How Nothingness Became Everything We Wanted
January 25, 2021 7:12 PM   Subscribe

"Mass quarantine has represented a final fulfillment of the pursuit of nothingness, particularly for the privileged classes who could adapt to it in such relative comfort" [NYT] For years, an aesthetic mode of nothingness has been ascendant — a literally nihilistic attitude visible in all realms of culture, one intent on the destruction of extraneity in all its forms, up to and including noise, decoration, possessions, identities and face-to-face interaction.
posted by folklore724 (20 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
To the New York Times, nothingness is 2021's answer to the Trump Presidency.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:21 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]


I managed to read a sub-header about the perils of "digital capitalism" or something, but then the website's paywall came up and I laughed out loud.
posted by brundlefly at 7:39 PM on January 25, 2021 [22 favorites]


Life is too much. It's always been too much. And that's why people have been drinking and drugging and praying themselves into oblivion forever.

As far as the aesthetic nothingness is concerned I think we might have reached some kind of inflection point on the whole minimalism thing based on a sample size of one (my spouse) who bought and put up some prints over the winter holidays. Our walls are no longer vast expanses of off-whiteness. One of the prints was a William Morris textile pattern and I suggested we could get some wallpaper of it and cover a wall. The idea was shot down but there was enough hesitation there to make me hopeful.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 7:40 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]


That fast early switch from I Did to We All Want without actually involving or even consulting another soul, I love it. A classic New York Times move. And following it up with some interspersed pull quotes from Prominent Thinkers? Perfection.
posted by mhoye at 7:41 PM on January 25, 2021 [15 favorites]


That fast early switch from I Did to We All Want without actually involving or even consulting another soul, I love it. A classic New York Times move.

We All Want our jerk neighbor from upstairs to stop with the damn music.

Are neighbors over? How will we manage in the new post-neighbor paradigm?
posted by leotrotsky at 7:49 PM on January 25, 2021 [15 favorites]


Neighbors will be over when millenials kill them.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:19 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]


I mean, we get so much info and stimulation all the time, from our devices, that regularly taking breaks from it all is kind of a necessity. Is that a bad thing? Is it really "a deepening failure of optimism in the possibilities of our future" or just an escape from doomscrolling? And especially shaming people for chilling out after The Craziest Election Cycle in Living Memory is incredibly #slatepitchy.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:05 PM on January 25, 2021 [8 favorites]


Float tanks always struck me as kinda gross. I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about the previous clients’ sweat and (god forbid) piss.
posted by mr_roboto at 9:15 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]


To quote Kurt Vonnegut, "A little nothing goes a long way".
posted by Dokterrock at 10:04 PM on January 25, 2021


Mod note: A couple removed. We've been having a lot of discussion about how reflexive negativity, condescension, and snide remarks create a chilling atmosphere where fewer and fewer people want to risk posting anything. Please don't do this. If the posted material doesn't seem good or interesting to you, realize that some people may have a different opinion and will want to discuss. Instead, spend your effort on something more suited to your tastes — or if the post seems like something that is so bad that you think nobody should discuss, flag and explain, or contact us, and a moderator will have a look.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:19 PM on January 25, 2021 [32 favorites]


I mean, we get so much info and stimulation all the time, from our devices, that regularly taking breaks from it all is kind of a necessity. Is that a bad thing? Is it really "a deepening failure of optimism in the possibilities of our future" or just an escape from doomscrolling?

I don't have an answer, but I think the question is a fair one, or questions I guess, both yours and the implicit one the statements in the article provides. There is something a bit odd, say, about how people are tuning out by tuning in to almost ambient video streams, like the guy rebuilding the yacht that there was a post on recently, as well as opting for streams of raw personality from podcasters and youtube channels we turn to that deal with topics that aren't really about engagement as such, but some limited form of awareness matched to taste. The six and a half hour podcast on why Cats is awful, or the 6 hour "review" of the videogame few will ever play, are near cousins of the reality TV shows and other fandoms around mass market franchises. These aren't things we own or do ourselves, but they fill some need in relief from social interaction while still being part of the cultural product market.

