The tarnished glamour of Covid stalks social media. Hantavirus updates ping into our feeds and serious questions are asked about rodent droppings versus aerosols. However, unlike the prima donna SARS-CoV-2 virus, those aloof Hantavirus germs are destined to remain a cameo compared to the star billing Covid had in the drama of our lives. Yet the similarity of the Hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius to the Princess Diamond Covid outbreak in 2020 has been enough to precipitate breathless commentary from both those desperate for restrictions on social life to be reimposed on others, and those who habitually view random events as a grand orchestrated scheme to subjugate humanity for nefarious purposes.
The truth is far less exciting, if a little more embarrassing. Covid was a problem due to its ubiquity under the cloak of anonymity. Its elusive nature meant trying to control Covid was like trying to turn the wind off whilst collectively punching ourselves in the face. The retreat of social institutions and civic life at Covid’s emergence blindsided governments and experts, who hastily reconfigured pandemic plans from “keep calm and carry on” to “shoot first, ask questions later”, in order to maintain the illusion of control. The real social question is why people in First World countries jumped at the chance to bake sourdough and banana bread as a pastiche of solidarity that would inevitably turn into despair as the months and years of isolation crept on. The answer likely includes that pre-Covid life was mundane for many, and the pandemic offered drama and a chance to participate in a mass-event, even if mostly as a mere spectator.
The retreat of social institutions and civic life at Covid’s emergence blindsided governments and experts.
The low infectivity of Hantavirus means the social media spectacle this time will be more akin to second season syndrome characteristic of sports teams sliding back into obscurity after overperforming the season before. Sport, as a mass-spectator event is romanticized as the “agony and the ecstasy”, but the overwhelming experience of spectator sport is still mundanity, as yet another season runs dry, despite fleeting moments of glory or humiliation. It’s much like life itself. Days drag on where nothing much happens—boredom and clock-watching is the norm—until brief moments of jubilation or crisis occur, and then they too pass. With the increasing social atomization and collapse of institutions which marked the latter half of the twentieth century only picking up pace prior to our Covid ignominy, we should not be surprised that the safest and most affluent humans since the dawn of time were drawn to a grand tragicomedy of pandemic times. How we cried, how we laughed, how we cried some more. And then collectively moved on to save face.
The low infectivity of Hantavirus means the social media spectacle this time will be more akin to “second season syndrome”.
Hantavirus-spotting will be a short-lived fad as punters grow bored with the lack of excitement and move on to the next spectacle. No terrifying graphs and daily death counts are to be had here, only richly deserved parody. One more durable current spectacle is the ongoing collapse of old party politics with a rise in brash “populist” newcomers—who, as they try to govern the void, are almost certain to follow the usual pattern of glory to humiliation in an even more accelerated form. After all, these populists are not even popular; they just happen to be the next in line as voters take out their frustration on the status quo. The detachment of the political sphere from society appears to be terminal.
Yet, for many of us, like with a car crash, we can’t seem to take our eyes away from the collapse. Simultaneously repulsive and enthralling, politics has in essence become a form of entertainment where we can project our deepest fantasies and insecurities as we pass through our atomized lives. “Showbiz for ugly people”, as the cliché goes. That social media has become the dominant arena for politics has inevitably made trolling and clout chasing its dominant language. If life before Covid was mundane, we are now operating in a theater of the absurd.
Short-lived political causes that capture the social media hype machine are likely to be the norm for the time being—the more they contain the seeds of a moral panic, the more insistent the hype. The yearning for drama in our lives means opportunities for true social advances via the political sphere remain neglected. The media and political hangers-on will do what they can to keep us helpless and inactive, our eyeballs glued to the screens. Perhaps it is time to turn away from the wreckage of politics and trend-hawking social media influencers and embrace other pursuits that keep us grounded and resistant. As any die-hard sport fan would tell you, the main reason to keep attending is not really what happens on the sporting arena, and certainly not to stay safe, but to stay social.
