The death of Ideals

Now a thing of this world, truth falls into the hands of the individual; and without a belief in an eternal realm beyond the individual, there can be no ideals.

Described elsewhere as a “full-on rejection of self-betterment”, goblin mode is the antithesis of being “that-girl” who embodies productivity, wellness and aesthetic perfection. It is an unapologetic unleashing of the creature within, and a complete lack of aesthetic.

It is only very recently that this postmodern hatred towards every kind of ideal has gone fully mainstream — mainstream enough to take over TikTok. Just ten years ago, teenagers still revered ideals. They looked up to the red-lipped sexiness of pin-up girl pop stars like Katy Perry, a standard of beauty that was artificial — injected with plastic a... See more

Liberalism came to fear ideals. After all, their very existence evinces some standard that is superior to the human individual and his or her personal preferences, causing he or she — knowing of nothing but a world in which their own agency is taken as the prime source of meaning – to be offended by them. For the liberal, the very principle of the ... See more

To go goblin mode is to take a stand against standards; a trend which has taken over not only social media, but current social justice efforts. In the name of progress, all cultural claims to perfection are increasingly coming under attack. Take the body positivity movement on Instagram (and now virtually every advertising campaign); what began as ... See more

all standardised criteria for excellence, in upholding some fixed understanding of what excellence is, come to be seen as little more than marginalising forces exerted by capitalism, white supremacy or the patriarchy.

As well as sharing somewhat worrying traits with clinical depression, goblin mode reveals a deeper ideology lurking in the minds of younger millennials and Gen Z: the rejection of idealism in all its forms. By trading in the gym-going, smoothie-blending, to-do list-ticking aspirations of the “that-girl” for laziness and indulgence, they are rebelli... See more

Whereas the millennial women of Instagram — the millennial women associated with the “that-girl” trope — would strike the perfect pose and use filters to enhance their natural beauty, Gen-Zs use their phone cameras to distort the natural ideal of the human face, obscuring their features with emojis, cartoon glitter, surreal lighting and other disto... See more

The subversion of this ideal is driven by accusations that the standards imposed by the fashion and cosmetics industries are Eurocentric or patriarchal; doing away with those standards is therefore a political act of anti-racism or feminism. In a similar way, goblin mode can be seen as a revolt against the standards of productivity and self-betterm... See more