I’m going to say something that might piss off people on both sides of the political spectrum:
The whole “woke” thing is getting fucking stupid.
And no, I’m not saying that from some right-wing, anti-progressive perspective.
Quite the opposite.
I’m talking about something that has gotten so absurd that we’ve reached the point where basic human decency can apparently be classified as “woke.”
Treat people with dignity?
Woke.
Don’t be racist?
Woke.
Don’t discriminate against people?
Woke.
Maybe don’t be an asshole to somebody because they’re different from you?
Woke.
What the fuck are we doing?
At some point, the word stopped meaning anything.
And now we’re apparently getting into “Woke 1” and “Woke 2.”
Wait.
What?
Woke 1? Woke 2?
Is this a fucking video game?
Did we just unlock the next stage?
Woke 2: The Wokening.
Do I get a new character?
Is there a skill tree?
Do I need to defeat the final boss of social justice before I can unlock Woke 3?
Maybe it’s Pokémon.
Woke 1 is evolving!
Or perhaps it’s software.
Woke 2.0 is now available.
New features include:
- Improved empathy
- Bug fixes
- Reduced unnecessary discrimination
- Enhanced human decency
- Compatibility with marginalized communities
- Critical security patches against being an asshole
Please restart your computer to complete the installation.
Seriously, what the fuck?
And this is why I find it particularly ridiculous when politicians and commentators start talking about “woke” as though we’re describing clearly defined generations of software.
Now, when AOC talks about “Woke 1,” she’s obviously trying to distinguish between different eras of progressive politics. I understand the point she’s trying to make.
But the terminology itself is ridiculous.
“Woke 1.”
It sounds like we’re talking about the first version of a video game.
And by participating in that terminology, we’re helping reinforce this bizarre idea that “woke” is some clearly identifiable political product that gets periodically upgraded.
It isn’t.
It’s a fucking buzzword.
And the biggest problem with the word isn’t even that people use it to criticize progressive politics.
People are allowed to criticize progressive politics.
People are allowed to criticize diversity initiatives, identity politics, activist movements, political correctness, social justice movements, or whatever else they want to criticize.
That’s democracy.
That’s political discourse.
The problem is when “woke” becomes a catch-all word for anything somebody doesn’t like.
And that’s where this shit has gotten completely out of hand.
You can say something completely ordinary like:
“Maybe we shouldn’t discriminate against someone because of their race.”
And someone will respond:
“That’s woke.”
Okay.
And?
Maybe it should be.
Maybe treating another human being with basic dignity shouldn’t be considered some radical political ideology.
Maybe we shouldn’t need a fucking political label for it.
That’s the part that drives me nuts.
We’ve taken things that should be completely unremarkable and turned them into ideological battlegrounds.
Basic compassion has become political.
That’s insane.
And what’s even more frustrating is that people on both sides are contributing to this.
The right sometimes uses “woke” as an insult for virtually anything remotely progressive.
The left sometimes embraces “woke” as an identity or framework and then spends an enormous amount of time arguing about who is sufficiently progressive.
And meanwhile, the rest of us are sitting here wondering:
Can we just be decent human beings?
Do we really need a fucking taxonomy for this?
Do we need Woke 1?
Woke 2?
Woke 2.5?
Woke: Definitive Edition?
Woke Remastered?
Woke: Director’s Cut?
Woke Ultra HD 4K Edition?
Come on.
And that’s why I don’t think the answer is to simply swing in the opposite direction and start mocking everything associated with “wokeness.”
That’s falling into the same trap.
Because then you get people calling things “woke” that aren’t actually political ideology at all.
A movie has a diverse cast?
Woke.
A company says don’t discriminate against employees?
Woke.
Someone says maybe we shouldn’t bully people?
Woke.
A fictional character is different from what someone expected?
Woke.
Someone asks you to use someone’s preferred name?
Woke.
At that point, the word has become so broad that it’s practically meaningless.
And that’s bad for everybody.
Because if everything is “woke,” then nothing is.
You can’t have a meaningful political discussion when one side can simply slap a four-letter buzzword onto whatever they dislike.
Likewise, you can’t have a meaningful discussion about the legitimate problems with certain progressive ideas if every criticism is immediately dismissed as hatred.
We need to be able to distinguish between actual political disagreements and basic human decency.
Those are not the same thing.
You can oppose a particular progressive policy without opposing human dignity.
You can disagree with an activist movement without hating the people it advocates for.
You can believe some progressive ideas have gone too far without believing that compassion itself has gone too far.
And you can believe that some people have taken progressive politics to ridiculous extremes while simultaneously thinking that racism, discrimination and cruelty are bad.
These things are not contradictory.
That’s the nuance we’re missing.
Instead, we’ve created these giant ideological boxes.
You’re either “woke” or “anti-woke.”
