They were somehow innocent, immune to
shame, and their positivity was as naive as it was indestructible.
The world was laughing at them. I was a jaded
person, I had wasted my innocence, and the part of my life where I
would see them as acceptable was over. In other ways, perhaps, but
for me there would be no great passion in a harmless,
consumer-oriented fandom. If I had ever been close, it had been just
before the Star Wars reboot, but that fizzled out for me. So I
considered the modern scene amusing at first, and then detestable, and then settled
into an indifferent apathy. It was the hands-in-pockets crowd and
their best friends from the internet, how could it ever pay off?
The whole internet was like a moth to
flame regarding these people: they were like furries and
straight-edge kids combined, not such a 'thing' yet that people over 35 had
any idea about their existence. Hot property. It was a movement for people who didn't want
to grow up. They had managed to get a lot of attention from the
indulgent denizens of the internet, who loved to mock and worry about them. It was a
movement beyond mockery, in many ways, because it was earnest (if twisted in 50%+ of cases) and simple. It was a worst case
scenario for New Sincerity, which is where the blame squarely lay. Some participants were actual children, not just mentally child-like; it was
bizarre, and impossible not to get bad vibes from. It was
cringe-worthy.
In the course of their mockery I was
introduced and re-introduced to the movement. The base users of the
internet were enthralled, I think, with the possibility of a group
more pathetic than themselves. It was hilarity potentiated by an odd
sense of pathos. Lots of good laughs were had at the expense of these
stupidly earnest, mentally-ill, immature individuals, but also good
money was being made on them. Not that I was a capitalist, and if
anything it was their collective identity as consumers that made them
beneath scorn. They were, in a word, jokes. Unnervingly awkward,
questionable jokes.
Everyone wanted identity and belonging,
though. That was the less funny part. The existence of this group was
evidence of pathological issues in modern society. It was a symptom of a
sick world. Even so, they were having fun, believed in something or everything, and they cared – all of which was drily amusing of course. They were not the ones
engaging and propagating the sick society which was eating away human
potential and leaving us with manic-depressives, borderlines, and
headcases of all sorts. They were harmless eccentrics, 'nice guys', outcasts, and all truly bizarre. To me it was borderline unacceptable, but I didn't want to throw stones and laugh spitefully: that's too close to caring.
Some of them were undoubtedly sick. There was no other explanation. It was bizarre: a
combination of tweens, teenagers, twenty-somethings, all the way up
to the usual extreme cases: sad and lonely men in their forties and fifties. Not that they were exceptional among modern movements and identity groups, or even particularly embarrassing in that field. The internet was full enough of shit to ruin anyone's mind, victims were plentiful. Their position was defensible in that way and many others,
even though it was tone-deaf and ignorant and, essentially, very
creepy in a way which does not misuse the word.
They preached fun, acceptance, peace,
caring. They were clad in various baggy ill-fitting garments, liked
gaudy colours, and especially products which broadcast their love of
the entertainment product which they consumed in togetherness. They
could be any group of youth, really. I suppose I hated them most for
their consumerism, because their cry for identity was not
particularly remarkable, nor their lack of critical perspective. In
the modern era of disposable society vs. unbending self-righteous fundamentalism there wasn't a single place to stand. It made one
nihilistic, which made funny groups attractive to mockers and
adherents alike. The rise of the dubstep generation. Heh.
It was all insane. It was best to just
laugh and not question any of it, but not questioning it seemed
wrong. Same as it ever was, too. Maybe they were historically unique
for record levels of meek nebbishism, little else. They would grow,
was the problem, and create and kinds of morbid counter-mentalities.
Shit like that was going to ruin everything, contribute to ongoing
lost generations, influence the future... which made it less funny to
watch a mawkish convention mentality spastically going
its way in an oblivious, unforgiving world. Less funny; deeper humor, and darker. So if you want to know if there are worse things: of course there are worse things – the rest are all warning signs.
