The internet as we know it today has grown from being a network for business to a whole different world collecting, retaining, and sharing information across the real world through the digital and technological. One of the categories of content that has become a digital phenomenon is the meme. We all have seen a meme at least a hundred times online; even the earlier generations have seen a meme or two even if they haven’t known it.

But one subcategory of memes originating from sites like 4Chan and turned into YouTube comes from a world created by “shitposters” and well-meaning content creators alike. This meme is the Doomer. The Doomer is a person that has seen the negative effects of life whether in the real world or online, and have been so affected by all the darkness of it all that they live a life of seclusion, depression, and sometimes even anger at the world. Their viewpoint of the world is nihilistic and heavily pessimistic, and it can be a personal issue that they project onto the world, a deep hate for the human race, or anything that can trigger their want and need for seclusion. Despite this desire for seclusion, they still feel lonely. They tend to have little to no friends as they believe being by themselves is the best way, and they generally cut themselves off from people and society as much as possible.

Although this is a meme made by those on the web to stereotype, the idea of the Doomer is most certainly applicable to real life. They are a representation of a real person who used to be content with their life and aspired to be somebody. But they have either seen too much evil in the world online and offline, or they have gone through an event in their personal life (breakups, loss of a loved one, bullying, etc.) that has traumatized them to the point that they blame society and become a shut-in, not even looking inside themselves to see if they themselves are the problem. They are like punk rockers in that they are angry at the society they live in, but instead of taking action and making their voices and complaints heard, they decide to stay silent and lock themselves away from the world as much as possible to live.

But again, why is that? Why is the Doomer so dissatisfied with their life and angry at the world? Well, I will personally agree with the Doomer concept. Society is the problem, but not 100%. Technology plays a particular role in this. You see, the Doomer grew up sometime in the mid to late 1980s to around the early 2000s. The Doomer is essentially the by-product of Generation X or is usually a millennial or Gen Z person that grew up in the era where technological advances were exponential. Information has become accessible to just about anyone in the world, and the changes in things may invoke nostalgia in them. Doomers could pine for the glory days or a simpler time, and they could merely be struggling with adulthood, since everything is so different to what they had known before.

Technology has also made news fast and easy to cover and deliver. With this comes the issues the Doomer sees in his/her/their society. These days, the virtual marketplace is so saturated with content everywhere around the web. And with the ease of finding content comes the craving of wanting more content. Everyone wants a good story filled with drama, so much so that we have it in our real lives. We have now been so dependent on Google to find us information that we disconnect from people. We have been lied to about how life is and should be, that it should be simple when in reality it’s not.

The Doomer is of this opinion. They represent a group of people (or dare I say even the millennial generation as a whole) that have felt cheated by society about the truth of life. They were deemed failures if they tried deviating from the status quo one bit, when in reality individuality is what makes us all human, and failure is normal and actually more common than we tend to realize. Due in part to this, they do not know how to handle rejection or negativity, and instead hold it in. They feel like a burden to the rest of the world while feeling a deep hatred for the lies that they were told. Instead of confronting their demons and learning to cope with it, they shut themselves in. They decide that they are no good for society, and that society is not good for them.

The Doomer is a meme that reflects the thinking of those who have had it with modern society and wish to live a life of solitude. For them, it’s a protest to the lies told to them, that life is always good, that conflicts will go away or work themselves out in a positive result, and that getting a secondary education with a 9-to-5 and starting a family will cement their happiness and their success. They never learned how to properly cope with the negativity in life. They hope that someday they will find happiness like their fellow meme counterpart, the Bloomer. (I hope to make an article on them, too.)

Thank you for reading my article! Make sure to leave a comment down below and let me know if you liked it!