Review: Axiom's End

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this review by @SpanishSpy here

 

[Thande]

In other interviews she talks a lot about how she’s preempting 2000s nostalgia, and how the decade is perceived as less moral than its immediate predecessors

@SpanishSpy could you expand on this? With the caveat that this is speaking specifically about the USA or western culture (and mainly youth culture), I think this keys with something I've noticed. When you contrast online spaces today with how they were then, there was definitely a tendency for a 'race to the bottom' and a sense that being offended by anything, no matter how heinous, was contemptible, the measure of boldness or maturity was how inured one was to it all. For example, I can't help remembering Ellis herself's "Rapping About Rape" video (which ended up being deleted as it was beyond the pale even by 2000s standards) which had that philosophy. It is striking to contrast that with today where it feels as though the one-upmanship is more devoted to a sense of upright online moral purity and cancelling those who don't fit it--though, of course, this isn't comparing apples with apples because online spaces now have a larger and more regular membership than they did then.

 

[Charles EP M.]

I've seen Ellis say the book's inspired quite a bit by Transformers, so the 2007 setting is likely also because that's when the first of the Bay films came out

 

[Gary Oswald]

@SpanishSpy could you expand on this? With the caveat that this is speaking specifically about the USA or western culture (and mainly youth culture), I think this keys with something I've noticed. When you contrast online spaces today with how they were then, there was definitely a tendency for a 'race to the bottom' and a sense that being offended by anything, no matter how heinous, was contemptible, the measure of boldness or maturity was how inured one was to it all. For example, I can't help remembering Ellis herself's "Rapping About Rape" video (which ended up being deleted as it was beyond the pale even by 2000s standards) which had that philosophy. It is striking to contrast that with today where it feels as though the one-upmanship is more devoted to a sense of upright online moral purity and cancelling those who don't fit it--though, of course, this isn't comparing apples with apples because online spaces now have a larger and more regular membership than they did then.

It's interesting because I remember a post in around 2007 ish on livejournal which was about how we conduct ourselves online and it said male dominated spaces like the chans and something awful and reddit have become an increasing parody of edge culture where they outdo themselves with saying the most offensive thing possible, whereas the primarily female fandom discussion spaces which was livejournal at the time but tumblr and dramwidth were on the horizon, had gone the opposite way with a sense of exaggerated moral purity. Her argument was that both of these were ridiculous and just chill guys.

I would not have predicted that the former would produce a series of neo Nazi movements that would act as the outriders for right wing politics, while the latter would increasingly form the template for civic discussion among the left and centre.

 

[Charles EP M.]

I would not have predicted that the former would produce a series of neo Nazi movements that would act as the outriders for right wing politics, while the latter would increasingly form the template for civic discussion among the left and centre.

I can definitely see the former in retrospect - the far right sneaking in under cover of irony to prey on teenagers - than the latter, esp. because I remember seeing & hearing of the vicious fandom wars of that latter. But then maybe that's good training for politics!

 

[Thande]

It's interesting because I remember a post in around 2007 ish on livejournal which was about how we conduct ourselves online and it said male dominated spaces like the chans and something awful and reddit have become an increasing parody of edge culture where they outdo themselves with saying the most offensive thing possible, whereas the primarily female fandom discussion spaces which was livejournal at the time but tumblr and dramwidth were on the horizon, had gone the opposite way with a sense of exaggerated moral purity. Her argument was that both of these were ridiculous and just chill guys.

I would not have predicted that the former would produce a series of neo Nazi movements that would act as the outriders for right wing politics, while the latter would increasingly form the template for civic discussion among the left and centre.

I was reminded of the former when an LPer I watch, who has been going since 2007 and nowadays has a very right-on fanbase, loaded up a DS game he hadn't played since the mid-2000s when he used to play it online with his friends from SomethingAwful, and his modern fanbase were shocked that there were player profiles in there with icons like "ironic" swastikas and so on, which everyone took for granted at the time.

