TikTok and the return of dance-step fever during warm-up phase of excitement cycle, like late 2000s online culture

The explosive popularity of the mobile app TikTok coincides with the transition out of the vulnerable phase of the 15-year excitement cycle, and into the warm-up phase when energy levels return to baseline from a refractory level, and people feel restless to get moving and interactive again. It reminds me of the late 2000s internet culture, the last time we were in the warm-up phase of the cycle.

The app lets you upload 15-second audio-visual clips to share with other users, and by far the main tendency is to have music playing on the audio, with the video saved for quick comedy sketches and sight gags, lip sync, or dance routines. It's most popular with people under age 25.

This first post will focus on TikTok's link to the return of dance mania, and a second post will focus on the return of non-parasocial media and its absence of personas.

To give a feel for what the app is being used for, and how it's spreading its influence into the broader pop culture ecosystem, we'll look at a dance routine for the song "Say So" by Doja Cat, a current top 40 hit in the US. The music is reminiscent of the disco era, and the late '70s was another warm-up phase of the cycle (naturally marked by dance fever).

First, a compilation of TikTok clips from Haley Sharpe, the originator of a dance routine set to the song, then a series of clips of other TikTok users adopting the routine, and finally the music video for the song which incorporated the routine and the originator herself. (All videos are small in order to not disrupt the flow of reading; click fullscreen to see them in a larger size.)

If you can't see these videos, reload the page (at least for me).







The moves in this routine recall my discussion of the nature of dance crazes, from the original post on the restless warm-up phase of the excitement cycle:

The most distinctive feature of this phase is, not surprisingly, dance crazes. I don't mean music that is highly danceable -- but music with accompanying dances that are so simple, repetitive, and color-by-numbers, that even someone who's barely emerging from a refractory period can get into them. Even those who are just getting out of their emo mindset from the vulnerable phase can get social enough to do these dances.

These dances are so rule-defined that they have their own names, and a list of them shows that they do in fact occur mostly during the third phase of the cycle.

It is not a spontaneous, free-form routine that requires a high level of skill and comfort-in-your-body to adapt on-the-fly. There's a small finite number of easily distinguishable moves or steps, each of which is simple enough to do and to carry out in a certain order. Painting-by-numbers, assembling building blocks according to the instruction manual, etc. It's like the Watusi, the YMCA, the Macarena, or the Cupid Shuffle (all from warm-up phases: early '60s, late '70s, early '90s, late 2000s).

Also like those examples, the song and the dance for "Say So" are linked together in a pair -- this routine goes with this song, that routine goes with that song. That way, there's no ambiguity or uncertainty -- and no social anxiety or awkwardness -- when the hit song comes on and everyone has to figure out how to move along to it. It's simple: you have no choice but to follow the routine that everyone else already knows, rather than trying to come up with your own individual moves.

Again, that's not so much about individual vs. collective orientation -- since plenty of these song/dance pairs emerged from the individualist, hyper-competitive neoliberal era -- but just a consequence of the routine's simplicity, widespread popularity, and the desire to not stand out or feel socially awkward when people are just starting to come out of their low-energy vulnerable-phase cocoons.

TikTok reminds me so much of YouTube during the late 2000s, when dancing and DIY music videos were among the most popular kinds of videos. It may be hard to remember, but way back in the olden days, there were no 20-minute monologues, no reactions to current events in any domain of society and culture, no characters, no false sense of intimacy -- just brief entertaining clips to get you in a good mood and feel excited. It was simple, unpretentious, engaging, and fun.

That state of YouTube did not last into the 2010s -- it was part of the warm-up phase of the late 2000s.

The main dance sensation was twerking, which was only just blowing up in popularity. And one YouTube dancer mesmerized millions with her instruction -- Patty Mayo. Lots of girls uploaded clips of themselves shaking their ass at the camera, but she had gymnastic training and a greater level of corporeal / kinesthetic skill, making her dances more of a proper performance. True to the zeitgeist, she did not put any effort into a visual brand (costume, staging the set, etc.), never spoke to the camera, and never revealed anything about her personal life. Just some random teenage girl cutting loose in her suburban home.

She was not just a viral video creator at the time, you can google her name (along with "dancer") and find large numbers of people asking what ever happened to her, from the early 2010s to present. YouTube has tons of copied videos of hers, although she only kept a few of them up on her own channel. Below is her dancing to "Cyclone" by Baby Bash. Again, the main dance move she's modeling for others to imitate is twerking, but there's also the moves that tie in to the song title, holding her hands above her head and undulating head-to-toe like a cyclone.



From the artistically inclined teenagers, there was the DIY music video for an existing hit song. These were less corporeal than a full dance routine, and less focused on the body moving in time to the rhythm. But they still incorporated a kind of choreography -- discrete, identifiable moves or gestures executed in a sequence -- especially if the creator edited the shots to transition in tandem with the beat. This is harder to do with TikTok due to the 15-second time limit, but if they relax that to a few minutes, it could come right back to popularity.

I first stumbled upon Olivia Parenteau's DIY music videos when "Hot N Cold" by Katy Perry came out. It was big in the dance club I spent most of my weekends at, so I figured there would be an official video for it, to listen outside of the club (I've never used iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, etc., and never will). At first, though, there was only some random teenagers' DIY video for the song -- but the stop-motion-inspired editing made it so infectiously fun to watch!

Below are her videos for "Hot N Cold," and "7 Things" by Miley Cyrus, each with millions of views (equivalent to hundreds of millions today). They were as popular as Patty Mayo videos, and just like them, have left their original fans returning to leave comments about how central they were to their pop culture experience of the late 2000s, from the early 2010s up through the present.





Of course, the original viral video on YouTube was a DIY music video for "Hey" by Pixies, made by two college babes way back in 2005, complete with choreography (if not dance-floor moves):



And then there was the 2007 viral video of two teenage girls dancing to "Harder Better Faster" by Daft Punk, choreographing not only their moves to the rhythm, but timing the display of their body parts with certain lyrics written on them to the moments when those lyrics are sung in the song. Like the video for "Hey," this one has tens of millions of views, equivalent to billions today. Its moves and the "lyric on body part" concept are simple enough that it spawned numerous imitators.



Although these once highly popular forms of YouTube videos did not last into the 2010s, they can easily be reborn in the current warm-up phase of the excitement cycle, although it may take a few years to reach its peak, and TikTok -- or some successor platform -- will have to relax the length to a few minutes instead of just 15 seconds. Welcome back to an online atmosphere when no one will care about your feelings, reactions, or persona construction -- when people will simply want to get into a groove and have fun with other people.

Social healing anthems come from manic pixie dream girls

The role of the manic pixie dream girl is to coax socially wary men out of their refractory-phase shells, in order to get both sexes re-acquainted with each other during the warm-up phase of the excitement cycle.

It's a form of social integration: undoing the social isolation of everyone huddling under a pile of blankets during their emo vulnerable phase, and getting them to join a social whole -- whether it's the two sexes interacting in ordinary public places, a dance club, or actually dating and mating.

The MPDG role is a kind of social healer, nursing others out of their state of social isolation, which heals the collective back into an integrated functioning whole. I don't mean "social healing" in any other sense (social justice, etc.).

We've already seen that these roles are overwhelmingly played by women who were born during the manic phase of the 15-year excitement cycle. They imprinted on an atmosphere of carefree invincibility regarding social relations, and are the most unflappable in that domain of life -- and so, the most capable of encouraging others that there's nothing to be afraid of about social integration.

In their movie roles, the specific kind of social integration they encourage is forming a couple between the male protagonist and a love interest (perhaps the MPDG herself). But there are other kinds of social integration that people who are just coming out of a refractory phase might be wary about pursuing, and may be tempted to continue wallowing in isolation.

An earlier post looked at resilience anthems, which appear during the warm-up phase as people start to come out of their emo cocoons. Only two of those songs are by women, and they're distinct from the male songs in having a more personal, intimate, direct, one-on-one address, as though the singer were a therapist or nurse to the listener. The kind of social integration here is all-purpose -- to get over self-doubt and self-pity, in order to form fulfilling relationships in general.

Both of these songs are performed by manic-phase births -- all three members of Wilson Phillips ("Hold On") are late '60s births, and Avril Lavigne ("Keep Holding On") is an early '80s birth. As a bonus, on the same album as "Hold On," Wendy Wilson was given a song ("Impulsive") in which she exhibits spontaneous, free-spirited traits that cement her in the MPDG role during the early '90s warm-up phase.

But the new genre I want to showcase in this post is the anthem that is a certain kind of therapeutic, self-empowerment, "you are not alone," "things will get better" type. It comes in the form of a direct, intimate, one-on-one address, like a therapist or nurse again. It's empathetic toward the listener's depression, doubt, etc., portraying it as a kind of social isolation. After trusting in the encouragement of the singer-nurse, the listener will feel better -- not in some generic sense, but specifically by being accepted by a larger group, by fitting in. It's encouraging social integration over isolation. The listener initially doubts that this is possible because of their gloomy view about their own individual quirks and traits -- but the singer-nurse assures them that being who they are is not going to make them ostracized, but will make them welcomed by the group.

The four examples are "True Colors" (1986) by Cyndi Lauper, "Hero" (1993) by Mariah Carey, "Beautiful" (2002) by Christina Aguilera, and "Firework" (2010) by Katy Perry. Lest I be accused of cherry-picking, I got them from Wikipedia's list of gay anthems. But they are universal in appeal -- they don't make any reference to the listener as marginalized, outcast, misfit, freak, weirdo, etc. All sorts of people may feel socially isolated, not just the tiny minority who are actively marginalized (or marginalize themselves).









Only one of these comes from a warm-up phase ("Hero"), one from a manic phase ("Firework"), and two from vulnerable phases ("True Colors" and "Beautiful"). So they are not linked by the phase they appear in, nor therefore what particular function they play within the excitement cycle. The tone is different according to their phase, with the vulnerable-phase ones sounding much more emo, and the manic-phase one sounding the most upbeat and carefree. But they do share the common theme described above.

All four of these songs were performed by manic-phase births: Lauper was born in the early '50s, Carey in the late '60s,* and both Aguilera and Perry in the early '80s. No matter what phase they found themselves in, they carried an imprint stemming from their birth (whose phase repeated when they were 15 and hitting their social stride as adolescents). They were meant to play a social healing role, whatever atmosphere they found themselves in at the time.

Since only one song is from a warm-up phase, it's not accurate to refer to these songs as manic pixie dream girl songs, but the performers do possess the free-spirited and spontaneous traits that are associated with the role. It may be hard to remember, but Mariah Carey was a different persona back in the '90s (see the video for "Dreamlover," during a warm-up phase, where she couldn't look like more of a MPDG). And Katy Perry was still fairly MPDG: compare the video for "Simple" (2005) with the video for "Firework," and see how similar her expressions are, looking directly into the camera with a sympathetic and encouraging look, reaching out her hand for reassurance, etc. Not a sex-bomb persona.

Finally, I'll reiterate that these are universal in their appeal, rather than "let you freak flag fly" anthems, which are a separate sub-genre on the gay anthem list, and are more apropos for deviants. I include "Brave" by Sara Bareilles in that category, since it's specifically about an outcast, someone getting bullied who ought to stand up to their bullies. Those don't show a bias toward performers born in any phase: Pink and Bareilles are warm-up phase births (late '70s), Kelly Clarkson ("People Like Us") is a manic-phase birth (early '80s), and Lady Gaga and Kesha are vulnerable-phase births (late '80s).

I looked for examples of social healing anthems before the 1980s but couldn't find any. They appear to reflect the neoliberal era's alienation and social isolation, and the need it causes for reassurance that they'll belong to a healthy group at some point. The hyper-competitive norm of the status-striving era also means that people are more likely to cut others loose, and to focus more on one's own needs than on including others in the group. The songs above serve to ameliorate the sense of hopelessness and isolation.

"Lean on Me" from 1972 is not an example, since it's about solidarity among equals within a community, rather than a relationship between nurse / therapist and patient. Its ethos belongs to the New Deal era, before neoliberalism. But for what it's worth, Bill Withers is also a manic-phase birth (late '30s).

* Wikipedia says Mariah Carey was born in either '69 or '70, with claims made in the media on both sides. But in a discrepancy over the year a woman says she was born in, always go with the earlier one. Especially if it straddles a decade boundary, and might make her think she's a full decade younger by being born "in the '70s" rather than "in the '60s".

All of Mariah Carey's personality traits and facial expressions, from her heyday during the '90s, resemble those of manic-phase births -- carefree, wholesome, and free-spirited, not an instigating provocative wild child (warm-up phase births), and not grave, tragic, or emo (vulnerable phase births).

After nursing others to health during warm-up phase, manic pixie dream girls pursue their own needs during manic phase of excitement cycle

So far we've been looking at the role that manic pixie dream girls play within the context of the restless warm-up phase of the 15-year excitement cycle -- coaxing wary guys out of their shells, so that the sexes can get reacquainted with each other, after 5 long years of refractory-phase hyper-sensitivity.

What happens to these girls once that role has been fulfilled, though, and the cycle enters the manic phase where everyone feels invincible and carefree? There's no longer a need for an earthly guardian angel to lift a guy up out of a deep psychological hole.

Roles are adaptive within a phase, and do not stay constant over time. New environment, new roles. Still, some may be better suited to a particular role than others are, based on their birth and development.

Once the wary people have been rescued from their emo funk by the manic pixie dream girls, during the warm-up phase, the MPDGs are then free to pursue their own social and emotional needs and fulfillment during the manic phase. They've been caring for others for the past 5 years -- it's time for a little vacation, a little break, a little "me time".

They were glad to care for others in the previous phase, and don't resent that at all. But now that that work has been done, it's time to play. They are not abdicating all duties and responsibilities, they're simply going on vacation. And it's not in a hedonistic degenerate way -- they just want to shake off their role of nurse and get footloose and fancy-free for awhile, in a wholesome way. As MPDGs, they were validating others -- now it's their time for receiving validation from others.

That's what was behind the backlash against the MPDG role during the early 2010s, after its heyday during the late 2000s: everyone understood that the MPDGs' function had been successfully accomplished, and now it was time for them -- and everyone else -- to move on to new roles during the manic phase. They were going to have more of a social life of their own, fulfill their own emotional needs, have others validate them rather than vice versa, and have some wholesome fun on their little vacation.

This change to the MPDG role shows up in a new focus on social independence during the manic phase movies with characters who, in the previous warm-up phase, may have been straightforward MPDGs. The girl in Ruby Sparks (2012) gets a life of her own, separate from her author-creator. The operating system in Her (2013) socializes with other OS's and leaves the human social ecosystem entirely. And the mermaid from Splash (1984) ends up leaving the human ecosystem of her love interest, taking him back to her own world under the sea.

This change was foreshadowed already at the tail-end of the MPDG heyday, in 500 Days of Summer (2009), where half the movie explores the MPDG leading a fulfilling married life of her own with another man, after having nursed the male protagonist out of his stagnant depression. It's not that manic pixies are fickle gypsies -- but that roles change along with the phases of the excitement cycle, and some other type of person may need her attention in a different phase (or she may need attention herself).

A more concise, impressionistic display of the changing of roles is this ad for Magnum ice cream with former MPDG Rachel Bilson from 2011 (infectious enough that I still remember it, despite watching minimal TV during my adult life). No longer nursing others through emotional rehab, she's now free to pursue a wholesome carefree treat of her own, on her own:



But the most intense signal of the changing roles is the "it's time for a little me-time" anthem that explodes during the manic phase of the cycle. These are not hedonistic, about cutting all social ties and responsibilities, egocentric, etc. They clearly place the desire for a little vacation and validation for themselves within the context of having already fulfilled their duties to others and behaved responsibly. It's simply time to take a break, catch their breath, and replenish their own emotional stores after having given to others, by having some carefree me-time fun. They will get back to their responsibilities to others, just after a brief rejuvenating vacation.

These anthems were performed by women who were born during a manic phase, just like the MPDGs were (early '50s, late '60s, early '80s). Also like the MPDGs, they socially imprinted on the manic phase environment when they were hitting their adolescent stride at age 15. And in one case, Avril Lavigne, she'd already played the MPDG role during the previous warm-up phase (the late 2000s, in "Keep Holding On" and "Girlfriend").

It's too bad that Cyndi Lauper and Shania Twain didn't have big hits from the late '70s and early '90s, when they would've been naturals in the MPDG role, to show the evolution across phases like Avril did. I assume that they at least resonated with the MPDG role during the warm-up phase, like other manic-phase births do in such an environment. By the time the manic phase rolls around, they certainly show signs of having been through a MPDG role recently -- I've taken care of others, now it's time for a validating vacation of my own.

They don't treat the generic topic of "me-time," though: it's a specifically feminine form of needing to unwind and receive some emotional validation from others. And that, too, is after having fulfilled a specifically feminine role -- nurturing others. That's why these fall into the broader "girl power" trend that characterizes the manic phase of the cycle. (There are different forms of girl power from women who were born during different phases, but that's a matter for a separate post.)

I searched the late '60s manic phase for examples, but came up empty-handed. The "girl power" songs from back then were more about social / political change, as the sudden eruption of the women's lib movement overshadowed the more mundane changing of phases in the excitement cycle. Without such a momentous one-time social revolution under way, I assume there would've been one of these anthems back then as well. Alternatively, in the pre-neoliberal era, it might have been unnatural to make songs that, in however qualified of a way, glorified me-time as opposed to couples-time, family-time, community-time, or country-time.

In any case, these anthems all made the year-end Billboard Hot 100 charts, and are some of the most iconic of the manic-phase zeitgeist.

"Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper (1983)



"Man! I Feel Like a Woman" by Shania Twain (1997)



"What the Hell" by Avril Lavigne (2011)

Lars and the Real Girl, a transition between robo-gf and manic pixie dream girl trends of the excitement cycle

On a whim last night I watched this critically acclaimed box-office disappointment, and it resonated so well with some earlier posts here on the topic of manic pixie dream girls and their place in the 15-year cultural excitement cycle.

First, recall that during the vulnerable refractory phase of the cycle, there's a retreat into the fantasy of obtaining a made-to-order robo-gf -- one who won't require all that painful social stimulation in order to court and woo.

Then, recall that during the restless warm-up phase that follows, the manic pixie dream girl archetype appears out of nowhere, as a kind of guardian angel to coax the male protagonist out of his vulnerable-phase cocoon, lifting him out of the emo funk that he'd been mired in throughout the previous phase.

Lars and the Real Girl came out in 2007, during a restless warm-up phase that should not have had the robo-gf and should have had the manic pixie dream girl. Instead of featuring solely one of those two types, the movie shows both, but in a way that is consonant with the warm-up phase -- leaving the emotional crutch robo-gf behind, and welcoming the charms of the manic pixie dream girl, as the protagonist works his way out of a deep dreary depression.

Even when the robo-gf is the focus of the plot early on, the protagonist is never depicted as enjoying a fulfilling retreat into fantasy (unlike The Stepford Wives, Weird Science, and the like). His attachment to his robo-gf is clearly shown as forced on his part, plainly an emotional crutch, and is treated as pathological by the other characters, who still want to help him through this awkward stage. This is the only way the robo-gf archetype can exist during the warm-up phase when people are itching to leave behind their emo-phase cocoons.

The manic pixie dream girl, for her part, doesn't get as much screen time as in other movies during the most recent peak of the type (the late 2000s). But it's clear what role she plays vis-a-vis the protagonist, does not exist so much for her own character arc across the narrative, and has the usual eccentricities in personality and appearance that are associated with the type.

A post on the birth phases of manic pixie dream girls showed that they overwhelmingly were born during a manic phase of the cycle. They imprinted on a social-cultural atmosphere of invincibility and carefree social relations during their introduction to the world -- and then again during their adolescence (around age 15), when they're hitting their stride socially. And sure enough, the actress playing the manic pixie dream girl in this movie was born in 1984, during the early '80s manic phase. It rarely fails!

Strangely, she is left off of lists of manic pixie dream girls. I'd been looking over them and watching as many as I could lately, to get a better feel for this character type, now that she'll be coming back during the early 2020s warm-up phase. But this movie had totally eluded my radar until mindlessly scrolling Amazon Prime.

She must have been left off because the type of people who write those lists are obsessed with individual personas, both because they're spergy nerds who don't understand social relations, and because they're status-striving types who see things as contests among individuals rather than a holistic superorganic social ecosystem. (The movie does a great job of portraying this aspect of real communities like small-town Wisconsin.)

What makes a character a manic pixie dream girl is not her individual traits that could be listed on a trading card, or an online dating app profile -- it is her relationship to the protagonist, how their social interactions drive the plot of him coming out of his emo funk. She is his earthly guardian angel, not just some isolated free spirit who wears barettes in her hair and is generally in an upbeat mood.

Another reason may be the total lack of irony or self-awareness in the movie's tone. If every other example of the character was played in a movie that was ironic or self-aware in tone, then how could this one be a true example of the type? Because tone has nothing to do with the relationship between the characters. Again, cultural critics are just doing superficial analysis, ignoring social relations and roles, and emphasizing stylistic choices like the degree of irony struck in the tone.

A final reason why it's ignored in discussions of the character type or overall genre, is that the characters are not metropolitan professionals. In the striver critic's mind, who else but yuppies and current private school kids could ever be going through a funk and need to be coaxed out of their cocoons to fulfill some higher purpose that requires social integration? Certainly not office drones in flyover country small towns.

All these exceptions recommend the movie over most of the more well known examples of the genre. The focus on the holistic social ecosystem, the sincere tone, and the humanistic portrayal of ordinary people from unglamorous walks of life -- really makes it feel like a throwback to before the current status-striving / neoliberal era. Unfortunately that meant it couldn't succeed much with audiences, but it's definitely worth watching.

Strangers saying "Hi" again, as vulnerable phase of excitement cycle ends, and further changes in social weather conditions

About a month ago I posted a brief update on the transition out of the vulnerable phase of the 15-year excitement cycle, noting that there seemed to be a dead lull in public spaces around the turn of the year. Well, that has since passed, and we're back on track into the restless warm-up phase. Maybe people really just were going through one last chrysalis stage before emerging anew.

Teenage or 20-something cuties continue to brush against me in public places, although no more catcalling so far since the end of last year (I did say it's rare even when it's in the air). That was unlike the previous 5 years, when everyone was in a refractory phase.

Another update to the social weather report: I've noticed strangers saying "Hi" first, or at least responding with "Hi" when I initiate, at the public park that I sometimes go for a long stroll around. The rate has been pretty high, with only a few anti-social killjoys, and this has been true even when it's dark and you'd think they might be nervous talking to strangers. But nope: friendly neighborly behavior is back.

Was it ever gone? Absolutely: I wrote about it during the last time it was still somewhat in the air, in the summer of 2015. (I focused on the generational divides, but was still picking up on a change in the social weather conditions.) That's the same summer I pointed to in the other posts, as the last time I had been brushed against or cat-called by hormonal honies in public places where there's no expectation of a sexually charged atmosphere.

No matter what aspect of the social weather conditions you use, they all return the same picture -- the beginning of feeling over-sensitive to social stimuli had begun sometime in 2015. It did not vanish completely overnight, so I still noticed these social behaviors that we associate with the warm-up or manic phases, but they were not common enough as before, showing that the vulnerable phase was transitioning in. And I can't think of any such examples from 2016 through most of 2019 at all.

The example of strangers from the same neighborhood saying "Hi" shows that it's not just the return of sexually charged interactions between males and females. It generalizes to all forms of social stimuli, whether the other person is too old for you to be attracted to, whether they're the same sex, or whatever else.

To make a prediction, I think people will start chatting more with cashiers in the early 2020s. I've noticed a steady decline in my own willingness to chat with them over the past 5 years, despite being on friendly, talkative first-name terms with them back during the manic phase of the early 2010s (in a different city back then -- not that I've ghosted them since!). And I haven't seen many other people chatting it up with them either, not like I observed in the early 2010s anyway.

Looking further forward, I think the most reliable hallmark of the manic phase will hit, during the late 2020s, when people feel comfortable talking to strangers at length in public places, to the point where they become regular conversation partners. They'll be flying high, feeling invincible, nothing could go wrong.

The last time I took that social leap was in 2012, and made a regular realtalk buddy at the Starbucks I used to hang out at. A real eccentric conspiracy-minded Boomer, someone to blow off steam with, make observations about what was going on around us, and other typical barfly stuff.

I haven't even bothered "hanging out" in such places over the past 5 years -- I can see from outside that it's totally dead inside, where everyone is hunched over a screen of some kind, in total isolation from one another, like some spergy computer lab. There was already a heavy amount of that during the last manic phase, but there were enough exceptions to liven the place up.

On a final speculative note, maybe it's just me, but I've found myself singing out loud in public again for the first time in what seems like forever. Tonight I was in a good mood and "Listen Like Thieves" came on in the supermarket. A week or so ago, it was "What Makes You Beautiful" (one of the younger girls who works there got a kick out of that). Around that time, the thrift store was playing new wave b-sides and deep cuts all night (first time I remember getting to sing along to "Hot in the City" or "Feels Like Heaven" in public).

I've just lost that emo feeling that everyone had in public during the late 2010s -- it's not just how I myself felt, but my reaction to others. Even if I'd felt in the mood, knowing that everyone else was in an emo funk and therefore not receptive, would've kept me quiet.

When was the last time I felt so uninhibited in public? Definitely during the last manic phase, when it seemed like Trader Joe's had a new wave playlist running every night. Sometimes I stopped by just to sing along and get into the groove. As for a year? I don't know, 2014 or '15, at least at the degree of regularity that I find myself doing it now. The peak was 2013, as with so much else during that phase...

Any other suggestions for behaviors and changes to be on the look-out for, let us know in the comments.

Topless protests prove Me Too is dead, and that pol junkies are boob men / women, not ass men / women

After seeing topless protesters hijack Bernie's rally in Nevada, I can't help but fit that into the broader pattern detailed in an earlier post about how political junkies are boob men and women. The men fixate more on T than A, and the women are either busty or at least favor displaying their boobs rather than ass to an audience. The explanation is that political junkies are cerebral, which is correlated with being a boob man / woman, while corporeal people tend to be ass men / women.

That post drew on evidence from social media personas, but here we see the same pattern emerge in a different context (IRL protests).

In fact, these women protesting dairy farming are only one example of a larger tendency toward topless protesting, most notably the FEMEN group (they're Slavs, so they don't have either T or A, but always chose to display the top rather than bottom). Then there was the #FreeTheNipple thing. Both of those were part of the Slutwalk era during the last manic phase of the excitement cycle in the early 2010s, before the Me Too phase of the late 2010s.

Incidentally, the re-emergence of topless protests is another sign that the vulnerable phase of the cycle is over, and we're now in the restless warm-up phase. No way this could have happened during the height of Me Too, when women in a refractory phase felt hysterically vulnerable to unwanted sexual attention. Nor is anyone in 2020 going to call Bernie rape-y or molest-y for staying on stage with topless young women, rather than averting his eyes and making a bee-line for the exit like a good male feminist.

Earlier there was bra burning during second wave feminism. Streaking during the '70s was not political, and in any case cannot resolve the matter because the entire body was shown, not only one area or the other.

When only one region is shown, it's always about taking off their tops, not baring their buns. Nothing prevents them from taking off their underwear, or wearing a g-string or something, and twerking around on stage. Or only pulling down their pants enough to moon someone. The fact that mooning is already a widely established form of revealing private parts to diss someone, and yet is never done during these racy protests, shows just how inclined they are away from the back and toward the front.

"I Sub Myself" by the Replinyls (song for parasocial Valentine's Day)

No emo whining about Valentine's Day -- we're out of the vulnerable phase of the 15-year excitement cycle. Time to start having fun with things again.

What better way than an ironic take on the parasocial character of relationships in these too-online times? Ironic in the fun-loving sense -- an unabashed celebration, disguised by self-deprecation. (As opposed to ironic in the joy-killing sense -- raw deprecation of others, disguised by adulation.)

We're entering the first year of the restless warm-up phase of the cycle, so the following tune from 1990 could not be more apropos:

* * *

I scroll myself, I want you to scroll me
When I get banned, I want you to parole me
I stop myself, I want you to F5 me
I unfollow myself, I want you to subscribe me

I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself
Ohhh
I won't stalk anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no

You're the one who makes me bust brain cells
The start and end on my timeline
When you're logged on, I'm always lol-ing
You're gonna swipe me right

I crash my site, and feel you restore me
Think I would die if you clicked on ignore me
Though there's ten-thousand tweets, I'm gonna fully explore you
Just feed me red meat, I'll forever simp for you

I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself
Ohhh
I won't stalk anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no

I scroll myself, I want you to scroll me
When I get banned, I want you to parole me
I stop myself, I want you to F5 me
I unfollow myself, I want you to subscribe me

I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself
Ohhh
I won't stalk anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no

I'll stalk you
I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself
Ooof, ooof, ooo-ooof, aaahhh

I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself
Ohhh
I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself

I sub myself...

Left-right love-hate pop-punk (spin on Miley's "7 Things" for leftie babes drawn to populist bros)

To continue the Valentine's Day theme, I'm struck by the mutual fascination between leftie babes and populist bros, and channeled it into a love-hate song about reconciliation and realignment, to lift our spirits in these overly polarized times.

These girls feel bored and restless and lonely just hanging out with the same incestuous clique of internet leftoids (or right-wingers, in the guys' case). Then there's the widely acknowledged pattern of girls (on all sides) finding left-wing guys not-so-appealing, and having to hate-fuck hot guys who are moderates or conservatives in the culture war.

It's not just hotness, though -- girls want a guy who's complex and puzzling, almost to the point of infuriation. They want to build dramatic tension by being tragically torn between liking his light side and hating his dark side. Why can't he just be one type, and make himself simple to figure out and react to?

That's why these restless, curious-minded girls are drawn not to generic conservatives, but those who frustrate their innocent worldview, committed to left goals on economics and foreign policy and right goals on society-and-culture.

I'm making the relationship an online one, where most of these fascinations take shape.

The love-hate tone calls for an endearingly bratty wild-child singer and audience -- those who were born, and later came of age, during the restless warm-up phase of the 15-year excitement cycle. Born in the early '90s, adolescents in the late 2000s (and matching the current shift into that phase, leaving the vulnerable phase of the late 2010s).

The tune is one I'm sure they'll remember, "7 Things" by Miley Cyrus, 2008. (In my lyrics, "MAGA" rhymes with "saga".)

* * *

I'll problematic-fave this:
"Strong border and single-payer"
Though the reasoning sounds devious
The father instinct's there

You chose Obama, then went MAGA
It's so illogical to me -- still I care

And now we're scrolling stale takes
We can't rekindle rebel flames
Until you've read my thread:
The problematic things about you

The problematic things about you
Bro brain, kink-shame, you're so mature
You talk sweet, you like slurs
You make me clap, you make me "yikes"
I don't know which replies to hide
Your frens, they're spergs
When you post like them, get no converts
I wanna simp for the king I know
The most problematic thing of all time that you do:
You make me fave you

It's awkward and it's silent
As we await election day
But what I need to see from you
Your support for Bernie's dream

And when you meme it, I'll retweet it
If you next it, I'll receipt it

Let's be clear
Oh I'm not logging off
You're solving problems this year

The problematic things about you
Bro brain, kink-shame, you're so mature
You talk sweet, you like slurs
You make me clap, you make me "yikes"
I don't know which replies to hide
Your frens, they're spergs
When you post like them, get no converts
I wanna simp for the king I know
The most problematic thing of all time that you do:
You make me fave you

Though sometimes I'm literally shaking
From the takes you share online
You still restore my faith in humanity, no lie

The faith-restoring things about you
Your stare, your size, your bold replies
When we chat, I fantasize
You make me clap, you make me "yikes"
Now neither one I'll have to hide
Left-right timeline
When we're realigned, 50-state landslide
I wanna simp for the king I know
The most faith-restoring thing of all time that you do:
You make me fave you

Before Shakira went ethnic upon arriving in the US market

For the first time since the late 2000s, I made it a point to tune into the Super Bowl halftime show live.

I was worried that, like last year's show, it would be mining songs from the previous vulnerable phase of the 15-year excitement cycle, the early 2000s, since both Shakira and Jennifer Lopez have songs going back that far (unlike Lady Gaga and other recent performers). But in a sign of the changing of the cycle into the restless warm-up phase, Shakira played a set list that was evenly spread out between vulnerable, warm-up, and manic phases.

The closest song to where we are in the cycle was "Hips Don't Lie," from an album released during the first year of a warm-up phase (2005). If she had left that one out, it would have signaled our still being reluctant to leave the emo-phase cocoon. But it looks like the changing of phases is right on schedule. Especially compared to the most emo of all Super Bowl halftime shows last year, where Maroon 5 left out all their bouncy hits from the late 2000s and early 2010s.

But enough about that aspect of the performance. What really struck me was the periods that she did leave out -- namely, anything before her crossover into the US market (except for a brief passage from "Ojos Asi"). I assume that's standard for her tours, but for the Super Bowl halftime, you've got a far broader captive audience than your existing fan-base. Plus, you probably won't get to play to such a large audience again -- don't you want to survey the whole of your musical career, to memorialize it?

The usual story about her crossover plays up the angle of "selling out" -- but that is wrong because her two big albums in the Latin American market, during the late 1990s, were both released by major labels. It's not that she went from indie to corporate, but that she changed from ethnically nondescript to an ethnic persona -- primarily a Latina, and secondarily a Lebanese (as shown by her doing a zalghouta, or ululation, during the halftime show).

That also relates to her sexual persona, which was already present during her Latin American market period, but was not specifically a "Latina hottie" persona. She was the hot rocker chick -- no connotation about her race or ethnicity, but the sub-culture she belonged to (alternative rock, girls who had funky hair, wore leather pants, etc.).

She was like a mix between Alanis Morissette of that time, and Charli XCX during the early 2010s (who did not play up her half-Indian background). Wild and extraverted, but with a tender and introspective side as well, that made it impossible to dismiss her as just another wild-child slut who you would pump-and-dump in real life. Anxious attachment style, bordering at times on clingy, rather than an aloof alpha queen bee or a maneater. A very distinctive and infectious personality.

They also wrote songs with a vocabulary higher than a middle-schooler's, use of figurative devices, wordplay, and so on. It made her sound more mature and singer-songwriter-y. When they turned her image into a Latina sex bomb, there was no need to make her sound poetic. Not to mention that in her native language, there's a broader and deeper range of emotional delivery than in English, which she picked up during her 20s.

Once in the US market, she has an exotic sex appeal, which plays her up as so much more carnal than the Puritanical natives. But earlier among her Latin American audience, she was not cast as an almost primitive carnal creature -- rather, a modern babe with a curvaceous ripe bod, a baby doll face, and a dark waterfall of hair.

To the limited extent that she performed an ethnic persona in that period, it was not Latin but Arabic / Middle Eastern / Lebanese, as shown in the song and video for "Ojos Asi". Near Eastern culture is exotic to Latin Americans, while any of the Latin cultures themselves would clearly not be. Still, it was really only that one song that tapped into her Levantine exotitude, and overall she had no specific ethnicity or exotic angle to her recorded music or stage presence.

