You know it, you've seen it, you're probably a manchild yourself!
You've probably seen the awkwardly suspicious "no, wasn't me!" excuses many times. And not just from individual lolcows - but from bigger corporate entities. Even the fucking World Economic Forum, back when it popularised the whole "you will own nothing and be happy" spiel, has not only deleted the relevant article and TikTok, it has also started blaming "evil rosshen hax0rs" for slandering them. Even though it's been archived on YouTube and... The Internet Archive a million times. Make a doodoo, waive all responsibility, blame Mr. Man (first name Boogey) for the doodoo, DARVO. And neither individuals, nor corpos, nor the WEF will stop doing it, and will never admit to their blatantly obvious sins.
Nah, they will continue going "I am rubber, you are glue", and that won't apply back to them because they're the literal center of the universe, fucking duh.
...and now I'm gonna tell you something you probably don't know.
Infantilism is fine. It's normal. But definitely not in doses we're experiencing it, though, and I'm about to tell you why.
There's... yep, three again, there's three distinct ego-states within a modern human, according to Eric Berne: Child, Parent and Adult. Like with the brain example, those three should ideally coexist. Unlike with the brain example, these aren't exactly "modes" of thinking, they're closer to being a family that can work together to solve everyday problems, from deciding what to eat for dinner, to facing risky dilemmas on the job.
The Child, naturally, is the first ego-state to populate a human mind, the halcyon days of when the whole world was one and you were very slowly and enthusiastically dissecting it. Then comes the Parent, who serves as the tard wrangler, and the main forbidder of many things - how else do you tell a naive kid that eating glue, microwaving your hamster or putting tiny little fingers into a socket is life-threatening, even if the kid's not doing it out of hate? Conversely, the Adult knows those things truly well and, while not with autistic precision in anything, can make well-thought decisions all for himself.
So, the Child says "want". The Parent says "should". The Adult says "could, that'd be a rational and good idea".
If that's the case, then what happens when Child overpowers the other two states? Shut up, that's a rhetorical question, we all know you know. Alright, fine, can you explain it, in autistic detail? Compare your answers to what's below, and you may just win the grand prize!
Anyway, now we have Child+ (me): a grown-ass human with arrested development who acts way beyond their age - not forwards, but backwards. They no longer have the curiosity of the days long gone, - that was replaced with some degree of cynicism, - but they still want to be spoonfed, hugged and shown cartoons before, after and during bed, else tamper tantrums are unavoidable. The "else" happens pretty frequently, as you can see, especially since every Child+ comes with The Angry Parent as a bonus!
Child+ usually treats their Parent as the voice in their head that constantly tells them how stupid they are. Or not constantly, but when it's more relevant: like when a perfectionist Child+ messes up even a bit, or when he's facing lots of criticism from people online. The Adult in them is minimal and rudimentary, to support the bottom-of-the-barrel survival instincts, with hygiene being optional more often than not.
So, while the list is not in any way complete, this edgy-ass combo of a childish mind, teenage tastes and adult body usually results in:
- lack of initiative - more specifically waiving responsibility for the things Child+ does and putting the blame on the others;
- basement dwelling w/ (grand)parents or insignificant others, which would've been a financially responsible thing to do in this economy, were Child+ making any bread other than breadtubing;
- basement dwelling w/o parents, which is a lot harder both on the budget and on the psyche, which is how Child+ becomes more gullible into joining the cult as their only remaining raison d'etre;
- very surface-level love and friendships, which are less free-range and more "merit"-based, I've put "merit" in quotes because it's usually one-sided;
- blatant lack of professionalism for whenever Child+ does, in fact, get a job;
- getting jobs in wagie-tier segments, getting anything DEI-related, especially in a big company, is gonna be like them catching a lighting into a bottle;
- lack of long-term planning and choosing instant gratification every time, so debt, junk food, paycheck-to-paycheck living and consoomerism;
- constantly getting spoiled resulting in constantly spoiled mood, despite Child+'s expectations, every. Single. Time.
Oh, and also, inability to do proper self-reflection, both physically and mentally. As in, self-awareness being eclipsed by their own ego, never mind awareness of anything around them. Hold onto that point, by the way, it's gonna be highly prominent when you start evaluating libtard behaviour even deeper.
Now, to be more relevant to the thread, if communism was "socialism plus electricity", Big Faggotry is "communism minus working class". No "working class" implies hedonism, amongst the lowlies, and hedonism implies infantilism - also on a foundational level. And considering how subverted our institutions in [the current year] are, this comes as no surprise. Indoctrination, entitlement, lies and, in the words of an also infantile Bri'ish graphic designer Ian Anderson, "work, buy, consume, die". Working also optional. Dying seemingly optional, but really not.
I'm not gonna dillydaddle on all of geek-/weebsphere beyond that, and focus on nostalgia instead - something that
is near and dear to my heart, and likely is to most farmers in this thread. Oh, right, and the Peter Pan Syndrome, before I forget.
