Relax, Guys: South Park's Season 27 Satiric Opener reveals Narrative Diffusion

— and it's characteristically Raunchy, Honest, and Necessary.

Season 27 of South Park kicks off with an absurdist satire of our collective experience over the past nine months. It's grotesque, hilarious, and horrifying in the best ways. We expect South Park to be crass and cutting. Apply that clarity to these appalling times, and you get a premier chock full of chaos and dick jokes, and you get a provocative lesson.

Who's in bed with the devil? Still from South Park's Season 27, Episode 1: "Sermon on the Mount"

Here's the lesson:

Corruption doesn’t need truth or majority. It just needs to confuse enough of us into submission. Or as Cartman might say it: Bein' a MAGA freak is basically like walkin' around beggin' to be some rich dude’s submissive little bitch. Like, ‘Yes Daddy, take all my rights, I love it!’ Goddammit!!

What’s So Funny?

South Park's creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker are no holds barred. If you're already a fan of bathroom-stall-satire, give it a look-see today. Or if you're feeling brave, try to watch it through the shock factor to the end, which explains the episode's title: Sermon on the Mount, and ask yourself, why does this feel so damn familiar?

Look, I acknowledge this series is not for everyone, and if it's not for you, that's understandable. Please allow me to summarize.

The townspeople directly call out a new president-character (the show doesn't bother to disguise Dear POTUS) for everything 'decent' people struggle to say out loud. But instead of facing it, he doubles down, floods the zone with distraction, files a bunch of questionable law suits, and then screams victim while telling everyone to relax.

This episode offends our fearsome leader in every way he is known to be vulnerable, and golly we know that awful man does not like being called out.

I'm going to explain how South Park pulled back the curtain on what we're collectively experiencing: a type of mass Gaslighting. I call it Narrative Diffusion with the goal of Audience Asphyxiation.

Please allow me to explain:

• Gaslighting is when someone manipulates your sense of reality so you start questioning your own sanity.

  
  

• Narrative Diffusion is when that same tactic gets scaled up. Someone floods the conversation. Distracts. Denies. Discredits. The goal isn't to win a majority or prove a truth. The goal is to overwhelm a community or system with noise until enough people freeze in overwhelm.

  
  

• Audience Asphyxiation is a state of group overwhelm. That foggy, checked-out feeling where nothing makes sense, clarity is evasive, so nothing matters. "There's nothing I can do about it anyway." or "They're all crooks, who can tell what to believe?"

It's Personal

See, it’s funny until you recognize it. The reason I have a name for these things in my brain is because I've experienced them before on a smaller scale in family court with an opponent who had the resources and will to manipulate that system. Their strategy was to appear calm and flood the conversation with denials, insinuations, and procedures - kudzu that quickly became a tangle - while I unraveled.

That's how I learned what people without privilege already know: our justice systems are not about justice. They're about keeping the peace, which translated means keeping status quo systems thrumming.

So yeah, I laughed at the episode. But I also recognized a pattern I've experienced. I suspect than many of you have experienced it too:

Flood the conversation with noise until good people in the audience start to tune-out because it’s all 'just too much' for them.

Then your path is clear to give or take - to reward or punish - your targets however you want. Yep, you can do whatever you want because nobody's left to stop you.

If your targets need help to level the game while you manipulate the rules against them, that's their own damn fault for being less than you.

I Made an Infographic

Please look at it now.

Narrative Diffusion is the strategy of gaslighting a a community with apocryphal (see my latest Wordrise) stories and information. This has been a public service announcement from Byrne Alive.

So What?

Life is messy. Justice is messy. But ignoring the mess because it’s inconvenient? That’s surrender. As Cartman might say, That shit's fucked up. Stop bein' a whiny little bitch.

Or as I will say, please re-engage because we have work to do.

For some of us, that work is having the big boy balls to stand up to MonsterPOTUS. Turns out South Park showed up strong for that assignment.

For others, it's trying various means to reach the asphyxiated audience and cut-off the gas-flood. That's what I'm trying to do.

Finally, we're going to need to figure out how to organize and protect our democracy. There are enough of us to do that, and it's in your benefit because we have enough to go around if we can return to evidence and experience-informed governance. For now we'll need alliances and a plan.

Those alliances will likely be imperfect, and that type of organizing is not my wheelhouse. That said, I'm keeping an eye out and will share what I find. What I can do is amplify.

What can you do? It doesn't have to be everything, but please do something. Start by admitting Jesus doesn't work for MonsterPOTUS.

🔥 the Byrne Alive Rating system

In your hearts, you know it's true.

Final Verdict

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 +

Though South Park isn’t for everyone, this episode is so brave and on-the-nose it earns my highest rating.  It's fully on brand - offensive, brilliant, unhinged, and necessary. I loved it for everyone, especially if you’re gaslit or pissed off.

Let's all relax. It's a reality roast.