November has always pretended to be a serious month, with its chaste Thanksgiving celebrations and civic duties. Not this year, bitch. The election? Complete and utter absurdity. COVID-19 mismanagement has further proven that this country lacks brain cells on an institutional level. So why should any of us be expected to have brain cells, either? As such, this month, people have embraced the mindset of #NoKnowledgeNovember and #NoNuanceNovember, taking to TikTok to bask in bimbo freedom.
What Is No Knowledge November/No Nuance November?
@fauxrich Happy No Knowledge November to all my babes??
#NoKnowledgeNovember kicked off on November 1st with a TikTok by @fauxrich, who announced the month in a baby-pink tracksuit. “Happy No Knowledge November,” she says in the clip, now at 146,300 views. “No thinking, only being pretty, drinking hot cocoa and going online shopping all month long.”
#NoNuanceNovember utilizes a similar ideology of being unabashedly dumb, but has found a much bigger audience on the app, with over 88.3 million views on the hashtag. Rather than being about no thoughts at all, #NoNuanceNovember has become a trend in which people voice their opinions and hot takes without providing any context or explanation.
@flossybaby
Often, the views expressed are relatively inconsequential: “Twizzlers isn’t good” and “If you drink milk any other time than eating cereal, you belong in prison.” Other times, the opinions are actually accurate observations of major social and historical trends, like, “White colonialism is the root of a lot of society’s problems today.” (All three of these “no-nuance” opinions appear in the same video by user @flossybaby.)
Everyone loves the opportunity to express their worst opinions (including those of us at this website), and we’ve reached the point where we no longer care to provide detail or defense of them. If November 2020 has proven anything, it’s that nuance is inconsequential to the cultural conversation. Without evidence, Trump can claim he’s won the election. With overwhelming data pointing to the seriousness of the pandemic’s growth, millions of people and the state governments above them are living as though said data doesn’t exist. Considering the very structure of contemporary civilization is anti-nuance, it’s only fair that the rest of us get to live without nuance when it comes to something as innocuous as oatmeal.
@glamdemon2004 Trend credit to @abolish_ice !! Also most importantly f*** Coco Chanel (and Karl Lagerfeld while we’re at it)
@g.ubs
At the same time, people are using the hashtag to express the social issues and blindspots that impact their lives, like racism within the LGBTQ+ community on TikTok or the uncredited significance of sex workers in fashion. In these contexts, #NoNuanceNovember demonstrates the desire to address particular wrongs without the excessive rationalization they’re often required to have.
@fauxrich what is nuance in this sentence. I’m like lost
For some, though, it’s not nearly that deep. “I said ‘no knowledge November’ and people seemed to like it, but now people are running with ‘no nuance November,’ so I had to Google what ‘nuance’ was and I still don’t understand,” @fauxrich says in a later TikTok.
Regardless, it plays into the broader trend of young people calling themselves “dumb bitches” and a reclamation of the bimbo aesthetic. Even if we have thoughts, we’re liberating ourselves from the need to justify them. #NoNuanceNovember and #NoKnowledgeNovember may reach their end, but #DumbBitchDecember is right before us.
Magdalene Taylor
Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.
