Doomer

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Doomers are people who are extremely pessimistic or fatalistic about global problems such as overpopulation, peak oil, climate change, ecological overshoot, pollution, nuclear weapons, and runaway artificial intelligence. The term, and its associated term doomerism, arose primarily on social media. Some doomers believe these problems may lead to human extinction. [1] [2]

Contents

Malthusians like Paul R. Ehrlich, Guy McPherson and Michael Ruppert have related doomerism to Malthusianism, an economic philosophy holding that human resource use will eventually exceed resource availability, leading to societal collapse, social unrest, or population decline. [3] [4]

History

Peaknik subculture

The term "doomer" was reported in 2008 as being used in early internet peaknik communities, as on internet forums where members discussed the theorized point in time when oil extraction would stop due to lack of resources, followed by societal collapse. Mid-2000s doomers embraced various ideas on how to face this impending collapse, including doomsday prepping, as well as more contemporary feelings of resignation and defeat. [5]

Canadian self-identified doomer Paul Chefurka hosted a website where he encouraged his readers to eat lower on the food chain, modify their homes for the apocalypse, and to consider not having children. [5] Not all "peakniks" subscribed to a fatalist outlook. U.S. Army Ranger Chris Lisle, when writing recommendations on how to survive the societal collapse, suggested that fellow doomers "adopt a positive attitude," because, as he put it, "Hard times don't last, hard people do." [5]

Internet meme

By 2018, 4chan users had begun creating Wojak caricatures with the -oomer suffix, derived from "boomer", to mock various groups online. One of these caricatures was "Doomers", 20-somethings who had "simply stopped trying". [6] The meme first appeared on 4chan's /r9k/ board in September 2018. [6] The image typically depicts the Wojak character in dark clothing, including a dark beanie, smoking a cigarette. "Doomer" themed playlists, featuring this wojak along with slowed down music edits (often involving post-punk or rock) reached popularity on YouTube, especially during the Covid-19 lockdowns. The archetype often embodies nihilism and despair, with a belief in the incipient end of the world to causes ranging from climate apocalypse to peak oil to (more locally) opioid addiction. [7] Kaitlyn Tiffany writes in The Atlantic that the doomer meme depicts young men who "are no longer pursuing friendships or relationships, and get no joy from anything because they know that the world is coming to an end." [6]

A related meme format, "doomer girl", began appearing on 4chan in January 2020, and it soon moved to other online communities, including Reddit, Twitter, and Tumblr, often by women claiming it from its 4chan origins. [6] This format is described by The Atlantic as "a quickly sketched cartoon woman with black hair, black clothes, and sad eyes ringed with red makeup". The doomer girl character often appears in image macros interacting with the original doomer character. [6] [8] The format is often compared to rage comics. [8]

In media

The term "doomer" was popularized in commentary surrounding Jonathan Franzen's 2019 essay in The New Yorker titled "What if We Stopped Pretending?". The piece made an argument against the possibility of averting climatic catastrophe. In addition to popularizing the term among general audiences, Franzen's piece was highly popular among online Doomer communities, including the Facebook groups Near Term Human Extinction Support Group and Abrupt Climate Change. [9]

The BBC describes sustainability professor Jem Bendell's self-published paper Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy as "the closest thing to a manifesto for a generation of self-described 'climate doomers'". [10] As of March 2020, the paper had been downloaded more than a half-million times. In it, Bendell claims there is no chance to avert a near-term breakdown in human civilization, but that people must instead prepare to live with and prepare for the effects of climate change. [10]

Climate scientist Michael E. Mann described Bendell's paper as "pseudo-scientific nonsense", saying Bendell's "doomist framing" was a "dangerous new strain of crypto-denialism" that would "lead us down the very same path of inaction as outright climate change denial". [10] An essay published on OpenDemocracy argues that the paper is an example of "climate doomism" that "relies heavily on misinterpreted climate science". [11]

Michael Mann has also listed David Wallace Wells's framing of the climate crisis, which he presents in "The Uninhabitable Earth" and The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming , as being among "the prominent doomist narratives." [12]

Uncivilization: The Dark Mountain Manifesto , published in 2009 by Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine to signal the beginning of the artists' group the Dark Mountain Project, critiques the idea of progress. According to The New York Times , critics called Kingsnorth and his sympathizers "doomers", "nihilists", and "crazy collapsitarians". [13]

