Yes, It Is. – Patrick
There is no doubt that we are living in the most embarrassing time in history. Every time I look at my phone, or enter the Tenleytown Metro stop, I am reminded that this is my life now, as are the 71% of respondents who agreed with me on a Rival instagram story poll earlier this semester. Why does life have to be full of AI-generated slop and the embarrassment of Donald Trump when it’s my turn to be an adult? Well in my view, God has well and truly abandoned us (sorry rapture advocates), but that simply isn’t enough to prove that the 21st century is the most embarrassing time to live in. Anyways, let’s take it from the top:
Politics – The state of politics in both the United States and Europe are the vanguard of this embarrassment. Trump’s entire cabinet is a complete and utter clown show. Donald Trump, the “peak” of masculinity, is slowly decaying before our very eyes. For Christ’s sake, he’s turning into a goddamn Smurf with how discolored his hands are! That’s not even considering the absurd, abhorrent, and downright frightening things he has said in the last month alone! My personal favorite from the last couple weeks was when he was
addressing the Generals with Pete Hegseth (don’t worry, we’ll get to his atrocities). Verbatim, this dude said, and I quote, “Could I please have your hand? Who disappears that Raising Canes is no good, just raise your hand. I don’t see any hands raised. Alright.” Trump’s not even half of it, as you likely know. I’m gonna run down the list here: J.D. Vance only gets three hours of screen time a day, Kristi Noem shoots dogs and wears five different shades of makeup [put republican makeup pic here], RFK Jr is putting brain eating worms in your ivermectin (ask me about my impression), Stephen Miller is the Jewish version of Hitler, and of course:
Due to the ever lasting supremacy of American culture, this facet has spread to the other side of the pond. Just look at the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, blah blah blah. All of them have their own versions of Trump, who just like him, have their own bitter irony about them. Nigel Farage, of the U.K, is like a combination of Trump, Hegseth, and George Santos. He’s a loud mouthed idiot like Trump, a drunk like Hegseth, and willing to say bizarre things for $5 like Santos. Funnily enough, he’s just as racist and xenophobic as the three Dorketeers. In Germany, there’s Alice Weidel. Who, despite being fervently against immigration from brown countries and is far right in every sense of the term, is married to a Sri Lankan woman. Now I’ve yapped about this for a while, but you get the point. Politics right now in the U.S. and Europe is a complete shitshow where people like Trump are winning. Why is this the case? It’s a long story that I may or may not tell you. If I feel like it.
OH GOD, I DIDN’T TALK ABOUT JAPAN! Whatever, I’m tired.
AI Slop – BOY, DO I JUST LOVE LOVE LOVE AI!!!! I think that AI is just the most technologically advanced way for boomers to continue to destroy the environment. Just look at this: Boomers will, with a straight face, tell you that they believe this to be a real picture. But they don’t believe in the moon landing? Go on to any Facebook post with an AI generated image, and 99% of the time there’ll be some boomers going “so sweet,” “this child is so holy,” or some other words they can still eek out. I want to remind all of you at home that the picture I showed you probably just caused a data center to burn down a forest somewhere.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the connection of AI and Republicans. This stuff is like CocoMelon to these people! Donald Trump (I’m obsessed, I know) posted an AI generated FOX news report where he was talking about Medbeds. Besides the obvious references to QAnon, I think that if the President of the (former) most powerful country on the planet finds this stuff cool, then safe to say, we’re cooked. So put on your Clawed bibs and get out your Jon Alger plates, because the Grand Old Party is serving you 100 pounds of slop for dinner, with some AI steak sauce of course.
Twitter – What even needs to be said about this? We all know what Twitt– no I’m sorry “X: The everything app” is like. Hail Musk I guess. Actually, it does serve as a host for the next two things I want to mention.
Financebros and Cryptocurrency – We’ve all met a Kogod Stud–I meant Financebro at some point in our lives. You know what they’re like, annoying as hell and thinking that they know everything about money. Financebros are the most out of touch people that aren’t in the upper crust of society. Due to the fact that they majored in business, which is scientifically proven to be the most assholey major there is, they think they can flex “their” money. I get being insecure, your personal bank account must be low. You’re really what the cool kids call being a “broke ass.” I get it, chances are most people reading this are in the same boat. But the difference between your normal college student, and Kogods, is that we don’t wear suits to class everyday.
