Clip from the BBC documentary #Hypernormalization, 2016.
#hypernormalization
These 2 things I read today kind of get at it, but it's still depressing AF.
#Hypernormalization is a bitch
#hypernormalization is a powerful obstacle.
Thank you all for creating a place where #hypernormalization doesn't hold sway.
Living through history & having to get up in the morning to go to work sucks ass.
Thanks #Hypernormalization 🙄
But pretending that all is fine is very much mainstream.
(Much #hypernormalization there ... but there's no reason to #resign!
The future *is* unwritten. It's never to late to write megacorps out of it ... !)
#Hypernormalization is one of the most relevant terms to explain our current social condition. But what is Hypernormalization? An explanation by the great #AdamCurtis:
“This series is about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy”*…
A hundred years ago a new theory about human nature was put forth by Sigmund Freud. He had discovered he said, primitive and sexual and aggressive forces hidden deep inside the minds of all human beings. Forces which if not controlled led individuals and societies to chaos and destruction.
This series is about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.
But the heart of the series is not just Sigmund Freud but other members of the Freud family.
This episode is about Freud’s American nephew Edward Bernays. [See here.]
Bernays is almost completely unknown today but his influence on the 20th century was nearly as great as his uncles. Because Bernays was the first person to take Freud’s ideas about human beings and use them to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations for the first time how to they could make people want things they didn’t need by linking mass produced goods to their unconscious desires.
Out of this would come a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying people’s inner selfish desires one made them happy and thus docile. It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate our world today…
From the introduction to Adam Curtis‘ remarkable 2002 BBC documentary series, Century of Self, all-too-relevant today– how propaganda, marketing and advertising, political messaging, management techniques all “flowered” from Freud’s seed.
Here is a complete transcript of the series.
Readers can find the (riveting) documentaries themselves at:
Hypernormalization, Curtis’ 2016 BBC (sort of) sequel is here.
And keep an eye peeled for What Is It That’s Coming, a (tentatively-titled series, projected at nine parts) on which he’s currently at work.
* Adam Curtis
###
As we sort signal from noise, we might consider just how far we have– and haven’t– come, as it was on this date in 1859 that Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species. Actually, on that day he published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life; the title was shortened to the one we know with the sixth edition in 1872.
Title page of the 1859 edition
#adamCurtis #advertising #centuryOfSelf #darwin #evolution #history #hypernormalization #marketing #originOfTheSpecies #politicalScience #propaganda #science #socialPsychology #sociology
Cop30
More than 300 big agriculture lobbyists took part in Cop30, investigation finds
Lobbyists representing industry responsible for a quarter to a third of global emissions participated in key talks at the UN climate summit
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/18/big-agriculture-lobbyists-cop30-climate-summit
Hyper normalisation in optima forma:
Have a (re)watch at this documentary from 2016, you'd be surprised how fitting it is in these times of Trumps & Putin's & techno sphere :
#cop30 #climate #ClimateChange #ClimateChaos #collapse #Hypernormalization #capitalism
I would like to highly recommend the 2016 film "#Hypernormalization" by Adam Curtis.
We are seeing that a lot now, as institutions like the LA Times, NY Times, and Washington Post adopt a "both sides" format which doesn't sufficiently challenge the truth or integrity of statements, and increasingly follow story lines put forward by fascist agitators, like the nytimes non-story about the race of NYC Mayoral candidate #Mamdani who is of Indian ethnicity but born in Uganda
https://www.newsweek.com/new-york-times-mamdani-article-healy-responds-2094926
Is this the #hypernormalization of infrastructure failure, or is it just me? ("Anker PowerSOS Challenge!(tm)" advertising.)
I rather like their inverters, power banks and chargers, but this just leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth for some reason.
I enjoy playing my 1-player game of "hypermiling" my plugin hybrid car on my commute, balancing maximum fuel efficiency with "can I drop my kid off on time".
This morning, I found myself factoring in "hmm, what are the odds the Iran-Israel-US war escalates, and the Straight of Hormuz, causing gas shortages" into my equation
For more on Hypernormalisation, here's the quality podcast, "Sad Girls Against The Patriarchy:
That weird feeling that the world is wrong -- #hypernormalization
Experts say action can break the spell. “Being active politically, in whatever way, I think helps reduce apocalyptic gloom,” says Betsy Hartmann, an activist, scholar and author of The America Syndrome, which explores the importance of resisting apocalyptic thinking.
Since when does the President decide unilaterally to bomb and invade another country, risking the start of a world war?
#hypernormalization #NoKings
@drmambobob @feinstruktur @RichardJMurphy
But is this perhaps now all moot given #Blackrock et al no longer using economic equations but relying on llm models?
cf #AdamCurtis from #Hypernormalization … https://youtu.be/YF3e2Jhse4Q?si=wd_RcorNnAXInKRN
Hypernormalization:
“What you are feeling is the disconnect between seeing that systems are failing, that things aren’t working … and yet the institutions and the people in power just are, like, ignoring it and pretending everything is going to go on the way that it has,”
#hypernormalization #hierundjetzt #realitaet #ideologiestattfakten #statusquo
I was thinking #weltschmerz but #hypernormalization works too
Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The #dissonance is real https://buff.ly/ipNDnwN
#vocabulary #mentalhealth #systemiccollapse #compartmentalize #shutdown #copingstrategies #resistance
1 of 2
#Politics #Crumbling #Autocracy #Collapse #Hypernormalization
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Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real | Well actually | The Guardian
---
Witnessing large-scale systems slowly unravel in real time can be profoundly surreal and frightening.
And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
"Why hypernormalization is relevant in the US
The increasing instability of the US’s democratic norms has prompted these references to hypernormalization.
Donald Trump is dismantling government checks and balances in an apparent advance toward a 'unitary executive' doctrine that would grant him near-unlimited authority, driving the US toward autocracy. Billionaire tech moguls like Elon Musk are helping the government consolidate power and aggressively reduce the federal workforce. Institutions like the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, which help keep Americans healthy and informed, are being haphazardly diminished.
Globally, once-in-a-lifetime climate disasters, war and the lingering trauma of Covid continue to unfold, while an explosion of generative AI threatens to destabilize how people think, make a living and relate to each other.
For many in the US, Trump 2.0 is having a devastating effect on daily life. For others, the routines of life continue, albeit threaded with mind-altering horrors: scrolling past an AI-generated cartoon of Ice officers arresting immigrants before dinner, or hearing about starving Palestinian families while on a school run.
Hypernormalization captures this juxtaposition of the dysfunctional and mundane."
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