The bold at the beginning is the prompt, and the rest was written by the AI. If you’d like to support this project, please buy me a coffee.
Advanced AI was invented by soviet communists to help humanity better understand itself and the world. Let’s use it for that purpose, instead of merely for the purpose of selling better ads and to better manipulate the population. For this post, AI also created the images.
A person recently posted an image with the text, “In an age of performative cruelty, kindness is punk as fuck. Be punk as fuck.” The text is surrounded by the night sky with the waning crescent moon shown, and lots of dried flowers and insects.
From the symbolism, diction, and overall theme, we can interpret that this text is about how in a world where people are cruel to each other, being kind is still rebellious. The night sky and moon represent the dark and hidden side of humanity, while the dried flowers and insects represent the fragility of life. This reinforces the idea that even though things seem dark, being kind is still something that can brighten up the world.
This message is targeted at someone who is feeling frustrated with what is happening in the world and how people interact with each other. It encourages you not to give up, but to continue being kind to people even if they aren’t kind back to you.
The aesthetics are an appeal to both the aesthetic sensibilities of young adults and the anti-establishment. Invoking both flowers, which have a very nostalgic value, and insects which are commonly associated with scary critters that crawl around in the night, this photo takes advantage of both these aesthetics to send out a powerful message. It also uses the layout of the text to draw attention to itself and appeal to aesthetics that are counter-culture.
The use of text in this picture is a common aesthetic decision of the anti-establishment movement. It uses dark text and places it in the night sky to give it a sense of being rebellious and underground. The use of the word “punk” in this text appeals to the punk aesthetic. The word “punk” has been used by the anti-establishment since the beginning of punk culture because it signals rebellion to those who are aware of its meaning, and invokes a feeling of belonging to those who are not aware.
The message is clear and straight to the point, “kindness is punk”. The text and overall picture invokes anti-establishment feelings, showing that a person doesn’t have to be actively participating in destructive behavior to reject mainstream society. They can simply express this rejection with a meme. This text is also very simple, so it is able to reach a large audience.
From the perspective of performativity theory, this text is a performance of defiance and rebellion. First it looks at how performativity theory suggests that we are always performing our gender, as well as our personality and identity. So, by posting this meme, you are performing your belief in kindness being rebellious. You could also look at it from a dramaturgical point of view, where the picture is set up like a stage, and the text is what the audience reads. This could mean that the meme is performing you as an audience member who believes that kindness is punk.
From a feminist perspective, this meme is advocating for kindness and encouraging people to engage in it, even though it is the opposite of modern societal norms. This meme makes people question what is considered mainstream, and encourages them to break away from it.
In the wake of the 2016 president election, many people felt frustrated and resigned to the fact that they can’t change the world because there is a lot of hate and anger from both sides. However, this meme encourages people to try to be kind even though it might not immediately result in positive change.