Laughing at nonsense as the world falls apart

Should I be writing about silly memes while people are dying in Minnesota?

A few weeks ago, I was set to release a light, fun little explainer post on Roblox. Working title - Everything you ever wanted to know about Roblox (but were too afraid to ask a 12-year-old). It had an entire section devoted to something called “Steal a Brainrot”, and was generally a pleasant escapist article with some fun facts and humor. Then Renee Good was shot in Minneapolis, all of social media and society hyperfixated on the shooting, and I pivoted to talking about that instead.

I wrote two fairly heavy pieces that took a lot out of me, in a way that doesn’t normally happen. There’s been a lot of extremely disturbing political developments over the last ten years, but ICE’s actions in Minnesota have affected me more than anything I can remember. I’m normally pretty even-keeled, but not for the last two weeks.

I took the week off last week for my own sanity. This weekend I was scheduled to return and publish my cute, impish Roblox piece… until ICE murdered Alex Pretti. And now I’m left wondering whether or not I should even be writing about dumb internet drama, memes, and games. Who wants to read about Roblox right now?

What’s the point of laughing at silly internet nonsense as the world falls apart?

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I’m not the first person to notice the tension between serious political moments and escapism. Hannah Arendt’s work talks about how under totalitarianism nothing is truly allowed to exist independent from politics, even frivolous lowbrow culture. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning describes his time in a Nazi concentration camp, and portrays silliness, joking and random moments of joy as acts of resistance. If two Nazi-era references seems like overdoing it, contemporary commentators have made similar points. The Trump/COVID era led to a deluge of essays like “In Defense of Cultural Criticism in Trump’s America”, “Art in the Time of Crisis” and “Why art matters at the end of the world”. If think pieces aren’t your jam, listen to comedian Bo Burnham, whose work is thick with self-criticism and self-recriminations for making silly content while the world is burning:

The people rising in the streets
The war, the drought
The more I look, the more I see nothing to joke about
Is comedy over?
Should I leave you alone?
‘Cause, really, who’s gonna go for joking at a time like this?
Should I be joking at a time like this?

I wanna help to leave this world better than I found it
better than I found it
And I fear that comedy won’t help
And the fear is not unfounded

The voices from all these commentaries have been bouncing around in my head nonstop for the last two weeks. The sophisticated line, expressed by many of the authors above, is to defend the importance of art, of cultural criticism, of silliness even during very serious times. But the feeling is not unanimous - it’s a popular sentiment on sites like Tumblr to criticize others for not posting about serious issues. “I see stuff about ppl not wanting to reblog ferguson things… There r literally ppl dying who live with the fear of going outside their homes to be shot and u cant post a fucking picture because it makes u a little upset??” And from the inside of my own psyche, it’s hard to avoid my basic instinct that things are very, very wrong in society and I should be doing more.

I’m having a dialogue that goes something like this:

• What the hell am I doing, building an extensive research document on how a Reddit moderator tried to scam his subreddit with a fake reality series?¹ Who cares? What purpose does that serve when there are masked men running around murdering American citizens with absolutely no one who will ever hold them accountable? Shouldn’t I be focused entirely on that?

• Calm down, don’t hyperventilate. Things are bad, sure. But that’s no reason to stop living your life, either professionally or personally. There are tragedies happening all around the world, all the time. If we stopped doing light, silly, joyful things any time there’s a tragedy, we’d never have any joy at all. And what purpose would that serve?

• This isn’t ‘anywhere in the world’, it’s in my own country. And this really feels different, significantly worse than what’s come before. This feels like the glue that holds society together is coming undone. And I’ve been personally obsessed with immigration policy for the last decade. This is not a random tragedy, this is something that hits at my core.

• Sure, but nobody is policing you but yourself. Despite the tragedy, people still need entertainment. They still need to watch TV shows, read books, watch movies, play games, and yes, read about silly internet drama and social media hijinks. Entertainment has real value, even in uncertain times. Hell, maybe even MORE in uncertain times. People need an escape.

• That’s a really convenient excuse, isn’t it? Did you even watch the Bo Burnham video above? “The world is so fucked up… And there’s only one thing that I can do about it… While being paid and being the center of attention” The entire point of that sketch is to mock the sentiment that artists get a pass because ‘laughter is the best medicine’. There’s more you could be writing, saying, doing.

• Is there? I’ve already written extensively about the Trump administration, and in particular about how horrible ICE is. On social media I’m constantly posting about ICE. I could write another four essays about how terrible everything is, but realistically, what would that accomplish? Would it really change anything? Or would it be a performance of morality that doesn’t actually have any real world impact?

