It doesn’t even take half a minute but the video in the video Tick ​​Tocker Argentinian Hassan Azteca explains why he believes he is exempt from any work obligations at the age of 21 and has traveled halfway around the planet, courting controversy. And that’s normal. With a visibly angry tone of voice and simple reasoning, Azteca is dedicated to shaking up the anti-natalist argument in his favor. His stance is simple. In fact, it only takes a few seconds to reveal it: Like the other 8 billion people on this planet, Azteca is claiming to be his father without consulting or approving his parents.

So… “If I didn’t ask to be born, why do I have to work now?”

“I don’t have to work”.This is the premise Tick ​​Tocker Hasan Azteca. And he accompanies this with a logic so simple that it only fits into a twenty-second video: Azteca did not ask to be born, so he argues that the work obligations that accompany ordinary mortals are the result of a decision made by his parents , without crediting him.

“My mother and father forced me to be born”“I think that even though I am 21 years old, I do not have to work because I was born without consent, basically,” explains Azteca in her video, which has already collected five million views on her TikTok channel alone, without counting the rest of the networks where the piece circulates. “They forced me to give birth, they did not ask me, they did not ask for my consent.”

“It doesn’t make sense that I have to work now because my parents wanted to give me life 21 years ago. If I didn’t want to be born, why do I have to work? Let them support me, that’s all. Because if they wanted to have me, they would have stayed.”

It seems the debate… As Azteca himself admitted, he was not looking for anything more or less in the video: “Creating controversy, that’s what my account is about.” In an interview with Cuatro a few days ago, he explained: “From the beginning, I always tried to point out in the comments that they were fighting, arguing… because in the end, that’s what makes a video go viral.”

Moreover, he himself Tick ​​Tocker His video was accompanied by two pretty self-explanatory hashtags: #humor and #comedy. But rather than simply posting a funny bit, his video aims to provoke discussion and generate reactions. “A lot of people think what I say. Someone has to say it.”

During the interview with Cuatro, Azteca admitted to being surprised by the enormous importance the work has achieved, admitting to receiving responses from Russia or Japan (mostly critics) and leaving further comments to fuel the debate around its character and content: “The Guardian Those who criticize me are nervous people who have to get up at six in the morning to work while I work in the networks in bed. I get up at four or five in the afternoon, it depends on how tired I am. I make a video, upload it and go to sleep.”

Beyond Aztec. If Azteca’s video has become so notorious and has amassed millions of views, it is largely because what Azteca reveals is not just his own opinion; whether it is honest or fake, sincere or a way to create controversy and change its content viral. His argument is linked to a much larger philosophical and political position and a very long tradition: antinatalism; this also has great references, for example, the South African David Benatar, author of the book ‘Better Not to Exist: The Harm of Being Revealed’. the world’ .

The basic assumption of anti-natalists is that bringing children into the world is “morally wrong.” The reasons supporting this idea are diverse and complementary: a vision of life as suffering and a nihilistic rhetoric, concerns about overpopulation or humanity’s impact on the environment… or, perhaps, a concept that Azteca emphasizes and elaborates on several occasions. The most controversial of all: the (lack of) consent of the newborn.

“Everything revolves around consent.”Kirk, a Texas woman, described herself to the BBC a few years ago: “If everyone consented to play the game of life, I would have no objection. It all revolves around consent or lack thereof.” She is a staunch antinatalist: “It makes no sense to me to send someone into this world to suffer and die voluntarily.” She is not the only one who thinks this way. Not at all. In 2018 World I was talking to a 25-year-old woman from Lérida who said: “Having children is a selfish act that only responds to the interests of the parents.”

More media cases. Azteca is not the first creator to gain fame and go viral by using anti-natalist ideology. This happened in 2019, when 27-year-old Indian Raphale Samuel took to YouTube to announce his decision to accuse his parents of fathering him without their (obvious) consent. His situation is not much different from Azteca’s. He staged it with a fake beard and big sunglasses, and launched the initiative knowing that it had little chance of success. He did it to fuel the debate.

Samuel made a very similar argument, reasoning, “I want people to understand that they were born without their consent. They don’t owe their parents anything. And if we were born without our consent, we should be paid to live the rest of our existence.” Azteca is now using this to “create controversy.” “I love my mom and dad and we have a great relationship, but they chose me for their own fun and pleasure. My life has been great, but I don’t understand why I have to put someone else behind the wheel, especially if [esa nueva vida] “He doesn’t want me to exist,” Samuel insisted.

Neither new nor strange. Antinatalism has a long, long tradition. There are those who already identify some of its reasoning in ancient Greece, and those who note how Arthur Schopenhauer expressed some of its propositions in his works in the 19th century. Although it is not a dominant philosophical movement, it is true that it has many adherents in different countries and has achieved considerable visibility. Five years ago, the BBC announced that there were dozens of groups with thousands of members on the networks, and that there was a channel with 35,000 members on Reddit alone.

Its advocates have also backed resonant campaigns such as ‘Stop Making Babies’, which sought to spread antinatalist ideas in India, now the planet’s most populous country, at least a few years ago.

Images | TikTok and Kelly Sikkema (Unsplash)

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