Philosophical Pods and Pills Widgets

The Philosophical Pods and Pills Widgets Set was released to the official blog of Dozerfleet Labs in late May of 2021, and is a simple exercise to allow beginner web students to generate CSS pills or Tide Pods on a web page, per the way said symbols are used in American pop culture vernacular to describe various worldviews and political ideologies.

Styling

 * The Tide Pod is a reduction of some basic HTML and Unicode shapes to closely resemble Procter and Gamble's infamous detergent pod.


 * The pills are all inspired in design by Apple's old Aqua interface for the 2000s OS X operating system family.

Tide Pods
As the Tide Level Rating System reveals, those classified under this designation are as dumb as zombies in an apocalypse - or dumb enough to eat detergent pods. This level requires a psychotic, demonic level of declaring war on reality itself. It isn't that this "pill" faction can't or doesn't know the truth; it's that it is too consumed with hatred for the truth to give it proper straight acknowledgement. Using the red pill / blue pill paradigm from The Matrix, those designated under "Tide Pods" go one step above and beyond the treachery of Cypher. Cypher could at least keep his composure while betraying his friends.

Those under this designation aren't even capable of that; and tend to run around in real life acting like complete lunatics. They, much like NPCs, blindly execute whatever script is fed them that week regarding what to be outraged by, too obsessed with shaking their fists at the Heavens to care enough to even try to have an original thought, even if still capable of it. Like blackpillers, they know reality, and despair of it, and know that what they're being fed is a lie.

But they don't care that it's a lie! They love the lie; and hate the truth. So to their peril, they will make war on the truth. Their outlook on life is best described as infantile-demonic.

Purple pill


One step below the level of Tide Pods are the "purple-pilled." These types have a reinforced ignorance. They have been exposed to the red pill. But their doubled-down, extreme blue pill conditioning and insecurity has compelled them to make excuses to ignore their red pill enlightenment, and embrace the ignorance of the blue pill.

Blue pill


This is the standard NPC / sheep individual. They genuinely don't know that anything is wrong with their world; and aren't even curious. They think anyone who says otherwise is crazy, as they continue to live on in a state of ignorance - which may or may not be blissful. No one has attempted to redpill them yet. That, or they haven't taken any time to process the message.

Red pill


The basic level of becoming enlightened to what's wrong with the world. The more redpilled someone becomes, however, the more cynical they can get.

Note: This red and blue pill terminology, however, has also been hijacked by men's rights groups, which has led to sites like Wikipedia associating it with "incel" "culture."

White pill


Those who are "white-pilled" have a winning streak or several. They are fully aware of all that is wrong with the world / situation at hand. They are fully aware of how bleak things look. Yet, they are talented enough at what they do to maintain an inkling of optimism. They still believe hard work and sincere effort will see them through the storm. Their optimism is usually not entirely naive, but inspired by past experience. Alas, they also realize true success will require them to whitepill others. Only a team effort will make the world's situation not be hopeless.

Black pill


This is the level that the song's performer is implicitly near by song's end. The black pill was created to counteract the purple pill, as the purple-pilled are able to resist basic redpill enlightenment. The black pill is like the white pill; but with all the optimism snuffed out. Blackpillers are despondent, and prone to bleak, depressed nihilism. They often become "Doomers," and sometimes consider suicide an option.

In their view, society is too far gone. Everything is backwards and upside-down. Everything has been perverted. And there appears to be no hope that civilization can ever recover.

While purist Doomers, strictly speaking, are neo-Malthusians obsessed with resources and theories of overpopulation, variations exist of a more Christian flavor, that are instead concerned about the rise of total moral degeneracy in society, believing that degeneracy will pose a threat to humanity's future before resource limitations and population growth will. Either variant, however, sees little hope for things to improve without a drastic catalyst for change. The latter is a little less pessimistic, and is believed capable of redemption if only given sufficient reason to have faith in it. This latter variant is often considered a form of "Gloomer" instead of Doomer.

Honk pill


This level is reserved for those who, in a desperate effort to escape the suicidal depression and nihilism inherent in having been blackpilled; turn to mischief and self-amusement to look for any small positives that one can still harvest from a world of chaos and nihilism - and to then exploit this harvesting to derive joy from annoying those blackpilled who continue onward in despair. Or from annoying of the Tide Pod eaters, the bluepilled, the solution-seeking redpilled, the haughty whitepilled, and anyone else who doesn't embrace this philosophy.

Taking its name from the character Honkler (Clown Pepe), the "Honk" Pill surmises that we live in a world overrun with fools. And since these fools, or "clowns," are in fact complete fools; they deserve only ridicule. To find amusement in offering them this ridicule of a clown-overrun society thus becomes an emotional insulation from the despondent nihilism that would otherwise drive the blackpilled to suicidal despair.

In 2019, Joaquin Phoenix's depiction of the Joker was seen as a prime example of a honkpill gone horribly wrong; and quickly became a political symbol in real life for dissatisfaction with the status quo of culture.

Development
The HTML page for these pills was first saved around May 24th of 2021, though inspiration for them goes back at minimum to a poll issued to GirlsAskGuys from 2019, which didn't include the purple pill as an option. In May of 2021, the widgets found a home on Dozerfleet Labs' blog.