I asked this 9 year old, short braids-wearing little sister who happened to have watched Squid game while I had not yet:
“Did you like it?”
She answered, looking into the void, kind of distressed, “NO! I didn’t like it, it’s too violent.”
Now that I’ve watched it, I get why she answered like that.
Ultra-violence or violence aesthetic really started in the 90s. Entertainment could be gore or gross before, but the explosion of violence, the normalization of sadism and most brutal aspects of humanity really happened in 90s entertainment.
And then it was just kind of normal. Which means that younger generations grew up on the new ultraviolent normal. Which might have created the mid 2000s Emo culture, as a reaction to constant brutality in entertainment.
Squid game, where people get killed failing at school games, was last fall’s worldwide icon. Ultra-violence is basic pop culture now. Thanks to our collective brains being destroyed by police brutality videos, thousands of headshots in more and more realistic games, school shootings, World Star, 4Chan and so forth, for 20 years, we just take it all in. We’re used to it. Almost a million dead from COVID in the US? LMFAOOO
I want to reverse that, in a way. The hunting and preying culture needs to stop. I so want to see people fancying love and laughs. That shit is brutally awesome. I’m sure this young girl would agree. Ultra-violence is part of the world but it’s not like it’s super cool or that we need more of it…