Main Characters in a Cage
Millennial angst, rage rooms, and the choices confronting a second lost generation
“Did you exchange… A walk on part in the war… For a lead role in a cage?”
The metaphor of war is inescapable. The fight against Covid, the literal war in Ukraine, the war against want, terrorism, obesity, corruption etcetera etcetera. Humanity’s greatest showpiece is war. This seems like undeniable historical fact. And so it is in this famous lyric from Pink Floyd’s “Wish you were here”. Perhaps we turn to the valour of war because we know that we could not face participating in a real one.
I had an epiphanic moment recently when someone on Instagram posted a story about going to, what seems to be called, a “Rage Room”. The premise being you go to a room, wear some protective gear, and smash things to vent your frustrations and pay someone for the privilege to do it in a controlled environment. That this is a commercialised activity now, part of the budding experience economy, is a sure sign that a lot of people with “Main Character Syndrome” are eagerly getting in line for lead roles in a cage.
The notion of paying someone to enable me to methodically “vent” my rage seems paradoxical. Rage carries connotations of uncontrollability. Overtly, that is not the reason why people would patronise such a business. But there is a lot to read into this seemingly benign pastime, even if people would be inclined to retort “its just a bit of harmless fun”. I would argue that the “Rage Room” is an adaptive response to a generation of people who have increasingly made peace with the portents of their misery.
It used to be a movie trope, wherein a character (often a woman) would reach the end of their tether and explode in a rage, throwing plates and smashing things to signal either a nervous breakdown or unbearable anger at being wronged. Audiences were supposed to feel pity for the person losing self-control and experiencing something akin to rock bottom. A critical point, after which the cry for help might be heard, and the character’s story arc becomes more positive. But today, the performance of rage is available in 30 min increments to whoever is willing to pay. This is part of a wider trend, visible prominently in advertising for services like Uber, where the entrenched cynicism and desperation of people under 40 is assimilated as a normal condition.
Tristan Cross, in his article in the Guardian, summed it up well: “There’s something more than a little worrying about an advertising culture that doesn’t even try to delude us into imagining a fantastic future, but instead reflects the grim realities of the present.”
Capitalism is doing a triumphant dance on the grave of our aspirations. Lenin once remarked that the last capitalist would sell us the rope he would be hung with. Instead, it seems the last millennial will pay for the privilege of euthanising their hopes and dreams. With each smashed plate, each swing of the sledgehammer, we bludgeon unto death our belief in possibility. Almost exactly a century after the first, a second Lost Generation passes its days in a simmering misery, working longer hours for lesser pay in an economy that appears to be in perpetual crisis.
I have to restrain myself from listing all the ways life is measurably worse for young people in the advanced Western economies, who once harboured ambitions of ascending to middle class comforts of the boomer generation. Because despite everything, ours is a spurned generation. A generation that was told that if it obeyed rules, studied hard, did extra-curriculars, wrote tailored CVs and cover letters, networked on LinkedIn, would be rewarded good, secure jobs and a slightly extravagant lifestyle. When those promises didn’t lead to fruition, many of us became disillusioned and found ways to make our peace with the vagaries of life. But ultimately, there exists an underclass that is still ignored, whose experiences millennials struggle to understand or forge common cause with.
Our experiences are just one tile in a larger mosaic. The Uber Eats driver bringing us our takeaway is the surest exemplification of our divorce from reality. All of this is not to deny the suffering we are wont to. But what we must avoid doing in this moment of history is to engage in solipsism.
Ultimately, the “Rage Room” is a comical manifestation of this involution. Instead of facing up to the deeply unfair demands of a world that was not of our making, we find modern opiates to numb our senses to the pain we carry with us. The true rage that is bubbling underneath that we are not even allowed to express, let alone channel into something productive, is locked away in the recesses of our souls.
There is a gap in the market to soothe our weary souls in the 21st Century. We can’t have the stability of days gone by but we can be given quirky new ways to “blow off steam”. Religion is a declining force so there is no god to cry out to for help. We increasingly reject drinking. And we fuck less than ever before. The experience economy steps in to fill the void while assiduously reminding us not to expect much more than that.
We must discover where our tile of experience fits in the larger mosaic
But these trends are epiphenomenal. The true malaise remains the structure of power and property relations that prevail in societies East, West, North, and South: capitalism. Overdetermining this is the reality of climate change, the cliff edge to which the train of human existence moves inexorably towards, with us as its straitjacketed passengers. In this context, the “Rage Room” is self-care of a sort. It is akin to a cancer patient accepting their terminal diagnosis and opting to receive palliative care.