You’re either progressive or conservative.
You’re either for this side or that side.
And then every fucking issue gets shoved into one of those boxes.
That’s not how human beings work.
People are complicated.
Politics is complicated.
Culture is complicated.
And human decency shouldn’t belong to one political tribe.
That’s really the point I’m trying to make.
I’m not interested in defending some imaginary golden age of “wokeness.”
I’m also not interested in joining the crowd that treats “woke” like the ultimate insult.
I’m interested in getting rid of the fucking word as a substitute for actual thought.
Tell me what you disagree with.
Tell me what policy you oppose.
Tell me what movement you think has gone too far.
Tell me what specific rhetoric you think is harmful.
Have an actual argument.
But don’t just point at something and scream:
“WOKE!”
That’s not an argument.
And when politicians start talking about Woke 1 and Woke 2, I’m sorry, but my first reaction isn’t going to be some deep political analysis.
It’s going to be:
What is this, a fucking Pokémon evolution?
Because seriously.
Woke 1? Woke 2?
What are we doing?
Maybe instead of developing the next version of “woke,” we should develop something much simpler:
Human Decency 1.0.
And maybe—just maybe—we should stop treating that like a controversial software update.
Wait… Are We Doing GamerGate Again?
And here’s where I start getting fucking déjà vu.
Because I’m looking at all this “Woke 1,” “Woke 2” shit and thinking:
Wait a fucking minute. Haven’t we done this already?
Didn’t we just go through this with video games?
A few years ago, we had what people were calling GamerGate 2.0, centered around Sweet Baby Inc. and accusations that the company was helping make video games “woke.” A Steam curator group even started tracking games that had worked with the company, and the whole thing turned into another giant culture-war firestorm.
And now we’re apparently back here again.
Except this time it’s not just video games.
Now it’s politics.
Woke 1.
Woke 2.
What the fuck is next?
GamerGate 3: United States Edition?
Are we going to have political factions fighting over which version of “woke” is canon?
Is Woke 2 going to get a Steam release?
Are we going to start reviewing politicians like video games?
“Three stars. Good policy mechanics. Weak character development. Too much DEI.”
What the hell are we doing?
And this is exactly why I think we’ve completely lost the plot.
We’ve turned political and cultural disagreements into franchises.
Everything gets a sequel.
Everything gets a rebrand.
Everything gets a numbered edition.
GamerGate 2.0. Woke 1. Woke 2.
What’s next?
Woke: Definitive Edition?
Woke 2 Remastered?
GamerGate: The Final Chapter?
And then, inevitably:
GamerGate 3: Somehow GamerGate Returned.
At this point, I’m expecting Nintendo to announce Woke 2 Deluxe at the next Direct.
And here’s the serious part underneath the joke:
This constant cycle of culture-war branding is making it almost impossible to talk about the actual issues.
Instead of saying:
“Hey, I disagree with this particular policy.”
Or:
“I think this activist movement has gone too far on this particular issue.”
Or:
“I think this company is making a bad creative decision.”
We just scream:
WOKE!
And then the other side screams:
BIGOT!
And congratulations.
Nobody actually said anything.
That’s the problem.
We’ve created an environment where people aren’t even arguing about ideas anymore.
They’re arguing about teams, labels, versions and factions.
And that’s fucking exhausting.
I don’t want Woke 1.
I don’t want Woke 2.
I don’t want GamerGate 3.
I don’t want another ten years of people fighting over whether a video game, movie, politician, company, cartoon character or fucking sandwich is sufficiently “woke.”
I want us to be able to say:
“That’s a good idea.”
“That’s a stupid idea.”
“I agree with this.”
“I disagree with that.”
And then explain why.
That’s called having a fucking conversation.
Maybe we don’t need another sequel.
Maybe we need to cancel the franchise entirely.
And Then There’s AOC
And honestly, this is probably the part I find the strangest.
AOC talking about “woke” is not something I ever expected to hear.
Maybe she’s trying to distance herself from some of the rhetoric associated with earlier progressive politics. Maybe she’s trying to draw a line between where she believes the progressive movement was then and where she thinks it should be now.
Fine.
Politicians evolve.
People change their minds.
That’s not inherently a bad thing.
But here’s the weird part:
By using the exact “woke” terminology that has become a weapon in the culture war, you’re helping perpetuate the damn thing.
If the goal is to move beyond the endless “woke vs. anti-woke” political bullshit, then continuing to categorize political movements as “Woke 1” and “Woke 2” doesn’t exactly help.
It reinforces the framework.
It tells people:
Yes, this is still the battlefield we’re supposed to be fighting on.
And that’s where I think this whole thing gets backwards.
The right has spent years using “woke” as a political weapon.
