By: Serena Suson '25
Art by: Angela Shang '27
Ἡσίοδος πρῶτον μὲν Χάος φησὶ γενέσθαι — “ ... αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα
Γαῖ᾽ εὐρύστερνος, πάντων ἕδος ἀσφαλὲς αἰεί,
ἠδ᾽ Ἔρος …
Hesiod first said that there was Chaos “... then broad-breasted Earth, the unshakeable seat of everything, then Eros …”
—Plato, Symposium 178b
There is a meme to which I often return, somewhat surprisingly, to remember my own optimism. Perhaps a visual pun reminiscent of the infamous, melodramatic “Loss,” the image, most commonly dubbed “Dmitri Finds Out,” usually consists of four panels, all captured from freeze frames of an interview conducted in a Russian nightclub.[1] Over time, the subtitles have morphed to poke fun at various Internet gags; but the most popular iteration constructs a political narrative. The young man being interviewed, his skin slightly shiny with sweat, speaks into the microphone and admits heavily, “I live in constant fear of the Western descent towards fascism.”[2] I imagine a short pause here after such a severe statement, as the man makes eye contact with the woman holding the microphone, as he musters a strange sense of earnestness and duty amongst the stunt and strobe lights. Across the last three panels, the young man states:
But I digress.
The club is bumping. The ladies look good. The alcohol is flowing.
There is much pain in the world but not in this room.[3]
Sometimes, in longer versions of the meme, the creator will include footage of the young man dancing.
One almost balks at the idea of critically analyzing a meme. Surely, some dewy professor has integrated the practice into their coursework by now, much to the incredulity of their students. The study receives its fair share of giggles and puzzlement as peers point it out to each other on the syllabus. Of course, the meme must turn out to be incredibly stale, its semiotic insides kamikazed and floating in the Internet ether, fodder for the next great technocultural supernova. A scholar much younger than I am now might quip that they will close read “Skibidi Toilet” someday.[4] But even that reference must be outdated by now.
Even as a seasoned English (modified with Classics, I always string out, that work of eternally holding a candle over the abyss) major, who understands the way that signs birth into symbols with the proliferation of any media, I find some levity in the ordeal. I revel in the absurdity. Yet, somewhere, despite the humor of the task, the aesthetic always reaches out to me. This meme, especially, always punches me in the gut. Despite it all, despite the silliness, I somehow connect the four panels in front of me to the great struggle of humankind.
I compose this piece, my first article since sophomore spring, as Hurricane Milton tears across the southern United States. He follows Hurricane Helene, who, with her chaotic storms, has already displaced and destroyed so many homes. Friends in my thesis class tell me of their families back home. One notes that the rich in Miami tend to live right on top of the water, while the rest crowd inland away from the waves. We all consider the irony and wonder how this event will distort the pattern of gentrification in the area in the years to come. In the echo of our discourse, cranes in Florida cry out to the sky, for what purpose I cannot comprehend, other than that idleness in the face of disaster would be far worse.[5] Skunks I have never seen before in my four years here crawl alongside the sidewalk next to Rauner, and I wonder if they, sensing it too, have left somewhere else behind. How things have scabbed over despite the “healing” that happened four years ago![6] Although I am far too young for the thought, these days I casually consider never having a baby. Today, though, I have decided to write. The creation does not abet the destruction but happens in spite of it.
What has happened since I lost my voice? There has been calamity, and the land has clamored back. Palestine, now Lebanon too, regrows its martyrs in the felling of genocide. Sudan sustains the intifada against the RDF. Congo rings a copper drum out to the rest of the world. Bangladesh has broken free. Yemen remembers ten years ago, yet she has bandaged her bombed boats and set them out to sea.[7]
I allude too briefly to geopolitical struggle. While the page and topic constrain me, I still feel I shirk my solidarity. Perhaps, however, the time has passed for education and awareness — that reorganization awaits the ex-colony.[8] A certain intertextuality must ring out when Yahya Sinwar, donned in a keffiyeh, crouched next to a couch in a bomb-outed home, uses his one remaining arm to throw a piece of rubble at the drone that eventually kills him. He casts it like an Expo marker.[9] I am tired of explaining the evident. Has not the Symbolic transplanted the Real?[10] I am tired of appealing to [neo]liberal semantics. If your heart still beats, you will hear me.
