The Jungian Shadow Wojak
Are we ruled by symbols worthy of appreciation?
Memetic Soyface Programming
On a recent Break The Rules episode, we were discussing Carl Jung and his idea of archetypes branching out into the memes that inform our reality. One of these memes is “Soyjack”, a gasping beta-male exaggerated expression (or “Soyface”) made by the Wojak character, who is himself a neutral enough blank slate meme for pretty much any state of being.
This meme caught on with my guest Ben Avery (former producer of The Tim Dillon Show) who starts every episode of his new rapidly growing comedy podcast “Lemon Party” by making the Soy Face. As he explained to me along with Uberboyo and Gnostic Informant, Ben makes this face out of a sense of detestment for what the Soyjack represents:
“With the soy face, it's funny because it's like everybody that I hate on the Internet is constantly making that face in every photo they do. And so I guess it's funny for me to just go, oh, look, look, I'm doing the thing of the guy that the guy does that sucks ass. I'm making the Josh Gad face.
When I think of soy face, I think of all of their faces contorted into this awful position. All the Chuck Wendigs, the Lin-Manuel Mirandas… They're writing Star Wars books. They're in Amex commercials. They're the fucking enemy, right? And then they just make these Soy faces constantly.
It's very disingenuous too. I really hate it. It really makes me sick to my stomach. And I got obsessed with it so much, I guess I just started doing it. And now I'm the guy that does soy faces.”
Ben finished off with the Friedrich Nietzsche Quote:
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
But the disingenuousness Ben saw in those who unironically propagate the Soyface implies there is something genuine to replace it with in the first place.
Uberboyo’s fitting comparison of this phenomenon with Neitzche’s “Last Man” at the end of history fits in nicely… a being seeking only comfort and safety with nothing to prove and nowhere to go.
What is even more interesting to explore, however, is the source of what doesn’t just guide the programming of these last men, but every single one of us.
The Jungian (and in a way the Pagan) view is that the things we experience in our reality, all the way from the constellations that sailors observed in the night sky to Pepe the Frog and Wojak memes on 4chan, are emanations of archetypal principles that we play out as actors on the world stage through propagating them.
Beyond posting memes online, this goes all the way to how we speak, to the clothes we wear and houses we live in. They also become tragic jesters like the aforementioned Soyjack serving as an antagonist to represent “The Last Man’s” imposition of mediocrity.
Adolf Hitler - Leader of the Possessed
But regarding the growing resentment to an epidemic of complacency, we have been here before with the rise of fascist and communist movements partly as an answer to this malaise, replacing it with some of the greatest bloodshed and horrors in history.
According to Jung, Germans who were impassioned by the National Socialist movement in the 1930s and 40s were possessed by the spirit of Wotan (or Odin), a complex deity who embodies various aspects, including wisdom, war, poetry, magic, and trickery. But the most important aspect is Wotan’s possession leading the collective into a state of barbarism when allowing for this inner fire to spread out into an uncontrollable inferno.
This can be seen in the name of Wotan stemming from the from Proto-Germanic ᚹᛟᛞᛁᚾᚨᛊ Wōdinas / Wōdanaz meaning “Lord of Frenzy” or “Leader of the Possessed”. In old Frisian, Wotan’s name is Wêda which is very much related to “Vedas” as in the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. While Veda (वेद) literally means knowledge in Sanskrit, its Russian neighbor from the Indo-European family tree has the word videniya (видения) or “visions”.
The connections made here are to emphasize the process of creativity which comes about through getting possessed by one’s inspiration (literally inhaling) and seeing visions, or in the case of the followers, being inspired by a visionary so as to act like you’re possessed.
These aspects are the very same written about in the previous article on the chaotic primal energy of the god Dionysus, but it must be stressed that Dionysus can lead you down to destruction when you go beyond the limits.
As Uberboyo mentions later on in the stream:
“It's like dealing with a nuke. You know, you're holding this thing that's vibrating and it could blow off and kill everyone. Or it could be turned into nuclear fusion and free everyone.
And he (Jung) was like, the Germans have the potential to do either of these things. I hope to fucking God, we have the prudence to make the most out of our our potential nature”
So with Adolf Hitler being the pre-eminent example of this Dyonesian Wotanism gone beyond all reasonable bounds of human decency, there is an irony in just how funny looking and clown-like he is with his little mustache. This is no accident however, but an integral part of the whole formula, as Hitler with his little mustache is an instantly recognizable meme, no different than a clown with his red nose, or Mickey Mouse with his two round ears. That you can draw Hitler by simply adding a few dark scribbles between the eyes and mouth (who even needs the nose?) shows how effectively he can burrow into the subconscious of everyone regardless of whether they love or hate him.
The Smugler Meme as the Jungian Zoomer Shadow
This brings us to further memetic signs of the resurging Dionysian/Wotanic energy albeit in a much less impressive way than the last one ushered in by World War I veterans. At Nessacus Regional Middle School, a social studies teacher of Jewish heritage named Morrison Robblee resigned last month after months of antisemitic harassment from a 12 year old student of his.
