Let me out of the simulation, please 🤕
Giving out a single measly thousand dollar prize when your workers are too ideologically committed to notice the meat grinder. Cool.
Someone should legitimately research and wrote about the rise of “cute” infantilizing culture and late stage capitalism. This is far from a new phenomenon, you can see it popping up in Japan years before and we all know how they went turbocapitalism in the 80s.
kawaii culture was originally a counter-culture movement against the sexualization of young women in Japan, and high school and college girls revolting against being forced into maternal or otherwise mature roles before they felt ready. The whole point of lolita fashion was that no sexualized parts or behaviors would be exposed. The fact that both were sexualized is pretty disgusting, and the consumerization is just kinda par for the course. I think what we are seeing in America is similar but different. I think what we are seeing now in america is a reaction to the atomization of culture and great mental damage people take just by living through the collapsing world. People need softness and comfort in their life, and can’t get it from relationships because there’s no community. So, capital adopts the guise of comfort to prey on people’s needs yet again. It’s the emotional version of how the create health conditions that cause constant pain through lack of exercise, poor nutrition, and cramped living spaces, then sell pain killers to profit off of the pain they caused.