When one interprets the political meaning behind “Dmitri Finds Out,” the easy equation to derive is escapism. Dmitri, the meme’s so-called human center, himself appears to find distraction in the attractive people around him; the alcohol dulls his senses. Just so, a club of the early 2000’s transforms into a speakeasy of 1920’s flappers and cosmopolites, a site of hedonism and debauchery as the Great Depression rages on outside. Ke[$]ha blares over the speakers.[11] The dance floor extends its fair shares of “Willkommen!”s and “Bienvenue!”s. There are NO. troubles here. Here, life is beautiful.[12]
But it is that acknowledgment of the situation that strikes me. Dmitri pays tribute to the perpetual terror that lingers, a what-if that hovers above his head like the sword of Damocles. Will he be the one to set it off? Or will it be his inaction? Despite the fog of the club, Dmitri can distinguish where exactly the threat of fascism lurks; and in that articulation, he alludes to his position in the structure of empire. Dmitri is wise enough to know that the West waits outside the club doors; or, even more imposingly, it has paid off the bouncers to crowd around him, to colonize his feet, to colonize his mind. With such acknowledgment of doom, Dmitri does not decide if he will dance but how. He decides how to orient his body. The difference is quite subtle. Like the emcee in Cabaret, Dmitri too makes a declaration of absence, a statement that forges a separation, a definition between here and there: “There is much pain in the world but not in this room” (italics added for emphasis). In contrast to the emcee, however, Dmitri defines his “here” — “this room” — a microcosm of the world he wants to see. While he testifies to the pain of the world as a whole, he carves out a space free from that struggle. Perhaps you are not convinced of that nuance. Still, in my imagination, Dmitri draws a line, one that does not disavow the world across from it but simply demarcates it. Still, in my imagination, Dmitri dances valiantly. Still, in my imagination, Dmitri dances in spite.
Albeit far from a well-established theory, a recurring theme that has echoed through my studies has been the proximity of creation to chaos. The late twentieth-century Martinican psychiatrist and political theorist Frantz Fanon recognized a similar phenomenon while he observed the Revolution in Algeria. So many objects of the conservative or colonial order gain resignification through the course of general resistance, as recorded in his oeuvre.[13] In his essay “This is the Voice of Algeria,” Fanon elevates the work of the local townspeople to the feats of those engaged in armed struggle atop the mountains, as the villagers listen to the sound of intercepted radio transmissions to bring to each other news of battles. Once a contemporary, colonial prop meant to spread French propaganda, the radio becomes an extension of the Algerian consciousness, by which the everyday villager gains agency.[14] Similar to his internal subjectivity, the colonized must parse through the static of suppression to discern the voice of the resistance’s broadcaster. Fanon describes the act of listening as a unique bodily experience:
The listener, enrolled in the battle of the waves, had to figure out the tactics of the enemy, and in an almost physical way circumvent the strategy of the adversary. Very often only the operator, his ear glued to the receiver, had the unhoped-for opportunity of hearing the Voice. The other Algerians present in the room would receive the echo of this voice through the privileged interpreter who, at the end of the broadcast, was literally besieged. Specific questions would then be asked of this incarnated voice…
A real task of reconstruction would then begin. Everyone would participate, and the battles of yesterday and the day before would be re-fought in accordance with the deep aspirations and the unshakable faith of the group. The listener would compensate for the fragmentary nature of the news by an autonomous creation of information.[15]
Amidst simultaneous erasure, the colonized begin to tell their story. Their eyes closed, sifting through the noise, they join the fighters on the hills and arm themselves with words.
Sometimes, my soul burns to remember the seeming inefficacy of political organizing on this campus. When I originally committed to Dartmouth, I did so with the intention of resignifying the privilege that came with my position. I cannot recall my thought process exactly, the exact point from which I perceived I would redistribute my wealth. I think I have had to reorient that ultimate political goal. I have not been able to rid this place of pain, but perhaps I have drawn some lines, drawn out some light — anagnorisis and catharsis. When I encounter fresh faces, I make sure to attest to the disappointments I have faced but to frame them with an air of renewal. Some tools, born of empire’s platinum, can never be resignified. Dartmouth and its populus may be like that. Perhaps the lesson here is to learn what can moulder, what can change. And when in doubt, our bodies and minds, born from dust and stars, can always be reshaped. Steal what you can.[16]
Many people did not anticipate riot cops and state troopers to march onto the Green on May 1st.[17] A humble show of solidarity with the emergence of student encampments across the United States and a reply to the demonstrations against the school’s complicity in genocide and ethnic cleansing that began on Dartmouth’s campus back in October, those five tents were uprooted in a matter of hours, the circle of people who sacrificed their right to assembly to the carceral system dissolved. A library of books marked for a landfill. Surely, the acts of terrorism to which President Beilock, Dartmouth College, and the State of New Hampshire consented are nothing compared to the continued extermination and epistemicide in Palestine. But surely, despite the project’s ostensible failure, the chaos that ensued under the shadow of Dartmouth Hall, that experience bred something new. It taught us something new.
When I talk to friends about the sequence of events now, all that springs forth is gratitude. I would never have met so many brave and kind-hearted souls if it weren’t for this kind of audacious work, the kind of early-in-life organizing that has you folding zines in between allies and freshly-baked muffins on a sticky frat basement floor. The kind of organizing that has you singing, reciting songs that come down from adapted slave spirituals. The kind of organizing that keeps you singing, crowing a cappella renditions of Chappell Roan’s “Casual,” as the cop car bumps an hour down the road to Grafton County Jail. The kind of organizing that teaches you to dance dabke a month later on Baker Lawn, because you are forbidden from walking on the Green.
