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But what does the American electorate look like if we put down the snapshot? Peel away how we perceive ourselves from what we actually are? How has that image of a 1950s business man who owns his own home in the suburbs changed after decades of declines in wages, middle classdom, and home ownership?
To younger generations who never had such jobs, who had only the mythology of such jobs (rather a whimsical snapshot of the 1950s frozen in time by America’s ideology) this part of the narrative is clear. America, and perhaps existence itself is a cascade of empty promises and advertisements — that is to say, fantasy worlds, expectations that will never be realized “IRL”, but perhaps consumed briefly in small snatches of commodified pleasure.
Thus these Trump supporters hold a different sort of ideology, not one of “when will my horse come in”, but a trolling self-effacing, “I know my horse will never come in”. That is to say, younger Trump supporters know they are handing their money to someone who will never place their bets — only his own — because, after all, it’s plain as day there was never any other option."
That bit ties in to a lot of elements of chan culture. I was amused by the academic way in which he attempted to summarize what is essentially an eternally self-referential cess-pit (and I say this as someone who spent quite a lot of time there once), but I felt it was a bit meaningless - given that a lot of chan culture is based on defying the possibility of scientific deconstruction or logical analysis from any standpoint that presumes rational self-interest as the driving force behind human behaviour. There, however, he does hit home.
An awful lot of it is based on forced ennui and undertones of base nihilism - summed up in a feeling of anons being unable to connect to the reality of the 'normies' who think these (largely dead) dreams of opportunities and life goals are still worth pursuing. In an increasingly competitive world with less and less by way of reward for actually competing to the level that average people can feasibly reach, there's an enormous temptation among the younger generation to disconnect from it all and withdraw into escapism, satire or outright nihilism. This is only further enabled by the fact that NEETs (and their Japanese counterparts, hikkomoris) are now quite capable of living fairly comfortable lives (by dint of their parents' probable middle-class roots or a reliance on modern welfare systems) without ever having to actually work or compete in the marketplace or society in general - at least until their comfortable circumstances are forcibly altered.
I feel like Vaporwave (which largely emerged out of /mu/) is a musical genre which (most closely) encapsulates this feeling of ennui that is expressed across 4chan and other imageboards elsewhere - this paradox of existence in a world which seemingly mythologizes and expects conformity to realities which have been dead for decades in the eyes of the people who create that type of music. If you've never seen Vaporware music videos or heard the music, it's basically pitch shifted and stretched music samples from the 1980's (or earlier) interspersed with a whole range of references to cultural touchstones - sometimes sepia-tinged clips of the Simpsons, sometimes old war footage, but most often just various commercials or advertisements from the 1980`s and 1990`s edited into some sort of hyperrealistic montage of consumerism. The intent of the music is to create a sort of hyperrealistic parody of the excesses of consumerist culture and conventional expectations of life in a capitalist society in a way that connects to both internet culture and the cultural touchstones experienced by the generation (largely Millennials) who grew up being exposed to it and then discovered that they weren`t suited to that world in various ways when they grew up.
It`s an interesting phenomenon, chan-culture. In a way, there`s an answer in there to all sorts of questions about human nature and behaviour in a Hobbesian state of anarchy, and boards like 4chan are truly fascinating places for those inclined to study the origins and evolutions of common human touchstones (memes, for example), the semi-nihilistic behaviour of the societally disinclined and the origins of extremist political ideologies in a post-modern age.
But there`s also a possible danger in 4chan and other boards becoming more and more well-known (as has now occurred because of Trump`s victory) - on the one hand, it`s only a *possible* danger because the people who inhabit 4chan and related places tend to hate `normies` and newcomers and would much prefer to leave and form their own isolated communities when influxes occur. But on the other...I feel like people are underestimating the extent to which a young generation, growing up in a `gig` economy and bluntly being told not to expect the economic and social security their parents enjoyed *after* attaining the highest educational and working qualifications of *any* generation, ever (which they were falsely told would assure them a job and a future when they were growing up)...I feel like people are underestimating the willingness of increasing numbers of that generation to disconnect from society and become essential nihilists, escapists or idealists like the types that exist on 4chan. And exposure to such a community may well hasten that trend, with what I suspect will be immensely shocking results to the people currently unaware of how the Millennials are really coping with the unprecedented changes of the modern age.
Again, I say all this as a former anon myself - one who would, in past times, have derisively laughed at attempts to explain chan culture like the article (and my needlessly long post) attempts to do.