Social media and the stream of information the internet provides, has taken up so much of the cultural landscape that it can feel inescapable, or that the stream has become the world we live in. With that can come a feeling of constant self presentation to the world, or even the need for continual self-marketing, as can be seen on social media, leaving a desire to retreat and escape one's own awareness of self by immersion in some part of the stream that soothes by asking nothing of you other than acceptance.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:54 PM on January 25, 2021 [5 favorites]


Neighbors will be over when millenials kill them.

Millennials don't have neighbours. They have roommates.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:29 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


Social media and the stream of information the internet provides

For some definition of 'information'.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:29 AM on January 26, 2021


In 1980, the sensory isolation fad was so over it was made into a horror film: Altered States
posted by chavenet at 6:38 AM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]


We've been having a lot of discussion about how reflexive negativity, condescension, and snide remarks create a chilling atmosphere where fewer and fewer people want to risk posting anything. Please don't do this.

So, this is fair, but.

I've been working in my basement for nearly a year. Thanks largely to the venal incompetence of my public officials, I'm being asked to wager my children's mental health and growth against their physical health and social development. We've cancelled family gatherings and trips, we've done Christmas and Thanksgiving remotely and minimized gift-giving, unnecessary purchases and even leaving the house, and none of that has been because I'm "embracing numbness". It's because we're in the middle of pandemic that's happening in the middle of a climate crisis. So however much I've enjoyed the old life, the way I used to live might well result in somebody I never meet drowning face down in their own lungs. And until we're all vaccinated with a vaccine that works, that's how it's going to be, and I care just enough about people I've never met that I don't want to be complicit in that even by accident.

This isn't "embracing numbness as an antidote for the overload of digital capitalism". It's not an escape or penitence or a safety blanket I need after being Extremely Online. It's a big extra burden of responsibility that's been thrust on me, my family and my society that I bear whether I like it or not, because the Shit that sometimes Happens is happening like hell right now and doing the right thing means not doing the easy thing or fun thing or the whatever the fuck you want thing.

But to be told I was "embracing" this? By choice, somehow? No. If this was all a first-person article detailing one cosmopolitan literature major's slide into seasonal depression, fine, so be it. I'm sympathetic, believe me. But to try and hoist that up like an umbrella and drag me underneath it, comrade? Absolutely not. When somebody has chosen to go hungry so a stranger can eat, that is not your moment to extol the virtues of fasting, to crow about how great it is that the pounds just melt away.

I hope whoever wrote this can get themselves an adblocker, a SAD lamp and off Facebook & Twitter, but until they do I want very little to do with them.

I have repainted some of my place, though. We have an accent wall, it's nice.
posted by mhoye at 7:17 AM on January 26, 2021 [17 favorites]


Seconded. There’s a difference between easy snark or outright hostility and legitimate criticisms of the form and substance of the content of a post. In an attempt to avoid the former the mods risk losing the latter. A too-heavy hand here neuters conversation and stifles substantive debates. That’s to our detriment.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:36 AM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]


Marie Kondo doesn’t want you to live in a white box and doing yoga is not the same as doing nothing.

In the future, “thinkfluencer’s thinkfluencer” is going on my business card.
posted by betweenthebars at 8:00 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


Is it really "a deepening failure of optimism in the possibilities of our future" or just an escape from doomscrolling?

I mean, as someone who doesn't "doomscroll" but still wishes every day for oblivion, I have to vote for the former.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:18 AM on January 26, 2021


In the '90s I used to be so nihilistic that I spent years watching an entire show about nothing.
posted by haricotvert at 4:24 PM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]


Neighbors will be over when millenials kill them.

Millennials don't have neighbours. They have roommates.


The neighbors upstairs are millennails.
posted by BlueHorse at 11:15 AM on January 27, 2021


« Older It Belongs in a Museum!   |   STAR TREK: ACID PARTY Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments