Why Are We All Stanning The Apocalypse?

When Complete and Total Ruination is a Vibe

We live in a weird time. For a lot of people, a pending apocalypse is a vibe. Like, it’s hot. Mankind on the verge of extinction is almost a welcome curtain call to our technologically obsessed society. Or maybe it’s just that the only way we can imagine getting our heads out of our asses again is to imbue or psyche with apocalyptic notions.

Burn it all down to build it back up again. Sure, but we all won’t be as lucky Judith Grimes. Or as badass. Most of us are complete wimps. We wouldn’t survive a second in the apocalypse. We’d be walking around aimlessly wondering why our Seamless isn’t working while zombies are eating brains with reckless abandon. We are so entitled. Which is why it’s so weird that we are are all stanning the apocalypse.

It used to be utopian societies that got us all hot and bothered for a “different way.” Then all of those fictional amalgamations of Eden turned out to be nightmares. We want it all to be perfect, but we don’t want anyone to control anything or our decisions. We want freedom and structure. We just want what we want.

And now we want a perfectly curated panic shelter, underground, with all of our friends and like Starbucks, too. But that’s not how the apocalypse works. The world gets torched, with us in it. But we still want it. As if being in the final ten is some sort of NCAA Tournament bracket and it’s just nice to be in the Sweet Sixteen.

Except nothing works and all of the infrastructure for society is gone. Oh sure, we got this. We watched every season of The Walking Dead. First, we find a jail or a hospital and we lock it down. But with only good people. We learn how to live again in this zombie world.

Then, when that gets old, we just find a development and build gardens and all work together singing and holding hands. Yeah, there will be some people trying to kill us, but since it’s the apocalypse we suddenly have this realization that nothing matters except this moment. Yes, it took an apocalypse to get us to be present.

What really is it about the notion of a universal apocalypse that makes us hot for it? I think it’s because we secretly hate our lives. Or are mildly disappointed with them, no matter how far we’ve come or whether or not we have clawed our way back from despair. We all just want a fresh start. In theory.

We can watch The Last Man on Earth and subtly dream of a time where we are left stranded on an ashen landscape, alone and scared. And then, of course, we meet up with January Jones at some point and life is just everything again. No matter the fact that life, as we knew it, is a disintegrated mess. It’s January Jones though.

This is the vibe. We are left to repopulate the world with one of the five people on our Freebie List. What could be better?

This. This could be better. Instead of lamenting over and pining for a pending apocalypse, maybe we should take a step back and figure out what it is about our lives that make us stan for the end of days. You don’t think this is weird?

Everywhere we look it’s another lonely planet narrative with a bit of warfare, but also with hope. Hope of a new life. A new world. A new love. But why are we so into it? Why aren’t our lives right now as exciting as looting abandoned houses for a can of peas?

We are all stanning the apocalypse because we are entitled. The things that we have, the people that we love, the nature that is our backdrop. We aren’t seeing it anymore because we are too busy being productive. And we don’t want to take responsibility for looking up. So we dream about an apocalypse. A time where have no other choice but to look up.

But when we look up then, we will be crying out for all we’ve lost.

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