Latest news with #Harfoush
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Does everything feel broken but weirdly normal? There's a word for that
default In January, the comedian Ashley Bez posted an Instagram video of herself, trying to describe a heavy mood in the air. 'How come everything feels all … ?' she says, trailing off and grimacing exaggeratedly into the camera. Digital anthropologist Rahaf Harfoush saw the video, and got it immediately. 'Welcome to the hypernormalization club,' Harfoush said in a response video. 'I'm so sorry that you're here.' 'Hypernormalization' is a heady, $10 word, but it captures the weird, dire atmosphere of the US in 2025. First articulated in 2005 by scholar Alexei Yurchak to describe the civilian experience in Soviet Russia, hypernormalization describes life in a society where two main things are happening. The first is people seeing that governing systems and institutions are broken. And the second is that, for reasons including a lack of effective leadership and an inability to imagine how to disrupt the status quo, people carry on with their lives as normal despite systemic dysfunction – give or take a heavy load of fear, dread, denial and dissociation. 'What you are feeling is the disconnect between seeing that systems are failing, that things aren't working … and yet the institutions and the people in power just are, like, ignoring it and pretending everything is going to go on the way that it has,' Harfoush says in her video. Within 48 hours, Harfoush's video accrued millions of views. (It currently has slightly fewer than 9m.) It spread in 'mom groups, friend chat circles, political subreddits, coupon communities, and even dog-walking groups', Harfoush tells me, along with variations of: 'Oh, so that's what I've been feeling!' and 'people tagging their friends with notes like: 'We were just talking about this!'' The increasing instability of the US's democratic norms has prompted these references to hypernormalization. Donald Trump is dismantling government checks and balances in an apparent advance toward a 'unitary executive' doctrine that would grant him near-unlimited authority, driving the US toward autocracy. Billionaire tech moguls like Elon Musk are helping the government consolidate power and aggressively reduce the federal workforce. Institutions like the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, which help keep Americans healthy and informed, are being haphazardly diminished. Globally, once-in-a-lifetime climate disasters, war and the lingering trauma of Covid continue to unfold, while an explosion of generative AI threatens to destabilize how people think, make a living and relate to each other. It's reading an article about hunger and genocide, only to scroll down to a quiz about: 'What Pop-Tart are you? Rahaf Harfoush, digital anthropologist For many in the US, Trump 2.0 is having a devastating effect on daily life. For others, the routines of life continue, albeit threaded with mind-altering horrors: scrolling past an AI-generated cartoon of Ice officers arresting immigrants before dinner, or hearing about starving Palestinian families while on a school run. Hypernormalization captures this juxtaposition of the dysfunctional and mundane. It's 'the visceral sense of waking up in an alternate timeline with a deep, bodily knowing that something isn't right – but having no clear idea how to fix it', Harfoush tells me. 'It's reading an article about childhood hunger and genocide, only to scroll down to a carefree listicle highlighting the best-dressed celebrities or a whimsical quiz about: 'What Pop-Tart are you?'' In his 2016 documentary HyperNormalisation, the British filmmaker Adam Curtis argued that Yurchak's critique of late-Soviet life applies neatly to the west's decades-long slide into authoritarianism, something more Americans are now confronting head-on. 'Donald Trump is not something new,' Curtis tells me, calling him 'the final pantomime product' of the US government, where the powerful are abandoning any pretense of common, inclusive ideals and instead using their positions to settle scores, reward loyalty and hollow out institutions for personal or political gains. Trump's US is 'just like Yeltsin in Russia in the 1990s – promising a new kind of democracy, but in reality allowing the oligarchs to loot and distort the society', says Curtis. Witnessing large-scale systems slowly unravel in real time can be profoundly surreal and frightening. The hypernormalization framework offers a way to understand what we're feeling and why. Harfoush created her video 'to reassure others that they're not alone' and that 'they aren't misinterpreting the situation or imagining things'. Understanding hypernormalization 'made me feel less isolated', she says. 'It's difficult to act when you're uncertain if you're perceiving reality clearly, but once you know the truth, you can channel that clarity into meaningful action and, ideally, drive positive change.' Naming an experience can be a form of psychological relief. 'The worst thing in the world is to feel that you're the only one who feels this way and that you are going quietly mad and everyone else is in denial,' says Caroline Hickman, a psychotherapist and instructor at the University of Bath specializing in climate anxiety. 'That terrifies people. It traumatizes people.' People who feel the 'wrongness' of current conditions acutely may be experiencing some depression and anxiety, but those feelings can be quite rational – not a symptom of poor mental health, alarmism or a lack of proper perspective, Hickman says. 