So 2016 is SO bad that it made the creator of this meme give us an alternative version of “This is Fine”.
The thing is, I think the original expresses the feeling we all have that *there’s nothing we can do*. Oh, we can vote, we can signal boost, we can do all that, but… everything that actually happens is being determined at levels we can’t touch, by corporations and luck and echo chamber effects and all the weird psychological widgets that go to make up human nature.
I think these two cartoons make a good pair. I think there’s basically only these two ways we can react – either irrationally “this is fine” chill or “they shot a gorilla for gods’ sake” freaking out. Sometimes we do one and sometimes the other, but freaking out requires… requires the belief that we can actually put out the fire, and that belief is by no means a universal thing. Some days all you can do is look around at your burning world and say, “This is fine.”
