I remember that around 2014-2017, things really seemed tense politically with Gamergate bringing mainstream attention to "SJWs", the surprise 2016 election, the rise of the alt right, Antifa constantly rioting, late night talk show hosts freaking out about Trump saying a thing, campus protests every week, white nationalist marches every week, Joyner Lucas's I'm Not Racist, alt right/alt lite e-celebs like Paul Joseph Watson, Milo, Stefan molyneux, Lauren southern, Sargon, and Richard spencer making huge strides, etc.
During those years it really felt like a civil war was going to start any moment, or that society was on the cusp of a great upheaval. But now recently in 2018-19, a lot of that stuff seems to have either vanished or simmered down into lameness/complacency. What happened? Like you used to hear about this stuff every day but a lot of it fell off the face of the earth it seems, for example Antifa and Richard spencer disappeared. Was it all just an FBI psyop?
everything is a psyop the very idea of a patriotism is a psyop to keep you from questioning the motives of your plantation owners, who are figuring out more and more ways to extract life from you while you're distracted by some form of celebrity drama the education system, pop culture, academia all of it is a psyop is designed to hide a truth from you that you already know
Jackson Carter
Trump did fuck all basically This meant the guys angry with the establishment, that is nearly everyone, sulked seeing how nothing changed.
Alt righters and all those extremist lads now had nothing, they put a president and achieved nothing. The left meanwhile expected impeachment, destruction of the GOP, a complete massacre after seeing how useless Trump was. What happened with that? Nothing.
Psyop is a very lame meme used here so you can feel special, but it did feel like some pointless youtube drama instead of the actual drastic change in the establishment nearly everyone hoped it could be. That's why 2020 will dissappoint too.
Xavier Roberts
I know what you're talking about but personally I put the origin point at closer to 2011. That's when Occupy Wall Street got big and the left pivoted from John Stewartism to the SJW movement. 2014 was the beginning of the rise of the right but the whole era of politics being insane started way earlier.
However, you're 100% correct about 2017 being the end point. That was around the time that Charlottesville more or less killed the alt-right, which was the edgiest movement going at the time. The thought of an actual alt-right regime running shit was the big potential 'happening' and when it just didn't happen I think a lot of people lost interest. Nothing could happen that would be as crazy as what a lot of people thought was going to happen after Trump got elected, so there's a bit of a disappointment thing going on.
Anyway, all the Gamergate/Trump era stuff is still going on. Like, you've still got youtubers making videos about Anita Sarkeesian, Trump tweeting crazy shit, Antifa milkshaking politics. It's just not relevant because this stuff is clearly past its cresting point and fads generally tend to die eventually.
Hudson Ward
It hasn't gone away at all. The Kavanaugh shit show and the midterms were in 2018.
Kevin Phillips
>Trump did fuck all basically >This meant the guys angry with the establishment, that is nearly everyone, sulked seeing how nothing changed. >Alt righters and all those extremist lads now had nothing, they put a president and achieved nothing.
Funny thing is that the "doomer" meme became popular around 2018-19, right when the alt right stuff had fizzled out. I think the meme kinda represents some people who were confident and happy during the election about "triggering the libs" and thinking Trump would get shit done and reverse the clown world, but instead they sunk back into a deeper depression when nothing happened.
Henry Sanchez
>The Kavanaugh shit show and the midterms were in 2018.
There's nothing about either of those things that couldn't have happened in the Bush era. The internet slacktivism trend definitely peaked in 2017 and has been tapering off since then. I think you're just talking about general political controversy whereas OP is talking about a really specific cultural zeitgeist.
Lincoln Wood
True but by that point it felt like the culture war was old hat or getting boring. Even the boomer sending mail bombs to Obama and hillary near the midterms failed to generate substantial excitement like previous happenings.
Sebastian James
>Funny thing is that the "doomer" meme became popular around 2018-19, right when the alt right stuff had fizzled out. I think the meme kinda represents some people who were confident and happy during the election about "triggering the libs" and thinking Trump would get shit done and reverse the clown world, but instead they sunk back into a deeper depression when nothing happened.
It's still going to be interesting to watch and see what happens to all these people. Like, will Brenton Tarrant style political terrorism become a huge thing? I could see doomerism mixed with Jow Forums culture leading to a shift away from 'muh bullying/'feels'-inspired massacres to more political terrorism. But this isn't something I'd bet money on. Ultimately I think the main thing is that a lot of these edgy teens will grow up and get jobs. Like, the boomers had the 'hippie' moment and then grew up to become yuppies; gen x was notoriously angsty and depressed but then still got old and boring. I suspect that one way or another most of these doomers will get old and boring too.
Lincoln Perez
people don't care what happens as long as it's entertaining and people aren't entertained unless someone is getting hurt sad state of affairs really
Dylan Thomas
>stage 1: gamergate, fighting about media. initial discovery of weird shit going on. >stage 2: 2016 elections, we realize that weird shit go on. >stage 3: post elections hellscape, we pieced it all together. this was the pre-game.
>stage 1: the initial fights. the mosque massacre >stage 2: political tensions, everything going to shit >stage 3: civil war this is the mid-game.
>stage 1: victory >stage 2: political execution >stage 3: paradise that'll be the end-game.
