Physical culture peaked in around the early to mid 2000s. After that point all culture-- in the sense that we understand it, as some linearly morphing and evolving beast-- transferred to online. Online is now the hub of culture. The digital (or psychic) world is now dominant over the physical world of entertainment, literature, research and thought. And the internet has supplanted the "real-world" as the center hub for culture and its cancer-esque metastasis. This is why many people see culture today and whine about it being a regurgitated version of the past or claim that culture is dead or say things about how things aren't as unique as they were twenty years ago. It's because they are looking only at the physical realm and not the digital realm, which now dominates.
Think of how you talk to people when talking about culture. Do you often talk about recent movies you saw at the theater or new books that you read? Or, rather, do you talk about memes you saw and internet personalities and the events surrounding them? I can guarantee for most, they speak on the latter. And this is not a bad thing. Nor is it a good thing. This is simply the unavoidable transformation of the world right now. And culture's dominant driving force being shifted to online is simply a phenomena which is downstream from that transformation.
Physical culture in the 2000s, to me, was something of a oblivious swan song. The trail blazers of physical culture at the time probably didn't know that their efforts would be the "last stand", so to speak, of physical culture before it's supplanting by digital culture. I really am in love with 2000s culture. Green sickly fluorescent lighting, spiky short hair, prep school clothes mixed with y2k neon outfits, digital cameras in 480p. And something underneath. Something horrible and heinous. Something disgusting and malicious with black eyes and and evil grin. Unapologetic drug use and addiction-- think of those horrifying anti-meth ads that ran on TV. Torture and psychopathic women who want to eat men alive in secret. Knives, not guns. Supermodels and their lives of torment and demonic possession backstage. What a way to go out honestly. Good for physical culture.
I think this type of culture in the 2000s was a good prelude for what came next, which is the digital culture of the internet. The 2000s culture of pure glamorous and alluring grime and evil could be considered as an opening act for the explicit evil and abusiveness of digital culture's ascendancy. The digital is the realm of the psychic and is thusly far more open to forces of the psychic than the physical realm. You can think of the two-- the physical and psychic-- as two different trees. Let's say the physical is an apple tree and the psychic is a lemon tree. Each of these trees grow in much different climates. They make different fruits and attract different bugs or animals to feed on them. Sure, maybe a type of bug that may infect/eat apples may do the same to a lemon, but it's an exception rather than the norm. They have different ecosystems which are specific to themselves.
So why do I call the digital realm evil? If you are engaged in the digital (psychic) realm for long enough you will be open to more psychic forces. The more you do something the more that something becomes a part of you. "Practice makes perfect" because the more you perform an action the more you integrate that action into your psyche and it becomes a habit. Similarly, the more time and energy you put into the psychic realm of the digital, the more psychic forces you attract, perceive and are receptive to. This is usually demonic, as demons prowl about the world more often than good forces because good forces are not as active as evil forces. The devil has a god complex and fancies himself a ruler, which he is not, and therefore tries to control as much as possible. God, meanwhile, is truly a ruler. The ruler of all. So He does control all. His servants understand this and do not need to try to exert an unreasonable amount of control over their environment because they know that God is already in control. Contrast that with the servants of the devil, who desperately and pathetically try to control all they can because they are trying to be God. So that is why evil forces are much more active than good forces; because they are insecure and neurotic about their inability to control everything, so they try their hardest to control everything they can.
The opening up of yourself to psychic forces is not just limited to the demonic, though. It has a compounding effect, where things that were already going on and already had influence over you now will have more influence over you and you'll notice them more. I have seen this happen. Take the moon, for instance. The moon holds a lot of influence over people's emotions and actions. Most people do not notice this but if you are more open to psychic forces, you will be more likely to notice and be influenced by moon cycles. This goes for most all things. And it is compounding, as I said. It increases exponentially from where you start putting more energy, spending more time, and being more open to the psychic.
There are a lot of malevolent forces online that you really can't understand as malevolent forces until you've engaged in the psychic for long enough. We'll take the little "shroomjak" meme, for instance. For anyone who doesn't know it's just a mushroom drawing with a smiley face on it. But it is very malevolent. What makes it malevolent? For one, fungus itself is malevolent. You can read more on that here. But another reason it is malevolent is because it is essentially a digital fungus. It spreads like a fungus and propagates in people's minds, just as physical spores do. It duplicates and creates the desire to view it again and again, to post and spread it again and again. And eventually, soon, it will spread to the real world where the people who get their internet clout points from posting it will post themselves eating real mushrooms and get rewarded for doing so with more internet clout points. That will spread as well and more people will eat mushrooms and get, not only digital spores propagating in their brains, but physical ones as well.
You may think this is funny or absurd but I am absolutely right. And these malevolent forces hide behind irony. But it's not really irony, is it? Let me ask you something; if something is blue, everyone sees it as blue, and it acknowledges itself as blue...is it blue? Yes, of course. Now, if something is blue, everyone sees it as blue, and it acknowledges itself as blue BUT it and everyone seeing it does so in a funny irony voice.. is it still blue? Yes. It is blue. And even if you're doing a little sarcastic voice the reality of the situation has not changed. Your perception has just been warped and you have allowed yourself to fall far from the point where you can understand truth and see things as they truly are. The "shroomjak" meme says it's a demon, pictures of it say horrible demonic things and it spreads like a virus. It imprisons people in an irony echo chamber where they no longer see the truth because they are blinded by truthful and honest statements (ex. "I am going to take over your mind with spores") being interpreted as "jokes".
The demonic mushroom meme is not unique. It is not the first of these deceiving wretches nor will it be the last. It is 100% possible to protect yourself against negative forces even if you are open to the psychic. But the more open you become, the more effort you must put in to guarding yourself. And effort is to most people as salt is to a slug.
Well said and very well written. I (regrettably) admit that at first I found the meme funny. But once the edits came in the truth became crystal clear. They were viscerally off-putting. A meme that cannot be organically memed further is a bad omen and likely of malignant origin. Also, upon closer inspection, the first pass at "shroomjack" has these artistic strokes that could just as easily belong to a creature in the Necronomicon - they are extremelt atypical to any other Wojak edit.
Of course, Ironybros are still head over heels with it, as you mentioned "ironically" worshipping the creature and spreading it far and wide (as is the nature of most contemporary demon worshippers - "dude it's just a joke bro!").