'What we're really scared of is that the people in power have not got our back and they don't give a shit about whether we survive or not,' she says. Marielle Greguski, 32, a New York City-based retail worker and content creator, posted about everyday life feeling 'inconsequential' in the face of political crisis. Greguski says the outcome of the 2024 election reminded her that she lives in a 'bubble' of progressive values, and that 'there's the other half of people that are not feeling the same energy and frustration and fear'. To Greguski, the US's failings are not only partisan but moral – like the racism and bigotry that Trump's second term has brought out of the shadows and into policy. Greguski is currently planning a wedding. It's hard to compartmentalize 'constant cruelty, things that don't make sense', she says. 'Sometimes I'll be like: 'I have to put aside X amount of money for the wedding next year,' and then I'm like: 'Will this country exist as we know it next year?' It really is crazy.' Confronting systemic collapse can be so disorienting, overwhelming and even humiliating, that many tune it out or find themselves in a state of freeze. Greguski likens this feeling to sleep paralysis: 'basically a waking nightmare where you're like: 'I'm here, I'm aware, but I'm so scared and I can't move.'' In his 1955 book They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45, journalist Milton Mayer described a similar state of freeze in German citizens during the rise of the Nazi party: 'You don't want to act, or even talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not? – Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.' 'People don't shut down because they don't feel anything,' says Hickman. 'They shut down because they feel too much.' Understanding this overwhelm is an important first step in resisting inaction – it helps us see fear as a trap. Curtis points out that governments may intentionally keep their citizens in a vulnerable state of dread and confusion as 'a brilliant way of managing a highly febrile and anxious society', he says. When we feel powerless in the face of bigger problems, we 'turn to the only thing that we do have the power over, to try and change for the better', says Curtis – meaning, typically, ourselves. Anxiety and fear can trap us, leading us to spend more time trying to feel better in small, personal ways, like entertainment and self-care, and less time on activism and community engagement. Progressive commentators have urgently called for moral clarity and mobilization in response to changes like the cuts to USAID funding, which has resulted in an estimated 103 deaths per hour across the globe; the dismantling of the CDC; and Robert F Kennedy's campaign against vaccine science. 'Where is the outrage?' asks the Nation's Gregg Gonsalves. 'Too many lives are at stake to rest in this bizarre moment of frozen agitation.' 'I don't know if there's a massive shift toward racism as much as an expanded indifference toward it,' the historian Robin DG Kelley said in a February interview with New York Magazine. 'People are just kind of like: 'Well, what can we do?'' Experts say action can break the spell. 'Being active politically, in whatever way, I think helps reduce apocalyptic gloom,' says Betsy Hartmann, an activist, scholar and author of The America Syndrome, which explores the importance of resisting apocalyptic thinking. Greguski and a co-worker have been helping distribute multilingual information about legal rights and helpline numbers, to be used in the event of Ice raids. 'It's easy to feel like: 'Oh, I'm in community because I'm on TikTok,'' she says. But genuine community is about 'getting outside and talking to your neighbor and knowing that there's someone out there that can help you if something really bad goes down,' she says. Being active politically, in whatever way, I think helps reduce apocalyptic gloom Betsy Hartmann, author of The America Syndrome 'You're actually out there talking to people, working with people and realizing there are so many good people in the world, too, and maybe feeling less isolated than before,' says Hartmann. 'But I also think we need a broader vision,' Hartmann notes. She suggests looking to resistance efforts against authoritarianism in countries like Turkey, Hungary and India. 'How might we be in international solidarity? What lessons can we learn in terms of rebuilding sophisticated, complex government infrastructure that's been hacked away at by people like Elon Musk and his minions in a more socially just and sustainable way?' 'We are in a period now when it's absolutely essential to protest,' says Hartmann, citing Harvard professor Erica Chenoweth, who argues that just three-and-a-half percent of a population engaging in peaceful protest can hold back authoritarian movements. Related: Is 'chic' political? In Trump 2.0, the word stands for conservative femininity What makes dysfunction so dangerous is that we might simply learn to live with it. But understanding hypernormalization gives us language – and permission – to recognize when systems are failing, and clarifies the risk of not taking action when we can. In 2014, Ursula Le Guin accepted the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, saying: 'We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.' Harfoush reflects on this quote often. It underscores the fact that 'this world we've created is ultimately a choice', she says. 'It doesn't have to be like this.' We have the research, technologies and wisdom to create better, more sustainable systems. 'But meaningful change requires collective awakening and decisive action,' says Harfoush. 'And we need to start now.
