Is Will Smith Just America in Costume?
Midlife crisis at the end of an empire.
The Cringe Heard Round the Timeline
I wasn’t trying to watch it.
The clip just popped up
like everything does nowadays
uninvited, algorithm-approved.
Will Smith,
damn near 60,
dressed like he just stepped off the Wild Wild West tour bus,
rapping about how he
“likes pretty girls,
loves pretty girls
vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, lemon…”
I stared at my screen
like it owed me an apology.
This wasn’t a comeback.
It was a cry for help
with a bassline.
Now don’t get it twisted.
I loved Will.
Still do, maybe.
First time I heard Parents Just Don’t Understand,
I was hooked.
He made corny cool.
Made joy respectable.
And when Ali dropped?
Whew.
I thought: He might be the one.
The safe one.
The chosen one.
But this?
This was Uncle energy.
Not the fun one.
the one still handing out his mixtape
from ’96.
The internet did what it does.
Roasted him.
Called it a midlife crisis in 4K.
Memed him into a punchline
he hasn’t outrun since 2022.
But beneath the laughter,
there was something else.
An ache.
A wince.
That specific kind of secondhand shame
you feel when somebody you grew up on
don’t know they fell off.
And that’s when it hit me:
This ain’t just about Will.
This is a man
living out the same delusion
a whole nation is caught in.
Will ain’t just reaching for his old prime
he’s embodying America.
Dressed in nostalgia,
rapping to ghosts,
pretending the crowd is still there.
That awkward comeback?
That tight-ass smile?
That neon fever dream of a music video?
It’s not just a bad single.
It’s a mood.
It’s a metaphor.
America is in a midlife crisis, too.
Clinging to old myths,
old slogans,
old flexes that don’t land anymore.
We’re trying to sing our way back
to 1994.
But the sound is off.
The fit don’t fit.
The vibe don’t vibe.
And if you squint hard enough,
that man onstage
ain’t just Will Smith.
It’s US.
Dancing in denial,
begging the past to take us back.
The Slap Was the Spark
It wasn’t just a slap.
It was a shatter.
Live.
Unedited.
Streamed in 4K clarity
for a planet that couldn’t look away.
Will Smith, our global good guy,
our Fresh Prince of polished pain
walked onstage and open-palmed the myth
right off Chris Rock’s face.
The crowd froze.
Chris reset his jaw.
And Will?
He straightened his tux,
yelled “Keep my wife’s name…”
and sat back down
like he still had any claim to dignity.
But what really broke that night
was the contract.
The unspoken agreement
that Will was bigger than mess,
above the fray,
clean enough for white audiences,
cool enough for us.
We watched the mask crack
on live TV.
And the man underneath?
Tired.
Rageful.
Unhinged in a tailored suit.
What came after
wasn’t healing
it was rebranding.
Apologies
written like PR Mad Libs.
Instagram videos
shot like hostage tapes.
A tearful Red Table redemption tour
that felt more algorithmic
than authentic.
And still
he wouldn’t sit down.
Wouldn’t disappear.
Wouldn’t stop reaching
for the crown he dropped.
Because Will Smith didn’t pivot.
He doubled down.
He dropped a memoir.
He posted drone shots of enlightenment hikes.
He staged a Netflix special
like confession could erase the footage.
He made a song about ice cream and pretty girls
like we were the ones
who’d forgotten who he used to be.
And tell me that doesn’t sound
exactly like America.
A nation that invaded Iraq
on bad intel,
tortured prisoners,
watched the towers fall
and still had the audacity
to sing about freedom.
A country that
slapped its own people
with police batons,
slapped Black mothers with poverty,
slapped immigrants with cages
and still strutted onstage
like nothing happened.
Will Smith is the blueprint
for the post-slur,
post-scandal,
post-truth performance.
Just keep smiling.
Keep moving.
Pretty Girls and the Delusion of the Comeback
So what did he do next?
Dropped a song.
A single.
A summer anthem, if you ask him.
He called it “You Can Make It.”
Then followed it with “Pretty Girls.”
Let that sit for a second.
A man known for “Summertime,”
for “Men in Black,”
for carrying billion-dollar box offices on his back
comes back from exile
with a TikTok-ready track
that sounds like
a JCPenney commercial from 2003.
“I like pretty girls, I love pretty girls
vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, lemon…”
This ain’t bars.
This ain’t healing.
This is what happens
when a man won’t admit
the moment has passed.
He’s not rapping.
He’s reaching.
And again
tell me this ain’t America.
Because Will isn’t the only one
trying to reheat the 90s.
This country is out here
in a red hat and khakis,
talking about making itself “great again”
like we didn’t all live through the decline.
MAGA ain’t no policy.
