Kevin Winter, a professor of media studies at Pomona College, says irrational self-confidence is one of the reasons villains resonate so deeply throughout culture. “In a repressive society like ours, which favors the betterment of consumers, characters who actively reject the trappings of capitalist fantasy or who operate by self-constructed codes of morality in opposition to the dominant society , they will inevitably be attractive to us. “Not everyone may want to admit it openly,” he says.
Today, traditional notions of villainy have been replaced by complex, sometimes contradictory, standards for what different groups consider acceptable or dangerous. Winter believes this has led to a “post-villain world”. Tech mogul (Elon Musk), politician (Mayor of New York City eric adams), Podcasters (Joe Rogan) – To many, they are the primary violators of our times (and to others, heroes). They are anti-system. They want to destroy “the system”.
“There are very few villains who combine shrewdness, money and power the way Donald Trump does,” says Winter. “Even his latest parasitic attachment, Elon Musk – who, again, embodies the ideal villain to some, a flamboyant futuristic cowboy to others.”
It's the thing about the future, you never know how it's going to pan out, or whose side it's going to take. For some people, artificial intelligence was the main rival of 2024. In Hollywood and the gaming industry, AI reveals itself more than an existential threatBecause many employees were worried about this loss of jobs,
Others, feeling lost in the rapid changes social media is experiencing, have pointed the finger at digital gentrifiers. “I'm angry that everything about the Internet that was fun and useful 10 years ago is broken now. This site, obviously,” Tracy Chow, an app developer, Posted On X. “Reviews are astroturf lies. The discovery is a hallucination. There is no place to share with friends and family without influencers/memes/polarizing content in the feed.”
times like these phenomenal like usAll the anger and excitement, actually a reorientation toward the transgressive, reads less shocking when you consider it as part of a larger social reorientation. Villainy has long permeated the cultural imagination – American lore, after all, was built on the sensibilities of mavericks, vigilantes and the underdog – but in 2024 it becomes a fully-fledged main character.
Why? It may be that villainy, more than heroism, offers a different texture of objective, closer to reality, that sees our world as it is right now – deeply messed up – and reacts accordingly.
I can definitely say that villainy has no special loyalty. Ultimately it consumes everyone. In December, it was announced that Warner Bros. Discovery had canned Sesame StreetLong-running children's program. Obviously, the decision did not go well. On Bluesky, the social media app of the moment, @valhallabackgirl hit back with the anger that many people have also experienced this year. “I think this is my villain origin story,” she said wrote,