A few weeks ago I was browsing books and decided I would buy a very used copy of Animal Farm by George Orwell. The title has come up a few times in recent history and I’ve never read it, so why not now?

I also don’t trust my whim decisions about what I’m going to do later to last the test of time. I didn’t know, if picking up said book, I’d read it the next day or it would take me years to get around to it.

But it seems I was incentivized enough by These Unprecedented Times to read it now.

I understand a lot of people read this story in their young teen years by force of school. I can’t say I remember exactly what we read in school for the most part, but it definitely wasn’t this. I do remember a focus on historical literature, especially revolving around the foundation of America and slavery. I remember spending time talking about mythology. I remember Shakespeare. I remember Thoreau. I remember Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I remember, once I was in high school, very little of what we read as a group took place after 1900 except for copies of Newsweek.

I also remember when themes related to Animal Farm came up, they showed up in social studies and history-focused classes. We spent a chunk of one term talking about China, centered on the issue of Hong Kong. They were about to become independent of the UK and we talked about whether they were their own thing or still an extension of China. In that, we had lessons about China’s history of government and its effects on its citizens as well as neighboring countries, including talk about cultural interests and religion. Meanwhile we were watching journalism pieces and news about the Middle East pre-9/11, and we spent another while talking about tedious religious differences and everyone wanting a piece of the same presumably holy lands that just caused me a Sleep earworm revival that I have to now go fix. A whole class in itself was focused on the foundational turns post-creation of the US, of the early American trade industry, of trains, of how important industrialism was and its effects on people, of Manifest Destiny. I remember doing a report on the first major car manufacturers at some point, whether or not it was in that class. I grew up on the west coast so focus towards the Gold Rush and Oregon Trail were huge throughout my education, and post-school wiki learning about why places here are called what they are led to finding out about their cruel capitalistic military histories, typical of much of the US. Monuments to white men shitting on everyone else in the name of their precious, fragile egos everywhere.

It stands to reason I didn’t actually need to read Animal Farm when I was 14. And yet the curiosity is there. What the fuck was the book actually about? Why does it permeate culture even still? Why are people criticizing a movie about it?

Once the book was in my hands, I was struck immediately by how uncynical it came across in reading. Tonally it sounds focused on a young audience who signed up for a cute fantasy story about a little farm populated by silly animals with a big dream. The truth is more like The Secret of Nimh. Have you ever seen or read the original The Little Mermaid story? It’s like that. The animals and tone are simply a device to deliver sugar-coated shit nobody really wants to be reading or having floating around in their head when shit-covered shitty reality is already there 24/7.

Very soon after I began reading I spontaneously came across an internet post whining about the glorification of Orwell. Apparently he was an industry plant to sell ideas on the populace and actually held political ideas that were counter, or whatever the fuck it said. I don’t know. I don’t see how what writers who are long dead think or believe or intend matters. It isn’t about him or what he thinks 80 years later. You read, you chew on the story, you decide what’s what. Art can be good and interesting and even valuable independent of human beings who made it. I, obviously, set the internet post aside.

In context of the time of publishing (that is, 1945), I soon started to notice what that post was getting at. It does feel a bit on the road to propaganda. It depends on the reader, I suppose. Here in 2026, though, I was like “holy shit way to predict the future”. And then came the frustration that I know young people are (or were, who knows anymore) reading stories like this yet going on to vote for the pigs of the real world. Granted, I remember my first hour at church camp being sold that we were all sheep, meant to follow and obey, all as if it was a natural given, and I was like “lol nope, not in a million years”. Clearly there are people fascinated by their masters, forever in need of further masters, unable to process what stories like this are getting at because what does Daddy think I should think about the story criticizing Daddy? And I was always suspicious at best of these things but more often than not horrified and disgusted that my peers refused to think for themselves. Why you no authentic being?