It’s cosplay.
It’s a boomer empire fantasy
that if we just sing loud enough,
drill deep enough,
ban the books fast enough,
we can scroll back in time
to when we “ran the world.”
To when we were
The Fresh Prince of Global Capital.
But the beat don’t hit the same.
The flow is off.
And the crowd?
They ain’t dancing.
Because you can’t “come back”
to something that wasn’t real.
America’s greatnes
like Will’s cool
was always a performance.
A myth.
A story we told ourselves
while the empire cracked beneath our feet.
And what’s worse?
The louder the comeback,
the more desperate it feels.
You can hear it in the mix.
The vocals are doing too much.
The energy is off.
The ice cream metaphors are sad, not sweet.
Same with America.
The slogans are louder.
The flags are bigger.
The threats are more cartoonish.
The promises more hollow.
And underneath it all:
a man and a nation
terrified to admit
that the spotlight has moved on.
Keep talking about “healing”
as if PR can substitute for penance.
America does it every day.
We drone-bomb a wedding in Yemen
and drop a TikTok ad for the Air Force
the next morning.
We slap.
We sit down.
We yell through perfect teeth.
And we dare anybody
to question the smile.
Pretty Girls and the Delusion of the Comeback
So what did he do next?
Dropped a song.
A single.
A summer anthem, if you ask him.
He called it “You Can Make It.”
Then followed it with “Pretty Girls.”
Let that sit for a second.
A man known for “Summertime,”
for “Men in Black,”
for carrying billion-dollar box offices on his back—
comes back from exile
with a TikTok-ready track
that sounds like
a JCPenney commercial from 2003.
“I like pretty girls, I love pretty girls—
vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, lemon…”
This ain’t bars.
This ain’t healing.
This is what happens
when a man won’t admit
the moment has passed.
He’s not rapping.
He’s reaching.
And again
tell me this ain’t America.
Because Will isn’t the only one
trying to reheat the 90s.
This country is out here
in a red hat and khakis,
talking about making itself “great again”
like we didn’t all live through the decline.
MAGA isn’t policy.
It’s cosplay.
It’s a boomer empire fantasy
that if we just sing loud enough,
drill deep enough,
ban the books fast enough,
we can scroll back in time
to when we “ran the world.”
To when we were
The Fresh Prince of Global Capital.
But the beat don’t hit the same.
The flow is off.
And the crowd?
They’re not dancing.
Because you can’t “come back”
to something that wasn’t real.
America’s greatness—like Will’s cool—
was always a performance.
A myth.
A story we told
while the empire cracked beneath our feet.
And what’s worse?
The louder the comeback,
the more desperate it feels.
You can hear it in the mix.
The vocals are doing too much.
The energy is off.
The ice cream metaphors are sad, not sweet.
Same with America.
The slogans are louder.
The flags are bigger.
The threats are more cartoonish.
The promises more hollow.
And underneath it all:
a man and a nation
terrified to admit
that the spotlight has moved on.
The Empire in the Mirror
This ain’t new.
We’ve seen this performance before.
Not just in men like Will
but in nations,
in empires,
right before the curtain drops.
Rome did it.
Spain did it.
France, Britain.
All of them
trying to remix the past
like it’s a path forward.
Rome spent its final centuries
rebuilding old temples,
restoring old titles,
naming mediocre emperors
after legends like Augustus
like the name alone
could turn back time.
Didn’t work.
Barbarians weren’t impressed
by nostalgia.
Spain?
By the 20th century,
they had already lost most of their empire.
But Franco came in
talking about the “Golden Age.”
Queen Isabella.
Catholic unity.
The glory of conquest.
He dressed fascism
in the robes of history,
and hoped no one would notice
the blood at his feet.
France?
Man, France refused to let go.
They lost Vietnam.
Lost Algeria.
But instead of grieving,
they staged coups.
Invaded Egypt.
Tried to build
a “French Union”
like their colonies were just
misunderstood stepchildren.
When Algeria finally broke free,
France cracked.
And the rage from that era?
It still breathes
in Le Pen’s campaign posters.
And Britain.
Lawd.
Britannia ruled the waves
until it didn’t.
After World War II,
the empire crumbled
like an old estate
rotting from the inside.
But instead of facing the music,
they started humming old hymns.
Even Brexit
wasn’t about policy.
It was a vibe.
A longing.
A siren song to a time
when tea meant something
and the sun never set
on the Union Jack.
Except now it’s raining.
Everywhere.
Empires don’t just fall.
They reminisce themselves into oblivion.
They dress up nostalgia
as nationalism.
They slap a slogan on decline
and call it destiny.
And that’s where we are now.
