A topic I will probably write about in my next Taki post is how so many of us are living in a simulation, a false reality. Of course, the fact that it is possible to live in a simulation calls into question the nature of reality. Why is the reality of someone deeply involved in a subculture less valid than the reality of someone not in that subculture? Before long, this sort of thinking reminds you of those old dorm sessions where maybe you had one too many hits from the bong.
Probably the best way to avoid that sort of discussion is to just think about popular culture and your connection to it. I write about popular culture, in part, to attract an audience to other topics. The popular culture is the lure. The thing is though, I do not follow popular culture all that much. I will watch a sporting event over the weekend mostly so I can talk with the normies I know the following week. Otherwise, I do not follow pop culture very much.
This is where you see how we live in different realities. Take this list of the top movies from last year on a movie site called Rotten Tomatoes. The movie ratings are based on the people who vote at the site. If you dig around you will see that these films have tens of thousands of votes from fans. Now, given the age in which we live, it is entirely possible that the voting is entirely fake. This is another example of how we live in different realities or not in reality at all.
Putting that aside and assuming the voting is real, take a look at the list of films that were most popular last year. The top film is Spiderman: No Way Home. I have heard of Spiderman and I am familiar with the franchise. I have no idea why he ran away from home, as I have not watched any of them, other than the first one. I think I went to see it with friends. According to Wiki that was 20 years ago. That means Spiderman is a middle-aged man now, so I hope he is not still living at home.
The next film on the list is something called In The Heights. I've never heard of it, but the description reads, "Lights up for In the Heights, a joyous celebration of heritage and community fueled by dazzling direction and singalong songs." In my reality, the words "heritage" and "community" always mean nonwhite or crazy. Trannies have community and recent arrivals have heritage. That means the film is about the exact opposite of heritage and community.
Going through the list, what I find striking is that I have never heard of these films nor do I know anyone who knows about them. I asked some people over the last few days about some of these titles and it was all blank looks. The guy who cuts my hair knew about Suicide Squad, but he said it was "retarded". Otherwise, I may as well be asking for commentary on land management policies is Tanzania. No one knew and no one was all that curious about these films.
This is my reality. My reality, however, is nothing like the reality of someone who was so happy to see In The Heights that she rushed to Rotten Tomatoes to cast a vote and talk about it with other fans. The fan of this film is as alien to me as the film itself, yet we both supposedly live in a shared reality. We are supposed to agree on who is the next president or the proper tax level for rich people. The truth is, it is unlikely we would agree on anything, other than not living in the same reality together.
Again, I'm going to dive into this a bit more at a later date, but one strange product of the last thirty years is that we no longer have a shared reality. It is not just pop culture items like movies. It is pretty much everything. The great balkanization Buchanan warned about was not entirely racial. It was psychological. We are not in a world of different biological tribes, but in a world splintered into many realities. These realities are incompatible and increasingly in conflict.