Talk to Millennials long enough, and they’ll turn the topic of conversation to their preferred pop culture brands. Discussing these corporate IPs with them for any length of time will give you the definite impression that this generation doesn’t just consume these entertainment products, they project themselves into them.
To anticipate the objection, members of every generation indulge self-insert fantasies about their pet franchises. What’s typical of Millennials is that vast numbers of them cannot engage with stories through any other avenue than self-projection into the plot.
This phenomenon has become so common that many younger adults may not know any other way to enjoy fiction.
How did this loss of objectivity happen?
The explanation is as simple as it is disturbing.
Manipulating audiences’ emotions to make them identify with a given narrative is how propaganda works. The best propagandists create heroes who serve as an empty vessels into which the audience pours their fears and aspirations.
They don’t just sympathize with these characters, they invest their identities in character-shaped holes.
When the humanoid void wins by acting on the morals pushed by the propagandists, the audience get a dopamine hit.
Younger generations’ undeveloped ability to relate to other kinds of characters testifies to how propaganda-saturated pop culture has become.
The protagonists from the Star Wars prequels may be notoriously hard to describe without referring to their jobs or looks. But their Mouse Wars successors are color-coded ciphers that exist only to “represent” various viewer demographics.
Fellow Disney IP farm Marvel Studios has now embraced anti-white, anti-male agitprop to disastrous results.
Yet the damage is done. Pop Cult megacorps have trapped the average Millennial in a hall of mirrors.
It wasn’t always like this. The legends, epics, and folk tales that once formed the foundation of civilization once taught younger generations their place in society. Myths once explained our people to themselves – until they were dismissed as myths.
Never mind Genesis, the Odyssey, and the Matter of Britain. Recommend the pulp novels strip mined by today’s zombie IPs, and brace for Millennials’ complaints about the characters being one-dimensional, unrelatable, and problematic.
But an honest look at the heroes of yesteryear compared to the tokens of Current Year reveals that attitude as projection.
John Carter, Doc Savage, and Tarzan are icons that have lasted a century. When Millennials attempt the self-projection approach they’ve been trained to approach all characters with, it’s like shining a smartphone at a million-candlepower searchlight.
Contemporary audiences can’t identify with characters who are out to pursue the good. Because to them, objective universal good is an alien idea. Because previous propaganda destroyed those concepts.
That’s why cardboard cutout protagonists have taken over storytelling. The more Balkanized and atomized society becomes, the fewer cultural and moral touchstones audiences share.
It’s a vicious cycle.
The good news is that the Pop Cult can’t change human nature.
Hollywood’s disastrous 2023 gives us a hopeful sign that the Pop Cult’s spell is finally wearing off.
Younger folks may be finding their way out of the Millennial Hall of Mirrors.
In the meantime, heed author Jeffro Johnson and read some pre-1980 books.
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