0:02 Hello and welcome to this episode of
0:05 Frankie's Cultural Observations. Today
0:07 we're going to be analyzing burntout
0:10 liberals. Burnt out liberals can't dream
0:11 of a better world, so they dream about
0:14 being correct in this one. Structurally
0:15 powerless, but unwilling to bend to
0:17 nihilism, they take the blue pill
0:19 instead of the black one, crushing it
0:22 into a powder to snort it up their nose.
0:23 So, the buzz hits them quick enough to
0:25 write a Substack about how
0:27 representation in Marvel movies matters
0:30 as a method of dismantling capitalism
0:32 before posting it on an iPhone that was
0:34 made by child slaves in a third world
0:36 labor camp that lacks clean water. When
0:39 we all became customers, society told us
0:42 to go to the shopping center. Identity
0:44 was no longer about what you made or
0:45 where you came from, but what you
0:47 shopped for and what it signaled.
0:49 Collective action became replaced with
0:51 group therapy. Material well-being
0:54 became manifestation and we all tried to
0:56 heal ourselves by ourselves alone
0:58 together and called the community.
1:00 Politics became your favorite sports
1:02 team. The commons became the comments
1:04 and we no longer had to find ourselves.
1:06 Just pretend that the search party
1:08 stopped looking. We're so boho and be
1:11 here now comfort eating on the edge of
1:13 the apocalypse wondering if the origami
1:15 and our deliveroo order is giving
1:17 cultural appropriation. Burnt out
1:19 liberals can no longer hold power to
1:21 account, but someone must be held
1:23 accountable. So, they start eating each
1:25 other because accepting the fact that
1:27 they're just puppets of the culture war,
1:29 performing morality in a theater with no
1:32 exits is too difficult to digest.
1:34 They've just started keto, so they're
1:36 not hungry for change. They're desperate
1:38 for cheese and something quick they can
1:39 stick in the air fryer while they listen
1:42 to the rest is politics.
1:44 Burnt out liberals think they're radical
1:46 because they make the right noises with
1:48 their mouths. Alienated from power, they
1:50 can only operate on the level of
1:52 language and symbols. Disillusioned and
1:55 disconnected, even morality has a 280
1:58 character limit. Hope has become
1:59 replaced with hot takes and holding
2:02 space. Stuck in a language loop, their
2:04 dreams become vague and distant, like
2:05 they're trying to paint God with their
2:07 eyes closed. And even when they do the
2:09 right thing and speak out against
2:11 injustice, they become trapped in a
2:13 neverending circulation of discourse,
2:15 absorbed into the market with no real
2:17 risk or a place to go. They know to
2:19 never storm a building or rock the
2:20 global supply chain, but they can call
2:22 out a microaggression in the workplace
2:24 and try to get other leftists canled
2:26 that they basically agree with. So burnt
2:28 out liberals are agitated. They know
2:30 they'll never get a revolution, but if
2:31 they scream loud enough, they might
2:33 demand a refund. They want a better
2:35 society, but they couldn't imagine what
2:37 it would look like, so they just crawl
2:39 into a safe space in this one. The path
2:41 to centism is paved with good intentions
2:43 and flooded mentions in their Twitter
2:46 inbox after doxing a socialist for being
2:47 critical of
2:50 Beyonce. Structural inequality can't be
2:52 solved by casting directors, brand
2:55 collabs, or saying latestage capitalism
2:56 over and over like you understand what
2:59 it means. When you try to dismantle a
3:01 system you're complicit in, you just
3:02 dress the oppression up in ethical
3:06 chains. Real change is painful and slow.
3:07 It'll take more than an Instagram story
3:09 or post. But power is where the
3:11 attention goes, and we're getting more
3:13 distracted by the second, weaving
3:15 through fields of desire and depression.
3:17 With morality is exhibition art, we're
3:18 stuck watching the world burn and
3:21 arguing over who gets to hold the hose.
