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babylonsister

(171,781 posts)
Thu Jan 16, 2025, 11:19 AM Jan 16

I knew one day I'd have to watch powerful men burn the world down - I just didn't expect them to be such losers [View all]

I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down – I just didn’t expect them to be such losers
Rebecca Shaw
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s desperation to be cool as they suck up to Donald Trump is so cringe it makes my skin crawl
Thu 16 Jan 2025 09.00 EST
Rebecca Shaw


snip//

Whether I am engaging with the news, or with Musk tweeting constantly like a man with no job or friends, or with Zuckerberg sending out weird videos and appearing on Rogan, I am in pain. Not just because I don’t like what they are doing but because they are so incredibly, painfully cringe.

I knew that one day we might have to watch as capitalism and greed and bigotry led to a world where powerful men, deserving or not, would burn it all down. What I didn’t expect, and don’t think I could have foreseen, is how incredibly cringe it would all be. I have been prepared for evil, for greed, for cruelty, for injustice – but I did not anticipate that the people in power would also be such huge losers.

snip//

Nor can I skip Musk’s clear desperation, even as he holds this much wealth and power in his hands, to be thought of as cool. There are endless examples of him embarrassing himself while attempting to be funny or to gain respect. Unfortunately, while you may be able to buy power, it’s impossible to buy a good personality. Watching his Nigel-no-friends attempts to be popular, his endless pathetic tweets that read as though they come from the brain of an 11-year-old poser, has made me start to believe we should bring back bullying. If yet another humiliating report in the last couple of days is to be believed, he appears even to have lost the respect of some of his gamer audience, who the report claims suspect that he may have been lying about his achievements in hardcore gaming (cursed sentence).

Zuckerberg is a different kind of cringe – but cringe all the same. His cringe moments drip through more sparingly but, when they do, my body tries to turn inside out at my bellybutton. His physical makeover for Maga reasons, performing music because no one will stop him, trying to look cool on a surfboard – all these are extremely difficult to watch. He has been trying to suck up to Trump, going on Joe Rogan’s show to say society has been “neutered” and companies need “more masculine energy”.

snip//

Climate crises keep coming, genocides continue, women keep getting murdered, art is being strangled to death by AI, bigotry is on the rise, social progress is being rolled back … AND these men insist on being cringe? It’s a rotten cherry on top. This combination of evil and embarrassment is a unique horror, one that science fiction has failed to prepare us for. The second-hand embarrassment we have to endure gets even more potent when combined with other modern influences on young men, like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate.

more...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/16/i-knew-one-day-id-have-to-watch-powerful-men-burn-the-world-down-i-just-didnt-expect-them-to-be-such-losers

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With great craziness Marthe48 Jan 16 #1
I am hoping bdamomma Jan 16 #7
"This combination of evil and embarrassment is a unique horror." Ocelot II Jan 16 #2
That deserves it's own OP, Ocelot II Clouds Passing Jan 16 #15
Finally, someone gets what I feel... Hugin Jan 16 #3
Actually science fiction has prepared us to consider human extinction cynical_idealist Jan 16 #4
Oh my, so hip and cool to write "cringe" instead of "cringy" or better "cringeworthy" Bernardo de La Paz Jan 16 #5
She's from Sydney; perhaps that's what they say there. nt babylonsister Jan 16 #11
Whatever. It'll never sound correct, to me. Paladin Jan 17 #18
Living in San Francisco, I have watched the Mark and Priscilla soap opera. I've always liked Priscilla Chan, and hoped NBachers Jan 16 #6
The criminals have taken charge of the United States, and have made all the money because they are BComplex Jan 16 #8
Brazen criminals. Some criminals just want to get away with their "take ". live love laugh Jan 17 #16
Well said! eom BComplex Jan 17 #17
Must Read malaise Jan 16 #9
I have never liked to see anybody being embarrassed. It makes cringe and feel terrible. cksmithy Jan 16 #10
what you write, I agree with onethatcares Jan 16 #12
I agree with you too, F... um. cksmithy Jan 16 #13
I never imagined that so much flawed influence would come from South Africa's Apartheid champions RainCaster Jan 16 #14
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