But I digress. Change does not always come in the ways that we imagine it, but it will come as long as we do imagine. Plan, take action, write, recite, and repeat in the ways that you can. To dream of romance and utopia is not sensationalism, but the reification of optimism. Certainly, the Forms — if that is what we shall call them — evade us, but let perfection veer far from what we seek. Let us strive for amalgamation, improvisation, collaboration, liberation. Let us listen; let us read; let us sing; let us share. The world will be born again and again, so let us resonate every essence for the world that we hope for. Until then, we have our words, and we have our stories. There is much pain in the world, but we will not let there be.
Notes & Citations
[1] In a mere four panels devoid of dialogue, the central character of the webcomic Ctrl+Alt+Del, authored by Tim Buckley, rushes to the hospital to discover his wife has suffered a miscarriage. Due to the abrupt tonal shift in comparison with the rest of the comic and the extreme reductionism of a traumatic event, the panels burst onto the meme scene as “Loss” or “loss.jpg” as a symbol of melodrama and facile minimalism (“Loss,” Know Your Meme, Literally Media Ltd., Last modified Apr. 22, 2024, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/loss).
[2] “Dmitri Finds Out,” Know Your Meme, Literally Media Ltd., Last modified 2020, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dimitri-finds-out.
[3] “Dmitri Finds Out.”
[4] “Skibidi Toilet,” Know Your Meme, Literally Media Ltd., Last modified July 2024, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/skibidi-toilet.
[5] John Milton, Paradise Lost: A Critical Edition, ed. Gordon Teskey, (W.W. Norton & Company, 2020), 10.1055.
[6] It became a joke in the early months of the pandemic in 2020 to remark, as the canals of Venice cleared of humans and the daily stain of the anthropocene for a moment faded to translucency, that “nature was healing, we are the virus.” (Emmanuel Felton, “The Coronavirus Meme About "Nature Is Healing" Is So Damn Funny,” Buzzfeed News, April 7, 2020, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/coronavirus-meme-nature-is-healing-we-are-the-virus).
[7] Despite a charismatic persona that helped to proliferate a sense of tranquil normalcy among the American middle-class and elite on the homefront, Pres. Barack Obama in 2015 continued the imperialist trend of interventionism inherited from his predecessors to support the military efforts that eventually left Yemen as one of the most destitute countries in the world (Micah Zenko, “Obama’s War of Choice: Supporting the Saudi-led Air War in Yemen,” Council on Foreign Relations, September 25, 2017, https://www.cfr.org/blog/obamas-war-choice-supporting-saudi-led-air-war-yemen).
[8] Notably, the presence of political education for Fanon both stimulates and enforces a revolutionary movement, but its greatest need falls amidst the decolonial process, to refine the “spontaneity” of the original driving force of action. I invoke Fanon’s theory here to suggest that we have already reached a threshold of knowledge to inform our decolonial action. Now, we must combine that intellectualism with action, until we must again reorient and historicize ourselves (Frantz Fanon, “Spontaneity: its Strengths and its Weaknesses,” in The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Richard Philcox, (New York: Grove Press, 2021), 138; Frantz Fanon, “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness, in The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Richard Philcox, (New York: Grove Press, 2021), 180).
[9] Refaat Alareer, interview in “Watch: Day 3 roundtable on Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Flood,” Electronic Intifada, October 9, 2023,https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/watch-day-3-roundtable-gazas-al-aqsa-flood.
[10] Here I make a vulgarization of Lacan’s register theory. Generally speaking, the Real refers to an understanding of existence as it is, so to speak, which can never fully be understood. Consider the Romantics’ idea of the sublime. Physical, corporeal, yet elusive of intelligence. For much of Lacan’s career, he hoped that another register, the Symbolic, would take precedence over the Real and the Imaginary, the register of images. The Symbolic constitutes the essence of structuralism, e.g, the way that language organizes the images we perceive and the avenue by which we articulate our own consciousness (Adrian Johnston, "Jacques Lacan", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2024/entries/lacan/.)
[11] I use brackets here to distinguish Kesha’s old stage name in the early 2000’s: “Ke$ha.”
[12] “Willkommen,” Cabaret, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, 1966.
[13] “Conservative” as in the persisting traditions or precolonial customs of the colonized.
[14] Frantz Fanon, “This is the Voice of Algeria,” in A Dying Colonialism, trans. Haakon Chevalier (New York: Grove Press, 2022), 85–6.
[15] Frantz Fanon, “This is the Voice of Algeria,” in A Dying Colonialism, trans. Haakon Chevalier (New York: Grove Press, 2022), 85–6.
[16] Robin D.G. Kelley, “Black Study, Black Struggle,” Boston Review, March 1, 2016, https://www.bostonreview.net/forum/robin-kelley-black-struggle-campus-protest/.
[17] “Spare Rib Statement on May 1st, 2024,” Spare Rib, May 5, 2024, https://www.spareribdartmouth.com/post/spare-rib-statement-on-may-1st-2024#:~:text=Although%20the%20events%20of%20May,We%20stand%20with%20Palestine.
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