we actually can retire Euphoria.
Gen-Z, Purity Politics, Sydney Sweeney, Creepy Old Men™, Embarrassing Boyfriends, The Epstein Files, Olivia Nuzzi, Generational Infighting, Eddington, abuse, and Sex on Screen. Also Nick Fuentes.
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Well, that subtitle is a bit crazy, isn't it? What do all of all these things have to do with Euphoria? What is Umnia on about? This is a long one, 2K words - please consider supporting us with a subscription, £5/mo, if you can.
TW: Mentions of Sexual Abuse, CSAM, etc. – You read the subtitle man, DDDNE.
omg you guys the declining birth rate!
Gen-Z aren't conforming to predictions – our behaviour is scarily patternless, and sits in direct opposition to the current late stage capitalist edicts. For instance, we're widely considered a generation that are "values-led", but a Pepsi advert with Kendall Jenner – as political as a brand is likely to get – will not land. Brands are trying desperately to cast themselves as "caring", but they can't care, really - they're companies. Caring requires picking a side, and picking a side narrows your customer pool. Major corporations can't afford to do that in a growth-maxxing economy. This is why Mubi is being boycotted – in the early stages, their ethos built the cult brand, who is and isn't a Mubi "person". However, if they were to continue to grow, they couldn't remain so closed-minded. So, Sequoia Capital.
Gen-Z is also not having sex at the rate of previous generations. This is likely a reaction to modern Sex education, that has explained safety protocols and health risks associated with racking up sexual partners. It was easier for older generations to sleep around because they knew less about the risks. Gen-Z aren't scared to have sex, they're just more likely to be risk-aware. Very simple.
However – the creepy men of the world feel oppressed by this. They were promised a never-ending cascade of young women who would need them, and wouldn't think too much about it. Who would happily sleep with them in exchange for stability, clout, goodies, etc. Well, I don't know if you heard, but having a boyfriend is embarrassing now. We've reached a new feminism – one that is the result of decades of work to truly emancipate women from the grip of male coercive control. Now, having a man must come with a justification.
We did it, ladies – but the Creepy Old Men™ are trying to turn back the clock. They have every excuse in the book - they're pulling from Christian Nationalism, Birth Rate Doomerism, Economic Conservatism, Cultural romanticism – it's actually a mess, and all of it is baseless and easily disproven. In their mad dash to reassert control, nowhere is their desperation more brazenly on display than in Commercials and, yes, modern Film.
The declining cultural currency of Creepy Old Men™
Gen-Z Women are armed with information - a decade plus of Me Too, Sex Ed, and a world that never denied them a bank account. They're also more outspoken – and if I'm being honest, I'd take a misguided SJW screeching with blue hair in an attempt to protect the vulnerable over a spaghetti-for-brains Nick Fuentes spouting memes he doesn't understand any day of the week.
If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that Creepy Old Men™ cannot hide their disdain for this. When depicting Gen-Z, it is often a woman or an AFAB non-binary person they decide to depict. Ari Aster's "archetype" of the Gen-Z activist was a young girl, painted as a quintessential shrieking harpie and somehow still reduced down, like a syrupy patriarchal goo, into merely a love interest for two warring boys. The sources of her beliefs and grievances weren't to be taken seriously, like our good 'ol Joe, or even like the boys who clearly pretend to believe this stuff just to woo her. Instead, we see her in two contexts - shouting "nonsense", and being crushed on. We're meant to be OK with this because she's a white girl, by the way. That's often how they get away with this kind of flat, floating critique - the shorthand of hating women, and the plausible deniability of it being a woman with white privilege. Run it into the station, Aster! How could anybody fault you for this? You're untouchable!
They also hate being called creepy and old. In their minds, they're like Peak Harrison Ford, and women should fall over them like Bond girls. Their money, access, or simply just age makes them "Good Enough", nay, "Great", and they swan across the world as if they're Clooney. The problem is, they're not, and the older they get, the harder it becomes for them to keep their lustre. Leo DiCaprio is not many people's idea of a heartthrob anymore. He just got cast, wholeheartedly and in perhaps the best role of his career, as an old washed up stoner dad. Like...and that's the best scenario for him. I found moments in "Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood" genuinely painful to watch because of how bad he looked.