Cryptocurrency is, by and large, just an appendage of Financebros. Like a slick black tentacle reaching from the internet. Unstable, yet constantly shilled by these people. But it’s not stuff like Bitcoin or Ethereum that I want to talk about. It’s the ever so perplexing world of memecoins. Let me ask you something: If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you? Most people would say, “no, of course I wouldn’t. Are you crazy?” But notice how I said most and not all. The people not under “most” would jump off after their friends. Now replace the bridge with 67COIN (or whatever floats your boat) and POOF! Xitter cryptobros.
But despite all of the things that I have pointed out, what exactly makes this point in human history more embarrassing than others? Other points in history have been filled with silly, offputting, and horrific events and people. To answer this, I would like to bring up a response to our survey that really stuck out to me:
We have the lump sum of humanity’s collective experience and knowledge at our fingertips yet the majority of us are just as stupid as medieval peasants. We have been conditioned to be stupid, the only rational explanation for this contradiction.
I think this response really hit the nail on the head. Although history is filled with many instances of horrid stuff, many in the present haven’t really learned despite having the easiest ways to access information ever. We know that the embarrassments of the past are in the past for a reason, yet there are millions who turn a blind eye to those seeking to bring those embarrassments to the present. And to quote Lucas of response 47:
We have the means to live in heaven on Earth and we just won’t.
No… not yet. – Isak
While a performative man with a Labubu seems an awful lot like an indicator of apocalypse, we have been in some dignity dumps before. I simply cannot say that the world now is more embarrassing than a world with no toilets in it. If you think the world is ridiculous now, consider if no one around you bathes more than once a month.
Even if we reach more dramatic heights of embarrassment, the state of living at most points in history has been more embarrassing. Hell, the singular experience of getting rejected by your hunting crush and then having to go sleep in the same cave as them? I would rather take an excruciatingly bad fit pic over that any day. You wouldn’t even be able to post about it on your close friends story. THAT is tragic.
Things used to be… really bad. Going outside and cutting your finger on a rock and dying from it, bad. Having zero economic autonomy basically wherever you happen to have been born, and absolutely no ability to change your location significantly, even in the freest of lives.
Many of the embarrassments of today come from the globalization of everything. Many people’s lowest moments are captured online. But in so many ways, nothing has changed. Still, if a story gets out about you, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. It could ruin your life back in the first century just as much as today. Look at Jesus! (The first victim of cancel culture!).
Our political worries are many, but imagine a time “before” politics. For the majority of human existence, it was expected that the leader of your community might be routinely killed and replaced. I feel like having to take the SAT is not as stressful as living through the Crisis of the Third Century in Rome, where there were 26 official leaders in around 50 years, and ONLY TWO OF THEM DIED OF NATURAL CAUSES.
It was super common, really, for everyone to get assassinated. There was a Year of the Six Emperors there too. That plus having to do your homework on the clay tablet? Brutus-ly brutal.
One of the biggest reasons we aren’t living in the most embarrassing time of history came from a simple question. Why on earth did European elites wear powdered wigs? It’s simple: syphilis. Having a good hairline and looking clean were super important (it seems we have lost this value in the modern day, but the economy of Turkey continues to thrive) and syphilis causes hair loss. The issue was that EVERYONE HAD SYPHILIS. More historical figures than you would dream of had syphilis. If they didn’t, it was at least a rumor about them.
Syphilis is not just embarrassing but dangerous. It seriously messed up generations and killed tons. For something that is so easily cured today, Syphilis and similar diseases rampaged populations at random. A horrifying disease plus the ridiculous culture it created are more embarrassing than whatever ifunny had going on.
It feels embarrassing now not just because it’s the only period of time we have consciousness of, but because we have so much freedom but our lives revolve around often silly things. That doesn’t mean the era itself couldn’t be any more depressingly horrible.
Not surprisingly, I’m not the only person to think this. 30% of our respondents did too. There were some insightful answers.
“it would be more embarrassing to own slaves?”
“We live in probably one of the most prosperous period of human existence, and even with the embarrassing stuff that happens, there’s definitely been just as bad at worse periods in history.”
“It can always get worse.”
“The only valid reason to say this is the most embarrassing time is because this is the time we are living through. We do not have the same conceptualization of other times because we have not experienced other times. To state that this is the most embarrassing time is woefully shortsighted and misinformed. Look at slavery, the holocaust, Jim Crow, Colonization. If you still think THIS is the most embarrassing time, you need to open your view.”
Realistically, we have much further to go before we can top the embarrassments of the past. There are so many ridiculously stupid and fantastically adherent events and practices in our history, and I am completely confident in our continued ability to find new ways to trigger our own sensibilities. The wax and wane of embarrassment will come and go again…
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