/lit/ - Literature

>>20224878
Even though the writers of the first three SpongeBob seasons made fun of far-left activism in one episode, they are rather left-leaning. For this reason, the themes of the series often relate to the real world and its events from a disillusioned but positive, even transcendental perspective. The show has integrated the harsh realities and sufferings of the world as a principle that strongly influenced the overall moral values, humor and aesthetics of the cartoon. In that sense, SpongeBob is a spiritually mature series. A thing that many anime series even with intellectual sophistication lack, as they still cater to primitive, earthly desires and cravings. They are written from a poorly socialized perspective, a lack of emotional, intellectual maturity. It's exactly what Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki hates so much about modern anime.

The SpongeBob Squarepants series taught us wisdom and explained the dynamics of the adult world before we experienced them ourselves - only to forget that wisdom afterwards as we grew up. People can be lost in even the strangest niche or think they found themselves now as adults, but the shows impact on our identity is so strong that as soon as we remember SpongeBob, the call of home, it will outshine almost everything else we're doing for a moment. It is our deeply rooted cultural identity, because the series was so competent at understanding our emotions and humor, coupled with its wisdom and morals. The cartoon is a guiding principle speaking directly into our soul, thats why its so hard for most of us to deconstruct or dismiss SpongeBob as just another piece of media we blindly liked as children. Our collective relationship to the series is the antidote for nihilism, it speaks meaning even if you try to ignore it. That is what fuels the potential for a cultural revolution. Because in a scattered, fragmented and atomized age, there aren't many common denominators and meaningful experiences engrained in our unconscious as a group. It doesn't matter what ethnic background a person has or the social class they come from, as long as they grew up in an industrialized country in the last 25 years, chances are they spent a lot of time watching SpongeBob and strongly liked the series. Of course there are exceptions, but comparatively speaking, it is by far the most popular media phenomenon of my generation. We don't have a better contemporary alternative than that.