The 2008 election sparked a surge of positivity across pop culture.
Now hindsight (and cringe) is setting in.
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For the past month, much of American political life has resembled a game of Ouija.
The message sent from the great beyond spells Y-E-S-W-E-C-A-N.
The nation seemed to be sleepwalking toward autocracy until thesudden ascent of presidential hopeful Kamala Harrischanged everything.
CNN panelistsdebatedthe question of whether Kamala was brat.Barbie-themed Madame President signssproutedon lawns.
Megan Thee Stalliontwerkedat a rally.
Cynthia Nixonsippedfrom a coconut.
A campaign has been constructed around a mood, rather than the other way around.
In a departure from thesleazeandsnarkof George Bushs aughts, Obamacore positioned itself as sensitive, non-threatening, and relatable.
For wistful liberals, it was an age of doomed innocence waiting to be memorialized by some futureStefan Zweig.
For others it was a decadent interregnum Weimar with listicles.
Cards on the table: The site you are reading played an active role in the creation of Obamacore.
Welifted upthe idolsof the dayandtook sidesin the feuds.
It would be cowardly to disavow this work and pointless to defend it.
I think about the Hope poster, which my own child was named after.
We really did believe in that stuff.
Your self-narrative about what you could achieve, all of that was potentially wrong.
A lot of big pop production: huge drums, huge synths, and powerful choruses.
Accompanying this optimism was a sense of generational handover.
A new word was coined for the previously unremarkable idea of fulfilling basic life duties:adulting.
Instruments like ukuleles and xylophones escaped elementary schools and invaded YouTube.
While certain sections of the internet remained an adult kindergarten, in others, student government was in session.
(She emphasized, at the time.)
Thus, after years of speaking truth to power, the culture suddenly found that power wasnt all bad.
But at the time, everyone was like, We cant sully this moment.
He felt a little unimpeachable, pardon the pun.
The artistic culmination of this belief wasHamilton, whose opening number was unveiled at the White House in 2009.
The implication was unmistakable: 240 years of American progress had culminated in the Obama administration.
Expertise, too, was back in vogue.
French economist Thomas Piketty briefly became a left-wingcrush object.
People found it endearing when Neil DeGrasse Tysonnitpicked the science of Hollywood blockbusters.
There was this feeling that as a comedian, you had a responsibility to educate.
But would they ever think, MaybeIshouldstopdoing fucked-up stuff?
At the time, it seemed like we had no shot.
For Black actors, it was a barren landscape.
Six years into Obama, and we werent sure if we had a shot.
The following year, Wilmore started hostingThe Nightly Show With Larry Wilmoreon Comedy Central.
Do you ever feel like youre just a hoodie away from being face down on the pavement?
We were tackling race head on, he says.
They werent quite ready for our racial show hitting you in the face.
( Lamorne Morris had been on the show for two seasons.)
That sort of token person of color thing was so rampant.
Its like,We have not made it.
But slowly, television adapted, too.
The word that everyone used all the time wasunderrepresented.
People in the industry like metaphors, similes; they dont always like to be so direct.
But we could talk about feminism in a different way, which is absolutely whatThe Good Wifewas about.
We started to be able to talk about race in a more pointed way.
The flipside of that idea was a rigid belief that, asJ.P.
Brammerwrote this year, specific identities [conferred] a specific set of values, beliefs, and behaviors.
Predictably, this worldview spawned a pervasive racial ventriloquism.
The battle lines were often blurry.
When a white indie rockersaid something tone-deaf about R. Kelly, whose side should you take?
By the final years of Obamas presidency, the cracks were starting to show.
Now she wonders if the approach backfired.
I think we neglected to understand that white people did not feel celebrated.
Listen, its one of those things where I have empathy, but not sympathy necessarily.
Obamacore hadnt emerged from thin air.
The most infantilizing elements of Obama-era youth culture were natural outgrowths of the childlike whimsy of aughts hipsterdom.
But unlike the gradual manner in which it began, the Obama era didnt slowly fade away.
Hope gave way to grief.
In the Kubler-Ross model,SNLs Kate McKinnonperformingHallelujah in character as Hillary Clinton was Denial.
Channeling your feelings about the election into theMoonlight/La La LandOscar racewas Bargaining.
Trumps election was followed by eight years ofYellowstonespinoffs and the resurgence ofRoseanne Barr.
All your favorite male feminists were guilty of sexual misconduct.
Kanye West became a Trump supporter.
Gen Z would be like, I cant believe you were living in that world.
I felt a little misunderstood.
Still, she says, I dont think its naive to be hopeful.
This summers sudden reappearance of hope and positivity has spurred split reactions.
Do you embrace your inner cringe, or give a shot to tamp it down?
(Platten is staying out of it: Ive done my part.)
The optimistic case is that, against all odds, we seem to have heeded the lessons of Obamacore.
Generation Z is willinglyclimbing the coconut tree.
