Something that’s become more common on social media, especially with the rise of Tiktoks and Reels, is the idea of aesthetics.
Entire pages exist dedicated to taking upon specific kinds of fashion, lifestyle, interests, and living standards. The most basic of these is simply in terms of style and theme, taking upon different aesthetics to convey different kinds of messaging and feeling in what one creates. Aesthetics can be portrayed in any medium- anime, movies, art, videogames, and many more use different types of aesthetics to convey meaning to their consumer, adding more depth and life to the things they create.
In the same way, it’s important to note that our media and popular culture strongly influence and define our understanding of the world as well as how we cope with it. When we are constantly bombarded with different types of media on devices we must use to function, it’s eventual that we are influenced by the styles and messaging pushed towards us.
If you’ve ever heard of the game Cyberpunk 2077 (or any other similar media), you’ve likely heard about the idea of dystopian fiction and its use in various media forms. It’s appeared in several mediums, characterized by artificial intelligence, class uprising, governmental and corporate corruption, anarchy, gang warfare, and transhumanism. The idea behind creators who use this aesthetic is to often criticize the way humanity functions and point to a possible, and often nihilistic, future. Many argue that this kind of aesthetic is becoming too common in popular media and is often potent enough to make viewers find such a future acceptable when in reality it is a horrible future to be in.
Squid Game is a popular Netflix show that bases itself off the idea of a skewed capitalist system forcing people into hurting one another while few elitists stand on top of it all, far from losing anything themselves. Being one of the most popular shows of the year, it’s far from surprising to see a trend of dystopian media such as Black Mirror or Squid Game finding quick success. Parts of this can be attributed to the fact that they often critique how far society is going with technology along with the seemingly oppressive standards and heights through which it influences and limits our lives- which most viewers resonate and agree with.
The biggest criticism of this kind of media is the fact that as much as it provides critique and attention to a large and urgent problem, it often fails to provide any sense of solution or call to action. There is nothing for consumers of this media to take away and gain a better sense of understanding as to how they could make a difference.
It’s not necessary that it needs to provide this kind of solution, but it’s pretty clear that this kind of writing is being used more as a money gimmick more than anything else we’ll only see more of it in the future.
To put the issue simply, we know what the world be, but we are not very clear about what it should be.
Enter Solarpunk- derived as an opposing aesthetic to cyberpunk, it emphasizes less on the idea of an existing problem and more on an idea of what we want our future to look like. It often involves greenery and solar panels and other modern technology being sustainably integrated into our consumption- aimed at showing us a brighter, more sustainable, and better future for ourselves and future generations.
Why is it so important?
Until recently, there hasn’t been a cultural movement that aims to shift and better the public’s understanding of the future we would want to have. With an urgent climate crisis and world leaders who are seemingly leading us into a dystopian world led by Zuckerberg and made for recreational space trips- it’s hard to think what a better and more practical world would look like that doesn’t necessarily need an understanding of much more complicated ideas. Today, a lot of discussion around bettering our environment and demanding more freedom and payment for workers, and having better governments revolves around the need to understand more nuances of marxism, the colonialist past of nations, and plenty of other ideas to see why we are in the state we are today. The Solarpunk movement allows us to communicate the world we want without the need to explain those ideas while also not watering them down. It is easier to convey complex ideas through fiction and showing rather than telling.
Aesthetics and themes in media are perfect to that end.
Explaining concepts and social messaging through popular culture and film is not a novel idea, it’s been done for years to inculcate a sense of unity and ideas of what is deemed socially acceptable in society for years. Given that impact, solarpunk is important because it can bring greater participation, awareness, and ideas about a sustainable future to the masses. We can only want something that we have a clear picture of and solarpunk aesthetics can help guide us to manifesting that image better through movies, video games, and other kinds of media.
There hasn’t yet been a clear example of popular media undertaking this kind of tone, but with the growing popularity of the movement, it is only a matter of time before we see something that can come under the solarpunk genre.
The question I believe to be asked here is if Squid Game and Black Mirror highlight the horrible future we don’t want, can solarpunk help in making media that portrays a future we do want?
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