What the Hell Even Was the Last 8 Years?
Someone please tell me
This past week, something in me clicked—like I’ve been gulping down life again. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this kind of breath-of-fresh-air feeling. I’m talking about since... well, 2016.
Looking back, I didn’t realize how much of my world fell apart because of this weird obsession with identity politics. I mean, I lost almost everything. But it was more than just that—it was a spiral of shit that I couldn’t figure out, and that’s when I realized it wasn’t just me. It was a societal meltdown, playing out on a daily basis, and nobody had the manual on how to deal with it.
It started innocently enough. A Eurotrip with friends. Some of them non-white, which—let me tell you—was a minefield. They started accusing me of microaggressions, but they couldn’t even tell me what I said! Like, what am I supposed to do with that? “Hey, you just made me feel bad,” is not an argument. It’s like playing tag but refusing to admit you’re “it.” Meanwhile, fatphobia became the hot topic of every conversation, and my then-boyfriend was fighting with me over whether it was real. He accused me of being a "feminazi" (hilarious in hindsight), and left after six years together. And then, boom, everything unraveled.
Suddenly, I wasn’t just losing a boyfriend—I was losing friends. Like, people I’d known for a decade were turning on me. I was being called toxic, and when that happens enough times in one week, you start to wonder, maybe I am a monster. So, naturally, I retreated. I didn’t want to be the source of anyone’s pain. I shut myself off from the world, spiralling into a depression that lasted eight years.
And let me tell you, the media didn’t help. Suddenly, every public figure I liked—Leandra Cohen, Jen Gotch—was being accused of some form of white supremacy. And if I didn’t see it, guess what? I was the problem. How did I get dragged into this? I wasn’t even trying to play the villain!
I go to a bachelorette party, thinking it’d be a safe space, and nope. Friends were texting like they couldn’t even stand to look at me. Suddenly, I felt like the pariah in my own life. I became hyper-aware of every glance, every comment, and man, did it start to mess with my head.
So, like any rational person, I read White Fragility because, well, it was the book of the moment. Everyone was talking about it like it was gospel. I get a chapter in, and I’m like, this is insane. This book was an exercise in making me feel bad for existing. I couldn’t understand it. None of it made sense. And when I tried to talk to people about it, they looked at me like I’d just admitted to being a member of the KKK.
That’s when I started to really lose it. I became obsessed with peeling back layers of every conversation, trying to make sense of the chaos. Everyone around me had started to show signs of what I can only describe as malignant narcissism. It felt like the world had flipped upside down. It was like I was the only one seeing it. Everyone else just went along with it—blinded by the bullshit.
I’m not going to lie—I felt totally alone. Like, there was something going on that no one else was seeing. I would go to these parties, these events, and everything just felt... off. Every day felt like I was living in a dystopian novel, and I was the only one who wasn’t drinking the Kool-Aid.
And that’s when I thought, Is this America now? Is this the reality we’re living in? Because I’ll tell you, it didn’t feel like the country I grew up in. We were becoming a nation of ideologues. I thought maybe we were heading toward a totalitarian government. And I’m watching everyone I know turn into a brainwashed shell, and I felt like I was fighting ghosts.
But then, Trump won. And I know, I know, not everyone agrees with that, but for me, it felt like this weird weight lifted off my shoulders. Suddenly, I was hearing other common sense voices again. I wasn’t crazy. People were finally saying what I’d been thinking for years. The media was coming undone, and the left was spiraling so hard it was almost funny.
I’m still piecing it together. I don’t know if it was Russian mind control or just a bunch of woke lunatics taking over every institution and making everything impossible. But I’m pretty sure we’re living in a different world now. And while I’m still kind of processing all the insanity from the past few years, I’ve got hope again.
And hey, at least this time around, I won’t be alone.
I feel that same weight lifted and I can breathe a little easier.
It's the moral vanity of the left that makes them intolerant and intolerable.
Lot of things going on in this piece that need clearing-up, lot of assumptions.
1 - Can you give an approx/exact example of why they ostracized you and said you did a "microaggression"? If that many people are accusing you, you do have to consider that you are the problem in some way. Since they say "feminazi", it probably has to do with an unpopular view on women's bodily autonomy or trans women. I won't give you a full rundown here but I would just suggest one word: empathy. Even if all trans surgeries and abortions were banned tomorrow, actually put yourself in someone else's shoes for a second and think about the stress society has just put on you in dealing with your own body!
2 - Did you read anything about Jen Gotch and why she was called out? The receipts are fairly detailed on @bando_anonymous on IG. Mocking a black accent and generally belittling political and equality issues at the company. Which, sure, some of that happens across the board. But we have to start somewhere. That's where things like BLM and #MeToo are supposed to have power, it's not meant to make you or anyone else feel victimized but instead to help society CHANGE for the better.
3 - The middle part where you try to read a book on (Critical) Theory, without being taught or made aware of the long history of it or any sort of context, I sympathize with you on. I was not born knowing the Labor Theory of Value, or the many shades of communism/socialism, or Frankfurt vs. Austrian school of thought. Obviously this is barely mentioned in U.S. public schools because "any sort of collective action by the working/poor is evil". Again, all of these are too long to get into here, but I hope you do some homework on it and at least grasp the basic tenants of universal suffrage, solidarity, and equality.
4 - I think there's something to be said about bipartisan dystopianism, and even doublespeak by Democrats, but I'm surprised you don't give Trump/conservatives any credit for that. Conservatism has (as the name implies) always been about austerity and control, and that this would somehow be the best way to cure society's woes. Do you really believe that? And for all the doublespeak someone like Kamala might do about a topic like Palestine, how many times has Trump or Elon "forgot" or purposefully mislead about issues like immigrations (eating dogs) or that climate change isn't a worry (drawing on a map of Hurricane Dorian with sharpie as if he knows it won't hit red states like Alabama). The third option, would seem to be some sort of independent movement or libertarianism. However, that is a pipe dream when the powers-at-be already have a thumb in every pie of our lives. Three or four private equity companies control lionshares of most companies. So again, I urge you to read up on socialism, movements like DSA and PSL, and why so many of your friends are downright pissed at not only the powers-at-be but YOU for not understanding the suffering.
So I hope this comment is a beacon of light in the chaos. I'm sorry this is how you have to learn about why people are "crazy" (ie infuriated) but there are real, material reasons for it. Along with mindless social media toxicity all around. Wishing you the best.