Mental Health but Make it Camp
How Gen-Z TikTokers may have found an answer to Sartre’s philosophical dilemma
It all started when TikToker @lamebaby47 shared “I’m about to f* around and start doing like really healthy habits ironically because I think that’s the only way I’m going to do them…No cause it’s ironic and it’s camp and that’s what’s gonna make it fun for me.”
Something about that idea resonated with the mental health side of TikTok calling it genius and a hack that changed their life. TikTokers following lamebaby47’s lead decided, as a “joke”, to get their life together. This trend isn’t much different from the trend where creators “cosplay” as people who have their “s*t” together.
Sartre (yes, that Sartre, the French existential philosopher) would be proud.
So why does this work? And what does Sartre have to do with all of this?
Before we get into that, let’s take a step back and understand:
What exactly is camp?
That might be one of the harder questions to answer because camp, by its very definition, resists defining. Susan Sontag (1964), who coined the term, writes, “to talk about camp is to betray it.”
This is probably why so many celebrities missed the mark on 2019’s Met Gala theme “Camp: Notes on Fashion.” On the one hand, because they didn’t understand the essence of camp but on the other, because camp isn’t for them. Camp is resistance and does not do well with attempts at co-option from fashion’s elite; whose very elitism it aims to subvert.
However, camp is more than just a fashion aesthetic.
Sontag calls camp a “sensibility.”
“a sensibility that, among other things, converts the serious into the frivolous.”
Characterised by exaggeration, extravagance, and artifice, camp seeks to challenge ideals of not only beauty and aesthetics but more importantly, of societal norms and values. Over-the-top and playful, camp questions the boundaries of what is.
Think Lady Gaga, circa the Fame Monster/Born This Way era. Her outrageous performances of femininity bringing into question the very boundaries of what the feminine is. So much so that it even gave rise to rumours that she has male genitalia. Rumours she responded to in a way only a camp icon could: “Maybe I do. Would it be so terrible?”
Camp is impertinent, camp is excessive and, perhaps, most importantly, camp is ironic or as Sontag would say, “anti-serious.” It seeks to resist through performances of humorous exaggerations and outright insolence.
So resistance, exaggeration, irony, and Lady Gaga.
How does Jean-Paul Sartre fit into all of this?
In addition to the fact that I firmly believe that if Sartre was alive, he would be a fan of Gaga’s music (and how much he would hate that I made this statement about him), Sartre has almost everything to do with this.
Most famously known, and often misquoted, for the phrase “Hell is other people”, Sartre’s philosophy deals with the predicament of existence.
We exist, or rather, coexist with others and it is the Other, specifically
the gaze of the Other — the ever-present watchful eye — that freezes us in a particular state of being.
This gaze — that we are subjects of and subjected to — reduces our complexities into the interpretations and judgements of the Other. The gaze looks at us, perceives us, objectifies us and in that, deprives us of our freedom to be.
More importantly, it brings with itself shame. Shame at being known and discovered and “of recognising myself in this degraded, fixed, and dependent being which I am for the Other.”
“Shame… not because of the fact that I may have committed this or that particular fault but simply that I have ‘fallen’ into the world in the midst of things and that I need the mediation of the Other in order to be what I am.”
To exist is to be perceived, to be exposed to this watchful eye, and in turn, feel shame. This shame can lead to not only feelings of judgement, guilt and the need for external validation but also perfectionism, isolation, hyper/in-action and at its worst, anxiety and depression.
Shame, for Sartre, is a mode of consciousness. The awareness of self through the mediation of the Other. And, even if we’d like like to believe otherwise, we cannot help but be aware that others perceive us and it inherently influences how we show up in the world.
Camping with Shame
So how does “making it camp” help with the shame? Well, if someone’s watching, might as well give them a show.
Underlying lamebaby47’s approach is the acknowledgement, albeit unintentional, of Sartre’s idea that our existence is mediated through others. The Sartrean shame manifests, in its worst forms, through mental health struggles and becomes crippling so much so that one cannot engage in basic self care.
The camp approach, by acknowledging the performative aspect of existence and making a mockery of it, allows us to tell ourselves “it is not that serious” and downplay the importance we give to the gaze and the shame that comes with it.
By “converting the serious into the frivolous”, it not only subverts the power of the look but also takes the power back from it.
It allows the freedom to consciously engage in the theatrics of subjectivity as opposed to being prisoners of it.
I would even argue that this way of being is in line with Sartre’s views on authenticity as it does, afterall, “repudiate the spirit of seriousness.”
Irony is characteristic of Gen-Z humor and this trend is no different. However, there is much more at play here beyond just sarcasm and self deprecation. By subverting the external and internal pressures to be through the the resistive impertinence of camp, TikTokers may have found a mental health hack that not only works but also provides an answer to the Sartrean philosophical dilemma.
Resources
Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag
Being & Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre
No Exit by Jean- Paul Sartre
Camping with the Stars by Katrin Horn
