Last week, citizens around the world created and shared photos of Senator Bernie Sanders seated next to the Avengers, dancing Gangnam style and landing on the moon. There was no trace of sarcasm. They did not demean. They were joyful and silly. The memes’ popularity netted Sanders 1.8 million dollars that have enriched Vermont’s community organizations, including Meals on Wheels.
It’s easy to bond over negativity. Studies have shown that people are more likely to connect if they dislike the same thing. In the past four years, many of us have formed communities founded on mutual disdain, anger, and fear. This has served to create cohesive social group bonds, but it has also pitted said groups against one another.
We have become attuned to narratives centered on bad news. But is this how we build the world we want to live in? Good news is a harder sell and it requires retraining editors and reporters and perhaps rethinking our entire news industry. What we know from our pleasure research is that lubricant helps. In this case, in the form of humor and play.
Last week, after a giant exhale, we played. The memes on display exemplified one of the first principles of improvisational comedy, which also happens to be a principle of pleasure: “Yes, and.”
The theory of “yes, and” encourages us to accept the situation we find ourselves in and add to it. Perhaps a scene partner says you’re surgeons, operating in the middle of a battlefield. You say, “Yes. And the person we are operating on is the general’s wife. Perhaps a perfect meme of Bernie Sanders crosses your timeline. You say, “Yes AND we will harness this creative energy to ease economic hardship for hundreds of Vermont families.”
“Yes, and…” is an innate skill for children. It is a game available to us at any moment, one we can play with ourselves and now, in our digital age, with all our global neighbors. “Yes, and…” requires trust and safety, and it engenders trust and safety. It’s a map to a better world.
Contributing Editor and long-time collaborator Olivia Hockenberry reports on how Gen Z is creating community through collaboration on Tik Tok in the wake of the pandemic.
The United States has been left without live theater and performance for close to a year now leaving millions jobless and with no creative outlet. However, in this barren, performance-less hellscape there is a space of notable, surprising reprieve: Tik Tok. TikTok has become an online platform for people to share their creative energy with the entire world through dance, song, theater, and music. One of my favorite examples is the growing presence of collaborative sea shanties and, in particular, this one started by Nathan Evans a former mailman who now has a major record deal.
But the example with the most popularity at the moment is Bridgerton: The Musical.
The Netflix series Bridgerton, a pleasure-forward drama with a steamy Gossip Girl-meets-glam-Pride and Prejudice storyline, has become the streaming platform’s biggest television series to date, with a whopping 82 million households watching in the first 28 days. That is roughly equal to 3 million households a day. In response to the show, two young songwriters, Abigail Barlow, 22, and Emily Bear, 19, shared a few lines of a song that could potentially be in a hypothetical Bridgerton musical. It BLEW UP. People loved it. I loved it. People have been riffing on their idea and posting songs and verses. Now, the two are writing an entire musical score and posting it all on TikTok as they go along. Creatives, mostly women, from all over the world are offering help. Famous singers are “dueting” (a feature of TikTok where you can add your comments or sound to a video someone else has made) their songs as audition tapes.
As a musical theater lover, Bridgerton lover, and women lover, I am over the moon about this. Watching this process unfold in real-time, knowing that anyone could join in, reminds me of what is so wonderful about live theater; the community and the collaboration. People who would never be able to break into theater because of how elitist, gatekeeper-y, and expensive it has become, are able to share their work and be seen. Follow @abigailbarlowww and @emilythebear on TikTok to see this art being made live.
Gen Zers, as products of the digital age and the last 20-25 years, which have seen one crisis after another, are, like all young generations in their time, uniquely situated to adapt to the problems we face at this moment. Quickly adapting and pivoting has become almost second nature to us, and while it feels soul-sucking and exhausting we are also changing the world for the better because of it.
From the Institute of Pleasure Studies
Learn the art and pleasure of Yes, and from the best at Second City
This TED talk by Karen Tilstra on the two words can change your life. Yes, I am listening, I am suspending judgment And, I am adding to it. Every idea deserves one minute of life, she says.
Apply Yes, And to innovation with former journalist turned comedian Paul Z Jackson.
