Millennials

The Culture Wars: This Snowflake Will Not Fall

RobertLeave a comment

Wikipedia says that a culture war “is a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal values is seen.” One such culture war taking place is that between Generation Woke and the Anti-PC Brigade. On one side are the unreasonable Millennials and Gen-Zers who demand trigger warnings and don’t like homophobic slurs in their Christmas songs. On the other are the fusty defenders of common sense who’ll regularly be heard saying that political correctness has gone mad and defending their right to say or sing faggot. But the trouble with labelling this conflict a culture war is the implication that both sides are meeting on a level playing field.

But there’s nothing level about the battlefield of the culture war. A prominent example from 2020 would be J.K. Rowling’s transphobic comments. What could have necessitated an important discussion on transphobia and the amount of hostility transgender people experience on a daily basis instead became a battle between those defending Rowling’s right to make transphobic comments and those on the receiving end of that transphobia. Likewise, the option to listen to the Fairy Tale of New York without having to hear the homophobic slur faggot became a battle between those defending the right to use the slur (often straight people who never professed to be LGBTQ+ allies) and those who have been on the receiving end of that slur for decades, such as myself. The conversation was predictably diverted from the discussion of homophobia and how it affects people to one decrying over-sensitivity and Planet Woke. Think also of Black Lives Matter and how the Conservative party was so quick to label them as “political”, as noted in a great gal-dem article: “we have seen [the Tories] try to frame anti-racism as a partisan issue; a calculated move intended to divide the population and distract from the reality that structural injustice exists in all facets of life – including at both ends of the political spectrum.” It’s that sleight of hand again, distracting us from the deeper, systemic issues and making us think it’s just that lot making unreasonable demands.

Those standing up against transphobia, homophobia and racism are stereotyped as the “woke brigade”. We’re called overly sensitive and ridiculed for it. But I think that’s just it – it’s not that we’re overly sensitive it’s that we’re sensitive. We aren’t divorced from our feelings and have the ability to translate them into empathetic acts of resistance and solidarity. Meanwhile, our detractors hate this because not only are their various privileges being threatened – namely the “privilege” to be transphobic, homophobic and racist and, boy, do people hate it when they get called out – but in demonstrating compassion the so-called snowflakes are revealing a faculty that their oppressors struggle to access. As well as prejudiced, oppressors are also traumatised, but rather than seek support and healing, they weaponise their pain and project it at others – those they have been taught to hate and who they think are a threat. The irony is that while these oppressors are so quick to decry and ridicule the sensitivities of those they oppress they are themselves hugely sensitive and just as quick to act defensively if they perceive they are being threatened. But a gay man asking for less homophobia isn’t actually a threat – he’s just someone who wants a bit more peace in the world, for everyone (even his oppressors!). Sadly though, the oppressors do not see this and, deeply ashamed of their own feelings and many, many aspects of their own identities (founded on a bunch of misperceptions, stereotypes and contradictions), they take it out on those around them. And they’ve been doing it for a long, long time.

What the culture war narrative does so successfully is distract us from a far larger war waged for centuries, on many fronts, against women, people of colour, indigenous people, queer people, transgender people, disabled people, neurodivergent people, people of oppressed religions, to name but a few. This war has long been fought by colonisers, fascists, misogynists, and queerphobes, amongst others. The history of this war is a violent legacy of genocide, colonisation, displacement, torture, abuse and terror. The culture war narrative elides this greater truth and trivialises larger pleas for justice and peace. And I call bullshit. I am proud to be a snowflake – to be sensitive to injustices, ones I experience and ones others experience. Nor am I ashamed of the multiplicity of feelings in my heart, vital for allowing me to listen, empathise, act and learn from my mistakes. So even though it’s (nearly) Christmas, this snowflake will not fall.

