Culture: Metamodernism Pairs with Millennials

Large swings of violent social, political and economic shifts awaken the cultural analysis of Metamodernism. It is a reactive movement of oscillation.

Extreme wealth disparities, systematic social inequalities and economic drops followed by high boons from which only the elite benefit are constant struggles in our society.

This coupled with hyper-partisanship, the new debatability of factual truths, all topped off with a lovely glob of climate change shows we have surpassed our ability to reverse the havoc on the earth’s ecology.  

A term first coined by academic philosopher Mas’ud Zavarzadeh in 1975, Metamodernism is not set to an ideological or philosophical rule but rather a “feeling” or “attitude” of this moment explained Robin Van den Akker and Timotheus Vermeulen in an interview for Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam. They explored Metamodernism in 2009 and have been writing on the changes in media and culture since.  

Others disagree with Metamodernism’s validity. “It’s not meta and it’s not modern. It’s been around,” said Jamie Love, a philosophy, social and behavioral science professor at Citrus College.

Metamodernism is supreme self-awareness, ignorant to the experiences of others not because of a lack of compassion but rather self indulgence.

It is the acceptance that we have a limited control over our fate, loved ones or career, but does not lead to despondence. It guides to liberation.

Metamodernism is the embodiment of our moment’s energy. Although not yet recognized for its presence in current media, it encapsulates the swing-shift of democracy, entertainment and society.

The late ‘90s and early 2000s embraced irony, cynicism and desperation in the music of Nirvana, Radiohead or Fiona Apple. It was replaced by a sentiment that was still ironic, cynical and aware of the expectations of society, but now desperate for change instead of just desperate.

Metamodernism’s earliest evaluation on film may have been “Little Miss Sunshine” in 2006 with its deliberate modesty and bare honesty. It challenged the Americana competitiveness of celebrating self-motivated “winners” for being authentically oneself as a “loser.”

It can also be exampled in Childish Gambino’s music videos critical of U.S. politics and in harsh self-evaluating shows like “Rick and Morty” or “Bojack Horseman.” It inspires the new sincerity introduced by the movies of Wes Anderson.

Another supreme example of Metamodernism: Memes, which often take personal experiences or evaluations that reveal to be relatable through a high concentration of retweets, reblogs and likes.

KC Green created the “This is fine” dog meme rapidly shared among social media consumers. After the results of the 2016 election, Green crafted a response to his earlier work concerned it celebrated apathetic dejection in a time desperate for action.

The dog character in the reaction comic scrambles for a solution and scurries to put out the flames as he exclaims, “There was no reason to let it last this long and get this bad.”

This is Metamodernism. We are no longer O.K. with “fine.”

The try-hard character Leslie Knope from “Parks and Recreation” best exemplifies what Van den Akker and Vermeulen consider the “informed naivety” and complete sincerity of Metamodernism.

Citizen after citizen of Pawnee yells and berates Knope at a town meeting, but she considers the event to be “people caring loudly at (her).”

We are not the first generation to be dissatisfied with the mistakes and catastrophes inherited from those before us. We are not the first to be angered and disaffected by the powers that be and how they conduct themselves.

We are not the first to question the status quo, and because of this we realize within Metamodernism that being rebellious is actually not all that rebellious but rather incredibly predictable.

The civil rights movement, third-wave feminism and gay rights movement are examples of those before us that fought the good fight. That will not stop us, but we are of the first generation to be aware of our pattern of ignoring the screams of the people.

Modernism put faith in collective founded truths, which lead to Postmodernism valuing the individual’s ability to reason through those truths.  

Unlike its predecessors Modernism and Postmodernism, Metamodernism is evasive and fleetingly defined by what it is not rather than what it is.

To understand the philosophical and social nuances of this change, history lessons are in order.

The end of World War I inspired peak Modernism because of rapid industrialization in combination with the brutality of war. This led to a widespread feeling of disillusionment and alienation. It was a time of “rapid social change and advances in science and the social sciences,” recorded Encyclopædia Britannica.

People in that time were swayed away from previously imposed Victorian morality and convention. Society anticipated that truth of fact would quell anxieties and guide humanity to a prosperous future.

The Postmodernism movement peaked in the late 20th century. Encyclopædia Britannica describes it as an era of “general suspicion of reason.”

The main takeaway for a Postmodernist is “there is an objective natural reality” and “there is no such thing as truth” unless “justified ultimately on the basis of evidence or principles that are, or can be, known immediately, intuitively, or otherwise with certainty.”

This social change gapes. Modernists were throwing out social norms and replacing them with new knowledge while still reeling from the isolation of World War I and the industrialization it had brought.

Postmodernists had all that knowledge, fast progressing while insisting that individual reason was the only tool for observing reality.

However, “art practices cannot any longer be described in terms of what the generation before us called Postmodernism,” said Van den Akker in 2016 in a masterclass given at ArtEZ University of the Arts in the Netherlands.

Most consider us still under Postmodernism, but the art and culture of the last decade proves that the Postmodern definition is stifling.

Metamodernism has grown past the naiveté of Modernism and the skepticism of Postmodernism, allowing itself to be aware of its existence and oscillate between opposing themes.  

Earnestness exists alongside apathy, irony in cohabitation with sincerity, neither losing power or imperative by simply presenting themselves as equals.

Van den Akker and Vermeulen shy away from manifestos and labels because that would be a contradiction to what Metamodernism can be or is being.

“We can’t hold a claim to be both truth and false. That’s logically untenable,” counters Love.

His main critique of this newfound thought is its inexplicable relationship with logic. He accuses Van den Akker and Vermuelen of sophistry, the act of making a weak argument look strong for the sake of deceit.

“Are they trying to be logical or are they trying to be poetic?” Professor Love asked.

They are not trying to be anything yet also somehow claim to be everything, which will always unease the average 54 to 72-year-old baby boomer or 38 to 53-year-old Gen-Xer.

The young person’s commitment to definability has been tossed out with Reaganism and VCRs, replaced with the faux-authenticity of reality television and the celebration of identity with selfies.

Metamodernism is a reaction reacting to itself, over and over again, circling the toilet bowl for meaning before the final flushing from an apathetic universe.

Hypocrisy is now labeled as a multiplicity of identity. Personality of character is just self-branding, and all 22 to 37-year-old millennials and 0 to 21-year-old Gen-Zers have the opportunity to put in the work previous generations wasted or dismissed.

All that is left is individuality. As soon as there are labels and axioms of self-evident truths, the negation of those labels or axioms follow.

We can be this or that. And if we are neither, we can try to be both. We are in the age of “¿Porque no los dos?”

Metamodernism is a tool to evaluate itself as a sub-culture and also evaluate the mainstream. It realizes that this is from which it was born and that is where the relationship ends.

From Huffington Post, “Metamodernism helps us understand our emotional reactions to things that are happening now—both our reaction as individuals, and the reactions of whole communities and even nations—at which point we can see metamodernism as a ‘structure of feeling.

Apathy is dead. Only conviction will save us, and Metamodernism’s ability to swing from seemingly opposing values means that it is in constant discovery of itself.

It is indecisive, and its favor of disillusionment inspires willful defeat over active hope while maintaining authenticity because it can reflect on itself and remain earnest.

This is a moment of high stakes. Nothing is fake deep. Everything is real and important.

It is fitting for an era of thought adapting from within its confines.

It is the flag of our evolving society. We are ready for change, and through Metamodernism we can meme while saving the world.