• That’s all very logical, but you can’t escape three truths: That you’re choosing the path that lets you turn off your brain and not think about the scary stuff, that you’re choosing the path that helps you get paid, and that in your gut you can’t stop feeling uneasy about it. You can’t take the harder path, why? Because you might get a little upset? Isn’t that cowardice?

• If you get to cite Bo Burnham and anonymous Tumblr users, I get to cite Arendt and Frankl, who frankly have a lot more intellectual weight. Frankl was a literal Holocaust survivor, and he defended the need for silliness, humor and joy. And when Arendt talks about how totalitarianism really is *totalizing*, how it wants to take over every part of society, including culture, that’s happening now! Trump is actively feuding with late night comedians and trying to get them canceled. His cronies have purchased major social media apps like Twitter and TikTok. He’s put his name on the Kennedy Center. He’s in the early stages of cultural takeover, and independent media - yes, even of the silly internet variety - is important to resist that.

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Perhaps I’m in a strange place here. Part of what I do is reporting on frivolous things that happen on social media, talking about trends, memes, and jokes. I write about those things because I really do think they matter. They’re a part of our culture now, culture is worth serious examination, and internet culture in particular needs more critical analysis from savvy thinkers. The importance of internet culture hasn’t changed just because ICE killed a few people. And I want to be part of creating an information environment for my readers where this kind of analysis is taken seriously, and to help people understand what’s driving online culture.

But the other part of what I do is explicitly political. I don’t just write about internet culture, I also frequently write about politics and host an explicitly political podcast. I founded an organization called the Center for New Liberalism to organize and fight for issues I care about. I’m in the political fight already, so what excuse do I have to not talk about things?

This might be an easier decision for people who are firmly in one camp or another. But as someone who straddles the line between cultural commentary and political activism, between extremely ridiculous and extremely serious topics, it sucks.

I think that joy and frivolity are important parts of the human experience, and they deserve attention and space even during times of enormous suffering. If Frankl could laugh in a concentration camp, we can laugh in 2026. Not everything has to be politics all the time. People need space to play, to love, to joke, and to appreciate beauty even during hard times. The idea that tragedy mandates constant solemnity is bullshit.

But at the same time, I think that this ‘art is important too’ sentiment can be used as a shield against speaking out when public figures really do have an obligation to speak out. Imagine a band doing a world tour in the 1980s and choosing to play in South Africa despite knowing about apartheid, just because they want to be ‘apolitical’. I’d call them morally bankrupt cowards, and no amount of arguments about the value of art or culture could sway me.

I don’t know how to perfectly balance these two instincts. I don’t know the perfect amount of time I need to talk about Serious Adult Politics before it’s ok to return to juvenile jokes about Tumblr furries or whatever. The best I can do is crib from an article I read years ago called Nobody Is Perfect, Everything Is Commensurable.² It makes the simple point that demands for moral behavior have no theoretical limit. If you’re talking about the bad stuff, why not talk about it more? Why not talk about it all the time, constantly? You are? Well, why aren’t you donating money? If you are, why not even more money? Why not quit your job to go work on the issue full time? What about all the other issues in the world? There’s no point at which you can actually stop, because there’s always more you can do. The person with near-saintly devotion to making the world a better place can still be criticized for the time they got a fancy Starbucks drink rather than donating that money, or the time they visited family rather than working in a homeless shelter, etc. You can never actually be perfectly morally good.

The best you can do is try to draw a clear line, then do enough to make sure you’re past that line. And once you’ve met the standard that you set, it’s ok to let go of the anxiety and self-loathing. You’re not obligated to be perfect, just to be good enough. Jesus told a rich man “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me”. Modern Christianity has decided on a much more achievable standard of donating 10% of your income. Sure, you’d be perfectly saintly if you gave away everything you own. But perfect isn’t really achievable, and 10% is. Once you do that, you can feel like you’ve done your part.

There’s no bright, clear line in political commentary the way there is on income. I hope that I’m doing what I can to raise awareness of what’s going on in America, and I hope I’m on the right side of the line. But I’m also going to keep writing about dumb Reddit moderators, Gen Alpha gaming crazes, livestreamer drama, and what all these online cultural moments say about society, because in the end that stuff matters too. Those are some of the things you’ll see here in the coming weeks. Maybe I won’t get the balance right, but know that it’s something I am thinking deeply about. I hope that my role as commentator is something that helps all of you out there understand the world - both the very silly and the very serious - just a little bit better.

Thanks for reading and being subscribed to Infinite Scroll.

1. A real story, coming to the next Weekly Scroll

2. I’m only partially joking when I say that at least a third of my cultural insights have their roots in old SlateStarCodex posts.