Is the internet finally over the anti woke outrage cycle? | The Odyssey

One last voyage, seafarers!

Yes, I'm still thinking about the movie, but not as a film so much as a cultural moment. I joked at the start of the year in a different vid that I felt like the "vibes were shifting" in the zeitgeist around a few things, and the use of the word "woke" was one of them. Specifically how being anti-woke has been a useful rallying point for so much internet culture and media discourse for years now.

But the rather hilarious failure of the performative anti woke mob - not people who have valid criticisms of the film or its production or any number of artistic perspectives, but those who seem to selectively congregate around individuals or media properties, or because it seems like the right terrain for a good old culture war.

From the moment we started getting hints of the production, the anti woke rage squad were out in force. They hated the visuals, the casting announcements (especially the ones they utterly made up), the fact that clearly this film was a deliberate insult to "western culture," masculinity, heritage or whatever else they were mad about that week. Mostly women of colour and trans people, of course.

But...it didn't work. At all. The film is an undeniable blockbuster, the whole group involved haven't entertained a single bad faith take once that I've seen on the press tour, and it's on its way to cracking a billion dollars at the box office.

So, why didn't it work? After nearly a decade as a solid media and engagement strategy for whipping up anger and outrage to take personalities and ideas they don't like...has the outrage machine finally (FINALLY?!) run out of steam?