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Welcome to Ellies field research!

Since I enjoy thinking about new things and culture (Sociology, media ecology, philosophy) I thought it would be nice for me to have some place where I look at stuff and try to somewhat "analyze it"


The digital circus is an indie-animation on youtube that is very popular. About humans getting stuck in a digital space with an AI. They try to find a way out and they try to deal with the AI that tries to make them satisfied.
First interesting thing is how the character Jax remids me a lot of the qualities of postmodernism: The irony/cynicism, embracing the absurd and the meaningless, accepcting that this is his reality now. Jax is an asshole to the others though, and is a sabotager and a bully. However, Jax does not account for the emotions/worlds of others, and does not try to get better when he gets second chances with the team. Jax is a postmodern character, to me.
The shows theme seems to be about wanting to escape a false reality, and then the struggles of having to accept it- that they are never leaving the false reality, ever. Sounds familiar eh? I get reminded of the hypereality we live in today, the confusion, the signals and signs. Bifo Beradi has said that children learn more words from the screens than their own mothers. The reflection of the world in the digital space has become a familiar part of the demographic which is why this is such a hit.

Ted Lasso is a sports comedy-drama tele series about this American coming to England to teach football even though he dosnet know football. This show illustrates well the mix between sincerity and cynicism together. Coach Lasso is scincere, honest, bubbly, and always tries his best. At first, people think hes a naive and overly-optimistic fella (note: this is also how irony/cynicism critique sincierty irl! f.e. the romantisation of the cynical genious, thinking cynicism is moral) But then he serves as a catalyst for the happenings around him; he cheers his opponents on, helps the ones who isnt helped, listens to people- everything. Simply wonderful! I love putting a heavily sincere and lovable person in the middle of a group of cynical people and watching the incredible effects. Maybe, we can call this: Metamodern?

Contemporary movements

  • Metamodernism

    • Metamodernism

    Contemporary cultural, artistic, and political movement that has recently emerged. Firstly, I want to give you a cohersive exsplaination of what Metamodernism is. This is also a field I have started to learn about so ill update this as i go

    Some background on Metamodernism:

    OBS! Be aware that I am giving a very shallow expslaination of huge paradaigms in humanity: Were talking about how human conciousnes was like before!

    Metamodernism is a response to modernism and postmodernism and integrates aspects of both together:
    Modernism (late 18th-19th century) : Movement within culture and arts that emphasized exsperimentation, abstraction(im thinking about the wierd colorful shapes of art people ridicule), subejctive exsperience, stream-of-conciousnes, breaking away from traditional forms. Intertwined with the industrial revolutions spread of its wings and the secularization of society.
    Postmodernism (mid-20th century to PRESENT) : A reactionary artistic movement that crittiqued modernism for being too "self absorbed" with trying to be unique, so postmodernism mixes all differnet kinds of styles- they combine new and old, is suspicious torwards reason (remember modernism came after enlightement), and a huge sensitivity torwards ideology (Search the culture industry), no such thing as truth. - Irony : Irony means to say something but to mean the opposite or a form of exaggeration or understatement. Irony here can bleed into Cynicism
    Metamodernism:Tries to build up what the cynics from the postmodern took down. It also is a response to the limitations of both modernism and postmodernism. I imagine metamodernism respons to postmodernisms cynicism and hopelessnes of the word with; "Yeah? what if the world is going under it will if you countinue to fucking whine about it, asshole. I dont care, we will try to reach for the stars anyway." Sincerity!. Political-wise its about creating a "listening society": A society that invests in listening to the psychological needs of its population and focuses on making the population aware. Evolving the welfare state to also tend to psychological needs. The authours of the metamodernistic book "the listening society" has their eyes on the Nordic countries as purveyors of this because of their developed welfare states.