LONE WOLVES
LONE WOLVES
Printed PVC Banner, Survival Knives, 180 x 80 cm
2024
Photo: Umberto Santoro
Printed PVC Banner, Survival Knives, 180 x 80 cm
2024
Photo: Umberto Santoro
The work is a reflection on the concept of hypermasculinity and alienation in the contemporary era within the realm of post-digital sensibility and meme culture.
The Lone Wolf, or Sitting Wolf, printed on PVC and mounted on the wall, is a digital illustration created by user @WolfRoad on DeviantArt. It became a meme in early 2020s internet culture of Gen-Z, symbolizing loneliness, hermitism, and stoicism.
The image is part of the iconography of hustle culture, an internet phenomenon that supports a lifestyle model based on personal growth and discipline, though sacrificing social life, interpersonal relationships, and the dimension of pleasure. Degenerations of this phenomenon also bleed into incel culture, through a hermitism characterized by resentment, repressed anger, and misogyny.
The meme, a symbol of impenetrability and isolation, is a totem of the male archetype of the sigma male, a man capable of violence, balancing precariously on the edge between absolute moral solidity and the release of repressed aggressiveness, the result of a slow deterioration.
The two knives placed in front of the image are survival knives, showcasing the potential violence of this male archetype towards others and himself, through toxic self-imposed standards, born from a turbo-capitalist reading of the contemporary world.
The lone wolf is printed in poor quality, the pixel is a sign of digital degradation and decay. When visible, it indicates that the image has been shared and reshared through compression processes that have reduced its quality. The ideas that the lone wolf represents and evokes are the result of its continuous reworking and resharing among users.
The text under the image is taken from a popular meme template spread within hustle culture.
The work delves into the emergence of this phenomenon as a symptom of an underlying sense of social anomie, which consists of adorning one's loneliness with the mask of hypermasculinity, all through the irony of Gen-Z culture, which uses memes as a medium to express personal and generational problems in an ironic and sharp manner.
The work is a reflection on the concept of hypermasculinity and alienation in the contemporary era within the realm of post-digital sensibility and meme culture.
The Lone Wolf, or Sitting Wolf, printed on PVC and mounted on the wall, is a digital illustration created by user @WolfRoad on DeviantArt. It became a meme in early 2020s internet culture of Gen-Z, symbolizing loneliness, hermitism, and stoicism.
The image is part of the iconography of hustle culture, an internet phenomenon that supports a lifestyle model based on personal growth and discipline, though sacrificing social life, interpersonal relationships, and the dimension of pleasure. Degenerations of this phenomenon also bleed into incel culture, through a hermitism characterized by resentment, repressed anger, and misogyny.
The meme, a symbol of impenetrability and isolation, is a totem of the male archetype of the sigma male, a man capable of violence, balancing precariously on the edge between absolute moral solidity and the release of repressed aggressiveness, the result of a slow deterioration.
The two knives placed in front of the image are survival knives, showcasing the potential violence of this male archetype towards others and himself, through toxic self-imposed standards, born from a turbo-capitalist reading of the contemporary world.
The lone wolf is printed in poor quality, the pixel is a sign of digital degradation and decay. When visible, it indicates that the image has been shared and reshared through compression processes that have reduced its quality. The ideas that the lone wolf represents and evokes are the result of its continuous reworking and resharing among users.
The text under the image is taken from a popular meme template spread within hustle culture.
The work delves into the emergence of this phenomenon as a symptom of an underlying sense of social anomie, which consists of adorning one's loneliness with the mask of hypermasculinity, all through the irony of Gen-Z culture, which uses memes as a medium to express personal and generational problems in an ironic and sharp manner.