And now, when people on the left start adopting the terminology themselves—sometimes to distance themselves from parts of the progressive movement—they can unintentionally end up doing the exact same thing.
They’re still talking about everything through the lens of “woke.”
They’re still giving the word power.
They’re still helping turn it into this giant political category that supposedly explains everything.
And I don’t think that’s productive.
If AOC believes certain progressive ideas or rhetoric from the past were excessive, say what those ideas were.
If she thinks certain political strategies were ineffective, explain why.
If she thinks the Democratic Party needs to change its messaging, talk about the policies and messaging that need to change.
That’s a real political discussion.
But “Woke 1 was crazy” sounds like we’re naming fucking software versions.
And ironically, in trying to distance herself from the past, she may just be helping the culture-war machine keep running.
That’s the irony.
The people who are supposedly trying to move beyond the “woke” era are still talking about everything in terms of “woke.”
So now we’re stuck with this bizarre political vocabulary where everyone is arguing about whether we’re in Woke 1, Woke 2, post-woke, anti-woke, woke-adjacent, or whatever the hell comes next.
Just stop.
Tell us what you actually believe.
Tell us what you think is right.
Tell us what you think is wrong.
Explain the policies.
Explain the ideas.
Explain the problems.
But please, for the love of God, stop turning politics into software version numbers.
The Myth of Woke 1
And here’s another thing:
There was never a “Woke 1.”
There wasn’t even a “Woke 0.”
And no, I’m not saying that the political and cultural movements people associate with the word “woke” didn’t exist.
Of course they did.
People have been fighting for equality, human rights, social justice, civil rights, labor rights, freedom, and basic human dignity for centuries.
There have always been people who looked at the way society worked and said:
“Wait. This is fucked up. We should change this.”
That’s not new.
That’s practically part of human history.
People standing up against slavery?
People fighting for women’s suffrage?
People fighting against segregation?
People fighting for civil rights?
People opposing fascism?
People resisting the Nazis?
People opposing brutal communist dictatorships?
People protesting the Vietnam War?
People refusing to participate in wars they believed were wrong?
Were all of these people “woke”?
Because if we’re going to keep using the word this broadly, eventually we’re going to start rewriting history with it.
“The anti-Nazi movement was woke.”
“The anti-Vietnam War movement was woke.”
“The civil rights movement was woke.”
“The suffragettes were woke.”
At what point does this become completely fucking meaningless?
And that’s my problem with treating “woke” like a historical timeline.
There isn’t a Woke 1. There isn’t a Woke 2.
There are just different generations of people confronting different problems.
The people fighting slavery weren’t waiting for the Woke 1.0 software update.
The people fighting fascism weren’t saying:
“Don’t worry, guys. Woke 2.0 is coming in 1943.”
The people protesting the Vietnam War weren’t sitting around waiting for the next version of progressive politics to drop.
They were responding to the world as it existed in their own time.
And that’s something we need to remember.
History isn’t a fucking video game with numbered levels.
It isn’t:
Woke 1 → Woke 2 → Woke 3 → Final Boss.
It’s history.
It’s messy.
It’s complicated.
People’s beliefs overlap across generations.
Movements influence one another.
Ideas evolve.
And sometimes people who lived decades or centuries ago were wrestling with questions that we’re still wrestling with today.
So when we slap the word “woke” onto all of this, we risk flattening all of that complexity into one fucking buzzword.
And eventually, if we keep going down this road, someone is going to look at practically any historical movement involving social change and say:
“Yep. They were woke.”
And then what?
Are we going to start dividing history into Woke Eras?
Ancient Woke.
Medieval Woke.
Industrial Revolution Woke.
World War II Woke.
Cold War Woke.
Vietnam Woke.
Modern Woke.
Woke 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Come the fuck on.
There have always been people who challenged the status quo.
Sometimes they were right.
Sometimes they were wrong.
Sometimes their ideas were noble but their methods were terrible.
Sometimes their movements accomplished incredible things.
Sometimes they caused unintended consequences.
That’s what makes history interesting.
We don’t need to turn all of it into “woke.”
Because once a word becomes capable of describing everything from modern progressive politics to people resisting fascism in the 1940s, the word has stopped being useful.
And that’s ultimately what I’m getting at.
I’m not arguing that the cultural and political debates surrounding “wokeness” aren’t real.
They are.
I’m arguing that we should stop pretending there’s some neat historical progression from Woke 0 to Woke 1 to Woke 2.
There isn’t.
There never was.
There have simply always been people who looked at the world around them and decided:
“This isn’t right.”
Sometimes those people changed the world.
Sometimes they made things worse.
Sometimes they were ahead of their time.
Sometimes they were completely fucking wrong.
But that’s humanity.
That’s history.
Not a software update.
Not a Pokémon evolution.
Not a video game level.
And definitely not Woke 1.