Shakira thus underwent a Latina-fication of her persona (and somewhat a Leb-ification), not a corporatization. The battle over who "owns" her is not between indie fans and mainstream fans, but members of different ethnic groups -- is it Hispanics, or Lebanese / broader Middle Easterners? After that belly dance and zalghouta before a global audience, the Middle Easterners are staking their claim to her cultural territory.

This development is similar to the Afro-ization of Prince, which I covered when he died in 2016. Everyone was acting like he was a "black musician" who belonged to "black people" and whom only "black commentators" could discuss -- rather than a New Wave / rock god who belonged to Americans in general. That was such a shock to see at the time -- I don't recall that process in place in 2007 when he played the Super Bowl halftime show, where he went out of his way to make it non-racial rather than black-themed.

I first covered the ethnic nature of Shakira's crossover way back in 2007. I'm nothing if not consistent and loyal in my musical tastes. I first got turned on to her in 1999 by a Spanish class presentation, downloaded a bunch of her Latin American songs during college, and never got into her crossover stuff. (I do love "Hips Don't Lie" in a dance club setting, though, where it remained a staple well into the 2010s).

The main points and predictions of that post seem to hold up over a decade later. White people use ethnic-branded music as woke virtue signaling, and the quality of woke-branded culture is far lower than what would have been produced by those ethnic groups back in their own more homogeneous countries where they don't have to pander to the demand for exotitude. And this trend has not aided in cultural assimilation of immigrants, but has only led to their tribal boosterism where they stake a claim on some major cultural figure as their own, and every other group has to submit an application to them in order to enjoy it, discuss it, or do literally anything with it.

So, let's conclude with a look back at Shakira's music and persona when she was catering to her own people's market. Unfortunately all the YouTube videos I embedded in that ancient post have since disappeared. Here's the best I can reconstruct it. There are official music videos with better sound/visual quality, but I want to highlight her stage presence to emphasize that she was not a Latina sex bomb, but a hot alterna-rocker chick (of no particular ethnicity).

I included an English version of "Inevitable" because it was performed on the Rosie O'Donnell Show before a US audience in the late '90s, and it shows that her persona was still the same as it was in Latin America at that time. No pandering to "Latina sex bomb exotitude" just because the audience was American.

"Pies Descalzos, Suenos Blancos"



"Ciega, Sordomuda"



"Inevitable (English)"



"Moscas en la Casa"

MeToo moral panic officially dead, as theme of rape / trauma disappears, leaving only generic non-physical "sexism"

About a year ago, I noted that MeToo was winding down during the final year of the vulnerable emo phase of the excitement cycle. The refractory state that people are in during the vulnerable phase makes them hyper-sensitive to unwanted social contact, and primes them to resonate with the theme of unwanted attention or contact, or with victimization in general.

The hysterics were trying to MeToo Bernie at the very end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 -- not by accusing him directly of sexual assault, but by airing accusations against former staffers and aides of his, insinuating that the leader had a culture of sexual harassment and violence in his political operation. Then they went after Biden for being a handsy creeper who had a pattern of unwanted sexual touching toward female staffers.

Neither of those attacks stuck, which showed that the hysteria was dying down, but not over with -- after all, the mainstream press spent multiple news cycles stoking the theme of rape.

By now, as we enter the warm-up phase of the excitement cycle, the hysteria is over with altogether, and before long a full-on backlash will erupt. The latest round of attacks relating to the battle of the sexes was Lyin' Liz lying that Bernie said he didn't think a woman could be elected president. There is not even a tangential aspect of rape, physical harassment, touching, trauma, invasion of personal space, or any related part of the overall theme.

The lying press, including half or more of the left, have tried to smear Bernie indirectly by pointing to politically incorrect statements made by Joe Rogan, who has only said positive things about Bernie and Tulsi during this electoral season, and whose favorable comments the Bernie campaign put into a video clip. But they didn't involve the theme of rape or any physical harm by men against women.

If anything, Rogan's "problematic" statement was anti-rape in theme, as he said he didn't want men dressed as women to fight in the mixed martial arts ring against actual women. Anyone claiming that cross-dressing men should have the right to pummel a woman's skull in, against her desire (she would only want to fight other women), are clearly the women-haters and rape apologists.

But that doesn't matter, because identity politics is for elites only -- and culturally liberal elites have decided that tranny degeneracy, up to the point of allowing someone with male hormones and muscle to beat the living shit out of a woman, are to be sanctified by woke norms, and that the collective protection of women from violent men must be sacrificed if necessary.

In any case, neither Rogan himself nor his legions of listeners were accused of physical harassment or sexual violence. They were smeared with generic accusations of toxic masculinity, sexism, problematic beliefs about women, etc.

By this point in the excitement cycle, the feminazis have realized that the theme of rape does not resonate anymore with a morally panicked audience. So they have to fall back on all-purpose accusations that someone does not adhere to woke gender norms. OK, BFD then. They can impotently hector us all they want at this point, but it won't be an outright witch hunt that is feeding and being fed by a morally panicked mob.

This reflects the normalization of our energy levels -- they are no longer plunged into the refractory state, but are returning to baseline, albeit not rocketing off onto another spike just yet. We are only entering the warm-up phase now, not the manic phase, which will hit during the late 2020s. Not being hyper-sensitive to unwanted contact anymore, we aren't marks for appeals to protection from unwanted violation of physical privacy. If you don't want to be touched, reject the person or go somewhere else or whatever -- it's not going to overload your nervous system and be the end of your life.

In this new "back to baseline" state, we don't feel the need for a savior to swoop in and rescue us from all the would-be rapists out there. This will generalize into no longer feeling the need for saviors in general to deliver us from would-be victimizers -- and that will end the leftist bubble since roughly 2015, as well as the Trumpist bubble of the same time. But that's a topic for a separate post.

(In the meantime, see here for an analysis of these leftist "savior for the victims" bubbles occurring during the vulnerable phase of the cycle, and then evaporating after that phase is done with.)

Updates on transition out of vulnerable phase of 15-year cultural excitement cycle

Maybe it's just around here, but public spaces have been absolutely DEAD since sometime between Christmas and New Year's, or a solid month already. Regardless of which type of public space, typical demographic that uses it, time of day, weather, or anything else. I've never seen everywhere so deserted all at once and for weeks on end. And the handful of people who are there are making for a very low-energy atmosphere.

At first I thought this might mean the vulnerable emo phase is merely extending into the first calendar year of the next phase, the restless warm-up phase when people come out of their cocoons. Certainly the timing doesn't have to get right down to the changing of the calendar year. So maybe this is just a final bottoming out of the "leave me alone" attitude that has grown steadily since about 2015.

However, this seems like a qualitatively different state -- not just a higher quantitative degree of the kind of emo, withdrawn, refractory behavior of the previous 5 years. It's like people have ended the refractory phase, but in order to fully come back out into the open with a new pro-social attitude, they need to go into a brief chrysalis and then emerge after a metamorphosis. Over-sensitive juvenile emos, no more -- now, socially open adolescent or adult types.

This kind of social cocoon is not to fend off stimuli that might overload the nervous system of someone in a refractory state. It is to protect them while they undergo a metamorphosis, from an immature to mature form. Why can't they be disturbed, why do they require seemingly total isolation for at least weeks and perhaps months on end?

Maybe there's so much re-wiring of their mental and physical programming, that they simply can't function well in normal social situations, which would require a stable set of programming, not one in major flux. Plus, a torrent of social stimuli would interrupt that re-wiring process by making their minds and bodies pay attention to incoming external stimuli, instead of devoting all resources to the internal re-wiring process.

It's like closing a store to the public for days, weeks, or months while it's being re-modeled or re-developed. You don't merely allow fewer-than-usual customers inside -- if the plumbing, wiring, HVAC, etc., are being torn up and re-built, you can't have any customers at all putting demands on those systems. They'll have to come back in awhile, when all the changes have been made and the systems are back online in new-and-improved form.

Unfortunately I can't reflect on what happened the last time the cycle changed from vulnerable to warm-up phase. I was living in Barcelona for the first months of 2005, and I was not part of the usual social climate there, being an ex-pat who'd been there less than a year. I did, however, notice major changes by the summer of 2005, when I was back in America, compared to the early 2000s, and that shift only became more pronounced throughout the rest of the late 2000s.

So perhaps this chrysalis stage will last through the winter and/or spring, and be finally done away with when the warm weather returns with the mating season? We'll have to wait and see. Hopefully it's sooner rather than later.

I'm also not clear on whether this affects the mass-market pop culture that so closely reflects the changes in the excitement cycle. I'd have to look at the first months of 2005 for the Billboard charts or something -- not just the #1's (which Wikipedia does have), but the new entries into the Hot 100 (the #1's have generally been out for awhile by the time they hit the top). And Billboard doesn't have that info on their site.