Kate Knibbs, writing in Wired , described the development of a popular and growing strain of "doomer" climate fiction, in contrast to the typically optimistic undertones of the genre. Amy Brady, a climate fiction columnist for the Chicago Review of Books, says the genre has moved from future scenarios to near-past and present stories. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>The Limits to Growth</i> 1972 book on economic and population growth

The Limits to Growth (LTG) is a 1972 report that discussed the possibility of exponential economic and population growth with finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation. The study used the World3 computer model to simulate the consequence of interactions between the Earth and human systems. The model was based on the work of Jay Forrester of MIT, as described in his book World Dynamics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Resource depletion</span> Depletion of natural organic and inorganic resources

Resource depletion is the consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished. Natural resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources. The use of either of these forms of resources beyond their rate of replacement is considered to be resource depletion. The value of a resource is a direct result of its availability in nature and the cost of extracting the resource. The more a resource is depleted the more the value of the resource increases. There are several types of resource depletion, including but not limited to: mining for fossil fuels and minerals, deforestation, pollution or contamination of resources, wetland and ecosystem degradation, soil erosion, overconsumption, aquifer depletion, and the excessive or unnecessary use of resources. Resource depletion is most commonly used in reference to farming, fishing, mining, water usage, and the consumption of fossil fuels. Depletion of wildlife populations is called defaunation.

Overconsumption describes a situation where a consumer overuses their available goods and services to where they can't, or don't want to, replenish or reuse them. In microeconomics, this may be described as the point where the marginal cost of a consumer is greater than their marginal utility. The term overconsumption is quite controversial in use and does not necessarily have a single unifying definition. When used to refer to natural resources to the point where the environment is negatively affected, it is synonymous with the term overexploitation. However, when used in the broader economic sense, overconsumption can refer to all types of goods and services, including manmade ones, e.g. "the overconsumption of alcohol can lead to alcohol poisoning". Overconsumption is driven by several factors of the current global economy, including forces like consumerism, planned obsolescence, economic materialism, and other unsustainable business models and can be contrasted with sustainable consumption.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental sociology</span> Study of interactions between societies and their natural environments

Environmental sociology is the study of interactions between societies and their natural environment. The field emphasizes the social factors that influence environmental resource management and cause environmental issues, the processes by which these environmental problems are socially constructed and define as social issues, and societal responses to these problems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malthusianism</span> Idea about population growth and food supply

Malthusianism is a theory that population growth is potentially exponential, according to the Malthusian growth model, while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population decline. This event, called a Malthusian catastrophe has been predicted to occur if population growth outpaces agricultural production, thereby causing famine or war. According to this theory, poverty and inequality will increase as the price of assets and scarce commodities goes up due to fierce competition for these dwindling resources. This increased level of poverty eventually causes depopulation by decreasing birth rates. If asset prices keep increasing, social unrest would occur, which would likely cause a major war, revolution, or a famine. Societal collapse is an extreme but possible outcome from this process. The theory posits that such a catastrophe would force the population to "correct" back to a lower, more easily sustainable level. Malthusianism has been linked to a variety of political and social movements, but almost always refers to advocates of population control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Dowd</span> American author and advocate of ecotheology and post-doom (born 1958)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Societal collapse</span> Fall of a complex human society

Societal collapse is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of social complexity as an adaptive system, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible causes of a societal collapse include natural catastrophe, war, pestilence, famine, economic collapse, population decline or overshoot, mass migration, incompetent leaders, and sabotage by rival civilizations. A collapsed society may revert to a more primitive state, be absorbed into a stronger society, or completely disappear.

Human overpopulation is the idea that human populations may become too large to be sustained by their environment or resources in the long term. The topic is usually discussed in the context of world population, though it may concern individual nations, regions, and cities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Energy descent</span> Process whereby a society either voluntarily or involuntarily reduces its total energy consumption

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">William R. Catton Jr.</span> American sociologist (1926–2015)

William Robert Catton, Jr. was an American sociologist known for his scholarly work in environmental sociology and human ecology. More broadly, Catton is known for his 1980 book, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, which is credited by younger generations of environmental scholars and activists as foundational for their own works in calling attention to humanity's role in expanding ecological overshoot to the global level.

