Hypernormalization
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<TODO: Clean up archived post. See this note for details.>
I was considering a standardized format for these but I'm obviously just going to do whatever I want whenever I want because it's my newsletter so neener neener. It'll be a big mess because I'm a big mess. There will always be some sort of AI generated content to expand on the points I'm making, and there will always be some sort of AI promotional element like the ones used last week. I'm gonna try to keep it to once per week but like no fucking promises or anything. FYI sometimes I'm going to swear.
Here's some AI talking about this newsletter issue:
Did you know you can ask ChatGPT, or another of the latest high performing models, how to make a browser plugin for your Chrome or Edge or whatever that hides profanity on your screen? Like... the AI tech is good enough now that you can make your own browser extension with a bit of time and patience. You can be like "Hey AI tool, how do I do you magically summon a solution to this technical problem?" and the tool that writes the code will teach you how to use it if you ask right, and where to put it so it works the way you want. If you can do that with a browser extension you can do that with a bunch of stuff. People are still asleep on this paradigm shift but that's just where we are now and it's only getting more powerful and common.
The future sure is a great big fucking mix of amazing and terrifying, hey?
what is hypernormalization?
There's a documentary by the name of HyperNormalization that I strongly suggest checking out, although the intro scene is a little challenging to consume and it doesn't tread very lightly through a variety of challenging subjects so it can be a lot to think and feel about.
In short, hypernormalization is when everyone pretends like things aren't a great big dumb fucking mess while they're obviously a great big dumb fucking mess.
To be clear, that's not how it's presented in the excellent documentary, which I highly recommend. The documentary is artsy and classy and intellectual and... stuff. The example offered by BBC journalist Adam Curtis through his film focuses on the collapse of the Soviet Union. I'm a huge fan of Curtis' work and strongly suggest everyone check him out for an interesting analysis of whatever he's covering. I personally find the subjects he chooses interesting, and relevant, and I appreciate his distinct visual style and narrative. His documentaries are art in a way that will either resonate strongly with you or won't click with you at all. I guess my main point is that he's worth checking out but he's not for everyone.
Anyway, back in the USSR, the years leading up to the collapse were experienced by an increasing number of its citizens in an increasingly hypernormal state. Hypernormalization is an intangible vibe, so you can hide from it or ignore it if you want, but it's all around you when you go looking for it. It's the desperate need for things to be the way we want them to be, channeled through the behaviour of countless individuals all throughout a region or culture. Hypernormalization is flavoured by culture. Hypernormalization manifests before a paradigm shift... so something like a new technology or a major collapse.
Hypernormalization is a reality distortion field being generated by a collective intelligence. It's something like the subconscious or unconscious manifesting of a group or collective. There isn't a world where hypernormalization isn't a real thing, there's just a bunch of individual minds who aren't aware of it.
hypernormalization in the economy
I live in Canada so when it comes to the massive hegemonic behemoths that dominate the systems that control my life I don't have much of an ability to influence things. I have no reason to trust that the government of China would ever consider my interests and opinions, and also I'm deeply suspicious of the honesty and integrity of the US government, under any political party or leader, because I view that whole system as being something like what they accuse the Chinese government of being. It's flavoured differently by culture because we like to pick sides, but when it comes to what people can put in and get out of it... a lot of the same flaws exist. Less of a mess along a broken paradigm is still a big mess. From my perspective the US political system often provides many individuals with as little choice as whatever kind of mess the Chinese government has rolled out for most of its people. It's always elites and oligarchs, they just get birthed and branded differently and the public is oppressed differently. They're not the same but they both require that a hypernormal state be feigned along a variety of metrics for the mess to operate as intended.
The point here related to this article is that, similarly to how you can't trust the numbers released by the Chinese government, you can't actually trust the jobs numbers and other related financial metrics that get presented by the US government. As an obvious example: Recent reports of a booming US job market ignore the fact that those numbers don't consider people who have been off work for so long that they no longer claim benefits (long term unemployment makes employment numbers feel better)... there's other stuff like this. There's important details about the types of jobs we're losing that are easy to gloss over through this simple reporting. There are a variety of paradigms shifting but official positions and reports are trying to hide from this.
wiggler stop wigglling
There are many places where official reports can wiggle in the margins for reasons related to optics. A measurement of hypernormalization is what percentage of all possible wigglers are wiggling. What happens when all the wigglers are wiggling as hard as they can in the direction that best serves their interests? What happens to norms? What does that say about how things are versus how we think they are?
Not to throw a bunch of buzz words out there or whatever, but this late stage capitalist hellscape is quite obviously a hypernormal vibe manifesting in a wide variety of ways. There's something called the meta crisis. It's like a philosophical idea about what's up with everything: a big mess combined of big messes. I spent a long time doing some apparently incomprehensible art about the meta crisis. Other individuals and groups have different takes on approaching it.
When considered clearly it seems pretty obvious to me that the meta crisis represents some new kind of threat originating from a number of new circumstances and conditions. Part of the the threat we face is that we have not evolved to consider this threat nor have we established systems capable of approaching it coherently and cohesively.
hypernormalization in my life
As I've been somewhat awkwardly documenting over the past little while, my quality of life has somewhat cratered as the result of my lack of employment since mid April (so stay tuned for when I spill the tea on that 🤫)
I've been looking for work since mid April. My circumstances are pretty nonstandard though so I try pretty hard not to project my mess onto the world, but aside from the distinct flavour of my collape, what I'm seeing is that all job seekers are struggling harder. It also looks like this is happening in an environment where a lot of what job seekers see is a lie perpetrated by folks attempting to maintain normalcy when it has collapsed.
