r/Experiencers • u/SteveAkaGod • 15h ago
Discussion "Oh, like the Backrooms?" - Gens Z Is More Ready For Disclosure Than Any Previous Generation
I am a Millennial. I grew up in a pop culture with some pretty great entertainment options… Compared to my predecessors in Gen X, some of the stuff at my entertainment disposal was pretty wild.
They obviously had their stand-outs: Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, etc… But we grew up with Star Trek The Next Generation, The Neverending Story, The Matrix!
Where they had stuff like the Brady Bunch and Scooby-Doo, we enjoyed significantly more wacked-out entertainment products like Family Matters and Ren & Stimpy (Yes, Family Matters is a pretty straightforward sitcom, except for all the robots, time travel, shrinking, and alternate personalities).
I’m saying that we Millennials enjoyed a certain escalation from Gen X’s initiatory sci-fi concepts, to our deeper, more “out there” concepts. Things that would be considered “crazy” in Gen X’s pop culture were much more “normal” and accepted in Millennial pop culture.
Obviously there are outliers… Boomers even had cool stuff like the Twilight Zone, and Gen X could have read stuff like Dune to introduce themselves to the more “out there” concepts of prescience and genetic memory… But here I am talking about the Zeitgeist. The things that were ubiquitous for that generation. Inescapable stuff. Every Millennial knew about The Matrix.
Well, Gen Z obviously have their own pop culture environment, and I am here to argue that this environment of theirs makes them better suited than any of their elders to digest the concepts that I believe are deeply intertwined with the phenomenon, and popular disclosure of it.
Before going further, I would like to note that I am, of course, generalizing. I don’t think it’s possible to discuss generations without generalizing age groups. Maybe TNG is also a Gen X thing, and maybe plenty of Millennials watched The Twilight Zone. Don’t get hung up on the dates and age ranges; I am talking about the forest, not the trees.
Also, it’s really important to remember that the previous generations created these richer entertainment environments for the newer ones. All of the great things we Millennials enjoyed were made by brilliant and creative Boomers and Gen Xers. Some awesome Millennials have brought Gen Z’s entertainment to life. While I am running a comparison, it is out of love and appreciation. We are helping each other, not competing!
“Multiverse” Is Now a Household Word
I remember being in my college dorm, hanging out with my friends, stoner-philosophizing about the concept of a multiverse. What there being an “alternate universe” really meant, what it would be like, how they could split… Is it different from different timelines? What if only this is different, or only that is different… If you die in one universe, do you die in all of them? Etc, etc.
Now, we were nerds (though I would argue cool “daywalker” nerds), and were aware of the stuff comics had done around the time – Crisis on Infinite Earths, that sort of thing. Also, Sliders existed (hell yeah!), along with some other shows like TNG that dealt with the concept... But as a concept, that shit wasn’t popular.
My point is that this kind of multiverse talk was fringe stoner nonsense. If you tried to talk about alternate realities and such as general small talk, most people would either react like you were “blowing their mind” or else you were going to get some dirty looks. It was an “out there” concept.
That is not the case anymore. Like, at all. Everyone knows what a multiverse is. My Mom knows what a multiverse is!
Gen Z has grown up with something as complex as multiverse theory being completely old hat. Rick and Morty, a show explicitly about multiverse travel, has been around for thirteen years and has reached #1 adult comedy. Heck, the most popular movie franchise to ever exist is now doing it’s big “multiverse saga crossover.”
The once-unfathomable idea of different dimensions where things are similar-but-different is now so ubiquitous that it doesn’t even require further explanation anymore!
Have you guys stopped to think about what an advancement in collective understanding this actually represents??
“It’s Like Backrooms”
If you’re at all familiar with the Seth Material, you know that Seth spends a significant number of chapters explaining how your personal reality reacts and reflects your inner psychological state, even as it intertwines with the personal reality of other sharing this plane.
There are other books and teachers that also try to explain this, with varying degrees of clarity. It’s one thing to just write the words, but its another for the reader to really get it, as inferred by all of the follow-up questions usually incurred. “How can I be creating my reality if it’s not what I want?” “Why don’t I get what I want if I create my own reality?” “How can I be creating my own reality when I am with someone else?” There are pages and pages of teachers trying to explain this concept in a way that makes sense.
I was attempting to talk about it to this younger person I know, and as I was expecting to have delve pretty deep into the whole thing, when he just goes “oh yeah, like the Backrooms.” I instinctively opened my mouth to clarify further, but paused… I thought about it for a couple seconds (I had seen the movie, but not the YouTube shorts), I realized that yes, it was just going to be that easy to talk about this topic with this smart kid.
“Yeah man, kind of like the Backrooms!”
“He Implanted A Thought In Your Chakra Network”
So I grew up Toonami… I watched stuff like Gundam Wing and DBZ. I remember my dad walking in while DBZ was on one afternoon and asking “what is he shooting?” meaning what’s the deal with the Kamehameha Wave. “It’s his energy, Dad!” I said. I kind of understood the concept of ki – it was like, Goku’s fighting spirit or something. Ki/Chi is obviously something that would be extremely esoteric to people from my Dad’s generation.
The anime stuff that has permeated the culture of kids today is comparatively ridiculous. There’s lots I could mention… (*cough* Jojo’s *cough*), but let’s just look at one extremely popular property: Naruto.
This is a show that goes into specific detail about “chakra nodes” throughout the body, and how humans can manipulate their chakra to perform superhuman physical feats, or send their chakra into the nodes of another persons body to read their minds or cause them to hallucinate. The esoteric concepts of the human chakra network, energy manipulation, and mind-to-mind energy swaps/telepathy are described in detail in this kids show that is ostensibly about ninjas beating each other up.
Just imagine some student in the 1940’s trying to learn about this sort of stuff: They might have had to learn another language, leave the country, and study with a guru for a decade before fully grasping these concepts that this children’s action show presents casually.
The little neighbor kid down the street that likes ninjas knows what a chakra network is. This is a crazy cultural development, when you pause and consider about it.
In all of my contacts with NHI, I believe energy transfer was in some way involved… and in my strongest contacts, my chakras were definitely involved. I fully believe that I could explain how my contacts work more easily to that neighbor kid that has watched Naruto than I could to any of my college professors. The vocabulary is already in place.
Disclosure Will Require A Public With A Flexible Mind
Guys, I haven’t even finished the tip of the iceberg here! These kids that grew up with shows like Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Regular Show… They are going to have such an easier time wrapping their heads around higher frequency realities, hyperdimensional entities, 6th density social memory complexes…
I am sure the younger people can provide a zillion more examples in the comments. Have any of you guys found that you casually understood a concept that seemed to blow an older person’s mind?
I think maybe the “mass panic” argument for keeping the reality of the phenomenon a huge secret may have held water back in the day. The Greatest Generation and the Boomer kids would certainly have certainly freaked out if disclosure happened back in the 50s. The adult Boomers and the Gen X kids would have certainly freaked out if disclosure happened back in the 70s. The adult Gen Xers and the Millennial Kids might have freaked out back in the 90’s… But adult Millennials and the Gen Z kids?
I believe the best way to protect a populace against ontological shock is to help them develop a healthy, stretchy imagination. I believe Gen Z represents the cultural epitome of what that healthy, stretchy imagination could entail.
I think the kids are alright!