The children long to love that which they know is not real. The children long for fantasy. I’m rewatching the greatest showman and this line by Phineas’ (played by Hugh Jackman) daughters reminded me of a TikTok I saw the other day.
“Like a mermaid, or a unicorn. Unicorns aren’t real. Well, mermaids aren’t real either.”
– The Greatest Showman (2017)
On TikTok, the creator @archivesbyaida makes an observation about the resurgence or renaissance of absurdism among Gen-Z in the last few years as reflected in literary choices and cultural occurrences (language, memes, etc.).
Absurdism is an existential philosophy. As acknowledged and explored by Albert Camus, author of The Stranger—which is among the literature championed in this resurgence— “the absurd” is the paradox between the belief that life has no objective meaning and the desire of human beings to generate meaning in their lives. Camus’ solution is that one should make themselves “the rebel” and reject the need for objective meaning entirely.
Gen-Z has begun to embody the rebel in their rejection of items typically deemed to be necessary for a meaningful life. For example, more and more members of Gen-Z have adopted apathetic attitudes towards the job market and the standard 9-5 because, especially with our current social and political state and the feeling that every day is a new low, sitting behind a desk cannot be the end-all-be-all. The work life salvation we were promised no longer exists; therefore, this area where so many before us went to find meaning has proven to be ultimately meaningless. If, at the end of the day, these jobs don’t mean that much, why place them on such a high pedestal?
Outside of livelihood, the rejection of meaning is reflected primarily in culture with the rise of brain rot and the memeification of everything. 6 7 is just two numbers, but they managed to become some absurdist cultural movement because, if it seems all we have in this life is the knowledge of the ticking clock of our global environment and a government that slips deeper into irreversible chaos daily, we have to laugh about something.
Gen-Z has, out of necessity, mastered the art of laughing at themselves and everything around them. There’s no space for convoluted meanings. Nothing can be too deep anymore. “Just put the fries in the bag.” Because if anything is meaningful, then everything is meaningful and that burden is too great to reconcile.
Anyways, the Greatest Showman line was a nice reminder. Mermaids aren’t real. Unicorns aren’t real and the meaning we prescribe to everything isn’t objectively real either. The girls could ask for mermaids and unicorns because in their imagination and through their innocence, they were able to assign life, even if purely fantastical, to these concepts. We can ask for “good” jobs and “good” lifestyles and “nice” clothes or “enjoyable” interactions with strangers because we choose day in and day out to assign meaning to all these things.
But what if these ideals aren’t real and unicorns aren’t real either? Do we continue searching for them or do they remain pleasant characters in a daydream? And how does our decision to entertain or reject these realities or lack thereof affect us? For the meaning seeking center of our internal operations, is it better to speak or die?