The Year Villainy Won | WIRED

Kevin Winter, a professor of media studies at Pomona College, said irrational confidence is one reason why villains resonate deeply across cultures. “In a repressive society like ours that prizes conformity to better educate consumers, characters who actively reject the trappings of capitalist fantasy or follow a self-fashioning moral code that is contrary to mainstream society will inevitably end up in our ways. attraction.

Today, traditional notions of evil have been replaced by complex and sometimes contradictory standards of what different groups consider acceptable or threatening. Winter believes this leads to a “post-villain world.” Tech tycoon (Elon Musk), politician (Mayor of New York) Eric Adams), Podcast (Joe Rogan) – To many, they are the leading transgressors of our time (to others, they are heroes). They are anti-establishment. They want to overturn the “system”.

“Few villains combine clowning, wealth and power as deftly as Donald Trump,” Winter added. “Even his latest parasitic attachment is Elon Musk – another perfect villain to some, but a swashbuckling futuristic cowboy to others.”

That’s what’s ahead, you never know how it’s going to unravel or who it’s going to favor. For some, artificial intelligence is the main adversary of 2024. More than an existential threatas many workers fear unemployment.

Others, feeling lost as social media undergoes a dramatic shift, rightly point their finger at the digital middle class. “I’m angry that everything that was interesting and useful on the web ten years ago is now broken. Apparently this site,” app developer Tracy Chou, release “Comments are all lies.” Search is an illusion of AI. Without influencers/memes/polarizing content, there would be no place to share it with friends and family.

In times such as as unprecedented as oursAll the anxiety and excitement, the reorientation of true transgressions, reads less shocking when you think of it as part of a larger social restructuring. Villains have long permeated the cultural imagination—American lore is, after all, built on the sensibilities of mavericks, vigilantes, and underdogs—but in 2024, it’s become full-on protagonists.

Why? Maybe evil acts provide a different kind of purpose than heroism, one that’s closer to reality, one that sees our world as it is – completely fucked up – and reacts accordingly.

What I can say with certainty is that evil has no specific loyalties. Eventually it swallows everyone. In December, Warner Bros. Discovery Channel announced that it would cease broadcasting sesame streeta long-running children’s program. Understandably, this decision didn’t go down well. On the then-social media app Bluesky, @valhallabackgirl fired back with a wave of anger that many have experienced this year. “I guess this is my villain origin story,” she Wrote.