Reading was quick and easy. Adjectives and adverbs are a distraction. We gettin’ to the point. Turns of events were sharp, stated without emotionalism. I processed emotional moments in seconds like I was watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon and everything was going to turn out fine in the end… except that’s not what happened, and I left the book feeling like all my serotonin had been stolen. It wasn’t quite like watching Threads or Dr Strangelove, but that was the vibe. All hope, gone. We will never be the same. I’m in the background, having heard and seen enough, calling the guy to hit the detonate button.

It hit especially hard because of the moment. I remember trying to hype up anyone who needed it to read 1984 not so long ago. The slow realization that news media was a tool for conservative ends – neither neutral or unbiased – mixed with the more recent realizations that those who owned social media companies had an agenda to serve the same voices led me to deciding it was in my best interest to get away from those things, and yet I’ve seen little to no movement from people I’ve known who claimed to be progressive, democratic, and/or liberal. How is it that someone who was so anti-religion, who has posted so much misandrist stuff, is now an apparently permanent cog in the wheel of a place owned by a guy who thinks she’s one of his personal enemies, consumer dollars aside? Why won’t she move? Where did we go wrong here? Are the facts not loud enough? Are they too inconvenient, because welp, I put all my eggs in this particular social media basket and I can’t be fucked to change. No new tricks for this old dog. How did a whole swath of the population nope out on MySpace overnight yet the same can’t be done again for an actual reason? Were these people even being sincere in the first place or has it always been all talk?

Maybe meaningful change comes on too slowly for me. But every day watching “pigs” endure when the alternatives are *right there* and people who claim to be anti-“pig” are standing around picking their nose or using the tools of said pigs when other tools exist is soul-crushing. Here I thought what you said was your truth, and it turns out it was all just a bunch of noise, and your primary interest is serving your comfort.

I had similar feelings around 20 years ago on approach of my musical journey. I tried for empathy. I know how hard it is to get into artistic stuff you’re not already inclined to be into exactly right now. I know there’s a strong inclination to jump right into “this sucks” with things that are new to you. Maybe a more open “too weird/loud/boring/tedious for me”. Before then I would have considered getting uptight about anything too feminine, soft, dramatic, or emotional because it seemed unserious or lacking in quality, but 20 years ago I was well into the battle of “girl” labels do not equal lacking in quality. I know it’s an often painful road to challenge oneself and what one knows, or thinks they know. I know the struggles. But if I could take the time to challenge myself a lot, could they not try even a little? They didn’t need to follow me exactly where I was going, but just show initiative, interest, some kind of care? Why was I always the one having to bend to what others were doing? But no, best I got was some patronizing commentary, often trying to turn things back around to how I apparently needed to fill my role as a woman aka sexual object vessel, that whatever I did or said or intended was irrelevant to that aim. Clearly the only reason to do anything was to find a man. My guess is the next step was, well, if I, a girl, was listening to or talking about particular music, that must mean it’s trash: only men are allowed to have respectable opinions, after all. I’ve written before, but the night I heard ol’ E.Wiz for the first time was a revelatory moment where I knew I couldn’t share this anywhere with it being understood the way I needed it to be understood, therefore all these people need to go and I needed to find my new thing free of the weight of trying to appeal to people like this.

Animal Farm easily excused away the lack of action by the animals. First, they were celebrating their new freedom and just didn’t know what they didn’t know. Some were written off as too dumb in general. Then, most of them couldn’t read or memorize things like the pigs could. Those who could read shrugged at the whole situation as if misery was inevitable regardless of the details (hey I’m the donkey in this book!). Others were too narrowly focused to bother themselves with the noise of changes around them and easy to take advantage of for not caring about what happened around them.

As the reigns began to tighten, the first and last unscathed escapee made me think about how the prim-and-proper rich are generally going to be the first ones to leave at the first sign of trouble. It’s a luxury to have the funds and connections to be able to move countries on a whim and not look back. (And for the above moment, I guess I was swimming in so much new-to-me music I was finally able to leave the goddamn Korn crowds behind.)

