"Apocalypse indicators" and notes on an eternally broken society
I’ve always prided myself on the personal belief that I would not only survive an apocalyptic event – but that I’d thrive. In this mid and post-apocalyptic fantasy, I have fought my way through to the other side – G.I. Jane style – and once the dust has settled (as much as dust can settle after the collapse of civilization), I would start my own cult. Now hold on – before you start judging – it would be a nicer cult than the other ones the creepy, broken men around me are starting, and I would make sure no abuse occurred (other than pressuring everyone to follow and worship me)! And it would be woman-owned! “Inspiring…” they’d all say in awe, from their tables made of abandoned tires.
Needless to say, this fantasy started to cave in on itself during the LA wildfires this past January. As I rushed to repack the bag I’d packed in case of an evacuation (but kind of just more as an exercise and not really a bag that contained any of the things I’d need in the event of a real evacuation and oh my god, I don’t even own a power generator and I didn’t charge my phone all day and I barely have any water left in my Brita pitcher), it hit me: maybe I’m not cut out for surviving the apocalypse after all.
I also seemed to have forgotten that I have very poor eyesight and rely on glasses and contact lenses daily. I have known nothing else since the age of ten. How had it never occurred to me that glasses would likely break and get lost in the rush and scuffle of society’s ultimate demise? And how unless I somehow score big and raid a Target Optical or stumble upon a Bausch & Lomb factory while on the run, the contact lenses will eventually run out? And honestly, did I even remember to pack my year’s supply of disposable contact lenses during the mad dash to escape for my life in this hypothetical scenario? This combined with the fact that I have never once in my thirty-eight years of living peed outside pretty much confirmed that I would last about 4 days in an apocalyptic situation at an absolute maximum.
Oh well, a girl can dream.
That said, I will never stop thinking about or consuming media about apocalyptic worlds. While everyone else is obsessed with spotting “recession indicators,” I say we need to go one step further.
When I first saw Kris Jenner’s new face, I gasped and breathlessly let out one word: Apocalypse. Something about seeing a 69-year-old woman now look exactly like her 40-something daughter overnight immediately brought to mind images of aliens, outer space and final human destruction. If the rich and famous can age backwards like this at a rate we’ve never seen before (and using what method, really, I don’t even want to know…), then what else do they have up their sleeve? They’re probably getting their mansions and gated communities on Mars ready as we speak. Or maybe they are ready, but they’re still working to get the rest of Martian Elite society built before they shoot themselves up there in little luxury spaceships: putting the finishing touches on and stocking the Mars Saks 5th Ave, making sure the Mars Erewhon is space government approved (they’re using all local ingredients so it’s a whole ordeal – completely uncharted territory but totally worth it for the kinds of literally “out of this world” smoothies they’ll get to enjoy.)
While sure, women should be able to do whatever they want to their faces and bodies as long as they’re not hurting anyone else, Kris Jenner’s recent work is… uncanny. There’s something really not right about it. I’m not even talking about the psychological ramifications and dialogue around “what an older woman is supposed to look like” now and beauty standards raising to an unattainable bar. Something in general is afoot in the culture… it feels eerie and supernatural, and honestly? I’m scared.
Celebrities and billionaires have never been so unhinged. Or maybe they have been and we just didn’t know it before the age of social media. Either way, I have to assume that as technology advances, the weirdness of what the wealthy realize they can afford to spend money on increases: Katy Perry and Gayle have gone to Space and Bryan Johnson continues to prove that moving blood in and out of your body does make you look like a sallow vampire moving blood in and out of your body… Is this some kind of Billionaire PR? To make wealth look so extraterrestrial and insane that people don’t want it anymore?
Society is ever-increasingly becoming too much like the 1985 movie Brazil or the post-credits scenes of Don’t Look Up or X-File’s “Monster of the Week.” Maybe we should just leave the ungodly amounts of money to these freaks and be grateful we don’t have the means to try to be something other than human, or convince ourselves that we can somehow cheat death. In the meantime, I guess we can just sit back and watch the circus, wondering how much time we have left until this world is done with us all.
I saw someone on Instagram say “you can look old or you can look weird” and those are the only two options. It really resonated with me.
I love your confidence that you could survive an apocalypse! I, for one, would die only a few hours into it. How happy could I really be with no electricity, stuffing weeds that are probably poisonous into my mouth? This is the stuff I think about when I ponder whether the robots are out to get us.