Doomer

{{Short description|Person pessimistic or fatalistic about global problems}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}}

'''Doomer''' is a 21st-century neologism for an online subculture of individuals who share extremely pessimistic, nihilist or fatalistic views about global problems such as overpopulation, peak oil, climate change, ecological overshoot, pollution, nuclear weapons, democratic backsliding, economic collapse, and runaway artificial intelligence. Some doomers believe these problems may lead to societal collapse, or even worse, human extinction.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2014-12-02 |title=Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540 |access-date=2023-10-20}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-01-20 |title="Humans will be extinct by 2026" – doom-and-gloom prophet Professor Guy McPherson on abrupt climate change |url=https://www.biznews.com/energy/2023/01/20/abrupt-climate-change |access-date=2023-10-20 |website=BizNews.com |language=en-GB}}</ref> The terms ''doomer'' and ''doomerism'' arose primarily on social media and later experienced a semantic change, becoming Internet slang for pessimism while overlapping with the incel subculture and blackpill.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Aleksic |first=Adam |date=2025-07-14 |title=How incel language infected the mainstream internet — and brought its toxicity with it |url=https://www.theverge.com/internet-culture/697406/algospeak-adam-aleksic-excerpt |access-date=2026-02-25 |website=The Verge |language=en-US}}</ref>

Malthusians like Paul R. Ehrlich, Guy McPherson and Michael Ruppert have related doomerism to Malthusianism, an economic philosophy holding that human resource use will eventually exceed resource availability, leading to societal collapse, social unrest, or population decline.<ref name="Words Like These">{{Cite web |author=<!--anonymous author, no byline--> |date=28 December 2020 |title=Only 2020 could bring us words like these |url=https://grist.org/climate/2020-climate-words-of-the-year-doomer-net-zero-anthropause/ |website=Grist |archive-date=28 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201228144325/https://grist.org/climate/2020-climate-words-of-the-year-doomer-net-zero-anthropause/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Holmgren 2009">{{Cite book |last=Holmgren |first=David |title=Future scenarios : how communities can adapt to peak oil and climate change |date=2009 |isbn=978-1-60358-206-3 |location=White River Junction, Vermont |oclc=1021809104}}{{page needed|date=November 2021}}</ref>

==History== ===Peaknik subculture=== {{See also|Peak oil#Peakists}} The term ''doomer'' was reported in 2008 as being used in early internet peaknik communities, as on internet forums where members discussed the theorized point in time when oil extraction would stop due to lack of resources, followed by societal collapse. Mid-2000s doomers embraced various ideas on how to face this impending collapse, including doomsday prepping, as well as more contemporary feelings of resignation and defeat.<ref name="White Mar 2008">{{cite news |last1=White |first1=Patrick |title=Life after the oil crash |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/life-after-the-oil-crash/article18446471/ |work=The Globe and Mail |date=7 March 2008 |publication-place=Toronto |archive-date=5 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210105171316/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/life-after-the-oil-crash/article18446471/ |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}</ref>

Canadian self-identified doomer Paul Chefurka hosted a website where he encouraged his readers to eat lower on the food chain, modify their homes for the apocalypse, and to consider not having children.{{r|White Mar 2008}} Not all "peakniks" subscribed to a fatalist outlook. U.S. Army Ranger Chris Lisle, when writing recommendations on how to survive the societal collapse, suggested that fellow doomers "adopt a positive attitude," because, as he put it, "Hard times don't last, hard people do."{{r|White Mar 2008}}

===Internet meme=== By 2018, 4chan users had begun creating Wojak caricatures with the ''-oomer'' suffix, derived from "boomer", to mock various groups online. One of these caricatures was the "Doomer", a 20-something who had "simply stopped trying".<ref name="Tiffany Feb 2020">{{cite web |last1=Tiffany |first1=Kaitlyn |title=The Misogynistic Joke That Became a Goth-Meme Fairy Tale |website=The Atlantic |date=3 February 2020 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/doomer-girl-meme-4chan-tumblr-wojak-history/605764/ |url-access=limited |archive-date=4 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200604012415/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/doomer-girl-meme-4chan-tumblr-wojak-history/605764/ |url-status=live}}</ref> The meme first appeared on 4chan's /r9k/ board in September 2018.{{r|Tiffany Feb 2020}} The image typically depicts the wojak character in dark clothing, including a dark beanie, smoking a cigarette. "Doomer"-themed playlists, featuring this wojak along with slowed down music edits (often involving post-punk or rock) reached popularity on YouTube, especially during the Covid-19 lockdowns. The archetype often embodies nihilism and despair, with a belief in the incipient end of the world to causes ranging from climate apocalypse to peak oil to (more locally) opioid addiction.<ref name="Keating Sep 2019">{{Cite news |last=Keating |first=Shannon |date=11 September 2019 |title=Against Nihilism |work=BuzzFeed News |url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/shannonkeating/juuling-nihilism-climate-change-sobriety-euphoria-hope |archive-date=4 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200604012401/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/shannonkeating/juuling-nihilism-climate-change-sobriety-euphoria-hope |url-status=live}}</ref> Kaitlyn Tiffany writes in ''The Atlantic'' that the doomer meme depicts young men who "are no longer pursuing friendships or relationships, and get no joy from anything because they know that the world is coming to an end."{{r|Tiffany Feb 2020}}

