Country Music, Consumer Capitalism, and the Not So Subtle Rise in Conservatism

Earlier this year, the famed country singer/musician Morgan Wallen tweeted “Take Me Back to God's Country” after appearing on Saturday Night Live as the musical guest, an often desired and coveted privilege that not all artists experience, in protest of the “woke” atmosphere of New York City. In addition to this trend of metaphorically “going back to God's country,” the general public and youth of America have started to increasingly use and support generative AI like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. But why is this branding strategy working so well, on, theoretically, the most politically and socially conscious generations thus far? And why are we resisting the desire to be uniquely ourselves once again? My hypothesis is that the fall of individualism is slowly being readmitted to the mainstream by the coinciding factors of a consumer capitalist society that encourages conformity and docility.

When men like Morgan Wallen, openly hateful and slur-using men, are not only given the spotlight but showered in it, it’s hard not to be concerned about the future of media. Wallen and others like him contribute to the idea of cisgendered, white, Christian,  and heternormative values that our current administration is already heavily in support of. This standard is not only being reinforced in the top 40 hits, though. A musician who was once held in high esteem by the indie music community is now married to an alligator tour guide from Florida and displaying a liking for more “traditional” values. Lana Del Rey has shifted her aesthetic from a Lolita-esque indie babygirl aesthetic into a tradwife blue collar energy that fans and critics alike are having mixed feelings about. Why Lana made the choice to shift to these ideals, or if she’s always felt that way, is not known, but the general consensus is that this shift, though disappointing, is not surprising. Read more about our team's thoughts here. 

When Generative-AI has bled into not only the mainstream but the education systems and corporate world as well, it’s hard to pretend that I am not deeply concerned for the future of my friends, family, employers, and overall population. The more individuals I talk to or videos I see online, the more my concern grows. Millions of people are constantly feeding generative AI bots that have been proven to disrupt and harm the climate. That’s a lot more disappointing than letting Morgan Wallen take over the Billboard Hot 100 for a while. If you are unfamiliar with the mass usage of gen AI - bless your soul, you lucky bastard - just know that people are using it to write emails, Emails! For their jobs that are 90% emails. It is infuriating to say the least, and if we really get into it is blatantly harmful. What is the point of human communication if we disrupt the basis of communication itself: thought?

We, dare I say it, as a nation, are continuing to get dumber. Not just because we listen to okay music made by racists, or spend our money on useless figurines, or even because we use AI to spell check our work, but because we allow these generative machines and people, and leaders to think for us. We as a people cannot improve upon our society or the climate crisis if we are allowing ourselves to get this lazy and sloppy. If we do not actively feed our passions and our motor skills, we will not grow into decent people. We will stay stuck in our selfish bubble of ease and quantity over thoughtfulness and quality. 

So, encourage your people and yourself to use your mind. YOUR mind. YOUR passion. YOUR words. YOUR brain. Do not allow the muscle of your mind to disappear or wither; your brain is the thing that makes us the most ourselves. Do not attempt to douse it in the name of conformity or the tradwife aesthetic.