I was equating the second escapee to techbros early on, but the analogy seems to have fallen away by modern interpretation. Then again, for all we know, that’s exactly what happens in the future when the government decides it’s learned enough from AI or whatever and starts banning shit left and right. Or maybe that’s what’s happening right now. But I was specifically thinking of the present alignment of well known tech leaders with government. They’re still more or less friends right now.

It’s fair to say the second escapee is actually an analogy about scientists, librarians, teachers, writers, and socially progressive politicians. And yes, they’re the first to get picked at anytime some fascist shit goes down. Reminds me of Bill Hicks making fun of the South: “what you readin’ FOR?”

Boy was it interesting when the “leader” pig began twisting the other animals’ realities to match his agenda. Who does that remind me of? Oh, no one in particular. How did this book from 1940-whatever know what was going to happen today? Is this scenario just what we, as humans, do on repeat every so many decades? The idiot populace, in need of a confident liar daddy, allows space for then pushes up the worst one of them all, and the ship sinks until everyone’s suffering and having to once again relearn the lesson. Imagine if we just didn’t do that.

We can hope for a stroke, a heart attack, something more violent… but that doesn’t change what remains after. Have those who went into this with one eye closed learned what they needed to learn to keep this story from progressing forward?

The astrological crowd keeps suggesting that this is just the beginning. Things never cleanly repeat, but the known patterns over time seem to say that the US is having a pain in the ass time right now and for a while yet. Things will be different in a decade, somehow, but who’s to say how.

But the day-to-day reality is much the same. We humans can read but can we understand the words? It’s easy to forget, anyway. Gotta do the dishes, the laundry, get back to work. Life’s tedium fills the brain. Remember what now? Not sure I remember what I barely understood. Well, not me, I’ve been pretty much the same rude creative type this whole time. Theoretically I’m in the first horse crowd, though practically speaking, we’re all stuck on the same human earth suffering these idiots and their Hitler Youth dogs.

Then I think about the things I’ve cared about more than I’ve cared that their fanbase or creators sucked, and hmm. I’ve definitely dragged my feet mulling over whether the value of art was worth more to me than human principles. It depends, too, on exactly the issues and the message. And sometimes you just don’t know what’s going on far from view, and by the time you do, you’ve invested so much into something that it’s hard to balance that against whatever awful shit came up. I’m in another phase of exactly this right now. How much of what I’ve enjoyed or paraded over the years was made by assholes? My old go-to is that all humans are interested in gaining power over others for their own ends, aka everyone is an asshole, and some are just louder about it and have more opportunities to show it. Maybe no matter where I go or what I do the effect is the same. But there’s a lot of disappointment going on. I don’t keep heroes and think that whole idea is a bit weird, but it sucks when you’ve liked what someone’s been up to for so long only to discover they’re awful up close. No one wants to be around “awful”. But what if it’s everywhere? I live in a society, I can’t go full hermit, and I don’t think I’d want to. So what then? Is it just disappointment and disgust every day now? Expect trash everywhere I turn? No matter what I do, I’ve contributed to The Suck? Just a cycle of stupidity, lies, cruelty, a garden full of willfully ignorant intellectually lazy sheep?

I’ve got nothing.

The book ended in a place that felt like a foregone conclusion. Maybe the 13 year olds of the world wouldn’t have seen it coming, but it was obvious to me. Welcome the inevitable suffering at the hands of the new masters. I am definitely the donkey.

Would I recommend you read this book if you haven’t already? Certainly. But expect, for the times we live, that your peace is going to get trampled on and you’re going to want a solid dose of happy hormones at the ready when you finish. A few days later I’m still trying to get my serotonin back.

Now I’m imagining someone playing Stardew Valley directly after reading the final chapter, and, heh.

Edit: Enjoy the irony of me adding affiliate links to Amazon in this post. One thing at a time, I guess.