In environmental science, a population "overshoots" its local carrying capacity — the capacity of the biome to feed and sustain that population — when that population has not only begun to outstrip its food supply in excess of regeneration, but actually shot past that point, setting up a potentially catastrophic crash of that feeder population once its food populations have been consumed completely. Overshoot can apply to human overpopulation as well as other animal populations: any life-form that consumes others to sustain itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earth Overshoot Day</span> Calculated calendar date when humanitys yearly consumption exceeds Earths replenishment

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wojak</span> Internet meme

Wojak, also known as Feels Guy, is an Internet meme that is, in its original form, a simple, black-outlined cartoon drawing of a bald man with a wistful expression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NPC (meme)</span> An insult that implies a person lacks critical thinking

The NPC, derived from non-player character, is an Internet meme that represents people deemed to not think for themselves; those who lack introspection or intrapersonal communication; those whose identity is deemed entirely determined by their surroundings and the information they consume, with no conscious processing whatsoever being done by the person themselves. The meme gained further viral status on TikTok in 2022, with the surge of "NPC Streamers". The NPC meme, which graphically is based on the Wojak meme, was created in July 2016 by an anonymous author and first published on the imageboard 4chan, where the idea and inspiration behind the meme were introduced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jem Bendell</span> British professor of sustainability leadership

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The term collapsology is a neologism used to designate the transdisciplinary study of the risks of collapse of industrial civilization. It is concerned with the general collapse of societies induced by climate change, as well as "scarcity of resources, vast extinctions, and natural disasters." Although the concept of civilizational or societal collapse had already existed for many years, collapsology focuses its attention on contemporary, industrial, and globalized societies.

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Uncivilization: The Dark Mountain Manifesto is the manifesto released in 2009 by Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine to signal the beginning of The Dark Mountain Project.

Postdoom, also post-doom, is a concept articulated by Michael Dowd in 2019 in his quest to "find the gift" beyond mere acceptance that ongoing climate change would inevitably lead to civilizational collapse. As Dowd reflected in a 2022 essay, "Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance: where are you in the vaunted stages of grief? And is doom automatically the end point?" He continued, "I began to explore the possibility of compassionate 'post-doom' forms of awareness." By the time of his death, Dowd had conducted more than fifty conversations with colleagues exploring the topic of post-doom, which are documented online in both video and audio formats.

References

  1. ↑ "Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind". BBC News. 2 December 2014. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  2. ↑ ""Humans will be extinct by 2026" – doom-and-gloom prophet Professor Guy McPherson on abrupt climate change". BizNews.com. 20 January 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  3. ↑ "Only 2020 could bring us words like these". Grist. 28 December 2020. Archived from the original on 28 December 2020.
  4. ↑ Holmgren, David (2009). Future scenarios : how communities can adapt to peak oil and climate change. White River Junction, Vermont. ISBN   978-1-60358-206-3. OCLC   1021809104.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)[ page needed ]
  5. 1 2 3 White, Patrick (7 March 2008). "Life after the oil crash" . The Globe and Mail. Toronto. Archived from the original on 5 January 2021.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Tiffany, Kaitlyn (3 February 2020). "The Misogynistic Joke That Became a Goth-Meme Fairy Tale" . The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020.
  7. ↑ Keating, Shannon (11 September 2019). "Against Nihilism". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020.
  8. 1 2 Martinez, Ignacio (7 January 2020). "Meet 'Doomer Girl,' the new voice of a classic meme". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020.
  9. ↑ Purtill, James (7 November 2019). "Breaking up over climate change: My deep dark journey into doomer Facebook". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 4 March 2020.
  10. 1 2 3 Hunter, Jack (16 March 2020). "The 'climate doomers' preparing for society to fall apart". BBC News. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021.
  11. ↑ Nicholas, Thomas; Hall, Galen; Schmidt, Colleen (14 July 2020). "The faulty science, doomism, and flawed conclusions of Deep Adaptation". OpenDemocracy. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021.
  12. ↑ Watts, Jonathan (27 February 2021). "Climatologist Michael E Mann: 'Good people fall victim to doomism. I do too sometimes'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 14 June 2022.
  13. ↑ Smith, Daniel (20 April 2014). "It's the End of the World as We Know It . . . and He Feels Fine" . The New York Times Magazine. pp. 28–33, 46–47. ISSN   0028-7822. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021.
  14. ↑ Knibbs, Kate (17 February 2020). "The Hottest New Literary Genre Is 'Doomer Lit'" . Wired. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020.
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