How Rick and Morty Caught the Zeitgeist 

You two are doing an excellent job. By discussing concepts and philosophies in movies and TV, you've genuinely helped me (and many other viewers) gain a certain level of cinematic literacy to understand what I'm watching and to think about the content critically. I love your work and just thought I'd say thanks :)

I feel like it’s a good representation of a lot of today’s minds. Humour balanced with scared thoughts of our existence.

Awesome. Very accurate video. Well done.

Got the part about grand narratives wrong. It's not that simple.

I agree that it is of a particular challenge to define something while it is still presenting itself. In this case, defining the thinking of a period, while still living in it, is such a challenge. It could even mean that the shifting described in this video is a result of being in the developing thought process of the period. So the analysis may be swayed. Whereas a concrete definition may have emerged after passing the period. Well, I suppose we may have a part 2 of this analysis after passing this period... As far as thought for today goes, I think thinking about whatever's true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things; and make our requests known to God. We'll be well on our way to settling on a definition for this era. This is an interesting 'read'.

Meta modernism arrives as a physiological necessity in our existence. We simply cannot bare to live life without the hope or grasp of some sort of meaning.

So many really good shows are doing this now: Atlanta, Rick and Morty, Bojack Horseman, Shameless, all filled with characters who can never seem to get out of their own way and be happy, they all fluctuate back and forth and can never really land in a true happy place, it really does mirror our world in general. Sometimes though, it can get exhausting and that's why I'll end up watching a show like designated survivor because sometimes, I just want a good optimistic protagonist who always does the right thing and makes sure good conquers evil.

To be honest, you could do an entire essay on Tales of The Citadel alone

*This is such a cool video, thanks for enlightening me about Metamodernism*

Metamodernism is just the latest name for what David Foster Wallace described as the natural next step to follow postmodernism in his essay E Unibus Pluram. It used to be called post-postmodensim, the new sincerity, reconstructivism...

Yes, this is the content I subbed for! A well thought out and supported analysis that offers deeper insight into my own life!! Maybe that's hyperbole and/or maybe I'm putting too much expectation on this channel but I do think you guys have fascinating film/media analyses. Thanks for the great work!

One of the best analysis I've ever seen! Thanks for this

This channel never disapoints

I guess this would mean we're know in the *Post*-Post-Modern era. Either way; really great video and analysis of this show! :)

metamodernism... more like memedernism...

Surprisingly profound video. Well done!

Once you finish Rick and Morty, and Harmon Quest, you can listen to the several hundred episodes of Harmontown. double-yew double-yew double-yew Dan Harmon dot com forever hundred years Dan Harmon

Hit the nail on the head for why I appreciate the show. I _know_ that everything is pointless, but you might as well enjoy things while they last and try to do your best.

When I saw screenprism upload a rick and morty video, I'm not ashamed to say I squealed like a 4 year old.

Yeeeahh time to get schw....oh wait. Edit: the subject is actually really interesting. Great video.

I think this is why I’m not as huge a fan of the show. I remain staunchly idealistic about the world so the pendulum swinging back feels more like I’m being mocked than something I can identify with.

Zeitgeist is German and means „Timeghost”. Lol

Never stop being amazing, ladies

Very well put! I feel the metamodernism mirroring ours via how the infinite universes reflects our infinite information base falls to a topic I’ve been studying a lot lately: memetics. Particularly, how their presence in the form of internet memes effects our worldview. Their mix-and-match nature reflects our viewing of the bigger picture, how everything both optimistic and nihilistic are connected. Their widespread narrative is a result of anyone able to know anything, turning what would be niche subjects into a universal joke. Memetics online represents a collective knowledge of no one knowing anything because we can all learn everything. Everything can be a meme because anything can be known collectively, you just have to look it up.

I love the word "Zeitgeist"

So the smartest man in the universe can't seem to figure out the recipe for McDonald's Szechuan sauce?

Rick and Morty makes all sense with metamodernism! FLCL for me, has this feeling too..