Into this crevasse of declining clout and panic at the concept of their mortality steps Sydney Sweeney. The team behind the American Eagle ad first had to hire Sydney Sweeney. I fear this is the part of the entire scandal people overlook - the advert is one thing, but choosing Sweeney for it goes beyond her blonde hair and her perky assets. Sydney is not an "outspoken" Gen-Z - she doesn't pursue having a personality in the public eye. I usually find this commendable in actors, to maintain mystique. The one caveat being, in this case, I didn't like how her team were positioning her (with her consent). Using Euphoria as a jumping off point, they were signalling that in an era of outspoken young women who were less interested in the male gaze, Sydney stood in contrast - saying less, leaning into her looks, and welcoming comparisons to the 90's/good ol' days. Her audience was clearly the Creepy Old Man™ cohort - buying soap of her bathwater.
This was likely to try and make her stand out in a crowded field of young women "yapping". It did not work. Her advice, likely from Creepy Old Men™ operating on old intel, or maybe hopeful theory, did not work. She had to apologise. It's been a very confusing time for them all, I'm sure. I can make the entire thing clear - starlets are made by Women and Queers, often by the intersection of taste between the two. The contingent that set cultural trends – and decide if you are in or out – are a very select group, and yes, they are the Wokest™. However, unfortunately for you, they are also who everyone wants to be friends with. So, a good outfit and gorgeous makeup, and a nice one liner can revive Anne Hathaway from the halls of distaste back to mother status. A badly placed ad and a lacklustre, droning, milquetoast response, and they're tired of you, and you are banished. You must play the game of the gay tastemakers and their female friend group if you are to succeed in pop culture, and most certainly if you are to be taken as a serious actress in the eyes of the industry.
When thinking about the disconnect between these men and the culture, I can't help but think of the current Olivia Nuzzi scandal, in which Creepy Old Men™, gleeful in their takedown of this woman half their age, are accidentally exposing themselves as her predators and abusers. They did not notice they were doing this, so caught up in being able to dunk on her for having succeeded in their world either without them or by dating them directly. The entire affair has inadvertently been a scathing indictment of men in power, especially in journalism, and has revealed Olivia as a victim of coercive control. No doubt the tide will turn on these men, and they will soon be under the microscope.
This is the era we live in now, and they hate it. Trying to get The Epstein Files released has been like pulling teeth, likely because so many Creepy Old Men™ feature in them. The era of glamorising the very concept pretty much ended with Lana Del Rey – it's just sad now. Universally sad, without any cultural capital attached. Simply - Creepy Old Men™ being involved with very very young women is now a marker of something terribly wrong.
It is into this world that Sam Levinson's Euphoria Season 3 is trying to birth itself.
"When my wife read me the [Rolling Stone "Twisted Torture Porn"] article, I looked at her and I just said, ‘I think we’re about to have the biggest show of the summer.’"
In Season 1 of Euphoria, Barbie Ferreira's underage character Kat engages in Camgirl activity on Tumblr for Creepy Old Men™ in sequences that seemed entirely too detailed to be coincidence. Almost as if there might have been some research done. This cannot be proven.
During the gap between Seasons 1&2 of Euphoria, Zendaya renegotiated her contract and enforced a No Nudity clause. In her first scene back in Season 2, Sam Levinson has her character, Rue, stripped naked at gunpoint.
Sydney Sweeney's Cassie, in Season 3, is now going to be an OnlyFans model.
Sam Levinson thought "The Idol" would be the show of the summer.
You remember "The Idol", right? Right? In case you're like 90% of my friends and cannot for the life of you remember the show by it's title, I'll jog your memory – the weird show no-one watched where Lily-Rose Depp was ritually humiliated by The Weekend. Yeah, that one!!
Sam Levinson has always wanted to be provocative. What saddens me is how little he has actually managed to be so, instead opting for the same visuals of sexualised women we've gotten used to from media for the past half-century. His close associate, Jeremy O Harris, could teach him a thing or two about staring down the barrel unflinchingly and finding the actual "rage" button.
Levinson's work sparks conversation, sure, and when he touches on the opioid crisis I think he makes interesting points. However, much like Yorgos Lanthimos, he de-emphasises story and instead relies on one of the oldest tricks in the book – using young women in distress as a shorthand for meaning. I can't hold it against him to a massive degree – this has always been a major component of cinematic tradition. However, it is reaching the end of its effectiveness, both in the culture and politically.