Josiah Phillips
>>stage 1: victory >>stage 2: political execution >>stage 3: paradise
nah dude Jow Forums's moment has absolutely passed. the only really big change that's going to happen is some more nationalist governments will get elected and Trump/AOC style shit talking will become the new norm in American politics. There's no big revolution coming or anything like that although there might be a spike in right wing terrorism (which won't actually accomplish anything)
Christopher Allen
this is a good take trump can't do shit in government, and democrats can't do shit to stop him. or he does something drastic without thinking about it and the judicial branch shoots it down.
most people's lives are too comfy to even get close to a civil war or revolution, regardless of how angry they are politically.
>most people's lives are too comfy to even get close to a civil war or revolution, regardless of how angry they are politically. Yeah there's no civil war coming and that's ridiculously obvious when you consider the fact that ultimately everyone still has it really good. People talk about the declining real wages and everything but they ignore how we still have so much more money than people in most countries or past eras. If you're a westerner, a shitty life is like... you work at McDonald's and instead of having a whole apartment to yourself you have to share one. Or like, you live with your parents, which for all the talk about how humiliating it is, is ultimately a really comfy laid back life. This kind of shit doesn't inspire a fucking revolution. Those youtubers who constantly release "THE NEW CIVIL WAR IS HERE" videos are just fear pornographers basically.
Ryder Thomas
I think most people got bored of it. The far right was disappointed that their victory lead to none of the sweeping upheaval they expected, but relieved with the fact that the american political machine was working as intended, and that they did have power and a voice. The far left lost most of their fear about the far right because the sweeping upheaval of order never came, but were also humbled by a check to their progress.
At the end of the day I think people have realized that its impossible to really make changes to the status quo in such a big nation with so many people with different backgrounds and ideas, for better or for worse.
It could be a psyop, but if it was, it wouldn't be needed. The victory was won long ago.
Brody Martin
Civils wars don't happen suddenly, they happen silently and over time. The US is more divided than at any time in the past century. There's a militia situation going on in Oregon right now, even.
Oliver Williams
>Like, will Brenton Tarrant style political terrorism become a huge thing? Of course not. My bet is more silly attrition war like the current trade crap with China, then something actually noteworthy happens like Jakarta becoming unlivable or idk. Then we wake the fuck up, notice there's a huge problem to solve, and join forces for a bit like Asimov predicted.
Dominic Foster
Overall, the 2016 elections and the years following it with the constant media pressure and shitflinging around a few central debate questions became tiresome for a lot of people. Radical left wingers and radical right wingers. Ultimately, neither side had not gotten what they wanted. The immigration and border issue, the LGBT+ issue, feminism, etc, have simmered down with a lot of people just settled in their camps and tired of the whole thing. I think the 2020 election will spark the fires of resentment again similar to 2016, but discourse and radicalism will increasingly uglify, become more confused, ambiguous, "ironic" and silly but also increasingly destructive and callous as well. It'll assume metamodernism. Overall, little will be gained and "revolutionary" movements will continue their efforts to create movements that will "affect" change that will in their eyes affect the most effective change. In an apolitical, senile world with few authority figures, who knows what that will mean.
Colton Price
I think some safe predictions to make from this standpoint are AI becoming a greater issue in newer elections, new ideological forms centering on more technological grounds, VR and investment into VR increasing, "bread and circus" policies taking a larger share of the political discourse (akin to universal basic income -- systems like Yang's UBI) especially as older generations die and the lines between middle and lower class begin to blur, college bailouts, increased popularity for systems of socialism while the populist right affects a compromise for harsher border laws (the left wing actually doesn't care that much for immigration and will also shift towards nativism as the world has done thus far for various reasons, and the right wing cares a lot).
Sebastian Moore
>no big revolution >right wing terrorism I dare to disagree.
there was one presidential election rigged heavily by the media, nothing else was noteworthy clinton was an experiment for the media, where they would smear a candidate by supporting her too heavily, making her seem inauthentic and establishment you can see reddit doing the same with their frontpage algorithms so you feel all warm and fuzzy when you act like an equally braindead contrarian
Thomas Cook
Its the zoomers man, im not even kidding you Millenials knew fuckall about how to be a person on the internet apparently so 98% of them shuffled into echo chambers becoming more extreme over time. The alt right grew, communism and socialism grew, and these dumb fucks sat in their Jow Forums and reddit containment areas respectively. Millenials were, in general, extreme as fuck. Zoomers are insanely mild. Fiscally right, socially left. They basically are like "hey free market good but also needs limits" while also saying "hey i dont think we shouls kill gay people", they've basically taken the ultimate blackpill and seen that nothing will change through extremism other than what boot you're under. Zoomers literally only want change for education, healthcare, and the climate, improving all of which only stands to improve america. Not only that, they're patriotic as FUCK, 43% of millenials said they believe in the american dream while a whopping 77 FUCKING PERCENT of zoomers believe in it. They're literally boomers but with brains. Patriotic, not pushing some form of extremism that was proven shit either in France, ww2, or both, and just want to see america and the world improve Idc what yall say, zoomers might be this planets saving grace. Im so tired of this political bitchfighting between the extremes while the 90% of people who arent extreme are ignored, i want water without plastic and good healthcare bros, zoomers are a lit torch in an empty field.
