Sat, Aug 26, 2023 page8

• EDITORIAL: Meme reflects today’s youth woes

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  A video named “山道猴子的一生” (“Life of a Mountain Road Speed Demon”) has been trending on the Internet, garnering over 5 million views in the space of a few days.

  The video is nothing short of ordinary and crude. It uses the “Wojak” meme — a crudely drawn digital portrait of a bald-headed man with an expression that borders between expressionless or wistful — and artificial intelligence voice dubbing for dialogue. It depicts the story of how a young car fanatic, who works at a convenience store, recklessly bought a heavy motorcycle on credit out of vanity and megalomania. His motorcycle attracted a fellow female car fanatic to become his girlfriend, but she later dumped him after using him as a cash cow. Overwhelmed by debt, past trauma from getting cheated on and his ambition to become an Internet celebrity, “Wojak” finally crashed into a car in a motor race, where his death became material for a live stream video by another Internet celebrity.

  Stripping away any trace of visual or audio aestheticism, the video has only dialogue and plot to speak for itself. Perhaps this is the very reason viewers find it oddly compelling and resonant on a deeper level.

  It sheds light into the values, mood and angst of young people nowadays, whether it is a lack of financial discipline, problematic values in relationships, or social media obsession. The video touches upon the issue of “exquisite poverty,” a phenomenon that refers to excessive purchases of luxury goods in pursuit of an ideal image. While this ideal image is far from their true image, it results in people being apparently “exquisite,” but actually poor. This issue is associated with the “lying flat” concept. Instead of saving to buy a house or car or planning for marriage and parenthood, young people spend money on food, travel or their hobbies — things that are easier to obtain, bringing instant gratification and vanity.

  The video unveils the pitfall of masculinity and how it could sow the seed of misogyny. “Wojak” was a heterosexual male who relied on wealth to showcase his masculinity, regardless of his financial status. For his first girlfriend, his ego and vanity had him borrowing money to satisfy her every need; regarding his second girlfriend, he felt “belittled” when she offered to find work to relieve his financial burden. This mindset taps into the angst of young heterosexual males who need to be better than their female counterparts at everything, especially money. When this relationship is reversed, they tend to feel insecure or become a control freak, and when rejected or dumped, they start attributing misogynistic labels to women, such as “gold diggers” or “fickle” instead of reviewing themselves for mistakes.

  In the zero-sum game of a patriarchal society, men are often expected to be leaders or the dominating party in the public arena. “Wojak” viewed himself as a nobody working in a convenience store, so turned to his hobbies to seek status. This kind of pressure to prevail over others might also be why the hot-headed protagonist would do anything, even at the price of his own life, to win a race against a stranger. After all, racing is the only thing he was ever good at, or so he believed.

  The final problem with young people might be their obsession with social media. “Wojak’s” behavior mainly stemmed from his desire to garner more attention or emulation on social media, whether it was from sharing new riding tricks or trying to attract girlfriends. For young people, the need to win the approval of their friends, followers or even society can be an overwhelming pressure.

  It might seem strange that a simple, crude video could trigger such a huge response on the Internet, but it might be that the car fanatic could be any of us, that his psychology is a microcosm of modern-day youngsters and that his tragedy hits closer to home for many.
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