I have noticed that the radio has remained heavily emo in tone -- almost more so than last year. That's true for stations that play more upbeat music, and from earlier decades -- I've never heard so much late '80s soft rock on the stations that usually play happy manic-phase music. Contempo stations are relying on the emo tunes of the past 5 years still, rather than trying to hype up the brand new stuff, whatever it is.

You'd think after the new year, they'd want to make a clean break. But they're doubling down on emo for the time being. If their audiences have entered a final chrysalis, it would only make sense for the radio stations serving them to do so as well.

The first clear test will be Dua Lipa's upcoming single "Physical," to be released on January 31. The restless warm-up phase is characterized by dance crazes, and a disco-oriented social-cultural atmosphere. There was proto-disco in the early '60s, original disco in the late '70s, neo-disco in the early '90s, neo-neo-disco during the late 2000s, and soon neo-neo-neo-disco in the early 2020s.

There were a couple initial moves in this direction late last year with "Don't Start Now" by Dua Lipa and "Say So" by Doja Cat (currently climbing the Hot 100). But these aren't such a clear break with the mellow, dreamy, emo phase and its start-and-stop rhythms for dance music. We need to hear something like "Hung Up" by Madonna, which didn't come out until October of the first year of the warm-up phase. It could always come earlier this time around -- but you'll know it when you hear it. And so far, we haven't heard it.

Dua Lipa modeled the cover for her upcoming single on the cover of Madonna's 2005 album that "Hung Up" comes from, so let's hope there's musical similarity as well, and we can kick off the neo-neo-neo-disco era already.

Manic Pixie Dream Girls are corporeal ass women, not cerebral boob women

We'll soon see a return of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl type, now that we're into the restless warm-up phase of the 15-year cultural excitement cycle, since that is the phase during which they appear.

That post looked at their character traits, and a pair of follow-up posts (here and here) showed that these girls are overwhelmingly born during the manic phase of the excitement cycle. They imprinted on a social mood that was carefree and invincible -- just what she needs to take the initiative and coax a wary love interest out of his vulnerable-phase cocoon.

Having covered their personality type, we continue on to their physical type. Height plays no role, ranging from 5' shorties to the 5'8 tall-for-a-girl end, although no one in the model-tall range. Not surprising: guys do not care how tall a girl is, one way or another. Still noteworthy, though: "taking the initiative" here does not mean being a tall amazon aggressor.

They have hourglass waist-to-hip ratios, which is not too surprising since that's what guys prefer in general. But it is worth noting that they are not relatively slim-hipped women with higher testosterone -- that's not the source of their taking the initiative with the guy. They have a feminine, fertile shape, reinforcing their role more as nurturers -- coaxing the guy out of his shell to heal him of his emo sickness, not strutting over to seduce him like an aggressor.

And to return to a perennial theme here, are they boob women or ass women? They are not busty: most have a B cup, with somewhat more A than C cups. Not being a boob man, I'm blind to them, and this was all news to me. I had no idea Natalie Portman was an A cup (guess she didn't get that particular Ashkenazi gene).

The only D cup is Katy Perry, but that's not such an exception anyway. First, she has a thick lower body. But to the point, I listed her because of "Simple," and in that 2005 video they dressed her in a baggy shirt so you can't tell what they're like even if you're paying attention. Their intuition told them it just wouldn't be right to have that persona coming from a girl with giant jugs.

Why not? Perhaps the sexuality would be too forward (literally) and threatening to a guy who is still wary about leaving his refractory-phase cocoon. Ass men would have no trouble ignoring them, but boob men would. The guy needs to focus on her facial expressions without distraction, to get back into the hang of back-and-forth social interactions with the opposite sex.

An ongoing theory here is that boob women and men are more cerebral, while ass women and men are more corporeal (see here for a recent post looking at political junkies being mostly busty women and boob men). So there's another reason she can't be the busty type -- she would likely be more cerebral, and that goes against the MPDG type.

She must be corporeal -- a touchy-feely free spirit in tune with nature and physical activities (like dancing), whose plans to get the guy out of his funk do not involve over-analyzing things, devising Rube Goldberg contraptions, etc. "Let your mind go, and your body will follow" (SanDeE from L.A. Story). Guys coming out of a refractory phase need to be rehabilitated physically, not just mentally, and corporeal girls will be best able to perform this role.

That means they're mostly ass women, by which I mean the gestalt fertility zone -- belly, hips, ass, and thighs, as distinguished from the mammary zone. That doesn't mean they have Kim Kardashian-sized bubble butts, just that they're on the thick side below the waist (including indie darlings like Zooey Deschanel). And some are slender above and below. But if they have a tendency toward one zone over the other, it's definitely the fertility zone. In performances or pictures, they play up their lower half, not their chest.

In fact, what first tipped me off to this was the photo from an album cover by Au Revoir Simone, who I mentioned before (click for a larger view):

That picture doesn't show it, but they're not busty as well, nor do they attempt to draw attention to their chests. In their videos for that album, they're comfortable showing off their lower bodies and engaging in corporeal activities -- carefree dancing, playing hopscotch, bouncing their thighs and slapping their knees to the rhythm while seated on a bench, and the like.

I highlight their example because it goes against the overall stereotype of their upper-middle-class indie-world social scene. You'd think they'd be cerebral, dismissive of dancing, and averse to showcasing the lower body because that's what vulgar proles pay attention to. But just because the overall scene may be like that, doesn't mean there aren't exceptions like Au Revoir Simone, a corporeal minority within a scene of cerebrals.

As for social media personas, this all reminds me once again of Alison Balsam (@foolinthelotus on Twitter before she left) -- an early '80s manic-phase birth, a fertility shape rather than a mammary shape, and a dance lover. She had to have been a Manic Pixie Dream Girl during the late 2000s heyday -- the signs are still there, albeit somewhat obscured by the vulnerable emo phase she was posting in (late 2010s). Much like the type portrayed in entertainment media, there wasn't anyone else like her among the big-ish accounts -- no "Alison Balsam clones" or "that whole Alison Balsam crowd". The unique ones make an impression, and people can't get over it when they're gone.

Bernie's last chance: Slam MeToo as witch hunt to distract from class, pick up indies and Biden's cultural conservative whites

In 2016, Bernie was the non-woke candidate in the Democrat primary, since Hillary was hyper-woke. In a contest, everything is zero-sum -- not only ultimate success (a winner vs. a loser), but what qualities the candidates have. If Bernie "supports women's rights," but Hillary is blasting that theme 24/7, then in relative terms, Bernie is the non-woke and Hillary the hyper-woke candidate.

We would have to zoom out to a larger ideological scale to see Bernie as woke -- e.g., if he faced a general election against Ted Cruz. But on the relevant scale, we only look at the actual Democrat candidates in that primary. And in that primary, Bernie was the non-woke choice. In the context of the 2008 Democrat primary, it was Hillary who was the non-woke candidate, running against Obama. That's why West Virginia Democrats chose Hillary in '08, but ditched her in favor of Bernie in '16.

The way things are going in 2020, it's possible that West Virginia will choose Biden, who has largely refrained from the shrill progressive culture-warring that Hillary indulged in ("deplorables," Alt-Right speech, etc.), whereas Bernie has been hijacked by the broader "progressive movement" in the wake of his expectation-shattering 2016 campaign.

This has broken down Bernie's coalition from '16 by shifting those who prioritize progressive cultural issues into Lyin' Liz's camp, and alienating a decent chunk of his culturally conservative white supporters into Biden's camp. Again, everything is relative in a contest -- I don't care if "culturally conservative Democrats" accept gay marriage as fait accompli, if they balk at theatrically reading out the names of "my dead gay tranny POC" like the relatively more woke candidates do.

The defectors to Lyin' Liz were class-motivated -- they are professional-class, and prioritize economic and foreign policies that will benefit the top 20%, with zero regard for the bottom 80%, whom they regard with utter contempt, especially if they live in flyover country or outside of the top 10 metro areas. Their fixation on progressive cultural issues is just a mask for this professional-class war against the working class, but also against against the ownership class, whose manager they demand to speak to in order to get a comfier ride during their professional-class ambitions.

The reason why so many "socialists" defended Warren and concern-trolled Bernie throughout 2019 was because they identified the common class interests with the Lyin' Liz crowd. The socialists, too, are mainly professional-class and are angry that their capitalist overlords aren't giving them enough to satisfy their yuppie status-striving ambitions.

"How am I supposed to live in Brooklyn / Austin / LA / Seattle, without free healthcare and my student loan debt canceled?" Well, in the meantime before the revolution, you can always move back to whatever hick town you actually come from, where life is more affordable. The horror! The indignity! They simply demand to ride high-on-the-hog in the most expensive status-striving zip codes literally on the face of the Earth. They couldn't care less if the bottom 80% languish in squalor back where they actually come from -- it's free stuff for the top 20%, not welfare for the entire nation.