Campaign ME
09-05-2025
- Business
- Campaign ME
Insights from OMD Sense on the future of media and marketing
At the OMD Sense conference this year, experts painted a complex future shaped by technological advancements, offering strategies to navigate challenges and transform them into opportunities. The event, which took place at the Museum of the Future, drew a large crowd of senior business and marketing professionals from brands, agencies, and media circles. Conference speakers urged marketers to stay optimistic and seize opportunities amid the complexity and disruption the industry will face in the coming years. 'During the next 20 years, we will have to face an extraordinary and unprecedented confluence of economic, political, social, climate and technological transformations. Our job will be to regulate our own emotions and anxieties before helping others, people we know and care about, as well as people we don't,' said speaker Noah Raford, EMIR's Head of Advisory and former futurist-in-chief for Dubai. His session focused on what lies ahead for the three key consumer groups in the next few decades. According to him, some people will escape into distractions like gaming, avoiding reality. Others, especially Gen Alpha, will approach technologies like AI as tools to build new, creative things instead of being overwhelmed by them. Remedying the marketing disconnect OMD EMEA's CEO Blake Cuthbert's described six forces that disconnected marketing and advertising from growth and offered six counter-approaches to turn them into positives. These include abundance planning, cultural activations, integrated creator planning, commerce intelligence, agentic buying, and the agent ecosystem. 'It's not a case of humans or machines but humans and machines, even in terms of to whom or what we will address marketing messages to,' Cuthbert said. 'Individuals and organisations will have to maintain their prompt libraries, which will usher in a new paradigm of effectiveness. What we're seeing is the end of Big Advertising and a future with lots of littles, characterised by hyper-personalised messages in branded ecosystems.' Using AI thoughtfully is key to cultivate industry expertise Digital anthropologist Rahaf Harfoush took to the stage to reveal extensive research in digital culture across the MENA region. She shed light on the unseen forces at play in our interactions with technology, uncovering the subtle yet profound ways it shapes our thoughts, decisions, and habits. Harfoush offered actionable strategies to extract the benefits of technological advancements while safeguarding ourselves against unintended consequences. 'After automating manufacturing, we're now automating knowledge work,' she explained. 'If we rely too heavily on AI without remaining thoughtful and engaged, we risk losing mastery of our thinking and expertise when we need it to validate the work of machines,' she said. Harfoush urged the audience to cultivate 'intentional expertise' to ensure that human creativity, judgment, and depth of knowledge remain irreplaceable pillars of progress. Audiences at the OMD Sense conference also heard from Qi Pan, Snap's Director of Computer Vision Engineering. He revealed 'story-living' to be the next iteration of the media experience. According to him, the future includes leveraging augmented reality to bring media experiences that will involve people in large, shared environments. 'The technology and devices are developing to make this vision a reality. The ability to add digital content on top of the physical world is hugely exciting for users and brands, as they now can add entertainment and information at scale,' Pan said. 'With rapid tech advancements, AR is becoming more natural, letting users add content to the real world without losing touch with it.' Finally OMD MENA's CEO, Saleh Ghazal wrapped up the conference urging the industry to be adoptable to change when it comes to their marketing. 'Decoding Generation (H)uman has been designed as a rallying cry to operate the deep transformation the next decades call for,' he said. While he acknowledges that the foundations of business and marketing are being shaken by big changes –economic, technological, cultural, he claims that 'looking at our world through an empathetic lens' is what will set advertising and marketing agencies apart. 'Yes, it can be uncomfortable and even scary but being innovative in this context means being courageous and inquisitive, finding the upside by flipping challenges on their head. It also means understanding what makes people unique and connecting with them relevantly and authentically at scale,' he concluded.
Cairo 360
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Cairo 360
International Jazz Day ft. Harfoush at Aurora O West, 6th of October City
This Wednesday, April 30th, join Aurora O West, 6th of October City, in celebrating International Jazz Day with Harfoush.
