The job of the trickster is not to passively lament negative trends, but to seek to exploit them for one’s own gain even if they are terrible. This is why historical figures like Nixon could spend decades lamenting the march of communism and then turn around and basically end the ideological-priorities-first phase of the Cold War.

Constructing the Black Longhouse was always meant to be a gradual and long term coming together of trends I have noticed. Many are discontent with the mainstream offerings and noticing an overall intellectual decline in greater civil society. As dark ages descend, the public sphere becomes more unbearable as it is divided between the most complacent status-quo defenders and the most fanatical cultists for their opposition. The two create between them a system of exclusion for all others. In order for one to keep both their curiosity and their sanity, it becomes apparent to stay engaged with like minded individuals and create alternative communities…but communities sufficiently divorced from schizophrenic mediocrity to enable actual inquiry and critical thought to survive long term and prepare for its return.

I don’t want to take attention away from how Neoliberal Boomers are primarily responsible for this mess, and that younger people certainly did not create these conditions, but its becoming increasingly undeniable that the Boomer’s true cultural and ideological successors are now the Zoomers. Their future in power will be just as bad if not worse as what came before. A true dark age really is coming as hypersensitive people with tiny attention spans and held to the lowest possible standards gain power over institutions. The bitter harvest of No Child Left Behind and Common Core are bearing rotting fruit. The cable news couch potato has found a recruitment pool just as deferential to authoritative propaganda as they are. One whose utterly enslavement into the norms of neoliberal bug-people is so complete it is lifelong and totalizing, though superficially covered up with performative radicalism and the postmodern-identity lapel-symbolism of various far right and far left loyalties.

At this point everyone knows the drill. Conflict adverse, intellectually incurious, and passive-aggressive, a generation of weaponized autism stands ready not to rebel against the mistakes of those who came before them, but to become the fundamentalist wing of perpetuating those very mistakes. A ready made snitch brigade obsessed with cultural conformity in the service of Silicon Valleys neofeudal church and social arrangement. The gateway demographic to a future of WALL-E People. Ready and willing to sell out their friends and family for updoots and cultural capital between media binging. A useful cohort for those who seek to keep the present socio-economic system intact is one which claims to challenge it but in fact upholds its structure. The Boomer elite truly has found a cohort they deem worthy to carry on their legacy of endless culture war in service of neoliberal-imperial maintenance. The full spectral dominance of the lumpens. Sounds incredibly bleak, right?

But keep some things in mind here:

Zoomers are the smallest age cohort in modern history.

They will likely be the poorest cohort in modern history, reducing their potential for political influence.

They will inherit/replicate a world where having long-term perspectives and the ability to read a book (especially a nonfiction book) cover to cover will be seen as superpowers.

You can literally communicate in code in public to avoid their snitching by simply writing in cursive or using non-literal metaphor in speech. Finally, a use for cursive!

Once the sheen of the usually not-neutral but claiming to be so Phact Checquers begins to rub off, inevitably people will come to distrust pop-knowledge, hot takes, and other mid-wit sources claiming to be authoritative. The default ‘Google Search to find the truth in 2 seconds’ trend will die because it will deliver less useful or trustworthy answers over time.

The expansion of AI and automation will negatively impact mid-wit commentariat and effectively ‘offshore’ thinking skills for the lumpenproles, but this will further increase the value of what the non-mid-wit observers bring to the table as their competition imposes self-obsolescence. There are things AI cannot do.

All of these trends argue towards a re-emergence of a new cultural aristocracy. Not (I hope) in the economic sense- in fact, the new economic aristocracy will almost certainly be part of this monolithic and trend chasing morass worth opposing. But rather a new intellectual aristocracy will arise made up of the minority of people still capable of critical thought. These people will not be popular or well-liked. In fact, they will be treated with great suspicion by the masses. But they will be necessary. And it is better to be needed than to be liked. This new aristocracy will even include (and perhaps even be dominated by) Zoomers, for none will be more motivated to go underground than those most awash in a groupthink they know to be false and futureless.

The opportunities to lurk in the shadows and emerge as advisors, leaders, and oppositional taste makers, to say nothing of the overtly creative pursuits, are enormous. Think of how Triple-A gaming has produced ever more terrible products and higher and higher costs while the indie scene has exploded into affordable quality by word-of-mouth. Think of how the old neoconservative establishment loses popularity and public cache constantly even as its power remains -for now- intact.

This unfolding era of brainrot can in fact be survived and even turned into an opportunity so long as the opposition is willing to take to the shadows and play the long game. Slowly, surely, with some behind the scenes coordination, oppositional ideas can be inserted back into the conversation as the Silicon Douche neofeudalism inevitably begins to collapse on itself due to its unsustainability and inability to see its own problems. While never lucrative, those who bothered to stay apart and aloof will end up wielding disproportionate influence over society if they only hold out long enough. Orders this stupid simply cannot last without either changing or falling.

The question remains, however, how long will that time take to arrive? Since this may not even occur in any of our lifetimes, we had best get to community building. Stay local and under the radar whenever possible.

In the meantime, the kidult minions of the Silicon Reich will be scouring the world for challenges to their complacency (and the interests of their older, richer masters). There are still shadows to hide in online, but not on public-facing social media. That is terrain that must be de facto ceded to the enemy. Anonymous forums and email lists are a better way to find contacts now. Perhaps more importantly, in a world where the former counter-cultural nature of the internet has become the monoculture, it becomes imperative to turn the real life offline into the new place of the counterculture. In cities this is easy, with word-of-mouth events not posted online. Outside of cities this is more difficult.

In a world where few read books, publishing them becomes a new way of communication. Information peasants are rarely even aware of books, especially nonfiction ones. And thus even online will likely not even know or care about those discussing them even publicly. This also serves as a screen to keep out those unwilling to do reading from diluting the Shadow Aristocracy.

These are just hypotheses. Practically speaking, things will work out their own way. But I have no doubt the increasing stupification of society will only lead to the demise of this current phase. I just don’t know the timing.

In the meantime, hold strong and build those connections. You are going to need them.