Meaningless Millenials: Clique & Search Party

Robert5 Comments

Life can seem quite meaningless for millennials these days as we’re forced to jump through the increasingly outdated hoops of school all for the sake of one day getting an adult job. However, much debt later and those dream jobs tend to be unpaid internships or going the way of automisation. Meanwhile, Trump, Brexit, climate change etc etc…what do we do!? It’s no surprise then that this nihilistic turn ends up influencing popular culture. Two examples include recent mystery based dramas with Gen Y protagonists, Search Party (TBS) and Clique (BBC). For the former think Nancy Drew meets mid-twenties millennial malaise with a side of Gone Girl and the latter is a less funny Mean Girls meets The Secret History with Scottish accents. Both have meaninglessness at their hearts but for two very different reasons. Oh, and head’s up, there will be spoilers.

Search Party tells the story of Dory, not the forgetful fish, but a 20s something woman living in New York who lacks direction and purpose in life. Naturally, she goes looking for this by going looking for Chantal – an old college acquaintance who is now a missing person. Cue hunting for clues, curious suspects, intriguing red herrings and a whole cast of amazing characters – from her endlessly self-absorbed rich friends to a cult-load of ‘wellness-seeking’ weirdos. Dory’s 21st century world is exceptionally bleak but also very, very funny. Clique takes itself a little more seriously as young students and lifelong friends, Holly and Georgie, fall out over getting in with the in-crowd: four conventionally beautiful young women who have looks and banking internships to die for (literally in the case of one of them who kills herself in episode one). The characters here are familiar clichés: the charismatic lecturer who lures the impressionable young women in with her force of character (and questionable brand of feminism) and the attractive people who do glamorous things (e.g. take drugs, jump into swimming pools with their clothes on, have chauffeurs etc) but aren’t actually that interesting. However, what’s great about Clique is that it’s going all out to fail the Mechdel test – the male equivalent of the Bechdel test – as the guys are left to be annoying, peripheral characters and the occasional bare butt shot.

So both shows are full of selfish and sometimes vacuous characters, however, I’d say Search Party is knowingly presenting them as such in order to skewer them in parody. It takes a mirror to Gen Y’s obsession with selfies, celebrity and self-promotion, and reminds us that it’s all paper-thin (whilst also mistressfully weaving this trope into the denouement). Meanwhile, I feel Clique is being a little more earnest in its vacuity and trying to convince us that, like Holly and Georgie, we really should want to join the clique of coke-snorting, unpaid yet highly attractive interns who don’t say much of interest and are forced to work for/with complete chauvinists. But that’s the thing with cliques – cool from a distance but kinda disappointing once you’re inside. Although I’m not convinced Holly is all that convinced of the clique either so, with three episodes to go, there’s still plenty of time for biting, poignant cultural critique a la Search Party.

Interestingly, one thing lacking in both these tales of millennial woe are significant adult figures. Search Party has the odd wellness guru and disinterested, rich parent, whilst Clique has got the over-zealous lecturer and her weird brother but I feel both series are missing a trick because without adults who can the Gen Yers blame for all our problems? Let’s face it without the baby boomers we millennials wouldn’t be here. Without their inventions, businesses, advertising agencies and super-charged model of consumer capitalism where on earth would we go to struggle to find meaning and purpose? I mean if they’d invested in sustainable energy, steady-state economic models and put community before profit then Dory and Holly probably would have already found themselves and wouldn’t need to go on dangerous mystery adventures. Likewise, their friends would probably spend more time looking out for one another and not wasting so much time setting up faux-charitable initiatives to boost their fragile self-esteems or chasing the next high-functioning sociopath with a six-pack. And nor would everyone be stone broke and forced to pay too much rent because we’d have caps on renting or, who knows, maybe all housing would be social housing. And freaky wellness cults run by overly charismatic yet dubious people who wear too much expensive jewellery wouldn’t need to be invented because we’d all probably be quite happy sharing stuff and looking out for one another. Who’d need an exclusive clique when we’d all have community. Anyways, just a thought. Now quick, back to Instagram!