We desperately want radical change, but won’t give up the scraps of comfortability we have left to achieve it long term.
In 2025, our entertainment ranges from nonsensical brain rot to deeply rich, empathetic pieces of art.
I stand in awe at the fact that our system prioritizes having an abundance of entertainment — all easily accessible– while simultaneously being insufficient in providing affordable healthcare, food, and housing.
I suppose that even the Roman working class was given bread and circuses to prevent civil unrest from the people who would otherwise advocate for their community.
Make no mistake, there is an ongoing fight for our attention which is waged between ourselves and those who seek to wield it as a capitalistic weapon.
We have every right to happiness by means of our entertainment, but we as citizens must proportion that with our duty to uphold what is moral and ethical in the face of our country’s descent into fascism.
I see people who can simultaneously claim to want radical change in our communities and in our government, but also not want to sacrifice any part of themselves to make it happen.
We need to evaluate whether we are putting a respectable amount of time and effort into these things we claim we care so much about.
“Armchair Empaths,” as I call them, are people who — whether they actually care or not – would like to have you believe that they genuinely care about democracy, social progress, and equality.
This aesthetic activism is something we invoke when we want to use the moral high ground as a prop for internet cool-points rather than actually doing something.
I suspect that most people find comfort in this because they get the feeling of doing something, while also staying inside their entertainment bubble.
We sat in our recliner as Armchair Empaths, expecting our elected representatives to do the work for us, and even some of them sat idly by doing the least, expecting the political pendulum to swing back our way at some point.
We held unreasonable faith in our system, and believed that as it stood, it was strong enough to withstand the damage that was being done to it by our current administration.
And now, when the unelected billionaire and his supporters raise their arms in support of a 1930’s dictator, we go back to our entertainment bubble.
Minds dulled, eyes weary, and hands shackled to a screen.
Casey J Kiracofe
Mansfield, Ohio