Mimetics Are Dead, Come Build the next Nation!

“Mimetics” or “Mimetic Goals” here refers to cultural goals that we, as members of a society, consider to be the “good life” when we pursue them. For example, two classic frameworks come to mind. One, the Hexagonal Framework of Suburban Mobility. (Hexagonal for how it has six facets: Wife, Job, House, Pets, Kids, Car.) And two, the Four Superstructure Markets of Societal Integration. (The four facets are as follows: Healthily financing Healthcare, Education, Housing, and the Job Market Itself ((such as being able to have enough money to commute and such)).)

In America over the past 70ish years, we’ve come to believe that we become adults the minute we distinguish ourselves from our own parents by getting our own place to live. This socially atomizing and isolating milestone is called “The American Nuclear Family”.

The American Nuclear Family has been the culprit behind many further destitutions, such as single parenthood. For a single parent should have little to no problem if they only had “the village”. Buuut, because the Mimetical Goal is to “get your own place” so you’re not “living in your mom and dad’s basement” and you get to “see the real world” as you go “shopping at Target”, you lose a lot of social artillery that could otherwise assist you in childrearing.

I’m a Zillennial, a person born on the cusp of being one of the youngest Millennials and the oldest of Gen Z (1996). Every generation is sold some sort of paradigmatic idea of the good life. For example, the “Lost Generation” was told that WWI would be the key ingredient to prestige, honor, and social mobility. Needless to say, there was… kind of a reason why they were called the Lost Generation. Their return from war tells of failures to reintegrate, have patriotism, find jobs, and make meaning.

Millennials and Gen Z were no different in this macro way.

And before you roll your eyes and go, “Oh, here we go, another Gen Zer who’s complaining about how hard life is! Well toughen up, buttercup!!!” I want you to ask yourself, why do you feel so threatened by me speaking my truth, that you feel the utmost need to silence it?

Regardless, Gen Z and Millennials were culturally told to go to college. From there, the roadmap was pretty much more or less the same from Gen X’s or the Boomers’ roadmaps. With your degree (in ideally something technical, hard skilled, or a Foreign Language), you’d continue to live with your parents for the next few years while you got some starter jobs in the “real world” of your “hometown”. While doing this, you’d reach out to fields and industries you REALLY wanted to work in. Chances are (because many Gen Xers carried on the tradition of “white flight”) that you live in an Exurb or Suburban town and the industries and sectors you went to school for are all the way over in the “big city” (are you reading my snark yet? Lmao).

Once you applied to a number of industries and sectors of your favorites, you’d then get the rejections and acceptances you’d need to go to a couple of interviews. Then, you’d land the dreamjob and put in your two weeks at your current pizza job. You’d then go to be a Programmer/Translator/Voice-Actor/Berkley Jazz Musician/Dentist/blahblahblah in the big city. Then, you’d find a nice lady who’s just the right blend of touchy and long-term professional to breed — I mean!!! Marry and procreate with, of course.

(BTW, that joke was made from the sarcasm of a progressive perspective. Pro-Choice and all that. It’s just to poke fun at how part of the American Dream is the assumption of the domestication (read, Oversocialization and Ensnaring) of women. Women are their own agents who should be active participants in this American Dream. Yaddayaddayadda…)

Anyway, once you marry and have your first conception (and boy howdy was it immaculate), you then have a baby shower and then do a Family + In-Laws greeting tour before you move out of your apartment in Arlington or Falls Church (I know you, damn it) and then you, like your parents, go “this is no place to raise a family! Can you imagine? The walkability! Chinese food within walking distance! An iHop with the same roster of yuppies I’ve known since I moved here! And social events and pop-up markets that happen nearly every day? THE HORROR!”

So you take your fuckin’ hostages — I mean, Family, back to the suburbs, but not quite YOUR parents’ suburbs, ‘cuz, ya know, you don’t wanna be a loser who’s in driveable distance to his parents. (I mean, after all, you DO need the plausible deniability to not show up when your mom’s third-degreeing you about some sort of “emergency” she’s having with the Thanksgiving Turkey. Psssh.) So it’s a little less Kings Cedars and a little more Chester Orchard. There, you’re greeted by an HOA that’s MUCH cooler than your parents’. They say you can have as big of a giant inflatable for Halloween as you want! And if you wanna raise any chickens or anything? Well, hey, as long as they don’t see it! Hahaha!

And so, for the next 20 years of your and your perfect little family’s life, you bump your super hot wife who is also a Baker/Dentist/Physical-Therapist/Homeschool-Teacher/Candlemaker/Stock-In-Apple-Watches-Holder and have 3–4 kids who look a lot like her but inherited your bigass head. You then go to your Programmer/Translator/Voice-Actor/Berkley Jazz Musician/Electrician-But-Like-Cooler-Than-Your-Dad job back up in the big city and then complain about the commute. (Even though you wanted to move back into Suburbia, but hey, it’s all good. It’s not like you fell victim to Cultural Mimetics and Conditioned Milestones or anything.) You do that project with your kids ad-naseum with the Baking Soda + Vinegar to make a volcano and shit. Nice! You have a few snap and lash-out episodes that make you think you’re becoming just like your father. (Aaaawkward…)

And then your kid graduates high school, goes off to college, and you bawl your fuckin’ eyes out because of course you do because they’re your kid and jesus christ where did the time go???