An easy example to understand is ghost jobs. Ghost jobs are posted positions which will never be filled. They can be created for a variety of reasons that make sense to people, teams, or leaders within the silo of their organization but which represent a trap, or attack, to job seekers. Quiet firing is another example of something that isn't what it seems to be because bad leaders are trying to force normalcy after it has collapsed.
This year has been a rough go. Even before the work thing happened I'd already been evicted from my apartment once as a temporary renoviction, back from January until June, and while things could have been much worse they've been pretty steadily challenging ever since. It's been more difficult for me to find work over the past few years for a variety of obvious reasons related to my behaviour and also the work environment and this kind of blinded me to how it's been harder for other people to find work too.
I'm definitely somewhere in the 1% of overqualified unemployed people right now but there are a whole lot of other super qualified folks who are struggling to find work in industries where this wouldn't have been the case a few short years ago.
I've had a career in hotels and a career in tech. I got into the career in tech because I had an opportunity to retrain and it made the most sense to choose tech, and I chose coding as the stream for my employment because in 2009 it was clear that code was eating the world. It never occurred to me that coding would be increasingly automated out of the workforce, and yet here we are. Part of the hypernormal vibe I see is how people in tech are forcing themselves not to see this. Cognitive dissonance plays a role in how a hypernormal vibe manifests, and it's easy to see how people who accidentally imagined the tool that will automate them out of work wouldn't want to see it.
Over the past year I've witnessed a number of systemic failures that point to the collapse of many of the systems people in my region rely on. I've witnessed these failures from a personal perspective in a way that can't really be denied, simply ignored or rejected. I've often seen the look in peoples eyes when it becomes clear that they aren't open to the possibility that the systems they rely on are not substantive.
That look is everywhere if you go looking for it in this hypernormal world.
Hypernormalization in Modern Life
1. Information Overload and Cognitive Dissonance
People doomscrolling through crisis news but continuing their routine workday.
Constantly receiving updates about climate disasters while planning vacations.
Awareness of food shortages or inflation while posting about luxury meals on Instagram.
War and economic instability, but stock market rallies as if unaffected.
2. Economic Disconnection
Ghost Jobs: Companies listing open positions that aren’t intended to be filled.
Inflated Job Reports: High employment figures exclude long-term unemployed.
Gig economy jobs reported as stable employment even though many are unstable.
Housing prices reported as stable, but homelessness and housing insecurity are rising.
Retailers offering holiday discounts despite a looming recession.
3. Absurdity in the Workplace
Participating in meetings that add no value but are required by management.
Completing performance reviews that have no impact on real career growth.
Getting promotions or titles with no pay raise.
Seeing layoffs and hiring freezes while companies report record profits.
Focusing on metrics like “employee engagement” while ignoring burnout.
4. Social Media Echo Chambers
Only seeing climate change denial posts if you follow similar accounts.
Sharing echo chamber content on Twitter while believing it's representative of the larger world.
Celebrities promoting wellness products while ignoring systemic health issues.
Entire online communities dismissing mainstream media while relying on influencer opinions.
5. Political Paralysis
Governments rolling out climate action plans but continuing fossil fuel subsidies.
Political leaders calling for change while making no legislative efforts.
Voting in elections knowing the real power lies with corporate lobbyists.
Watching protests for social justice but seeing no substantial policy change.
Governments pushing to maintain economic growth while climate and inequality worsen.
6. Consumerism as a Distraction
Buying the latest phone while knowing electronic waste is growing.
Following fast fashion trends, ignoring the environmental impact.
Ordering food delivery to avoid thinking about the global food supply chain collapse.
Prioritizing personal fitness challenges while air quality worsens due to pollution.
Celebrating tech innovations while automation leads to widespread job loss.
7. Cultural Representation
Watching dystopian films like The Hunger Games as entertainment while ignoring the parallels to real societal inequality.
Listening to apocalyptic songs while treating them as just background noise.
Participating in social media trends that joke about societal collapse without engaging in activism.
Celebrating crypto wealth while the financial system destabilizes for regular people.
The Invisible Costs of Hypernormalization
1. Emotional Exhaustion
Constantly pretending that everything is normal despite facing constant crises.
Feeling overwhelmed by the disconnect between media narratives and lived experiences.
Chronic exposure to bad news leading to burnout, but with no time to process it.
2. Loss of Agency
Feeling powerless to change large systems like politics, economics, or climate policy.
Increased apathy toward voting, activism, or community involvement as a result of systemic failures.
Watching global issues unfold with no clear path for individual impact.
3. Cognitive Dissonance
Knowing climate change is real while continuing to contribute to carbon-heavy practices.
Feeling guilt while engaging in consumerism despite understanding its environmental cost.
Compartmentalizing major crises (like pandemics or political instability) to maintain daily routines.
4. Fragmented Collective Action
Social movements splintered by conflicting ideologies and competing narratives.
Activism becomes performative as people get caught up in symbolic gestures rather than real action.
Online discourse leading to distraction rather than tangible, systemic change.
