The Ennui Aesthetic
2026-04-21
It seems that we've been bitten by a certain bug, one that takes any sense of meaning and truth and tries to reject it for the sake of something different. With our ability to constantly access so much media and escape to any place we wish—whether it be historical, fictional, or somewhere in between—we've been hit with perhaps the greatest sense of ennui the world has ever seen. It's not that this ennui is qualitatively different from other ones, but that it's happening at such a great scale. If there is a single word that could be used to describe the 21st century, it would have to be globalization. Everything is at scale now. Everyone has every bit of everything tangible to them, granted they have access to a computer with an internet connection. But the novelty has really worn off, and this way of living is just the day-to-day. People seem to either be bored or suffering, right?
Honestly, I think it's just a warped series of expectations. The average person consumes about a thousand times more media than the last generation that just died off, and that along with new comforts given to us by a boogeyman I can only think to call The Industry of Progress has made us feel that things are just kind of, uh, blegh. Stories shape culture, and we feel more than ever that the same ones are getting told over and over again. And honestly, that's empirically true. Hollywood seems to only care about reboots nowadays, book after book of the same genres and talking points gets released every year, and when it comes to narratives, we've really sucked the milk out of the cow's teat dry. So, what gives? Is it really that bad? I'd say that given the rise of digital esoterica and transcendental humanism, it really does seem like we're tired of being, well, us.
It's cool to be anti-anything these days. Contrarianism seems to be the only intellectual source of dopamine left, due to social media platforms optimizing us for engagement. With an individual feeling that they have to compete with the world, it puts most of us in one of two performative categories: hyper-competitive status-seeking, or dull and hapless resignation. If you can't be the best, why bother, right? That explains the ever-increasing compartmentalization of culture. Every niche has a niche now. We all want to feel special and meaningful, but when the whole world can be accessed, it's a constant reminder of how small and not-as-significant we really are. Even celebrities face this problem now, which makes it tough to get a grasp on anything these days. There's not really a beacon of trust anymore, just vibes and tribes.
It explains further the increasing demand for interesting aesthetics. Many just want something to attach themselves to, something to believe and believe in. But when outcomes can get predicted in a market, how can anyone feel a sense of agency or control? We try to grasp it in aesthetics, signaling to others that there's someone out there who could be like them. But the truth is that there's no one out there like you. Your genetic code is totally and completely unique. Yet despite that uniqueness, we feel inclined to push ourselves into whatever box we think might fit. The problem we've run into is that aesthetics don't really propel things forward. They make it seem that way, but instead what we've encountered is a weirdly comfortable and increasingly bothersome cycle.
Distraction, outrage, movement, retraction; rinse and repeat for the rest of your fucking life, right?
Dr. Josh C. Simmons wrote an article on how taste is coming to dominate economic output and reception. His whole PhD dissertation was on it, and while a novel perception at the time of writing it (2019), his whole website seems to be doing a bit of a self-congratulatory victory lap around it. I don't judge him for it, though. Game is game. But anyway, after reading that and meditating on Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation for the umpteenth billionth time, it makes me want to be a scary little contrarian about it. Not that I oppose their points entirely, but more that the points feel kind of blatantly obvious when looking at them through a historical lens. History as we know it will always be a cosmic game of Telephone, and while that might feel like a limiting thing in today's day and age, it is an engine that won't really come to a halt anytime soon. Not in our lifetime, and not in the lifetimes that'll be happening ten or twenty lifetimes from now.
Really, if I had to truly diagnose it, the problem of taste and symbols and all that other stuff comes from a general dissatisfaction with the times we find ourselves in. I remember about fifteen years ago that meme about being too late to explore the world. Uh, here it is:
So yeah, we are just bored of reality. Wow, genius point, Noahie! That's definitely gonna win you that Pulitzer!
Can a brother just commentate here for a second? Look, life is not something we need to break ourselves out of. I think when I originally started writing this post, I wanted to find some kind of resolution with all of this media stuff. It aches me that I can't do anything else but write and tell stories and be some kind of expressive machine gun, but there's a certain duty I feel I have to cut through all of this anxiety I see rippling across every corner of the internet. You people are too busy consuming the news, trying to find out what's going on, but have you considered just letting that shit go? If you're reading this article, there's a high probability that you're safe where you're at, most likely in your bedroom or office just trying to pass the time. Let it pass, man, seriously. There's nowhere to go, nothing to do. Take a deep breath, go for a walk maybe.
How do I assuage my anxiety? Well, I write essays on the internet.
These essays, these blog posts, whatever you wish to call them—they don't need to be bound by any aesthetic. There is a certain message I have here in this medium, Marshall. What is it? Well, I can have this writing be here for the day, do its thing for the day, and talk about what things are like on this day. We don't have much of a desire anymore to simultaneously deliver a feed and an archive. That sucks. Can't I just tell you what's going on today and let someone else find it some time in the future? So, what's going on with me?
Well, I'm bored.
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