The “Rage Room”, the self-indulgent avocado on toast at Pret to start the work day, the impulse shopping on Amazon or Asos, or the expensive takeaway order after yet another unnecessarily long day at work where your boss demanded you to be physically present; all of these minor indulgences serve as a palliative balm on the gaping wound that fatalism has inflicted upon us. I have my gripes about this, in my opinion, naïve and self-defeating pattern. But then my moralising would serve as just a different sort of indulgence. No. We must, despite every temptation, resist ascribing moral character to individual actions. We must break out of the silos of our individuated existence and forge bonds with one another that will give us a fighting chance to resist perpetual subjugation.
The first step towards emancipation is recognising a commonality with a larger mass of people, among whom you become invisible. It is, precisely, to give up the lead role in a gilded cage, and to embrace the walk-on role we must all play in the war against generalised oppression. For millennials, this would involve rejecting or diluting our associations with certain categories of self-identification. The framework of generational divides i.e. millennials, boomers, gen Z etc., has a limited purpose. At best, it is a gateway to realising the even bigger picture behind the struggles of a generational cohort. At worst, it entrenches the navel gazing impotence that capitalists then sell back to us.
We must discover where our tile of experience fits in the larger mosaic, where we are ourselves are contributors to problems, and where we have unrecognised power. It all starts with a conversation, with imploring one another, strengthening each other’s resolve to resist. But failure is possible at every step. Because no single act will ever be enough. We have to ultimately accept that life is nothing but generalised, perpetual struggle, and that there is glory in the act of struggle itself.
For the dreams of middle-class comfort that many of our generation hold, are poisoned chalices. They curtail us from imagining an even better existence. Is it not a regression of imagination if our greatest aspirations become the replication of the lifestyle of a previous generation? The fulfilment of these dreams would in any case come at the expense of someone else. And if we focus our angst on the spurning of these tired ambitions, we are merely protesting being stripped of the right to exploit others as the generation before us.
If we are serious about resolving the deep angst that plagues us, then we must envision a new future, a new economic settlement. We would actually have to defect to the side of the oppressed, the working class at home and abroad, whose economic ranks we are being corralled into even if our social ranks remain separated. That is the duality of the millennial experience. Millennials in the West live on this interstitial plane between middle class prosperity and working-class drudgery. If we are to cohere into a concrete social formation, we have to decisively pick a side. This would require sacrificing a multitude of aspirations associated with winning the rat race. And even then, there is no guarantee of success, only the promise of a fighting chance to forge a better world.
“It is far better to live like a tiger for a day than to live like a jackal for a hundred years.” – Tipu Sultan
This is a sensational article bro! I completely agree with the premise that we are being fed horrible, useless crap through advertising in order to work jobs we hate so that we can buy shit that we don't need. However, me and my comrades have slightly different feelings about how to approach the "treat yoself" capitalist hellscape. As Slavoj Zizek has pointed out, it is impossible as a participant of capitalism to gain pleasure outside of that constructed reality. To do so would be a doomed act of futility. Instead of rejecteing the usless sensual pleasures brought to us by capitalism, we must fully embrace the trash. Love the trash! Become more synthetic, and in doing so, become more pure. We are living not just in dark times, but in fundamentally contradictory times. Only by embracing the platitudes of consumerist highs can we truly subvert the system as a whole! Me personally, I engage in various impulsive, drastic and increasingly directionless and destructive erotic activities. I am part of large community of like-minded people who have given into the human spirit, the Freudian superego, and have thus transcended oppression. Please join us at https://www.reddit.com/r/ABDL/ to see my vices. Blessed are the cheesemakers!
You never fail to tickle me with your attempts at insightful writings. As a fully paid out member of the bourgiousieieie (i'm too rich to spell), you would presume I was rather perturbed by your calls for revolution. But if this is what the opposition to our establishment looks then I'll sleep easily in my apartment in Antibes knowing I have not to be worried.
If you really want to thrive in this world then you should just put aside this ridiculous plebian cause and join me, my brother Phillip the groomer, and my chum EtonMan420 in our money firm. Take your rage out of life by getting a 5-9 job. With your engineering brain I'm sure we can score a few clay pigeon shots on the proverbial shooting range that is the Great British GDP. You're going to be young, dumb, and worth a lump sum!
Now that we've put aside our revolutionary desires let us find you a billionaire marriage, and may our children be chums at Harrow. Tally ho!