We’ve Reached the Uncanny Valley Stage of the Pandemic
The more normal things get, the weirder life feels
The year’s been rife with so many grim firsts that we’ve managed to exhaust the concept of “unprecedented.” Even still, one of my recent “firsts” stands out: the feel of a plump, furry undercarriage against the skin of my sandaled foot.
I didn’t need to look down to confirm what I already knew it was: a rat. In some distant past — say, that first week of March — I would have responded by screaming. To this midsummer foot rat, I could only shrug.
Whether or not you’ve had a foot rat of your very own, I’ll bet my story feels familiar. Toss a person enough curveballs, and the unexpected becomes an order of business. If the day’s events don’t read like part of a rejected B-movie spec script, is it even 2020?
When your only guarantee is uncertainty, uncertainty at least becomes something you can count on. Maybe that’s why our continued grasps at normalcy can feel so unnerving. Why an acquaintance’s beachfront vacation photos chill you to the bone, but not the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse dressaging within view (or, you know, babies in Paw Patrol face masks). Why the suspension of disbelief that’s required for this year’s back-to-school rituals almost out-stresses the stress of logistical specifics. The guise of business as usual seems to amplify its own lie. It’s like we’re all living in the Uncanny Valley.
The uncanny valley hypothesis posits that human beings are inclined to respond warmly toward non-human, humanoid objects like dolls and robots and Steven Spielberg extraterrestrials — that is, until they become a little too realistically humanlike, at which point they’re creepy. The concept emerged at the dawn of AI in the early 1970s and became an easy dystopian outlet for the anxieties of that also tumultuous, also rapidly changing era (Ira Levin’s novel, The Stepford Wives is the quintessential example).
