SELF-FLAGELLATION: The Drug of the Modern West

By YouveBeenGreeked | Some Random Thoughts. | 7 Mar 2025

Scrolling is fun... I mean, it's not, but we seem to do it a lot. Like, a lot - 99% of people who scroll can't even remember the post or short they saw five scrolls ago. Seriously, next time you're scrolling, try and remember what you saw 5 to 10 posts ago. I've got my phone on me right now playing shorts with an earphone in, in the background, and I can't remember 5 scrolls ago. (I checked and was very surprised I forgot since I remember watching it so intensely. Jesus). Anyway, when scrolling, I notice a lot of posts are about people posting an image of something silly with a caption resembling something like "Me when x, y and z scenario etc."

After quickly googling "relatable memes", it quickly became more concerning than I originally thought. Give it a go and you'll see them for yourself. But here's a few that pop up - enjoy the memes:

Alright you get the idea.

Now, do not get me wrong, I LOVE a good meme - the spicier the better - but these sorts of ones I just showed have something really telling in common that I've come to not just wish to avoid, but almost despise, as innocent as I'm certain they're meant to be.

They almost have a reassuring feeling to them because of how relatable they're designed to be. But my problem is that they SHOULDN'T be relatable. All of these memes have the same problem, which is that they're all so damn self-loathing. They seem innocent enough, but this is the type of content people scroll and download into their brains for hours a day, many many hours a week. Things like putting down their own creativity, people's lives falling apart, daydreaming, gluttony, procrastination, being broke, idleness and anti-social behaviour... now obviously we're all different and none of us are going to be experts at all of these things, but good Lord none of these aspects are necessarily GOOD - they're certainly nothing to laugh about on such a regular basis.

Yes, I'm gonna keep you engaged with relatable memes.

And then you contrast it: how often is the average person scrolling on social media genuinely going to (want to) consume content about doing the opposite of these things? How many are going to (want to) see content that inspires them to utilise their creativity, get their life's priorities in order, focus, eat sensibly, stick to deadlines, get richer, be more proactive and/or socialise more with the outside world? Hell, you probably read all of those things altogether as a bit of a stretch, and to be honest, so did I. It's become so normal to put ourselves down so often, and I think in large part it's because everyone else is doing the same; standing out as someone who likes to work hard, focus, earn serious cash, respect yourself, eat well and exercise makes everyone else in today's world point you out as someone doing something everyone else isn't.

Ain't she a beauty?

The issue there is twofold. One: most people have an ego problem, and they don't like seeing someone stand out for being exceptional, or at least just for not wanting to fail or never achieve anything in life. And two: the people receiving the scorn want to maintain a balance of being exceptional while also fitting in with the majority of people, but the truth is that those are mutually-exclusive end goals. Standing out as a champion in life is going to get the majority of the world's population against you. Hell, even the most successful people in today's world who make possible what we as children thought we'd never see - like spaceships flying back down to earth onto safe landing pads - get scorn just for being extremely rich, which you absolutely need to be in order to put your unique specialties and expertise to use and run multi-billion dollar companies... I think you know who I mean; in any other time, Elon Musk would be universally praised as the man who's building spaceships and sending us to Mars, but... he's rich, and... tax the rich pigs or something... (on that note, I don't like taking or hearing financial advice from people who'd never make 6 figures in their entire lives, let alone 12 figures).

I can't say that my comfort gift-giving wouldn't be too dissimilar, to be fair.

Anyway, the phenomenon I like to refer to as "Modern Self-Flagellation", in reference to how some devout Medieval people would whip themselves to punish themselves for their sins, connects people unspoken on a global scale, united in how lazy, self-hating and unproductive they are, all while complaining that the rich have too much, forgetting of course that more money generally requires more effort and skillsets.

What self-flagellation leads to a lot of the time is people becoming, what I've heard referred to before as, Crabs.

Bear with me.

When dozens of crabs are placed into a bucket, the ones at the bottom will try and reach the top, but not by being the most skilled crab, but simply by dragging the crabs on top of them downwards, giving them a leg up. They're not improving themselves or standing out from the crowd, they're just there because they tarnished the crabs above them.

Tom and Jerry's the best ever Cartoon. Come at me.

And that's really what a lot of people come across like: someone is doing better than them, and that must be theirs or the system's fault, therefore it's OK to do everything possible to work on ruining their reputation or livelihood, instead of just working on yourself. This is where I think a lot of support for things like Communism and Socialism come from - it's easier to destroy in seconds what others spend lifetimes creating.

As for me, I know my place; we're all as capable as anyone of suddenly becoming a pro fighter, or an engineering genius, or even Prime Minister or President down the line. We're all basically the same biological beings when you boil it all down - Hell, if Arnold Schwarzenegger and Andrew Tate can run for governor or Prime Minister because they're physically in shape, I guess my knowledge of political and military history can get me somewhere, surely. (It's discipline and consistency that make up the majority of success in any field, after all). I'm as capable of doing it, but I haven't, so I will never demand or assume that the likes of Musk, Tate or Trump should share their cash with the rest of humanity. Yeah they could, and it could obviously be done in a charitable way, but that's up to them, and God knows none of us know how much they already do give charitably away in their private life. (It's also worth noting that 46% of taxes in the West are paid by the top 1% of the wealthiest people).

... OK that baby's face is hilarious.

I'm not running big businesses that require my attention all day, and honestly, at this point in my life, I'm glad of that - it sounds like an absolute head-aching nightmare a lot of the time.

I know my place in the world relative to where I am in life, and I think it's important to never pretend to understand how other people's lives should be run, or how much money and resources they all need. And unlike many doom scrollers, it's important to never try and pull someone else down, simply to lower them to your level. Just because someone is succeeding in one aspect of life where you're perhaps not as successful, it doesn't mean they're better people than you on the whole - if you're reading this while looking after a spouse and a group of loving children every day, there's multi-millionaires out there who have no social skills or claim to have no time for family - they're businessmen, you're a family man, and honestly I think I know which one's more important, all things considered.

I think I strayed from my original point slightly - Jesus, I went from talking about memes, to talking about Elon Musk, Communism and mob mentality.

But I believe my point stands: the world's algorithms seem to feed nowadays on people's collective need to laugh at their own flaws instead of want to improve on them. And please, I'm not saying we should hate ourselves because we're not all the best versions of ourselves, but I don't think flaws and shortcomings are something to mock or laugh at, especially if everyone else is doing it and is thus likely to help us relate to our own issues in a constructive and comforting manner. I think people lean too heavily on the fact that everyone else can relate to their issues, to then rely on that fact becoming a joke instead of acting on it. Again, because it's easier.

And I think the easy path most people seem to want to take in life - physical and mental - might be the final takeaway note here: