Cinemorphosis

Tag: science-fiction

  • Pluribus and the Soft Tyranny of Sycophantic Collectivism

    Pluribus and the Soft Tyranny of Sycophantic Collectivism

    Sycophantic Collectivism

    noun

    Sycophantic Collectivism describes a social condition in which belonging is secured not through shared standards, inquiry, or truth-seeking, but through relentless affirmation and emotional compliance. In this system, dissent is not punished overtly; it is smothered under waves of praise, positivity, and enforced enthusiasm. The group does not demand obedience so much as adoration, rewarding members who echo its sentiments and marginalizing those who introduce skepticism, critique, or complexity. Thought becomes unnecessary and even suspect, because agreement is mistaken for virtue and affirmation for morality. Over time, Sycophantic Collectivism erodes critical thinking by replacing judgment with vibes, turning communities into echo chambers where intellectual independence is perceived as hostility and the highest social good is to clap along convincingly.

    ***

    Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus masquerades as a romantasy while quietly operating as a savage allegory about the hive mind and its slow, sugar-coated assault on human judgment. One of the hive mind’s chief liabilities is groupthink—the kind that doesn’t arrive with jackboots and barked orders, but with smiles, affirmations, and a warm sense of belonging. As Maris Krizman observes in “The Importance of Critical Thinking in a Zombiefied World,” the show’s central figure, Carol Sturka, is one of only thirteen people immune to an alien virus that fuses humanity into a single, communal consciousness. Yet long before the Virus Brain Hijack, Carol was already surrounded by zombies. Her affliction in the Before World was fandom. She is a successful romantasy novelist whose readers worship her and long to inhabit her fictional universe—a universe Carol privately despises as “mindless crap.” Worse, she despises herself for producing it. She knows she is a hack, propping up her novels with clichés and purple prose, and the fact that her fans adore her anyway only deepens her contempt. What kind of people, she wonders, gather in a fan club to exalt writing so undeserving of reverence? Their gushy, overcooked enthusiasm is not a compliment—it is an indictment. This, Krizman suggests, is the true subject of Pluribus: the danger of surrendering judgment for comfort, of trading independent thought for the convenience of the collective. In its modern form, this surrender manifests as Sycophantic Collectivism—a velvet-gloved groupthink sustained not by force, but by relentless positivity, affirmation, and applause that smothers dissent and dissolves individuality.

    It is no accident that Gilligan makes Carol a romantasy writer. As Krizman notes, romantasy is the fastest-growing literary genre in the world, defined by its cookie-cutter plots, recycled tropes, and emotional predictability. The genre has already been caught flirting with AI-assisted authorship, further blurring the line between creativity and content manufacturing. Romantasy, in this light, is less about literature than about community—fans bonding with fans inside a shared fantasy ecosystem where enthusiasm substitutes for evaluation. In that world, art is optional; happiness is mandatory. Critical thinking is an inconvenience. What matters is belonging, affirmation, and the steady hum of mutual validation.

    When the alien virus finally arrives, it is as if the entire world becomes an extension of Carol’s fan base—an endless sea of “perky positivity” and suffocating devotion. The collective Others adore her, flatter her, and invite her to merge with them, offering the ultimate prize: never having to think alone again. Carol refuses. Her resistance saves her mind but condemns her to isolation. She becomes a misfit in a world that rewards surrender with comfort and punishes independence with loneliness. Pluribus leaves us with an uncomfortable truth: the hive mind does not conquer us by force. It seduces us. And the price of belonging, once paid, is steep—your soul bartered away, your brain softened into pablum, your capacity for judgment quietly, permanently dulled.

  • The Biceps That Gravity Forgot

    The Biceps That Gravity Forgot

    You had been marinating in delusions of Schwarzenegger-level grandeur, dreaming of championship stages and oil-slicked pecs, when the world as you knew it collapsed inside the Canyon High Student Lounge. There you were, slouched on a vinyl couch, flipping through the San Francisco Chronicle, when existential dread blindsided you like a sucker punch to the solar plexus. The culprit? A doomsday op-ed dressed up as science journalism.

    According to futurists and a certain Princeton physics professor named Gerard K. O’Neill, Earth’s days were numbered. The human species, it seemed, was destined to ditch the planet and board lunar shuttles en route to solar-powered orbiting colonies. O’Neill’s vision of humanity’s next chapter was detailed in The High Frontier—a prophetic fever dream of “closed-ecology habitats in free orbit” powered by sun-harvesting mega-panels. To make matters worse, the article was illustrated by some artist named Don Davis, whose watercolor nightmares depicted tranquil cottages, babbling fountains, and crowds of eerily placid, malnourished utopians.

    But what truly made your blood run cold wasn’t the loss of Earth’s ozone layer or the scarcity of clean water—it was the complete and utter absence of gyms in space.

    No dumbbells. No squat racks. No gravity.

    You were staring down the barrel of the greatest crisis to ever confront the adolescent mind: the total obliteration of your bodybuilding future. What good was a solar-powered paradise if it left you looking like a string bean in a Speedo? You’d be condemned to slurp nutrient paste in zero-G while your muscle mass withered into oblivion. You pictured yourself floating aimlessly through space, a tomato with toothpicks for limbs, indistinguishable from the other protein-starved citizens of O’Neill’s nightmare.

    Meanwhile, the rest of the Student Lounge was oblivious. Kids were gossiping like caffeinated squirrels. Others were playing Paper Football with apocalyptic enthusiasm, as if the Earth weren’t on the verge of being abandoned for a weightless dystopia. You wanted to scream, “Shut up! My dreams are dying!”

    That’s when Liz Murphy strolled in, radiant and red-haired, walking straight toward you. She handed you a birthday card that screamed, If It Feels Good, Do It! Her smile was bright enough to reroute satellites. She was clearly flirting—or at least offering a hand in friendship—but you were paralyzed by cosmic dread.

    You glanced at the card, then back at her. “It’s over,” you muttered, face ashen. “No gravity. No bench press. No protein. Space is going to destroy bodybuilding.”

    Liz blinked. “What?”

    You handed her the newspaper like you were delivering the last will and testament of humanity. “They want to launch us into space. Colonies with no iron. No steaks. No deadlifts. My dream physique? Finished.”

    Liz read for a few seconds and then laughed—hard. “Are you serious right now?”

    “Deadly,” you said, your voice trembling with conviction.

    “I came here to give you a birthday card, not an existential crisis,” she said. “I’m not proposing marriage, you melodramatic meathead. Relax.”

    Her laughter was like an emotional defibrillator, jolting you back to reality. You chuckled—barely. Still, the horror lingered. The gym-less future. The protein-free vacuum of outer space. But for now, you allowed yourself to accept the birthday wishes… and the present moment. After all, if the end was coming, you might as well enjoy the applause before gravity lets go for good.