A related meme format, "doomer girl", began appearing on 4chan in January 2020, and it soon moved to other online communities, including Reddit, Twitter, and Tumblr, often by women claiming it from its 4chan origins.{{r|Tiffany Feb 2020}} This format is described by ''The Atlantic'' as "a quickly sketched cartoon woman with black hair, black clothes, and sad eyes ringed with red makeup". The doomer girl character often appears in image macros interacting with the original doomer character.{{r|Tiffany Feb 2020|Martinez Jan 2020}} The format is often compared to rage comics.<ref name="Martinez Jan 2020">{{Cite news |last=Martinez |first=Ignacio |date=7 January 2020 |title=Meet 'Doomer Girl,' the new voice of a classic meme |work=The Daily Dot |url=https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/doomer-girl-meme-rage-comics/ |archive-date=4 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200604012403/https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/doomer-girl-meme-rage-comics/ |url-status=live}}</ref> === Doomer wave === {{See also|Post-punk|Dark wave|Russian post-punk}}{{Infobox music genre | name = Doomer wave | native_name = | etymology = | other_names = * Doomerwave * Doomer | image = | alt = | caption = | stylistic_origins = * Vaporwave * post-punk * darkwave * Russian post-punk * slowed and reverb | cultural_origins = 2010s, United States | instruments = | derivatives = | subgenrelist = | subgenres = | fusiongenres = | regional_scenes = | local_scenes = | other_topics = * Incelcore * mallwave | footnotes = }}

'''Doomer wave''' (also known as '''doomerwave''' or simply '''doomer''') is an online music microgenre coined by anonymous users on 4chan in 2018 to describe an offshoot of the Wojak meme known as "doomer wojak".<ref name=":72">{{Cite web |last=Zhang |first=Cat |date=2020-06-25 |title=How Belarusian Post-Punks Molchat Doma Became a TikTok Meme |url=https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-belarusian-post-punks-molchat-doma-became-a-tiktok-meme/ |access-date=2025-10-19 |website=Pitchfork}}</ref><ref name=":82">{{Cite web |date=2021-07-20 |title='Thom Yorke made a doomerwave version of his own f***ing song!' |url=https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/music/features/doomerwave-vapourwave-thom-yorke-creep-b1885403.html |access-date=2025-10-19 |website=The Independent}}</ref> The style was originally associated with slowed down versions of depressive tracks as inspired by the vaporwave microgenre.<ref name=":82" /> Writer Cat Zhang of ''Pitchfork'' described the "doomer" as "a nihilistic, 20-something male whose despair about the world causes him to retreat from traditional society".<ref name=":72" /> The term later expanded to encompass the "doomer girl" archetype.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tiffany |first=Kaitlyn |date=2020-02-03 |title=The Misogynistic Joke That Became a Goth-Meme Fairy Tale |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/doomer-girl-meme-4chan-tumblr-wojak-history/605764/ |access-date=2025-10-19 |website=The Atlantic}}</ref> In 2020, Belarusian post-punk band Molchat Doma garnered internet virality through online memes and playlists which referred to them as "Russian doomer music" or "doomer wave" (despite the band's Belarusian origin).<ref name=":72" /><ref name=":82" /> Zhang further stated, "Perhaps we could think of Molchat Doma's synth-specked post-punk as a nighttime counterpart to the vaporwave subgenre 'mallwave', which sounds like a eulogy to the lost promise of suburban idyll."<ref name=":72" />

===In media=== The term ''doomer'' was popularized outside of the Internet in commentary surrounding Jonathan Franzen's 2019 essay in ''The New Yorker'' titled "What if We Stopped Pretending?". The piece made an argument against the possibility of averting climatic catastrophe. In addition to popularizing the term among general audiences, Franzen's piece was highly popular among online Doomer communities, including the Facebook groups Near Term Human Extinction Support Group and Abrupt Climate Change.<ref name="Purtill">{{cite news |last1=Purtill |first1=James |title=Breaking up over climate change: My deep dark journey into doomer Facebook |url=https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/breaking-up-over-climate-change-my-journey-into-doomer-facebook/11678736 |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |date=7 November 2019 |archive-date=4 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200304121143/https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/breaking-up-over-climate-change-my-journey-into-doomer-facebook/11678736 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The BBC describes sustainability professor Jem Bendell's self-published paper ''Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy'' as "the closest thing to a manifesto for a generation of self-described 'climate doomers{{'"}}.{{r|Hunter Mar 2020}} As of March 2020, the paper had been downloaded more than a half-million times. In it, Bendell claims there is no chance to avert a near-term breakdown in human civilization, but that people must instead prepare to live with and prepare for the effects of climate change.{{r|Hunter Mar 2020}}