I've confessed to my dad (who has a degree in Psychology, despite not being a psychologist) about how much the modern day culture sucks compared to the culture of yore - though he didn't seem to agree, saying it's always been kinda shit overall, it's just that the culture of the past came to us after getting heavily cleaned and sheened, with the greatest hits being at the forefront. The enshittification of media is a common sentiment, though: it's agreed that even such a pro-faggotry whore as Madonna had unironic bangers (thanks in part to William Orbit) until she went full 2020's with MDNA, Madame X and Ray of Light - not the song, the charity to support black trans "wimmens" in workplaces.
But maybe he's right. One of the pop cultural milestones of the first world, Eagleland in particular, was the Saturday morning cartoons. It's kinda symbolic that the peak of their popularity comes at when they were peddling cool toys, and then the popularity waned after they've begun peddling PSA's about how bad touch bad. It's symbolic because we're experiencing the same audience pattern but quadrupled down: Funko Pops good, people detesting Texican-Mexican criminals bigoted. That, and I doubt there were enough kids in the audience who could draw parallels between G.I. Joe or First Blood Part 2 with whatever wars the United States were waging at the time. And it's not like there wasn't enough war-related media before Gen X - it's just that nobody really cared, and military toys are cool.
Tangentially related, I think (but I'm probably wrong) that the Millenial/Zoomer cultural well became poisoned after the popularisation of music that pretty much glorified crime more than a single Grand Theft Auto would - and SURPRISE! they came from mostly the same songwriters, who were co-producing radio charters for Green Day and RATM, among many other big record label bands. There's a reason why I consider projects like Dookie Demastered and American Edit unironically more punk than Green Day, or all of commercial punk rock.
Anyway, the continuing popularity of the above proves that... yeah, you can enjoy a work of art (or "art") unironically if you completely forget about what dark shit it's really about, or how it was made. So, nostalgia goggles and progressivism goggles. Personally, though, I find it harder and harder to wear the latter, the deeper into known history we go. You know, Concord, Dustborn, Ass Creep: Niggers, all of that. Besides, there's a huge back catalog of games that I previously only saw in the 'zines, and they're more accessible than ever, even if Nintendo or EA refuses to sell them again. Why bother with 99% of the new stuff in the vidya industry when you can maybe buy one new good game once a year and spend the rest of my time with a PS1 emulator. So basically hopping from one flavour of infantilism to the other.
And wouldn't you know it, the other, more deranged manchildren came along!
Now is a good time to mention that Child is actually
the ego-state responsible for our creativity.
And this fact alone is why there's a stereotype about The Left(tm) being the creative types. Which is highly debatable when you look at some of their output.
It applies to many things: video essays, random pixel doodles, documenting the history of the medium, retro-esque games both for PC and for older hardware, autistic decoompilations of old games for fun, profit and trivia, - and yes, this is exactly why most of the Content Creators(tm) feel so entitled about what they make. Especially if their optics are day-for-night lenses, like with Jeremy Parish. I have barely watched a video from this particular Fag Baldman, but I've heard that he got severe backlash from les chuds when he praised an old (SNK-made, I think?) baseball game for including an all-female team, because progress.
Jeremy Parish. RndStranger. SomeCallMeJohnny. ThorHighHeels. Retro Pals. LGR. Kim Justice, for a British Caliphate example. Do most, if not any, of them have kids of their own? Psh, I know I don't. Even though I kinda want to.
Retro gaming has a very low barrier to entry - paradoxically moreso if you're interested in weird shit like Japanese exclusives, hardware from InterAct nobody really bought, or unlicensed cartridges for otherwise draconically regulated consoles. And if there's gonna be anyone who'd be wildly interested in weird shit, of course it's gonna be the "quirky" types like Xpadder over there.
And of course they're gonna be Antifa-tier defensive about it, almost like they legally own not just the niche, but the whole hobby. Sorry pal, WATA's got you brutally fucked on that last one.
Oh, and of course they'll tell you to grow up, do better, be better and maybe stop being a bigot - and that's the people who took "don't grow up, it's a trap" a little too literally, all while LARPing as adults (and women). I've promised to tell you more about the Peter Pan Syndrome, but really, the moment I've introduced Child+, I've already been doing nothing but that, go figure.
Anyway, unlike cult indoctrination, infantilism is treatable. When you heal it, it doesn't go away, it synergises with the more rational parts of your psyche. Taking responsibility for what you do and not being a fagtard are obvious steps towards that - so what isn't? Loving yourself. Accepting who you actually are, without any conditions. Treat yourself sometimes, consiously. Come to terms with your child traumas. If your inner Angry Parent gets on your nerves, ask him how he'd deal with your situation, and follow along.
That's very condensed methodology, because not only I'm having a slow and hard time following what I preach (thanks to my severe Palworld addiction), I'm also not a real therapist - but hey, recognising the symptoms is the first step to treating an ailment, so they say.
And so it prevails that the moral of the story is... don't kill the kid within you. Tard wrangle 'im. Softly and carefully. But let him live and let live.
