In the early Middle Ages, when Christianity hadn’t hit the big time yet, a common practice in the conversion of pagans to Good Little Boys was to sneak into their temples during the night and destroy all the idols of their gods. Symbols of Christ would be waiting for the worshipers come morning. Imagine the dysphoria, the powerlessness. What was known is gone. Something else, apparently, is here to stay. A shame, really. Look at all the good it’s done.
Anyone whose skull isn’t as dense as the adamantium covering Wolverine’s bones will recognize the modern allegory. The best example of this— or worst, depending on how you look at it — is Lovecraft Country. A critical darling and fan favorite, the HBO Horror (?) Dramedy (?) is a visually stunning look at segregated and racist as hell 1950’s America through the lens of Lovecraft’s fiction. Sort of. That part never quite makes it off the ground or makes very much sense. It feels like the spice thrown on as an afterthought to call the dish a fusion of two cuisines. Unless of course you’ve never had the one cuisine, then you don’t know any fucking different. Tastes like Greek to you! I won’t speak to the book on which it is based, but the TV adaptation makes one thing abundantly clear: Lovecraft is in the Country so Lovecraft can be pilloried by the country.
There is probably no single greater influence on the world(s) of Nerd Culture than Lovecraft.
The segments where the show really shines are the ones that are straight up about the time period and its (massive) struggles for Black Americans. Even if most of the narrative in this regard still doesn’t make much sense, the suspenseful and eerie encounters with racist cops serve up more Horror than every monster in every episode combined. There’s no shortage of monsters in the Cthulu Mythos for which Lovecraft is famed; but in Lovecraft Country we find a definite shortage of the eldritch and unsettling aspects we’ve come to expect from works inspired by the source material. Instead the creature features come off as janky, poorly thought out and decidedly un-Cosmic. Neither is the writing very good. Or the acting. Or the direction. It’s all pretty run-of-the-mill. Something you’d expect from the Sy-Fy Channel with a budget on steroids. So why the hype? Why indeed…
Let’s go back to early Christian terror tactics, the centrality of idols to belief and belief to power. There is probably no single greater influence on the world(s) of Nerd Culture than Lovecraft. His work permeates Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy. Half of George R. R. Martin’s placenames are ripped straight from the pages of the Mythos. And there is probably no single greater influence on the nation’s present politics than Nerd Culture. Let’s put aside how fucking dumb that sounds for a minute, so we can inspect why it’s not dumb at all.
Look at all these savages gleefully watching as the hero saves yet another damsel in distress, the endless Straight White Male Protagonists and wall-to-wall scantily clad women.
In 2017, just a year after the tumultuous election of Donald Trump to the Presidency, Angela Nagle published Kill All Normies. To internet veterans, neither the phrase that is the title nor the content of the book will be much of a surprise. Type 4chan.org into the search bar and you’d probably see a whole lot of both. It explains how relatively minor events like GamerGate went on to shape a discourse around sexism, cultural diversity and political correctness that is now all too familiar to literally anyone in the United States who isn’t living under a rock.
The explosion of Nerd Culture into the mainstream public consciousness (think the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the success of Game of Thrones and Harry Potter) brought legions of new fans to forms of entertainment that had been relegated for decades to a staunchly male cohort. This was not unlike introducing colonists to an indigenous population that had little contact with the outside world. Look at all these savages gleefully watching as the hero saves yet another damsel in distress, the endless Straight White Male Protagonists and wall-to-wall scantily clad women. Never mind the many examples that run contrary to this observation. We must pick the worst aspects of the community and talk about them incessantly. The retaliation raises the bar no higher: hipster this and gamergirl that; angry feminazis; and dyed hair coinciding with a hefty drop in critical thinking skills. Unsurprisingly this pisses everyone off, and the Great Culture War begins.
Huzzah.
But Plebsnob, you say, this is absurd. There are so many more important things to worry about. Global warming, peace in the Middle East, the drinking water in Flint, Michigan and cops indiscriminately killing Black people.
Indeed, I answer, it is absurd. But look at how little any of those things change with every new dickhead in the big White House. Or the littler Senate House. Or the baby House House. It’s a wash-rinse-repeat of broken promises. So what is one to do? Well club your enemies to death in a war of words, of course!
To do so shows loyalty to the #Woke godhead, and loyalty means favor.
Culture has become religion because religion has power. How many kings were forced to kneel before the church again and again or risk excommunication? The risk was too great. Go against the church, and the king forfeits Christendom’s protection against other Christian rulers. He loses his heavenly mandate to rule over the unwashed masses of Good Little Boys. But in doing so he gives up his autonomy by remaining a toady of the Pope and his big hat in Rome, who has a vested interest in using excommunication as a big holy stick: all those sweet tithes. Any of this sound familiar?
And now we come full circle to Lovecraft Country. The Left loves to see the corpses of Old White Men exhumed and brought out into the light of day. Lovecraft himself was racist as hell, just like racist as hell 1950’s America, so what better way to pillory his racist ass than conflate the two unfavorably? What a blow we landed against those bigoted nerds. We hit ’em where they live. Never mind that Lovecraft died of stomach cancer in abject poverty over 80 years ago. He must be retroactively canceled! Every year! Sounds pointless, right? It’s not. To do so picks the low-hanging fruit of loyalty to the #Woke godhead, and loyalty means favor. That favor of course translates into the sort of power and influence that fills pockets everywhere. Clout, in other words, which even the average Twitter fuckhead chases incessantly. Get enough and you’re practically guaranteed a successful podcast.
We love the high that comes with patting ourselves on the back too much.
Look a little deeper, and you’ll see this everywhere. This long established superhero is now gay. This remake features an all female cast. This remastered game has a new transgender party member. Old temples filled with new idols. And methinks if the temples weren’t violated, if the new religion in town put its houses of worship on some other hill, the pagans would go on not giving a fuck. Hell, the two might even find a way to peacefully intertwine their faiths. But no. We love the high that comes with patting ourselves on the back too much. I won’t even get into how much everyone is getting fucked over in the meantime by the real bad guys: the assholes taking all our money so we live in ditches while they live in castles.
This is the vicious cycle that never ends. A karmic wheel of autofellatio, literally in the case of Reddit. Cultural schadenfreude is the choice pastime of the body politic, particularly on the Left, and it makes a shit ton of money for them up top. A quality product isn’t necessary if every purchase or lack thereof is in protest of something else. You will buy or not buy the new comic book with the old character reimagined as a lesbian out of loyalty to your allies in the Great Culture War and out of spite for your enemies.
But most importantly: you’ll never (ever) shut the fuck up about it.