Do a video on The Virgin Suicides or Neon Demon!

Thanks for this analysis Screen Prism, meta-modernism is how I have been experiencing life since Trump sat his backside in our Oval Office. I vacillate between existential angst, hope we can save the world from him, to apathy and cynicism. I didn't have a word for it, now I do.

I’m sitting here like “ That word sounds German..” and then I realized it’s literally “Time Ghost!” 😂😂😂

Your videos blow my mind every time with it's insight..... good job guys

An amazing job as always I’m so grateful for this channel

Rick and Morty is a fan theory generator that takes adavantage of the multiverse trend in current stories. It has about as much entertainment value as modern music. Fun to talk to about, whatever as you watch. Still don't know why I watch it. Seen all these tropes a million times before. Can even predict the next plot turn. Guess it's like Superman. There were superheroes before him, but he wrapped them all together with only one additional thing, the chest symbol. This is every other Adult Swim show but with a fan theory generator built into the plot.

wait, you use the word "zeitgeist" in america?

Post-Modernism is so worn out. I can't wait until our age gets an un-prefixed "ism".

Cool analysis as always! But given how toxic the show's fandom is now, it's kind of hard to buy any semblance semantility within the show. It seems like the only thing the toxic fans ever got out of the show is the allure of how dumb everybody is in comparison to you.

I love the Zeitgeist 'time ghost' i.e. ghost on a clock animation.

I just realised, that english people trying to pronounce/pronouncing "Zeitgeist" is one of the funniest things ever, thank you!

I like the ideas of metamodernism, but I don’t understand why it is being toted as a new thing. It is basically Kierkegaard’s Existentialism.

Yes, I do see the oscillating nature of Rick and Morty, but I also find this oscillation to be entirely pointless unless we see some kind of development or growth in the characters. I do think that some of the characters evolve somewhat, specifically Morty, Summer and Beth, but I find Rick and Jerry very stagnant, and that just seems very artificial to me, considering everything they experience; this I find somewhat understandable with Rick considering the, for the lack of a better word, vast perspective he has, but I find it completely absurd comcerning Jerry. I wouldn’t say that real people are that rigid. This is where I think BoJack Horseman comes out entirely on top, as the characters in that show go through actual developmental progressions instead of being more or less “reset” every episode. The oscillation between the modern and post-modern attitudes, to me, must be one of a dialectic kind if taken seriously and examined by the poeple who go through them, and therefore I entirely expect the pendulum to facilitate character development. This is why, at least untill the show can prove me otherwise, Rick and Morty is still a nihilistic/absurdist and post-modernistic show at the end of the day, while I consider BoJack Horseman to be actually meta-modernistic.

I'm in the middle of Rick & Morrty right now and I love you guys for this video!!

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I think metamodernism is more of an oscillation of Disillusionment and earnest reform (in terms of this era’s productivity); post modernism could not handle the disillusionment in a productive way- turning cynical and apathetic. The byproduct of disillusionment that affects some of the population over all being counter productive for those who embrace them. Modernism was so optimistic, they took the ethics of their institutions for granted; allowing them to fester with corruption or at the worst were corrupt from the start.

One of your best episodes!

For the most part I completely agree with the observations stated in this video. I believe that "modern" should always represent current contemporary trends in culture, to label the distant past as modern is extremely confusing. At this point the world was "post-modern" before I was ever even born, and I feel as though using terminology in this manner has metaphorically painted my generation, and all developing generations into the proverbial corner. Contemporary culture should either always be defined as modern, or we need to develop a new term that has a similar meaning. To continuously add modifiers just makes things one degree more complicated, and we really should not be adding straws to the camel's back at this point. Meta-post-modernism.....that's waaaaaaay over the line. In my book, these are modern times. Always will be. I label today as the beginning of either a technological dark age of uncertainty, or the beginning of an American Techno-Utopian-Renaissance. We have the technology to develop a common treatise, once which will delegate the majority of gruntish slave labor to mindless automatons, and provide a solid state of general welfare for the masses through an elevated level of universalized basic income, medical care, and social security. A high level of general welfare may promote a lack of motivation, so socialization and artistic achievement should also be heavily incentivized, so as to keep the masses positively contributing. The more professionally driven should still find plenty of incentive to invest their time and effort into "business as usual," however, they need to be more grounded, and should not forget to "patronize" the artists. Our language could use some attention as well, there are simply too many "kinks" to allow for life to flow properly. The intersection of "art and commerce" needs some serious adjustments. All is most certainly not lost in 2018. As indicated by this video however....we need to find a little more to live for other than "oscillation" between a state of misplaced comfort in hopelessness, and a state of desperately grasping for any hint of optimism remaining.