 

[SpanishSpy]

@SpanishSpy could you expand on this? With the caveat that this is speaking specifically about the USA or western culture (and mainly youth culture), I think this keys with something I've noticed. When you contrast online spaces today with how they were then, there was definitely a tendency for a 'race to the bottom' and a sense that being offended by anything, no matter how heinous, was contemptible, the measure of boldness or maturity was how inured one was to it all. For example, I can't help remembering Ellis herself's "Rapping About Rape" video (which ended up being deleted as it was beyond the pale even by 2000s standards) which had that philosophy. It is striking to contrast that with today where it feels as though the one-upmanship is more devoted to a sense of upright online moral purity and cancelling those who don't fit it--though, of course, this isn't comparing apples with apples because online spaces now have a larger and more regular membership than they did then.

I'm drawing from this interview she did, particularly the following excerpt:

Michael Pittard

​

And the 2000s are almost due for their turn in the nostalgia cycle. Seeing references to popular culture in Axiom’s End that were huge when I was in high school was both familiar and somewhat jarring, in a good way. As the cycle continues, what do you think authors will have to do to establish their book as belonging to the 2000s?

Lindsay Ellis​

My guess is that my book will be kind of an outlier, in terms of what will happen in the literary world. I think we’re much more likely to see film and TV go that way first. Even now, we’re still looking at the 80s and 90s, with Captain Marvel and Stranger Things. Cultural flashpoints are more likely to originate on screen.

But we don’t really know what the nostalgia for the mid-2000s is going to look like. My suspicion is it’s going to be not as fun as 80s and 90s nostalgia. I think the difference between the 2000s and these other two decades is that so much of the discourse now is looking back on how terrible and unjust it was. It was a terrible time for political consciousness. This is all a long-winded way of saying I think this new kind of nostalgia is going to be more critical than the nostalgia for the 80s and 90s.

Michael Pittard​

Nostalgia is becoming more and more important to be critical of, as the far right continues to weaponize it in service of nationalism and white supremacy. A more critical cultural nostalgia of the 2000s might not be a bad thing; it might even be more useful. What does this critical nostalgia look like to you?

Lindsay Ellis​

I think it’s going to be extremely divided, in a way that we’ve never really seen before. I guess the real question is going to be whose interpretation wins. Because the other thing about nostalgia, as opposed to just a study of the past, is that it’s therapeutic. Nostalgia has to be soothing, otherwise it’s not nostalgia.

There’s no logic to it, but that’s its function. With the far right and white supremacy, a lot of people find the notion that there is a great history we can return to a therapeutic idea. That’s why weaponizing nostalgia works so well. That’s the trick right now. In my case, and I don’t know how successful I was, I invoked nostalgia while being critical of the mid-2000s era, as well as speculating on how it might have turned out differently.

 

[Charles EP M.]

With respec tto her, I don't think we're likely to see a critical-of-2000s nostalgia for the same reason 80s nostalgia isn't going "remember Thatcher & Reagan?" in a serious way and 90s nostalgia doesn't have Bosnia & Kosovo lingering.

 

[Thande]

With respec tto her, I don't think we're likely to see a critical-of-2000s nostalgia for the same reason 80s nostalgia isn't going "remember Thatcher & Reagan?" in a serious way and 90s nostalgia doesn't have Bosnia & Kosovo lingering.

Well, nostalgia is normally used only in a positive way nowadays. There are certainly portrayals of the 70s and 80s (in particular) that dwell on the negative, but it would be difficult to describe them as nostalgia.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Yeah, nostalgia needs to be generally positive - and often based on youthful memories of How It Felt and Cor Being Young Eh??? So a 2000s would nod to the dark side of the internet but still be primarily "god remember THAT forum, middle-aged people? Remember how you were 17 at the time?"

 

[napoleon IV]

Yeah, nostalgia needs to be generally positive - and often based on youthful memories of How It Felt and Cor Being Young Eh??? So a 2000s would nod to the dark side of the internet but still be primarily "god remember THAT forum, middle-aged people? Remember how you were 17 at the time?"

I think 2000s nostalgia would reference the dark side of the Internet....except it's the dark side of the Internet in the 2010s, while the 2000s are treated as the halcyon days before every second person on the web was a Nazi.