Gooning [def]: “masturbation so intense that it becomes a state of meditation that consumes you and provides endless pleasure.”

– Urban Dictionary

 

A recent viral tweet called the current trademark style of AI generated art the result of “gooning ideology.” The extravagant, bloated, and expressive complexion of AI’s soulless cartoon images has elicited emotions of fear and disgust across the internet. Their design appeals to nothing but the most base, animalistic features of human perception—a quick-fire dopamine hit disguising itself as genuine pleasure. AI’s deconstruction of art, then, is analogous to pornography’s deconstruction of desire.

 

The pejorative ‘brain-rot’ has been coined to categorise that endless bulk of vapid sludge that populates the modern internet, nullifying the senses and demolishing the attention span of an entire generation. Since society has become slaves condemned to endlessly scroll content mediated by the all-seeing algorithm, gooning ideology has become the dominant logic of media in the modern age. Late-stage capitalist culture in the internet age is a race to the bottom, a Darwinian contest of mediocrity where the most brainless prevail and where critical thought has been subsumed by the paradigm of perpetual enjoyment.

 

But a recent phenomenon on the internet has changed something, awakening within me a newfound appreciation for brain-rot as an artform, perhaps even as a liberatory praxis: the Peter Griffin community.

 

Unless you’re not already aware, the Peter Griffin community (known as simply the ‘Peter community’ to those within it) is an emergent internet subculture of Instagram accounts dedicated to producing AI voice samples of Peter Griffin explaining the niche interest of the account owner overlayed onto Minecraft parkour videos. If this cursory explanation is not enough to get you excited (I can’t imagine why not), let me convince you why you should care.

 

I’ll admit, when I first came across a video of Peter Griffin explaining the subtle differences between the fourth and fifth wave emo movements, I was dubious too. Another lazy fad designed to drive-up engagement to fulfil the egoistic desire of the content creator’s lust for attention, I thought. But how wrong I was. While losing myself in another hour of worship to the algorithm, I came across more of these odd Peter accounts, and quickly a strange pattern caught my attention: why do all these Peters begin every monologue with the “astaghfirullah”? And hence the beginning of my obsession.

 

The first of the Peters to gain a widespread following was Muslim Peter, who would explain the doctrine of Islam based on the various questions and queries posed to him by Stewie, Lois, and Brian. Tragically however, Muslim Peter was martyred by the Instagram moderation system. And so, both as a sign of solidarity and as a signal distinguishing between true followers of the subculture and opportunists jumping on the bandwagon, his signature opening phrase was adopted. It is used now by those across the community at the beginning of each video, even when it doesn’t make logical or grammatical sense.

 

But come on, I hear you contend, surely you can’t think that this “community” is genuine? I do. And I believe if you put the absolutely-serious-and-not-a-joke amount of time and effort into exploring its rich lore that I have, you would to.

 

The variety of topics covered by the Peters is immense; from exploring the minutiae of obscure leftist doctrines, to giving advice on how to defraud credit cards online, the Peter community has it all. There are even conflicts between the community: vegan Peter critiqued queer Peter’s commitment to radical politics because of their dietary choices, prompting DIY punk Peter to step in and mediate. Just this morning as I write this, mechatronic Peter has come under fire for posting a single promotional post, prompting much debate within the community about the monetisation of Peter accounts (Republican Peter, fitness Peter, and photography Peter, just to name a few, have all weighed in).

 

And it’s in that communication between the Peters, their synergies, contradictions, and contentions, that the true value of the subculture is revealed. A single Peter—for example Nietzsche Peter explaining the benefits of Nietzschean philosophy to Stewie (an clear characterisation of the “man of ressentiment,” but I digress)—constructs their content within the standard structure of the Socratic dialogue. Presented as if there is a real challenge to the protagonist’s standpoint by posing the other characters in opposition, Peter (Socrates) always convinces Stewie or Brian (Thrasymachus and Glaucon) to his enlightened point of view. While such a narrow interpretation of critical thought might plague Plato’s Republic, no such myopia is prevalent in the Peter community.

 

When a Peter engages with another Peter, they produce a new synthesis of knowledge, prompting debate in the comments. In a way, the Peter community represents an idealised state of the internet: an open forum for the discussion of ideas and the dissemination of knowledge, mediated by the democratic force of public engagement. Ask yourself what other internet trend has brought so many people—not just the Peters themselves but the thousands that follow them and millions that come across them casually—into a lively public debate on Buddhist philosophy and tsarist Russia or educated them about rave safety and sexual health.

 

Okay, you relent, so it’s a way of distilling knowledge down into digestible chunks that has developed a lively and evolving community of dedicated creators and fans, but what’s it got to do with gooning and late-stage capitalism? I’m delighted that you asked.

 

The Peter phenomenon is a subversion of gooning ideology. It borrows the symbolism of vacuous brain-rotted culture: Family Guy’s absurd irreverence has long lent it to the humour of low-brow internet culture, whereas the Minecraft parkour aspect is the culmination of a series of increasingly overstimulating ADHD inducing content styles. But as the common anti-capitalist quip often falsely attributed to either Marx or Lenin goes “the last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.” Peter’s adaptation of culture-flattening brain-rot methodology is, too, a radical reimagining of possible futures for society that uses the tools of the oppressor against them. Peter is a detournement in the situationist sense, he recuperates the imagery of our chattel society lorded over by the techno-capitalist oligarchy and transforms it into a liberatory framework for revitalising our relationship with media, knowledge, and each other.

 

That’s a lot of big words, you sigh, are you saying that Peter Griffin is a revolutionary? In a sense, yes. The Peter community is a manifestation of a new kind of politics, a new transgressive way of engaging with the growing nihilism of internet culture: brain-rot spiritualism.

 

I am not naïve enough to assume that Peter will last forever. Internet culture is ephemeral and transient. Ideas and trends rarely last longer than a few weeks, and I fully expect the Peter subculture to eventually fall victim to the internet’s vicious recycling process. But the idea of Peter will live on. I believe that Peter is the harbinger of the future of brain-rot spiritualism; only by accepting brain-rot, by living our lives through it, can we expect to defeat gooning ideology. If instead of mindlessly succumbing to the carefully constructed dopamine economy of social media we engage with it in productive and consciously political ways, perhaps the spark of a new social movement could be born.

 

So, astaghfirullah my dear reader. Keep doom-scrolling, but do so consciously. Subvert the algorithm by deliberately shaping it to your whims—use the ‘interested’ and ‘not interested’ buttons to activate some agency over the content you’re shown. Never allow yourself to be subjected to the whim of your enjoyment by remaining conscious of constant manipulation. And if you ever find yourself drawn in to that meditative doom-scroll trance, remind yourself that to retain your sanity and your individuality, you need to stop gooning and start grinding.∎

 

Words by Cameron Bilsland.