Naturally, these socialists prioritize progressive cultural issues over economic revolution, such as re-industrializing the economy (the center of all socialist revolutions), or de-scaling our over-extended empire (which they only object to on progressive cultural grounds -- empire is just racism backed by an army, to them, so they don't care if the Pentagon continues to occupy Europe via NATO and threatens our own nuclear annihilation by antagonizing Russia, which would only amount to unobjectionable white-on-white violence).

In sum, these SJW-ists -- by whatever label they choose -- will be difficult to get back into Bernie's camp for 2020. Especially now that Lyin' Liz has gone nuclear with her risible #MeToo smear against Bernie. No one believes it's true, since moral panics peak during the vulnerable phase of the 15-year excitement cycle, and we're moving into the first year of the warm-up phase when the backlash to that hysteria will begin.

Even among believers of the smear, contrast their reaction to the other cases during the 2015-2019 hysteria -- they don't fear Bernie, don't feel violated, etc. Now it's just an emotionally empty symbol that they're using to beat him with, since the emotional resonance with themes of rape, trauma, etc. is no longer there. Now it is more openly visible as a tool for the professional class to weaken a politician who threatens to improve the entire nation and not just pamper the bratty top 20%. It's their way of declaring that there's no going back to the Bernie coalition, they're ride-or-die for the candidate who is even more of a girlboss than Crooked Hillary Clinton.

The silver lining here is that Bernie can use this opportunity to get back the culturally conservative whites who left him for Biden over the issue of too much wokeness. Before this smear by Lyin' Liz, it would have been a hard sell for Bernie to walk back the past 4 years of gradual woke-ification of his image and message.

But now he can credibly claim to be a martyr of the excesses of MeToo, and that he was targeted because he wants the best for the entire nation, not just the class of spoiled yuppie girlbosses and their cuckolded partners. He can launch into a broader diatribe against identity politics as a distraction from material issues, used by the top 20% to rationalize their exploitation of the bottom 80%, who in their minds are nothing but racist sexist flyover scum and therefore deserving of their de-industrialized shithole country of the neoliberal era.

This will bring back any working-class whites who left Bernie over wokeness, but it would even bring back some of his professional-class white supporters. Not all professionals are woke -- indeed, the culture war is largely a within-class battle between elite liberals and elite conservatives. Their positions are moralistic rationalizations for why their half of the elite should hold power over society, which would bring in the flow of material and intangible status benefits to their side rather than the other's.

(This within-class war is more intense because more is at stake: no matter which side wins, the elites will continue to exploit the commoners, so punching down on the flyover proles is of secondary concern to them. But if their side wins the within-elite battle, they'll win control over society and get a shitload more stuff than their elite rivals. So most of the culture war is elites battling their elite rivals.)

Some of these professional-class cultural conservatives, who vote in Democrat primaries, were with Bernie in '16 because he was the non-woke candidate, and they prioritize non-wokeness over economics of either stripe (elitist or populist). They're materially comfortable enough that they focus mainly on the culture war, and they want to see the non-woke Democrat win -- even if, as in Bernie's case in '16, that meant they might have to pay higher taxes or whatever. Small price to pay, for comfortable people, in order to keep their country from going down the cultural sewer. They tend to be over 40 (not the campus radical set), which fortunately means they're more influential on the outcome of an election.

They may already watch Fox News over their culturally liberal competitors, and especially Tucker Carlson. If Bernie did the right thing in response to Lyin' Liz's smear, he could make regular appearances on Tucker or the cultural moderates of The Five, and not only coax back the Democrats in the Fox audience, but convince enough independents and Republicans to vote in the Democrat primary, just so they can strike back at the MeToo witch-hunters among the coastal elites, whatever their plans may be for the general election.

This is the only way for Bernie to improve his chances in the wake of Lyin' Liz's feminazi hit job. All other responses leave him at best the same, or weakened -- they won't like his weak response, which amounts to an abdication of his leadership role, so they would likely go to Biden (not Lyin' Liz herself), who is objectively more of a fighter and leader (just not for the issues the Bernie supporter wants).

Such complicated dynamics emerge from multi-candidate contests, where Lyin' Liz will not only steal Bernie supporters directly, but attack him in ways that alienate them into choosing among the other candidates (or staying home). All of which helps Biden, naturally given Lyin' Liz's role as a suicide bomber for the neoliberal establishment Democrats.

And after she detonated the vest right next to Bernie on the debate stage, he should call her out directly as a suicide bomber, a kamikaze pilot, whose sole mission is to keep the brutal status quo in place, by any means necessary. Bernie-to-Biden voters hate Lyin' Liz to begin with, and with that disgusting stunt she just pulled, they must be seething along with the Bernie loyalists. It's the perfect opportunity to persuade those defectors into returning to the Bernie camp.

God knows it's going to be nearly impossible to do so for Lyin' Liz supporters from here on out -- and her pool is tinier anyway, compared to Biden's. And in this move, Bernie would not even be attacking Biden directly to poach his voters (which he could still do later) -- he would simply be robbing Biden of the mantle of non-wokeness, becoming the warrior against the polarizing culture war.

Bernie's campaign has been doing the wrong things for the past 4 years regarding the maintenance and expansion of his coalition, so they will likely continue after this event and either remain in a distant 2nd place, or deflate even further. But any surprise would be welcome -- maybe getting so viciously shivved by a progressive feminazi on national TV will wake some of those leftoids up and put them in do-or-die mode for once.

Early '90s alterna Manic Pixie Dream Girls

In the post below about Manic Pixie Dream Girls being born, appropriately, during the manic phase of the 15-year excitement cycle, there's only one off-hand mention of the type from pop music during the restless warm-up phase of the early '90s (the phase when this type shows up).

It's worth fleshing that out with more examples, though, because at the time and ever since, the focus has been on the hard-edged aggressive women of the early '90s heyday of alternative rock, rather than the traditionally feminine helpers and partners of men. There's also the focus on the irony trend, when there was a notable counter-trend of heart-on-their-sleeve sincerity.

The background for this phenomenon was the vulnerable refractory phase of the late '80s, when soft rock and emo power ballads were the norm, and when there was a widespread fixation on being victimized (most obviously in the "Save the children" movement). During the warm-up phase of the early '90s, people were out of their refractory state, and women had to let men know that, hey, it's OK now, you can come out of your shell and we won't require a schmaltzy prostrating power ballad in order to trust you. We can just mix it up with each other again, and we women are only too eager to nurse you out of your funk if necessary -- how else are we going to connect?

That is the broad role of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and in pop music it's a more impressionistic persona that the performers convey, rather than a clearly defined character who plays such a role over the course of a narrative movie. But the basic traits are still all there -- quirky, eccentric, adorkable, directly addressing her male love interest, who may have trouble leaving his emo funk behind, but using her feminine charms and allure to pick up his spirits and get them together as a couple.

Other than that, they come in various flavors. However, all of the female singers below were born in the manic phase of the late '60s, and imprinted on that mood at an early age (as well as imprinting on the next manic phase, the early '80s, when they were 15 and just getting out of puberty). As with the actresses born in the late '60s, these musicians were best suited to playing the role of leading the charge out of the emo phase (the polar opposite of the one they've imprinted on and find most natural).

Many of the other alterna stars were born in the late '60s as well, but I'm leaving aside the hard-edged in-your-face ones (Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, Veruca Salt, etc.). This is only looking at traditionally feminine ones who want to help weary guys come out of their late '80s emo cocoons.

Mazzy Star

Hope Sandoval is not as manic as the others, but no less of a pixie (5'0, size 0). As a waif, seemingly abandoned by her caretakers, she projects an anxious attachment style, but that insecurity does not diminish her eagerness and sincerity to form a deep connection. The anxiety only emphasizes how much she wants a partner, which combined with her petite frame and pouty lips, make her seem like a child who's upset that the immature boys aren't paying attention to her on the playground yet, but she's going to keep on trying until they do.

Guys in a social-emotional refractory state are behaving like prepubescent boys in a way -- "keep those annoying girls away, we don't want to play with them." But men in such a state are doubly wary of leaving their shell because they anticipate the women being in the same "leave me alone" state -- so it falls to the women to send the first signal that the anti-social withdrawn mood is over.

"Blue Flower" and "Fade Into You" (1990, 1993; live '94)



Juliana Hatfield Three

Another waif with an even more childlike voice -- this serves the purpose of not setting off the guy's alarm system. She couldn't be any less threatening -- "Don't worry, I won't bite". Guys coming out of a refractory state need to be approached more gently, so it's not a job for the hard-edged aggressive type of woman. It has to be a disarming pixie.

"Spin the Bottle" (1993)



Bjork

This case is approaching a hybrid of the disarming feminine nurturer and the in-your-face badass chick type of the same era. But she stays just enough on the nurturing side of the line, without it being primarily an aggressive come-on. Pretty sensual though, especially in a live performance -- I never expected her to have such a ripe body, based on the "Human Behavior" video that introduced her to the world.

