hit me HARD. Too too often the desire (even for me, sometimes!) is "to go back to the way things were," without a care of what that amazing life we want really costs, without realizing what we thought was the norm might've just been the exception, you know? Crazy to think that there's so MUCH going out in the world—words, pictures, everything—yet how impoverished our imaginations are. I'll be thinking about your post for days to come.
😭 this was one of the weeks where it was like "this brings me no joy to share" but it had to be shared. i've been meaning to write something for months and months about utopias and how we don't think about them (in media, in our own minds) because there is "no conflict" there, that it's easier to imagine the terrible than the sublime. i forgot who said this, but someone (on twitter?) posited at some point in the past few years that it's easier for us to imagine the collapse of the planet than the end of climate change. that...really summed it up. maybe we'll get into utopias next week because we need SOME brightness to hold onto!!!! thank you for reading, zoe!!!
(also: i think when some — or I — thinking that the "1980s were going to make a comeback" was purely aesthetic thinking — and didn't consider this also meant the welcoming of excess and greed, which such 1980s visual semiotics conjure. foolish to have thought it was "just going to be" preppy shirts and no preppy politics.)
impoverished imaginations!!! preach
🫡
I hate to ring the alarm about "the youth" too much, but you're absolutely right about the values we bake into culture. Aesthetics, or even language, can be sneaky, cutesy, and easy to buy into but we shouldn't underestimate their influence. Thank you for this one!