Climate scientist Michael E. Mann described Bendell's paper as "pseudo-scientific nonsense", saying Bendell's "doomist framing" was a "dangerous new strain of crypto-denialism" that would "lead us down the very same path of inaction as outright climate change denial".<ref name="Hunter Mar 2020">{{cite news |last1=Hunter |first1=Jack |title=The 'climate doomers' preparing for society to fall apart |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-51857722 |work=BBC News |date=16 March 2020 |archive-date=11 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111025848/https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-51857722 |url-status=live}}</ref> An essay published on ''OpenDemocracy'' argues that the paper is an example of "climate doomism" that "relies heavily on misinterpreted climate science".<ref name="Nicholas Jul 2020" >{{cite web |last1=Nicholas |first1=Thomas |last2=Hall |first2=Galen |last3=Schmidt |first3=Colleen |title=The faulty science, doomism, and flawed conclusions of Deep Adaptation |url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-doomism-and-flawed-conclusions-deep-adaptation/ |work=OpenDemocracy |date=14 July 2020 |archive-date=26 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126003328/https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-doomism-and-flawed-conclusions-deep-adaptation/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

Michael Mann has also listed David Wallace Wells's framing of the climate crisis, which he presents in "The Uninhabitable Earth" and ''The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming'', as being among "the prominent doomist narratives."<ref name="Watts Feb 2021">{{Cite news |last=Watts |first=Jonathan |date=2021-02-27 |title=Climatologist Michael E Mann: 'Good people fall victim to doomism. I do too sometimes' |url=http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/27/climatologist-michael-e-mann-doomism-climate-crisis-interview |website=The Guardian |language=en |archive-date=14 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220614205714/https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/27/climatologist-michael-e-mann-doomism-climate-crisis-interview |url-status=live}}</ref>

''Uncivilization: The Dark Mountain Manifesto'', published in 2009 by Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine to signal the beginning of the artists' group the Dark Mountain Project, critiques the idea of progress. According to ''The New York Times'', critics called Kingsnorth and his sympathizers "doomers", "nihilists", and "crazy polypiarians".<ref name="Smith Apr 2014">{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Smith (writer) |title=It's the End of the World as We Know It . . . and He Feels Fine |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/magazine/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-he-feels-fine.html |work=The New York Times Magazine |issn=0028-7822 |date=20 April 2014 |pages=28–33, 46–47 |url-access=limited |archive-date=25 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125012115/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/magazine/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-he-feels-fine.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

Kate Knibbs, writing in ''Wired'', described the development of a popular and growing strain of "doomer" climate fiction, in contrast to the typically optimistic undertones of the genre. Amy Brady, a climate fiction columnist for the ''Chicago Review of Books'', says the genre has moved from future scenarios to near-past and present stories.<ref name="Knibbs Feb 2020" >{{cite news |last1=Knibbs |first1=Kate |title=The Hottest New Literary Genre Is 'Doomer Lit' |url=https://www.wired.com/story/doomer-lit-climate-fiction/ |magazine=Wired |date=17 February 2020 |archive-date=4 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200604232534/https://www.wired.com/story/doomer-lit-climate-fiction/ |url-status=live |url-access=registration}}</ref>

== See also ==

* {{annotated link|Anarcho-primitivism}} * {{annotated link|Blackpill}} * {{annotated link|Black comedy}} * {{annotated link|Club of Rome}} * {{annotated link|Cornucopianism}} * {{annotated link|Deindustrialization}} * {{annotated link|Ecological grief}} * {{annotated link|Internet culture}} * {{annotated link|Meteorology}} * {{annotated link|Millenarianism}} * {{annotated link|Myth of Progress}} * {{annotated link|Overshoot (population)}} * {{annotated link|Pessimism porn}} * {{annotated link|Pessimism#Technological and environmental}} * {{annotated link|Post-doom}} * {{annotated link|Societal collapse}} * {{annotated link|What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire|''What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire''}} * {{annotated link|Incelcore}}

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/304/5674/1114 Doomsters(sic)] – A journal article discussing peak oil and "Doomsters"

Category:Pessimism Category:Survivalism Category:Nihilism Category:Internet memes introduced in 2018 Category:Internet meme characters