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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26965 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 3, 2025

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When your post started with 'humanity peaked in the 90s', I didn't think the reason was going to be that James Bond would need to learn too many languages these days, quite the curveball.

Well to his point, who’s the comparable culture icon of today? John Cena?

Ironman/Robert Downey Jr. with comparable real life cultural icon being that of Elon Musk. When I think about it, modifying Bruce Wayne/Batman fits more than ever with decadent society turning into Gotham City real fast.

I will not be the first to use this comparison, but the startup tech-savvy entrepreneur is the modern version of pirate/conquistador/adventurer. They are highly individualistic people who carve their own space in hostile environment already occupied by corporate and state behemoths, often winning with boldness and intelligence racking huge treasures, fame and armies of women from around the world, who want to have babies with them.

Give them buff physique from gym, interest in MMA and Brazilian jiujutsu and some gun kata skills they use when cartel goons break into their underground bunker/office next to private power plant in Panama in order to kidnap them to steal some cryptocurrency. You have a pretty compelling hero right there. Maybe even more so than some naive secret service government spook which is so uncool today. You can even spice it up by making him traditional Catholic with some templar ethos or something.

John Wick? Maybe Dom from Fast and the Furious (which existed in the 90s but genere swapped to action hero much later)?

Batman

Batman existed when I was growing up.

More likely, the ethos of John Wick and Batman is more relevant than ever. Revenge as its own form of justice, outside the law, for past grievances.

There's some interesting anecdotes I remember hearing about how Batman is more popular in first world countries where as in poorer places they prefer Superman.

Bond existed well before the 90s.

Bond was still a popular icon in the 90’s.

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