An excerpt from a 19-year-old Werner Herzog documentary has resurfaced on social media.
But this time, the clip is going viral because it is a paradoxical symbol of Generation Z motivation.
In the clip of Meetings at the end of the world (2007), a solitary penguin wanders away from its colony.
While all the other penguins were heading towards the ocean to feed, one of the penguins suddenly stopped and started heading in the opposite direction.
Researchers said it was clearly heading toward a barren, frozen Antarctic mountain. Because, for the moment, researchers were not responsible for intervening on the natural phenomenon. They just observed him.
A biologist in the film notes that the penguin could be saved, because it would simply resume its solitary journey.
Psychologists describe this behavior through the prism of existential fear or Freud’s “death drive” (Thanatos). This narrative has been radically reframed by Generation Z online.
They define the penguin as a symbol of motivation rather than a creature that gives up.
For the generation reeling from climate anxiety, economic insecurity, and digital exhaustion, the Penguin March is not strictly nihilistic; rather, it is interpreted as the ultimate metaphor for an asserted refutation of the obligatory path of incessant “productive” struggle.
