Introductory

About me and my work

A few years ago now, but let’s just pretend

My name is Colin Robertson, AKA “Millennial Woes”, which was the name I chose for my YouTube channel in 2013. I am 40, from rural Scotland, an artsy type, an INFJ, and a cultural/political dissident. Possibly I would have been a dissident in any age, but in this one it seems very necessary.

I love many things and am fascinated by many things. I am given to melancholia and was prone to severe depression, but seem to have that mostly under control these days. I was very open and trusting, but have learned the hard way that one really can’t afford to be like that, especially as a public figure in a despised community, and especially when that community has its own fair share of misfits. I am deeply nostalgic, and after feeling guilty about this for a long time, have now persuaded myself that it isn’t something to be embarrassed about - though that persuasion may falter.

The “about me” video that I made in 2013 to kick off my channel now seems to be inaccessible in the archive on BitChute, but I am not terribly bothered about that. It is 10 years out of date, and an awful lot has happened since then - in the world and in my life. Society has changed and so have I (though perhaps less).

I have been through many phases with my channel, sometimes energetic and forthright, sometimes demoralised, confused and worried. Becoming an e-celeb was never my intention, but it happened and it completely transformed my life. That path was inevitably rocky, leading to various twists and turns as I contended with the pressures - from both outside and within - that come with “e-celebrity”, especially of the dissident variety.

But perhaps it is better that I begin this new portal with a clean slate, and refrain from describing who I was and how I began in the world, or who I became, or how I see myself now. That subject interests me, but is probably of little value to other people.

I think I should also try to refrain from quoting my past work. I have a habit of doing that - “I said this back in 2015, or no, maybe 2014…” - as a shorthand, so that I don’t have to explicate something all over again, but perhaps that is a hindrance as much as a help, as it prevents me from wording something freshly and also creates a needless distinction between “my thoughts then” and “my thoughts now”. (Yes, these sorts of considerations occupy me. I know they shouldn’t.)

These days, Millennial Woes (and me, personally) is banned from YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. This put an end to my time as a public figure and, though I wouldn’t have chosen this, it does mean that my life nowadays is much less stressful.

In 2021, shortly after losing YouTube, I began a new format of livestreaming on Telegram. This is very different from “regular” livestreaming, being more akin to a phone call or old-time radio broadcast late at night. It was very good for wrangling with the new societal questions that had arrived with Covid-19.

In 2022 I returned to a lifelong interest: creative writing. This was a wonderful experience, a new lease of life. It started with one particular story, but once I got into the mentality, ideas for more stories were really flowing. Most of them seem to ask for a novella-length treatment, and I wrote extensive notes for a good half dozen. However, I had to stop this work after a few months so as to do Millenniyule 2022.

The fruits of that creative writing are yet to be completed, let alone published, but this year I hope to achieve a balance between doing that and weekly livestreaming (on Telegram and Odysee). But a third thing, too… I have always enjoyed essay writing, so it is a natural choice to also branch out into Substack.

The Millennial Woes “project” started in the first place because I had nothing else to do, felt I had nothing to lose by discussing hazardous topics, and was deeply concerned about the state of the world. I remain deeply concerned, but my thinking has changed with experience, cogitation and real-world events since 2013.

Another reason for beginning MW was to find out how alone I was in my concerns. I learned that I am far from alone. Many people agree with me about the world - but not enough to change it. The powerful and the mega wealthy do nothing: either they are enthusiastically in support of the state of things, or they are against it but really are as alone as I felt in 2013, so unable to do anything despite their power and wealth. I am neither powerful nor wealthy, but with that comes a certain ability to speak freely - at least for now, at least presumably, at least on Substack, at least until the knock on the door.

Do we live in a totalitarian regime? I would say so, but it isn’t as we envisaged it. Similarly, white genocide is happening, but not in the way we think of genocide. Similarly, communism and feudalism are manifesting, but they look different from previous incarnations. Religion, likewise. Some even say that the Faustian spirit is with us in the world today, and is in fact responsible for the trouble.

At any rate, we can say honestly that the public are continually duped, and that they are bound to be because of their nature, and that they will attack anyone who points it out, and that they are continually persuaded of the rightness of things that are wrong. This persuasion is, itself, one of the things that are wrong.

How is the world wrong? I would count the ways, but I would hardly know where to begin. Nihilism? Atheism? Feminism? Materialism? Mass immigration? Egalitarianism? Cultural dissolution? Corporate capitalism?

We seem to be at the end of a civilisation, or even beyond that point, in the No Man’s Land between civilisational epochs. It is ironic that people talk about “the Dark Ages” while children line up for hormone treatment, doctors administer unnecessary and harmful vaccines, scientists are paid to lie, museum curators explain how to destroy ancient artefacts, religious leaders acquiesce to nihilism, journalists dox and demonise people for speaking the truth, historians teach that our history never happened, academics smugly proclaim that we, as peoples, don’t even exist, politicians proudly say that they care more about globalism than about their own nations, and girls are raped by foreigners while the media covers it up.

I don’t believe this situation qualifies as “civilisation”. I think that word implies more than a system of systems. That is what we have: an infrastructure of material processes, with no regard at all for the spiritual realm and only passing tribute paid to morality. Good things are only done for show or to prevent imminent disaster that would blow the lid on everyone’s comfy sinecures. Bad things are only not done because a rule prevents it, but even then, rules are routinely ignored or reframed by the powerful as their whims require, because there is no spiritual fibre to demonise, nor moral fibre to prevent, such charlatan behaviour.

This is not civilisation, surely? That word implies a state of being, that is both removed from the animal state and diverted away from crass materialism into something more dignified, more laudable, more aware, more “angelic” - elevated from both the animal and the calculator. Needless to say, we no longer have systems which support such a state of being. So we are not in civilisation. This is something else, something like the Soviet Union: complex and elaborate, yet soulless and dumb, yet resourceful and vicious.

These are, indeed, our millennial woes.

I chose that name for my channel partly because of my generation, but also because of the era. The term “millennial” was used from the mid 1990s onwards to refer to this era, not just to the 1981-1996 generation. In 2013 I expected the term would remain in use, but it strangely fell away. But that is a general thing. Does anyone speak of eras now - the 2000s, the 2010s? It used to happen. Prominent people and organisations in society would refer to eras - the 1980s, the 1990s, the millennium - but now they do not. It seems they want us to live in an eternal moment, disconnected from before and after.

But in truth, we are in an identifiable era, and it is still the millennial era. We are only 23 years into a 1000 year period, after all. This is still the start of a new millennium. We might not be in civilisation, but we are in an era, and it is one that has certain inevitable traits: the possibilities of the vast 1000 year space waiting to be filled, and the responsibility to live up to the 1000 years we just left behind.

If we cannot fix the problems, we can at least locate ourselves in time. Perhaps that is the first step, the first way to fight back, the first weapon we can pick up in this No Man’s Land.