This harassment started out in February of this year with homophobic slurs when Mr. Robblee tried quieting down the class, and in April it escalated further when this student made hateful comments about the Jewish kippah he wore to school during Passover. What transpired after was more of the same through email and the hallway after this student was removed from Mr. Robblee’s class, but the important part came before this separation in the form of a note handed in by the 12 year old:
“A few days later, Robblee said the student approached him with what he thought would be a written apology. But the piece of paper was actually a violent drawing depicting Adolf Hitler standing over a dead person labeled "Jew," with swastikas and canisters labeled "gas" scattered across the page. Insider has viewed the drawing, which featured the words "Sorry Jew" written atop the page.”
It was not this drawing, but an earlier draft that was posted online featuring a smug looking Hitler, now known as “Smugler”. This meme became a big hit on 4chan, along with the phrase “I Don't Appreciate You” which was crudely written in the note itself. The handwriting has been commented on by many observers to be so crudely written, that it would make more sense to have been made by a 5 year old instead, though still ranking above the handwriting of doctors in terms of legibility.
But it may be this primitive scribbling that evokes the aforementioned animalistic nature of the Wotan-Diyonesian. That such a shabby piece of work was enough to humiliate this professional teacher into eventually quitting was itself like a young dog recognizing that its bark is strong enough to deter enemies. As far as whether Mr. Robblee was seen as the enemy because of his Jewish heritage or due to the content of his character is something beyond this article to know for certain, but there are certain indications of what else may have triggered the primal antagonism that points to a larger problem within the educational institutions.
There were accusations on part of the student of Mr. Robblee singling him out in front of the entire class as punishment, and of sticking his tongue out to the student in the hallway. This latter incident was confirmed by Mr. Robblee himself with the excuse of it being done “in a moment of frustration after the student swore at him”.
It was this tongue incident which prompted the school to verbally reprimand the teacher instead of the student, and was the straw which broke the camel’s back causing Mr. Robblee to finally resign. But such an incident which seems pretty ridiculous is a clue to the student’s reaction that goes back to our aforementioned Soyface meme.
Role Models to transmute the Shadow
The idea of such a gesture being threatening to the student is pure moralistic nonsense of the type that lawyer-fearing school administrators love to take seriously. The real problem with Mr. Robblee’s tongue is that the gesture was pathetic, an attempt to act “cute” or “quirky” in place of any characteristics that can be looked up to in a person.
While it should be noted that this does not excuse the animal-like behavior of the student, there is an animal inside many young men which cannot be presided over by overeducated yet unwise men-children who want to pretend this energy does not exist rather than figuring out a way to transmute it towards higher ends.
The sign of this disconnect can be further seen in the teacher wanting to bring in a behavior technician and paraprofessional to assist him with the student, as well as inviting the Anti-Defamation League to speak. While on the surface these would seem like interventionary measures that can help, the dominant culture of people within education as a whole is one of wholesale wokeness. Same goes for the ADL, whose embrace of the divisive Critical Race Theory and most other tenants of social justice make it a hindrance as opposed to a help when it comes to antisemitism. Almost as if we wouldn’t need the ADL if there were no antisemites left…
But there are alternatives to be proposed:
When it comes to antisemitism it would be far better to have the Coen Brothers come in for a chat than anyone from the ADL in terms of their wisdom, brilliance and humor. For the people equating Jews with stagnation and degeneracy and have not watched “No Country for Old Men”, “The Big Lebowski” and other such works, having interactions with people of such caliber would quickly put them in their place so to speak.
Without such guides though, what most kids have left is a culture that has become in many ways antithetical to the idea of a classic education. With no high principle to be found, the zoomer revenge is to go even lower into the fiery depths of based hell and incinerate the culture.
It would befit these would-be demons to start by incinerating their inner soyjack first, but this means they’d have to confront it in the first place as opposed to only seeing what they hate outside of themselves. But much like the Smugler and Wojak memes lack “ears to hear”, the reactionary zoomers will have trouble hearing anything which does not fall into the solidified categories separating friend from enemy.
These are the symbols by which their reality is maintained, and as the social justice brigade keeps making their colors brighter and desires crazier, it will intensify the friend enemy distinction for the opposition, with both sides worshiping and spitting on symbols that will shed whichever nuance connects them to higher ends beyond the animalistic ends of “screw” “eat” and “kill”.
Conclusion: Where to from here?
For right now, these zoomers such as the Hitler drawing 12 year old are already the collective shadow of our squeaky clean but “kink friendly” pronoun padded society.
This was the collective shadow that Carl Jung spoke about as a repository of repressed, denied, or unacknowledged aspects of the human psyche that are shared among individuals within a culture or society. And it was this same shadow which was released through the mass possession of the German People by Wotan with living meme Hitler acting as the main transmitter through the power of radio and rallies.
But none of this would have been successful if not for the disgraceful state Germany found itself in after losing World War I.
Similarly, though far lighter at the moment, our mainline media “influencers” perpetuate a cultural race to the bottom by promoting the most meaningless drivel along with socially alienating identity politics of race and gender. It is likely that we will see a response by the senseless and animalistic force of the Jungian shadow as it swallows these self absorbed and unsuspecting social engineers when driven too far.
This is of course, unless there will be an earlier more powerful response by the senseful and responsible influencers who can teach the “failed painters” of today how to integrate their own shadow without getting swallowed up by it.