Jordan Peterson

Žižek has become the philosopher du jour for a young, meme-hungry generation.

Tour the comments section of the YouTube uploads of the debate and you’ll see the politics version of kids commenting “I was born in the wrong generation” on Led Zeppelin videos. Indeed, it was his appearances at Occupy Wall Street and in a series of documentaries, including The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, which really propelled him into the consciousness of a younger generation searching for deeper answers. But I do genuinely think that it was that 2019 debate with Jordan Peterson which solidified his position as a permanent fixture of internet culture, as well as permanently shifting the general perception of Peterson as a thinker. It didn’t help Peterson’s case that he came into a debate about Marxism with an extremely undergraduate understanding of the subject, even if what Žižek said was also opaque at points. First, the elephant in the room: part of Žižek’s charm is no doubt the fact that he cuts a very comical figure. It remains, in other words, one of the internet’s most enduringly weird cults of personality.