In a small, dimly lit Brooklyn café, the scene unfolds. A group of woke hipsters—clad in oversized, ethically sourced, organic cotton shirts and sipping oat milk lattes—are gathered around a table. The café, once a sanctuary of progressive ideals, is now under siege. The news hits: wokeism has officially been cancelled.
Cue dramatic silence.
One hipster, his man bun tied just a little too tight, looks up from his vegan avocado toast and gasps, "What? Cancelled? But... what about my monthly subscription to intersectionality and microaggressions?"
His friend, sporting a lumberjack beard and a T-shirt that reads "I’m Here for the Climate Rebellion," slowly lowers his kombucha glass, his hand trembling. "Do they mean... no more safe spaces? No more triggering discourse? How will I even exist in this capitalist nightmare without my identity constantly being affirmed?"
Another hipster, her framed poster of Karl Marx prominently displayed on her recycled plastic water bottle, shakes her head in disbelief. "This can't be real. Without cancel culture, how will we know which platforms to publicly denounce? How can I virtue-signal without a carefully curated scandal?"
Suddenly, the café’s door swings open, and a barista who has been just a little too eager to use phrases like "cisnormative patriarchy" bursts in, holding an iPad with breaking news. "It’s official!" she exclaims, her oversized glasses practically falling off her face. "Wokeism is cancelled, but wait—there's a new movement called 'Unwoke'! It's about… embracing people’s inherent contradictions and not immediately calling them problematic!"
The group goes silent for a moment. A deep breath is taken.
"But... I thought 'unwoke' was a slur?" says the first hipster, his eyes widening with horror.
The second hipster stares off into the distance, slowly putting down his oat milk latte. "Does this mean... I can't yell at people for having incorrect opinions anymore? No more canceling my aunt at Thanksgiving?"
The third, meanwhile, begins furiously Googling the definition of "irony," visibly panicked. "Wait, so what does that mean for our influencer campaign on TikTok? How do I reclaim my woke credibility now? Do I just pivot to a subversive anti-woke persona?"
A pause, as they each begin to imagine a world where they can no longer perform the elaborate dance of outrage and moral superiority.
Finally, one brave hipster stands up, his eyes gleaming with a sudden realization. "This is our chance! If wokeism is cancelled, we can be the first to pioneer Hyper-Wokeism—it's woke, but in a way that no one can ever criticize. It's woke, but beyond woke!"
And thus, the woke hipsters, in a moment of collective panic, scramble to create something even more esoteric, more niche, and more self-congratulatory than the last thing they thought was woke.
Meanwhile, outside the café, an old man walks by muttering to himself, “I remember when people just argued about pizza toppings…”