"Come to Me" (1993; live '94)



Lisa Loeb

Not the purest example of the type -- more of a neurotic overly attached girlfriend, rather than one coaxing you out of your shell to begin with. But that's still the opposite of being refractory and not wanting attachment whatsoever. Plus her image was an eccentric waif, and the video was in constant rotation on MTV. So it's still worth including in this survey.

"Stay (I Missed You)" (1994)



Cub

Just look at how unaffectedly smiley the lead singer is, and remember this is an all-girl early '90s punk-inspired band. Hence the label "cuddlecore". Her warm welcoming vibes are too infectious to resist -- you couldn't possibly want to languish in your goth/emo cocoon any longer, could you, anon?

"New York City" (1994/5?)

Manic Pixie Dream Girls were born during manic phase of excitement cycle: Will the next be born '95-'99?

While we're still working our way out of the emo trauma-porn hangover of the past 5 years, it's worth looking for clues about where the changes will come from as we leave behind the refractory phase of the excitement cycle and enter the restless warm-up phase.

I was just thinking about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl character type, which an earlier post showed clusters in the warm-up phase of the cycle, as people are coming out of their shells. She serves to coax the guy out of his refractory cocoon, letting him know it's OK to interact again -- that we're out of the phase where all social contact feels over-stimulatingly painful.

Who will play such a role this time around? I looked at the previous wave of them from the late 2000s (and the lesser crop from the 2010s), and they were nearly all born between 1980-'84 (with one born in '79, and another in '85, just outside this range by one year). That birth range was the manic phase of the early '80s. Then I checked the early '90s MPDG's, and though there weren't as many to study, they too were born in a manic phase (the late '60s: Sarah Jessica Parker from L.A. Story, and Julia Roberts).

So, this time around, will the actresses who play the role be born during the manic phase of 1995-'99? I have no idea who that could be, and this role tends to be a break-out role for the actress anyway.

Pop music doesn't offer too many examples of the role, since it has to be set within a character drama (or dramedy) narrative, where you can set up the withdrawn guy, the adorkable girl, her coaxing him, him resisting at first, and so on and so forth. It's hard to pack all that into a 4-minute pop song.

Nevertheless, I pointed to Katy Perry's deep cut "Simple" from 2005 in that earlier post, and during the late 2000s she projected a witty-banter, partner-in-crime, free-spirit persona. She's born in '84. Avril Lavigne, also born in '84, put on such a persona in 2007 with "Girlfriend," after she'd gotten out of the emo phase of the early 2000s (akin to the late 2010s emo phase, when she reverted to the emo type with "Head Above Water").

But the Manic Pixie Dream Girl wasn't meant for the Billboard Hot 100 kind of music. She was more of an indie girl. Not that I was big into the indie scene in the late 2000s, but even I remember Au Revoir Simone -- and sure enough, all three of them were born in 1980! In case you forgot or never experienced them during that phase (before their moody music for the Twin Peaks revival during the vulnerable phase of the late 2010s):

"Dark Halls" by Au Revoir Simone (2007)



That band in that time reminds me of our dear, departed anti-woke leftist Alison Balsam (@foolinthelotus on Twitter before she left). I'll bet she was like that during the late 2000s, and she too was born in the early '80s.

From the early '90s warm-up phase, the most visible Manic Pixie Dream Girl was Lisa Loeb ("Stay" in 1994), and she's born during the late '60s manic phase.

Everyone's so focused on the political domain these days, though -- who could coax us out of our self-centered partisan cocoons, and deliver us into a Manic Pixie Dream Government? Why, it's another early '80s birth -- Tulsi Gabbard, the most soothing, reassuring, and fun-loving free spirit in politics. (Her proto-form, Marianne Williamson, was also born during a manic phase -- the early '50s.)

On the younger platforms of social media, podcasting, etc., I'd expect the type to come more from the '95-'99 cohort, though. They've been listening to the Red Scare podcast to cope with the bad vibes of the late 2010s, but soon they're going to want to do their own thing.

They'll go from analytically criticizing the trauma porn industry and the absurdities of #MeToo, to becoming Manic Pixie Dream E-girls who sound the wake-up alarm to the male half of the audience, that it's OK to come out of your cocoon and mix it up with girls again. "We promise we're over that mood, and we're in a flirtatious, getting-to-know-you mood now." It won't even be that political in scope -- although they may identify as feminists -- but more about the social-cultural mood and the relations between the sexes.

I've left out the matter of explaining why the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is born during a manic phase -- or equivalently, why she was a certain age during another of the phases -- although the simplest explanation is that they absorbed the manic mood of their birth year and carried it with them for life, as a social imprinting. But if I think of something more satisfying, I'll post it in the comments, where you can spitball ideas as well. The main point here is descriptive and predictive, without necessarily understanding why the world works the way it apparently does.

So long to the most emo 5-year phase ever, welcome back to baseline emotional levels

That's it -- the vulnerable, refractory phase of the 15-year excitement cycle is finally over, having begun in 2015. We're not going backward to the manic phase of 2010-'14, but forward into the next restless, warm-up phase (akin to 2005-'09). The next manic phase will happen after that, starting in 2025.

This cyclical change in mood / energy levels is absolutely crucial to keep in mind when looking back on the year, or especially the decade. In a way, there is no such decade as the 2010s, because the first half was a manic phase of soaring energy levels, and the second half was a crash into a refractory state. You don't get any more stark of a contrast.

History does not proceed with "one damned thing after another," but goes through dynamics, which generally produce some kind of cyclical behavior. All of this doom-and-gloom emo bullshit of the past 5 years is not the continuation of the 5 years before that -- exactly the opposite. You can say the mood of '15-'19 was "the result of" the mood in '10-'14, in the sense that a climax leads mechanistically to a refractory state. But that's not what most people mean when they try to portray the trajectory of a decade, which is always done in a simple linear way.

The upcoming mood will not be such a stark contrast as between a climax and refractory phase. It's leaving the refractory state and returning to baseline levels. We'll notice that things aren't quite so heavily negative, painful, hysterical, and so on -- but it won't be the opposite either, which requires the sustained spike in energy levels during a manic phase. There will be some negative and some positive, some pain and some pleasure, some anxiety and some calm. In any case, we aren't going to be mired in the depressive, hysterical state of the past 5 years, and that's good enough for now.

Political junkies will be surprised at how little of the previous mood will carry over into 2020 -- despite it being such a major election year. The whole #MeToo thing is dead by now, no one cares about the 24-hour news cycle anymore, and no one's afraid of crypto-Nazi armies laying in wait under every bed in homes across America.

I've been saying that Trump will bow out before the nomination, but even in the off-chance that he remains the nominee, no one will think he's a fascist threat, that his supporters are the re-birth of Nazi legions, or whatever other crap the liberals could half-way get away with back in 2016. Even back then it wasn't enough to win -- it will fail all the more pathetically this time, since people won't be in the painful victimization mindset anymore.

When the GOP wins re-election, absolutely no one will care -- it will not be the most important election, signaling imminent doom, etc etc etc. That reaction comes from emo audiences (as there were on both sides in 2016), but they won't be in an emo mood by the end of 2020 and during inauguration in '21.

Nobody remembers anything, but if they wanted to, they could look back at the second W. Bush term -- that was mostly during a restless warm-up phase, not an emo phase, so the general public didn't react so negatively and hysterically and painfully to it. That was more his first term, which was during an emo phase (the first half of the 2000s). People were too busy re-connecting with one another during the late 2000s to give a shit about what Bush was doing. Even if they conceded it was all bad stuff, it didn't rise to the level of new coming of Hitler, so they put it mostly on the back burner until a few days before the next presidential election.

The hysteria phase of moral panics is going to collapse into the backlash phase. Some of that will be rational in tone, some will be irreverent, some will be in-your-face hostile. Political correctness, AKA wokeness, won't be taken seriously by normies any longer (not until the next vulnerable phase beginning in 2030). It'll be a return to the anarchic (not anarcho-) humor of the late '70s, early '90s, and late 2000s. As well as a revival of the rational skeptics using logic to rebut the claims of the woketards -- which they could have been doing for the past 5 years, but have not been in the proper mood themselves, or could not have found a large receptive audience that was in the right mood. Over the next 5 years, that will change, and they'll be back.

On the right, I also predict the decline of the groyper phenomenon. It was a kind of mellow hibernation, and now that people will start to stir awake and emerge from their winter dens, they won't find the same emotional appeal to living in a remote, isolated, cozy David the Gnome environment (that cartoon was from an emo phase as well, 1985). They may retain their avatars, but the ideal mood will change -- it won't be about cozy isolation any longer. More likely, the avatars will change to some wholly new creature to embody the shift in mood.

But before those large-scale changes take place, first people have to just snap out of it. That will take place over the current year. Key signposts along the way will be major pop songs that emphasize the themes of resilience and reckoning with your past. Until the new examples come out, here are two from those earlier surveys, both from 1990, the first year after the emo phase of the late '80s. Unlike the past several end-of-year transitions, this time it really is "a new year, a new you".