Art Blog #163: It’s 89 Seconds to Midnight: What Does the Doomsday Clock Mean?

The Science: The Doomclock and Our Ticking Reality

Let’s start with cold, hard facts. The Doomclock, also known as the Doomsday Clock, is the symbolic timepiece maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It’s not your regular wall clock—it’s a chilling representation of how close humanity is to wiping itself out. First set in 1947, the clock has shifted over the decades depending on nuclear threats, climate change, and other catastrophic risks.

In 2023, the clock was set to 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to global catastrophe. If we trim that down to 89 seconds to midnight, we’re metaphorically inhaling the world’s last breath before the plunge. Climate disasters? Check. Geopolitical tensions? Through the roof. AI risks? Becoming scarily real. In short, science is telling us: we’re flirting with our expiration date.

The Culture: Apocalypse Chic and Viral End-Times Aesthetics

Now, let’s zoom into the millennial and Gen Z psyche—where end-of-the-world vibes are less about doomsday bunkers and more about aesthetic existentialism.

Post-apocalyptic media has exploded in recent years. Shows like The Last of Us and Black Mirror don’t just entertain; they reflect deep-seated fears about our future. Even TikTok trends like “corecore”—a Gen Z-driven artistic movement that stitches together emotionally devastating clips to evoke a sense of helplessness—tap into this existential dread.

And then there’s Doomscrolling, a term that surged in popularity post-2020. We wake up, scroll through climate disasters, wars, and AI debates, and somehow, we keep going. The internet is full of memes about the world burning, but underneath the dark humor, there's a real collective anxiety.

So, what does 89 seconds to midnight mean in cultural terms? It’s not just about literal extinction—it’s about the exhaustion of modern existence, the overwhelming sense that we are powerless against the massive systems shaping our fate. But is that really true?

The Art: How Creators Interpret Our Final Countdown

Art has always reflected our deepest fears, and in this era of hyper-awareness, artists are taking end-times storytelling to mind-blowing levels.

Consider Marina Abramović’s performance art, where the boundaries of human endurance are tested to the extreme, symbolizing our fragile grip on life itself. Or Banksy’s dystopian murals, which slap society in the face with our own apathy. Digital artists, too, are reshaping our perception of time left on Earth—think AI-generated apocalyptic landscapes and NFTs that decay over time, mirroring our planet’s slow collapse.

Music isn’t immune either. Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers taps into societal anxiety, while Billie Eilish’s whispery apocalyptic ballads feel like anthems for the end times. Even the revival of Y2K aesthetics (think cyberpunk meets dystopia) suggests we’re culturally drawn to moments when humanity was teetering on an edge.

The Big Reveal: Are We Doomed, or Is This a Wake-Up Call?

Now, here’s where the plot twists. If we were truly doomed, we wouldn’t be obsessing over it. The fact that art, science, and culture are fixated on our imminent end isn’t a death sentence—it’s a survival instinct.

Every generation has believed in its own apocalypse. The Cold War had people building bunkers, Y2K had us panicking over computer crashes, and 2012 convinced many that the Mayan calendar spelled doom. Yet here we are.

The real danger isn’t 89 seconds to midnight—it’s the belief that we have no time left. The second we assume the end is inevitable, we stop trying to change things. The urgency we feel should be motivation, not despair. Technology, activism, and awareness are at their peak. If we push back against apathy, we might just reset the clock.

So, what do we do with our remaining 89 seconds? We create. We innovate. We fight back. Because as long as we’re still counting down, we’re still alive.

And that means the world isn’t over just yet.

-Peter Von Hauerland