Something I've been preaching myself Walk the middle path guys, best place to be is the intermediate.

How are you ladies so awesome? You are the best and totally right on. Thank you.

why do u only have 359k subs? She has a great voice, and the quality of the videos are good.

Hmm... My understanding of how to move past the dichotomy of modernism vs. postmodernism is a bit different, because I was exposed to an analysis of it based more on epistemology: This approach argues that the central idea behind modernism is that science is supreme. The only truth is objectively verifiable truth, and by pursuing and mastering that truth, we as a species can gain increasingly greater mastery over every aspect of the human condition. So then, modernism is the optimistic pole within that take on the theory of knowledge, which can make it seem sentimental and naively sincere, but it's still trying to analyze the world through a lens of rationality that rejects wishy-washy, intangible things like spirituality. Okay, so post-modernism seems to be a rejection of modernism, but under this analysis, it hasn't actually rejected the underlying idea that objective, scientific inquiry is the only path to truth. It HAS rejected the starry-eyed optimism that this path can indeed ever fully solve the riddle of existence, but, since it doesn't offer an alternate path to truth, the conclusion is that truth must be relative, or the important questions in life can never be answered. Naturally, this leads to cynicism, relativism, nihilism, etc... Rick is such a powerful illustration of post-modern despair, because he's a super-scientist who has achieved almost total mastery of objective truth, but remains a deeply flawed, miserable human who can't escape the angst of death and meaningless. He has exposed modernism - a faith in the ultimate triumph of science - as a failed hypothesis. I agree with the show that modernism is a failed hypothesis. However, I also can't bring myself to accept a cynically detached, absurdist, "YOLO" approach to life (which seems to me to be the only halfway-bearable way to live out the soul-crushing implications of post-modernism). So, the solution I've chosen is to reject the that objective truth is the only truth, and embrace an existentialist epistemology that allows subjective data - like my directly perceived moral and aesthetic sensibilities, or the "gestalt" of how my consciousness seems to relate to the universe - to factor in along beside the objective data of rational analysis. In other words, I'm trying to add some elements of pre-modernism to my own take on meta-modernism. Great video!

Please make a videoessay about Nathan for You: Finding Frances and post-postmodernism. (And If you did not watch it, do it, it's great) Great video, btw, your videos about different meanings and how characters percieve life and meaning are always great. But this video especially! :)

I would like to thank Harmon for making us talk intellectually about 'fart'

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy." -Camus Not really a new idea, but a good one. There is no meaning apart from the meaning we ourselves ascribe. Which is OK.

So Zeitgeist is a word Americans use?

Another phrase for it would be Human Extremism

Check out Hermetic philosophy. Your 2 wunderkin just ripped off an idea from it. Metamodernism is Polarity in the Hermetic beliefs. 2 poles that a pendulum swings between. Hope and nihilism being the 2 extremes of the Human condition. Occult wisdom wrapped in a modern bow.

This is so spot on oh my god sike! There is no god

A very great channel called nightmare masterclass made a video describing meta-modernism to break down DDLC, yall should check it out! Seems it's the wave in games too

We need more earnestness. People these days - at least, of my age - seem to protect their true feelings and values in a cloak or irony, cynicism and nihilism. To be more upfront and less scared of being honest and straightforward is important.

I never make RU-vid posts, but you guys are the best. Congratulations on your superb content, and keep being the killer women you are.