And then… you wake up.

Hey, wake up.

You’re back in your room, it’s 2025, you’re 28, and…

… Financially/Career-ily(fuck you)/Socially/Economically?

You haven’t accomplished… MUCH, let’s say.

Why? Because in OUR timeline, that nice little dream I just dreamt up, up above, doesn’t really get to happen anymore. Not on those terms, anyway. Not when the job market itself is full of Ghost Jobs, Datamining, Scams, Ghosting Practices, clunky ATSes, crapchute Job Boards, and all sorts of weird meta reasons why you don’t get the job after schmoozing your way through an interview until either the interviewer’s eyes went dead-cold or you mentioned you can’t work Saturday Nights.

And don’t get me started on the rising cost of living (and I mean LIVING), the inflation of the dollar, the cut-throat policies constantly criminalizing being poor and homeless, or XYZ foreign war that the United States is getting its hands dirty in. No, indeed, when the AVG price of a fresh car in 2025 is roughly 40K (the price of what a home was in 1975), when getting a job is a Kafkaesque game of “who’s who”, and when kids are now perceiving a great deal of trauma from a rise in Mass Shootings and Climate Change, ((oh, and older Gen X parents just giving their kids fuckin’ iPads from Ages 4 and onward. Yeah, fuck you, I see you.))…

… is it any wonder why students in schools today have such a nihilistic view of the future? It’s a very “YOLO” attitude, which means “hey, I better buy the newest Labubu and get oversocialized now while I’m 12, ‘cuz between Ukraine and Iran — and how it’s getting prohibitively expensive to LIVE — I might not make it to 22! Screw my teachers and parents. I’m outta here. I ain’t investing in READING. The shit is that nonsense?!”

Yes, Ms. Balcony, I just called your kid a Subconscious Doomer.

But… here’s the deal.

Here’s the thing:

We don’t… have to play this.

We don’t have to keep pretending anymore that it’s a noble goal to try and socially integrate ourselves into the Milestones of Social Mobility into society. I don’t have to be resentful that it took me until I was 21 to get my Driver’s License. I didn’t have my first… ahem intimacy… until I was 20. And I still “live with my parents” (Oh God, what a failure!!!). I don’t have to feel like I’m falling behind. Ya know why? Because FUCK the current game of things! I don’t care that, by societal standards of social mobility, I’m not “making it in life”. I don’t care.

And I know, I know. “But Ryan, you’re writing about it on the internet! Doesn’t that mean you secretly MUST care?” Here’s the thing: Obviously, it’s enough of a paradigmatic topic in our society that I feel the need to address it. And you do too. I betcha, people in the Boomer/Xer cohort just shivered when they read me saying, “I don’t care that I still live with my parents”. Because I just disregarded the playbook of their distinguishment. Their distinguishing factor. But that’s THEIR game. Not mine.

Truth is, we really honestly DON’T believe in the idea of everyone not comparing themselves to each other, ‘cuz if we did, we wouldn’t just say “don’t compare yourself” at our convenience. How are people NOT supposed to compare themselves when that’s literally the whole point behind pursuing Mimetic Goals? But again…

… We don’t have to use the US Dollar, we don’t have to be consumers, (although Healthcare is nice), we don’t have to “pay our dues” by getting shitty jobs, and we don’t HAVE to purue and relate to relationships the same way our historically recent predecessors did. “Oh no”, laments the Boomer/Xer, “He’s reinventing the wheel!” Damn right I’m reinventing the wheel, Mr. Silly-Goose. (That’s a hyphen of a husband and wife named Timothy Silly and Cheryl Goose, respectively. I don’t fuckin’ know, dude.) The wheel is broken. Our cultural mimetics have collapsed.

Many young men are out of the labor force:

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/21/why-more-men-are-dropping-out-of-the-workforce.html
2. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/why-some-prime-age-men-are-out-of-work/
3. https://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/1fnj8c4/more_men_in_their_prime_working_years_are_neither/
4. https://blog.allegisglobalsolutions.com/exploring-the-decline-of-the-male-employment-rate

Within reason, and to the best of our abilities…

… We can build our own Parallel Currencies, be self sufficient growers and bakers of our own food, learn how to generate our own electricity, learn how to program our own video games, program our own websites and servers, create our own miniature social circles, set our own standards, and ultimately no longer feel like we’re “falling behind”.

Because we’re not.

It’s the Mimetics that are collapsing.

In fact, they’ve already collapsed, and the Boomer/Xer crowd is just turning rabid at how their “Provider” role is butting heads with the “Pioneer” role of the next generation(s) to come. Minus healthcare and socialization, there is very little else we need from a society that is constantly screwing us over.

“Oh, but did you do this, and what about this, or what about that?”

I did.

I’m making my own Micronation.

I know I’ve been polemic throughout this article, but please, come build the next Nation with me.

1. https://www.instagram.com/mennericmicronation/

(and later I’ll give a link from the Micronation Wiki, provided they approve my page, LMAO…)