America,
in the mirror,
trying on its old war medals
and wondering why
nobody’s saluting.
Just like Will,
we’re out here
dropping singles,
dropping bombs,
dropping the ball
thinking if we just
smile hard enough,
say “freedom” loud enough,
say “great again” with enough chest
somehow the audience
will come back.
But the crowd’s not clapping.
They’re recording.
They’re laughing.
They’re turning away.
Because everyone but us
can see it:
the empire’s still performing
but the mic is unplugged.
The Cost of Refusing to Age Gracefully
There’s a moment in every downfall
when the mirror lies back.
Tells you you still got it.
Tells you the joke didn’t land
because they didn’t get it
not because you’ve lost your rhythm.
That’s the danger of the comeback.
You start confusing effort
with relevance.
Will Smith isn’t just having a midlife crisis.
He’s paying for one.
In credibility.
In legacy.
In the quiet embarrassment
of watching people you once inspired
watch you
with secondhand shame.
Every new song,
every forced smile,
every neon outfit
adds weight to the silence
we all sit in now
when he shows up on our timeline.
America’s doing the same thing.
We’re not aging
we’re clinging.
Grabbing old myths by the collar
and shaking them
like maybe if we say “freedom”
enough times,
we’ll forget
how many people we never gave it to.
And what’s wild?
We could’ve aged like legends.
Like Sade.
Like Quincy.
Like Toni Morrison,
or Baldwin.
But we chose Vegas residency energy instead.
Pyrotechnics over substance.
Volume over vision.
We could’ve told the truth about who we are
a nation built on contradiction,
capable of reinvention
if we had the courage to admit
what needs to be left behind.
But instead,
we’re remixing empire
like it’s a greatest hits album
nobody asked for.
The cost of not evolving
isn’t just embarrassment.
It’s irrelevance.
And then
it’s collapse.
And the scariest part?
It always starts with a joke.
A moment that feels too absurd
to be anything but funny.
A slap.
A song.
A slogan.
But keep laughing long enough,
and one day
you wake up
with no stage left to stand on.
We Laugh So We Don’t Cry
Of course we laughed.
How could we not?
A 56-year-old man rapping about pretty girls
like we forgot
he slapped another Black man
on live TV.
The absurdity writes itself.
The memes did the rest.
We laughed because we needed to.
Because if we didn’t,
we’d have to name
what we were really watching.
A fall.
A fading.
A man who meant so much to us
becoming a version of himself
even he doesn’t recognize.
And somewhere in that tension
between who he was
and who he’s trying to be again
we saw something terrifying:
our country.
Because what’s funnier
than a global superpower
demanding to be taken seriously
while it rewinds to 1953?
What’s more tragic
than a nation this powerful
spending its final decades
trying to vibe its way out of decline?
We banned books,
built walls,
slashed rights,
stacked guns
and then turned around
and asked the world to clap.
Like that’s what greatness looks like.
The thing is,
Will can still make a movie.
He can still show up somewhere and charm a room.
The raw talent is still there
it always was.
Same with America.
There’s brilliance here.
There’s beauty.
There’s a blueprint for something freer,
if we had the nerve to read it.
But brilliance without honesty
curdles into spectacle.
You can only perform past your expiration date
for so long
before the crowd stops laughing
and starts walking out.
Will’s still in costume.
So is the country.
Both dancing.
Both sweating.
Both hoping nobody sees the cracks.
But we see them.
And we feel them.
And if we’re honest?
We’re not laughing anymore.
We ain’t just watching a man lose his rhythm.
We’re watching a nation miss its cue.
Still dancing.
Still smiling.
Still dressed for a show
that ended three acts ago.
Will ain’t the punchline.
He’s the prophecy.
A funhouse reflection
of a country that can’t stop performing
long enough to tell the truth.
And somewhere,
behind the lights,
behind the flags,
behind that smile that won’t sit right
we already know how this ends.
We’ve seen this act before.
We just hoped it wasn’t about US.
If this piece shook something loose in you
don’t just scroll away quietly.
For the price of a drive-thru meal
($8 a month)
you can keep this mirror polished.
Keep this mic hot.
Keep this space honest
for us,
by us,
without apology.
You’re not just supporting me.
You’re helping build
the Ebony-Jet of the algorithmic age.
A Substack Miedas for the culture.
A newsroom where our ghosts don’t get erased.
If you’ve ever said
“Why don’t we have something like that?”
Then this is it.
But only if you help it breathe.
Hit that upgrade button.
Or at the very least,
share this with someone
who needs to see the empire in the mirror.
Because the work is free.
But building freedom?
That costs.
And the invoice just came due.
Very interesting.
Thanks.
Yes, more than likely because Smith sure has some wicked ways just like the USA.