Someone gave my daughter szechuan sauce for Halloween! My other daughter got a ketchup packet!

Yeah, with this show it mostly stems from Cosmic Nihilism as oppose to Bojack Horseman which stems from Existential Nihilism. So I'm not entirely sure if nihilism counts as "post modernism" when when nihilism as a philosophy, existed in the 1800s.

Buddy, I am the Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is a word in German that was made up on the spot when some Chinese dude tried to explain Feng Shui. Feng Shui can be thought of as what happens in a period piece, like, say, on the one, true, real Earth, this planet, or, in shows like 'Rick and Morty' -OR- in a movie called 'After Earth'.

Man in the Vindicators 3 i was so excited about Rick doing that for morty and when it was revealed that it was actually for ( sorry if i am butchering it ) noob-noob, i couldn't think anything but "Motherfu*ker". But it the same way it felt soo rick and morty.....God i love this show.

So would Jordan Peterson fall into this. I have found good videos critiquing his view on Postmodernism but this video supports his summation of this particular realm of philosophy. Just wondering, would what would be called "the dark web" an academic call to meta-modernism?

I think that Rick is kind of like the embodiment of science. All the smarts, but no real moral compass. It's kind of what makes modern man modern. He knows the technology backwards and forwards, yet he's adrift morally with nothing stable to grab hold of. It's Nitschke's God is Dead formula. It's kind of a depressing take, but as you point out in a different video, the Morty character has an intact moral compass and as he grows through the show, it seems like the center of the show may be slipping from Rick to Morty, from the guy who knows it all, to the guy who seems to have decency and a sense of what is actually important. When I viewed the first two seasons, Morty seems like just a sideshow to Rick, but it seems like over time, the Mortyness (the youth and goodness) may be replacing technological achievement with something that is hard to define but seems to be clearly missing from modern life. A sense of purpose perhaps.

Harmond quest is pay only. Paying for things like this isnt for smart people. You gotta lot of numbers on a screen, one site says credit card number, another has a sign-up pbrrrrr-age... sometimes you even have pieces of paper (the same thing i wipe my @$$ with) with old idiots faces on them. Its all justa brrrrrrr-unch of crap morty.

You see metamodernism in other pieces of popular internet culture like h3h3, who swing between irreverent comedy and serious messages. And of course there’s Harmon’s previous work, Community, which is of course extremely referential and yet often very earnest. Community has a bit more of a balance than Rick and Morty - it’s more evenly split between the modern and postmodern.

I'd love to see a metamodernist analysis applied to Community. If Dan Harmon had debuted that show a few years later, maybe it would've caught on the same way Rick and Morty has. Although it definitely caught on with a sub-section of the zeitgeist, so a similar appeal certainly existed. Perhaps Community was a little bit ahead of its time in that regard, or perhaps animation is just a more apt medium to catch fire in this way, or perhaps some combination of both.

two things: u could do urself a great service to improving ur content by describing zeitgeiist, a german word (that is not a loanword in american english) and many many would not have the faintest clue about. second, u have made a few jumps in ur examples that really are not causations and this, for the extremely avid (which i assume is in "the brazillions") Rick and Morty fans, is going to be a major turn off as it seems to point out that either u are reading from someone elses script, and/or have gathered ur information about the show by simply reading blogs rather than watching the show itself - as it did with me.

They're charging for Harmonquest now? Well, fuck that show. It's a bunch of drunks playing D&D poorly. It's alright but not worth paying for.

Meta Post Modernism? Oscillation? You give Dan and Justin too much credit. More like subversion. Of what? Whatever is the status quo of that moment. Because punk rock and dgaf and etc

See, I kind of can't hecking stand this show's pendulum swinging--and I hate the notion that sentiment can only be optimistic and that cynicism must be detached and apathetic. The gap between the world that is and the better world that should be isn't fixed, it can be shortened. Not closed, but shortened. The show's humor has often felt mean-spirited to me because in its cynical moments the joke doesn't just seem to be on the one who cares, it's on them *for caring.* And idk about y'all, but *I'm tryna fistfight my apathy, not flirt with it.*

Grateful for all those popular culture courses I took at university 🥲🥲 because I wouldn’t know anything about postmodernism or pluralism etc mentioned in this video essays.

