Is Everything a “Humiliation Ritual”?

It’s become the paranoid catch phrase of the moment. In everything from Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Oval Office showdown with Donald Trump to actors choosing strange get-ups for the red carpet, online conspiracy theorists see the work of shadowy elites forcing celebrities to debase themselves for sinister purposes. Are they imagining things? Almost certainly. But they may have inadvertently hit on something very true about life in 2025.

Mar 20, 2025 - 12:11

It’s become the paranoid catch phrase of the moment. In everything from Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Oval Office showdown with Donald Trump to actors choosing strange get-ups for the red carpet, online conspiracy theorists see the work of shadowy elites forcing celebrities to debase themselves for sinister purposes. Are they imagining things? Almost certainly. But they may have inadvertently hit on something very true about life in 2025.