I think it’s the other way around. We’re traumatized as a society and media reflects that. I have long said that we’ve been stuck in a grimdark period of media. It started when 9/11 broke the modern western mindset. For the past quarter century media has been about trying to cope with that trauma through gritty dystopian settings with amoral shades of gray characterizations.
Completely dismantled was the hubris that the western world was an untouchable safe haven fortress from the worn torn dark savage lands of the world. We had defeated the nazis. We had won the Cold War. Europe was uniting more than ever. America was the sole superpower. We were the protagonists at the end of the story.
The shock and awe of witnessing a western city crumble to smouldering rubble on replayed every television set on every channel for years to come. That was traumatic. That kind of thing was only supposed to happen through a grainy analog camera thousands of miles away reported by a special correspondent on behalf of CNN broadcast through your living room cable TV. Suddenly it was happening in cities too close for comfort anymore. What happened to our happy ending?
In the wake of 9/11 the news media became obsessed with the 24/7 constant panic news cycle. There was a terrorist around every corner lurking behind the bushes ready to savage your family. That raised the bar to a level we’ve never returned below since.
Fictional media stopped writing happy stories. The western nations went into more wars of bloodlust against vaguely brown people. If they look suspect then carpet bomb them before they get to us first. Round up as many as we can and let our finest young military men and women torture them. Who we really are came to light. We are savages too.
The story telling came to reflect that. Characters weren’t the idealistic superheroes anymore. They became flawed protagonists. They don’t swoop in and save the day while teaching the primitive villagers a moral lesson and everybody claps. They do the things only villains used to do. They do things that make your stomach turn. Because sometimes that needs to done. That’s the cope we’ve been living with.
The public discourse has never really talked about all this. I mean for all the pride about being self aware and more attuned to mental health there are still some topics too taboo. It’s as if proverbially the public conscious has been secretly curled up in the corner of a padded room wearing a strait jacket quietly self soothing rocking back and forth repeatedly whispering, ‘it’s gonna be okay’. We’ve not been okay. We just lock that part of us away in a deep dark corner of the collective conscious.
Space sci-fi shows are a barometer for the cultural zeitgeist. We used to have the Roddenberry vision of Star Trek. Sci-fi shows were mostly inspired by that. Then things pivot into the grimdark era. We got shows like Battlestar Galactica. Then the Kelvin timeline Trek movies. Then the prime timeline Trek shows came back all dark and gritty. Nobody writes happy stories anymore. A campy show like Stargate could not be made in this era. Kids these days would cringe to death because all they’ve known is the adrenaline pumping trauma content.
Of course we cannot have this discussion without mentioning the most important show which is 24. That was basically revenge porn for 9/11. It was so popular because it was an outlet to satiate the desire to maim brown people.
The trauma and cope continues to evolve to this day. Now western society is realizing the rest of the world continued to developed and progress instead of being the primitive tin hut dwelling people that we were so sure we were inherently superior to. This is an absolutely unacceptable state of affairs. So the trauma response seems to be evolving into temper tantrums of some sort.
Not only are have we been coping with the fact that we’re not the protagonists of the world. We have also had to reckon more than ever with our own domestic issues not just foreign affairs. And so the moral center of media is currently fixed on shocking traumatic content. It’s how we cope. How we tell ourselves it’s okay.
Incredible comment. Besides a reaction to 9/11, do you think the decline of our standard of living, and the loss of hope for the future contributes to this too? People can’t imagine being the selfless hero anymore because they have their own problems, and our individualism prevents us from imagining helping each other. Instead, the lone wolf persona wins out.
I think it’s the other way around. We’re traumatized as a society and media reflects that. I have long said that we’ve been stuck in a grimdark period of media. It started when 9/11 broke the modern western mindset. For the past quarter century media has been about trying to cope with that trauma through gritty dystopian settings with amoral shades of gray characterizations.
Completely dismantled was the hubris that the western world was an untouchable safe haven fortress from the worn torn dark savage lands of the world. We had defeated the nazis. We had won the Cold War. Europe was uniting more than ever. America was the sole superpower. We were the protagonists at the end of the story.
The shock and awe of witnessing a western city crumble to smouldering rubble on replayed every television set on every channel for years to come. That was traumatic. That kind of thing was only supposed to happen through a grainy analog camera thousands of miles away reported by a special correspondent on behalf of CNN broadcast through your living room cable TV. Suddenly it was happening in cities too close for comfort anymore. What happened to our happy ending?
In the wake of 9/11 the news media became obsessed with the 24/7 constant panic news cycle. There was a terrorist around every corner lurking behind the bushes ready to savage your family. That raised the bar to a level we’ve never returned below since.
Fictional media stopped writing happy stories. The western nations went into more wars of bloodlust against vaguely brown people. If they look suspect then carpet bomb them before they get to us first. Round up as many as we can and let our finest young military men and women torture them. Who we really are came to light. We are savages too.
The story telling came to reflect that. Characters weren’t the idealistic superheroes anymore. They became flawed protagonists. They don’t swoop in and save the day while teaching the primitive villagers a moral lesson and everybody claps. They do the things only villains used to do. They do things that make your stomach turn. Because sometimes that needs to done. That’s the cope we’ve been living with.
The public discourse has never really talked about all this. I mean for all the pride about being self aware and more attuned to mental health there are still some topics too taboo. It’s as if proverbially the public conscious has been secretly curled up in the corner of a padded room wearing a strait jacket quietly self soothing rocking back and forth repeatedly whispering, ‘it’s gonna be okay’. We’ve not been okay. We just lock that part of us away in a deep dark corner of the collective conscious.
Space sci-fi shows are a barometer for the cultural zeitgeist. We used to have the Roddenberry vision of Star Trek. Sci-fi shows were mostly inspired by that. Then things pivot into the grimdark era. We got shows like Battlestar Galactica. Then the Kelvin timeline Trek movies. Then the prime timeline Trek shows came back all dark and gritty. Nobody writes happy stories anymore. A campy show like Stargate could not be made in this era. Kids these days would cringe to death because all they’ve known is the adrenaline pumping trauma content.
Of course we cannot have this discussion without mentioning the most important show which is 24. That was basically revenge porn for 9/11. It was so popular because it was an outlet to satiate the desire to maim brown people.
The trauma and cope continues to evolve to this day. Now western society is realizing the rest of the world continued to developed and progress instead of being the primitive tin hut dwelling people that we were so sure we were inherently superior to. This is an absolutely unacceptable state of affairs. So the trauma response seems to be evolving into temper tantrums of some sort.
Not only are have we been coping with the fact that we’re not the protagonists of the world. We have also had to reckon more than ever with our own domestic issues not just foreign affairs. And so the moral center of media is currently fixed on shocking traumatic content. It’s how we cope. How we tell ourselves it’s okay.
Incredible comment. Besides a reaction to 9/11, do you think the decline of our standard of living, and the loss of hope for the future contributes to this too? People can’t imagine being the selfless hero anymore because they have their own problems, and our individualism prevents us from imagining helping each other. Instead, the lone wolf persona wins out.