Sartre and Drake Explain Our Attraction to Weird People

It is no mistake that when speaking about an especially memorable person, we often say: “(s)he’s a real character.” The insertion of the word real in this phrase should come as no surprise when we consider what Sartre has to say about what he considers to be an authentic existence. The world character also has implications, in that this person is playing a role, which they had to have created, which sets them apart as not just any typical person.

What I am hinting towards here is Sartre’s theory that all existence amounts to nothingness. The reason we admire people who are different is because we recognize them asserting their own freedom and defining their essence and their individuality-- and whether it is truly genuine or not is insignificant. What counts is that these people awaken the little Sartrean being within us, that admires the ability of someone to show them being-for-themself in the face of an empty existence, where it feels much safer to hide away in an unconscious normalcy. Pop culture and the media rake in millions of dollars every year because they feed the people what they want to see: other human beings refusing to be a blasé being-in-itself: which is an entity that is of constant, unchanging nature and is not consciousness of itself (what kids today affectionately refer to as the state of being “basic”), and instead, taking up the quest of a being-for-itself, which entails being conscious of ones own consciousness, and taking full advantage of the daunting truth that existence is nothingness and they are condemned to be free. 

Given this understanding of existence, all human beings begin equally with nothing. When we look at the people whom our society values today, we can observe a general trend of individuals who have made something of their own existence in a noticeably distinctive and  individually created way. However the extent to which their contribution is authentic and/or meaningful cannot be said to be the same for all famous people, and there is a reason why John Lennon and Kim Kardashian don’t exactly fit in the same category under the umbrella term “icon”. Nevertheless, even with Ms. Kardashian we can observe how she creates her own being in the world, which we recognize through her unique assets… as in her hit reality TV show!

In all seriousness, the more you think of the analogy between Sartre and pop culture, the more it starts to actually make sense that we bother to have any interest in the material being produced by the entertainment industry today. While I am most definitely not saying that this means today’s pop culture shouldn’t be met with a critical eye (the topic of value is a whole other discussion), at least Sartre helps us understand why bizarrely unique cultural phenomenons get the attention that they do.

In order to help further illustrate my point, I am enlisting the help of Drake, who managed to “break the internet” with the following music video for his hit song Hotline Bling:

Drake shows us how he asserts his true essence in front of the world by combining a few incomprehensible outfits, a mystical futuristic void-like backdrop, and dance moves like this:

And these....

And of course...

 And while my first reaction is: "where did he learn those alien dance moves and what is with that turtleneck sweater," next thing I know the video is getting tens of millions of hits on YouTube, and that puffy red jacket reportedly sold out everywhere instantly. Who knew?

Well, Sartre would translate this apparent weirdness into a perfectly comprehensible explanation: that this is an exhibition of Drake exercising his only way of existing, namely, through creation. In a world full of pop music that all sounds the same, and hip hop videos that all seem to take place in the same club, Drake's break from mainstream music and visuals is a response to the mindless monotony that has numbed pop culture.

Naturally, the response to this is that the public gets a welcomed jolt out of a numbness from seeing the same repeated trends. And thanks to the World Wide Web, people all around the world can respond to this act of Drake being-for-himself with admiration... 

Exhibit A: Internet trolls/cat lovers inspired into action by Drake's demonstration of free will:

Exhibit B: Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live trying and failing to re-create an iconic moment (N.B. in this scenario, Donald reduces himself to a being-in-itself through the mundane act of imitation):

 Exhibit C: Two icons collide to remind us of the importance of creating our own existence:

While I hope this discourse will help you to cope with the fact that you love to hate the ever-evolving, being-for-itself, that is Justin Bieber, my ultimate intention in choosing this particular topic was to perhaps broaden your perspectives on the use of Existentialist philosophy in today’s modern society to a place where it hasn’t gone before. So the next time the internet freaks out about a rapper’s music video that appears to be emulating the dance moves of your grandfather, just remember that everyone is secretly harbouring an admiration for his ability to assert his wild freedom to the world (and the cult following that succeeds such iconic moments can be recognized as a further example of the unaware, being-in-itself of the masses). But just remember kids, while all is fun and flashy in pop culture: all icons begin equally as nothing, but not all icons create themselves equal.

Cheers, to Existentialism 2015!