The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy is pretty obscure now, and I've no idea if it has the right attention vacuum for you guys, but I think you'd have fun looking into its characters

Wait 70 more episodes?

cop out...the difference split...yawn...its just warm....Goldilocks philosophy

This is a misunderstanding of the terms modernism and postmodernism. They are describing a lot of the tendencies of those who lived in both however this is also placing a blanket statement over societal changes. When there are many other very large factors. For a better explanation of what postmodernism is look up just about any video of Jordan Peterson who is a Clinical Psychologist. Not an educational psychologist that prefer to push this as the explanation of what it means to be postmodernist.

bad analogy...the greeks knew the earth was round...it's basic math, not a subjetive cultural expression of a era..

I think Rick has turned Morty into a postmodernist. "Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's going to die, come watch TV."

Wrong. R and M is an example of American existentialism. When one discovers that life is meaningless and full of pain, the choice is either suicide or jokes. No one would watch if they chose suicide, so they do jokes.

It's David Atten-bruh That's not supposed to be a joke I know it says bruh but even if that was a joke it wouldn't mean anything that's just how you say it it's how he says it I guess you could say David Atten-buruh too I've wasted my time. I see that now.

Definition of zeitgeist noun the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time. "the story captured the zeitgeist of the late 1960s"

Just by the way... you can tell that the Earth is not flat by standing on it and going outside and either looking at the moon or performing experiments like the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans who totally knew the Earth was round before satellites

Rick and Morty fans are too intellectual for me. Not even Elon Musk can hang.

Your describing periodization not zeitgeist. Zietgiest is static, it's read differently based on the framework of a period. Postmodernism is defined by pastiche, appropriation, and the status of the author according to Jameson. Rick and Morty is a cynical reading of modernism not postmodernism. Rancier would refer to Rick and Morty in terms of a narcissistic aesthetic regime, it has nothing to do with the periodization referred to as postmodernism.

You see the pendulum swinging between modernism and post modernism. The exit vector is polydimensionalism, so tilt the plane so you can see the extremes of modernism and post modernism as the edge of a circle where you the individual decide where post modernism and modernism are located on that circumference.

Am I the only one who seems to know so much about rick and morty because of things I’ve read or watched about it... but has still never actually seen the show itself.

Oh my god. You cracked the code. The world seems crazy right now because it's friggin' bipolar!

Star Wars The Last Jedi in the beginning seems like a postmodern Star Wars, but the ending shows it's actuallz metamodernist

Why does it seem like everyone's waiting for something these days? Almost like a NEWS apocalypse

Yeah but that's just like, your interpretation, woman. I mean it was wonderful and beautiful, but there are an infinite number of interpretations.

Just FYI, the 18th century started in 1700 and the 19th ended in 1899, but yeah, good stuff.

3:59 really? the Shape of Water is the anti postmodern? than no thanks, i rather be in postmodern Otherwise, good video tho! Thanks

Swinging back and forth between sentimentality and apathy...why can’t we find the middle ground?

I am a metamadernist Existential nihilist optimist but I no nieve but mostly optimistic I constantly fluctuate to aronic detachment to super optimism Alot but over all its Existential nihilistic optimism .

I agree with this video, but I think it does its own thesis a disservice by not pointing out some comparison to the way the Simpsons used postmodernism with sentimentality in the 90's

All hail philosopher GOD Albert Camus. Metamodernism is just Absurdism dressed up

Exuse me, did u just fucking said that the earth is round??!! Earth is a MinEcraFT cube

You pointed out something, this show is right on time. It's not ahead of it's time, many people have yet to see it because they are just behind.

God dammit why do I have to live in Europe I soo wanna watch Harmonquest, like SO much!