When Season 1 of Euphoria hit, this was what disappointed me – Levinson couldn't keep his eye on one thing long enough to say anything substantial or new, perhaps with the exception of Rue. Every sexual thought felt unfinished and derivative, every character felt underdeveloped, and the reason so many people compared it to Porn was likely because it did very little to develop a nuanced story that actually provoked a new conversation or debate.
Levinson relied on the fact that, until that point, Gen-Z hadn't been seriously depicted in media. We hadn't received the genius of Bodies Bodies Bodies yet. The visual shorthand he employed was Gen-Z cultural markers, so, for a moment, Gen-Z felt so grateful to be seen that they didn't check if or how they were actually being seen.
However, by the time Season 2 came around, it became difficult to ignore.
A lot has been said about Gen-Z and "purity politics", which I have always found to be total and utter rubbish. Gen-Z are currently week-to-week voraciously eating up a show about Gay Hockey players where basically no hockey takes place, and everyone just sleeps with each other. Gen-Z are also the first generation to grow up with easily accessible internet porn, and as a card-carrying member of Tumblr.com, I can tell you first hand, from the rolling hills of Fanfiction.net to the green flats of AO3, my generation has never had any issue with dirty, freaky sex.
We have an issue with Creepy Old Men™ and their associates. We are risk-averse.
Of course Creepy Old Men™ would brand our aversion to their sexuality, taste and worldview as "Puritanical", the same way that the Right brands compassionate politics as "woke". They need to label it as an aberration in order to reassert control. They need to make women and queer people's wholesale agency in their sexuality "immature" or "regressive" (Gee, Thanks Freud). How else can they make themselves sexually relevant again?
The brand was tarnished by the Epstein-y, Weinstein-y truth, and now they're scrambling to regain cultural ground.
What does this have to do with Nick Fuentes though?
I think the American right are actually shocked that they haven't won the culture war alongside the political one. I think they genuinely believe they're cool, hip, young, hot, fly and sexy. They cannot fathom that the world sees them as sexless pests buzzing around the discourse, being a bummer. Creepy Old Men™ and Incels are starting to share not just talking points, but faces as well. They're interviewing each other and going to the same doctor for botox. It's obscene and hilarious and narratively rich, to me at least.
As people start to divest from the "Creepy Old Men™ get to run the place" world order, these guys lose power, and not just political power, but cultural power. Having a boyfriend is embarrassing, and dating a creepy older man who's not hot and actively harming the world via his business practices basically implies to the world you're a broke bitch who isn't interesting enough to pursue your own life and career. It's a step down – the bar has been uncomfortably raised above these men's heads, just out of reach, and they're so mad they're trying to paint the women as the ultimate villains for not lowering it for them again.
Nick Fuentes is currently engaged in a horns-locked fight against Katholic Khristian white supremacist Kandace Owens, as they both desperately try to fill the Charlie Kirk-sized hole in the discourse before it closes forever - which is imminent, or perhaps even already complete. Their desperation signals, at least to me, that they know what's coming – Right™-maggedon. As everyone realises that neither Trump nor Biden can manage inflation by handwaving and smiling, and that the issues we deal with are more and more entrenched in the systems, they will lose people, and therefore power, and the midterms are just around the corner. Lest we forget, MAGA for Mamdani.
Along with this, the complete forgettability of Kirk's death signals to them that they are simply memes in the lives of people they aren't culturally affecting as much as they thought.
For the Creepy Old Men™, it is also a -maggedon – Hottiemaggedon. They aren't going to be able to coast anymore to get hotties, or be able to make predatory behaviour sexy on screen to endear it to the audience. It's just gross to any woman building an actual life with actual interests to consider themselves second to, or willingly hanging off the arm of, some ugly creepy old dude with money.
we actually can retire euphoria
As mentioned, we've had a brilliant few years of Gen-Z on screen. I hear I Love LA is a brilliant go of it, alongside hits such as Shiva Baby, Bottoms, Bodies Bodies Bodies, and Babygirl (Halina Reijn, honorary Gen-Z.). Our actual generation of artists and talent are authoring the stories that make sense to us. We don't need 40 or 50 year old men to tell us what we look like in the culture – we already know what they think. Instead, we're observing each other, and providing that cultural context without them.
We can actually retire Euphoria now, and all the cultural baggage it's come to represent, and say a final goodnight and good luck to Creepy Old Men™.
