It Wasn't College That Radicalized Us- It Was Saturday Morning

How David the Gnome, Captain Planet, and a Bunch of Cartoon Misfits Taught Us to Question Capitalism, Confront Oppression, and Love the Earth Before We Could Even Spell "Neoliberalism".

Before we ever stepped foot on a college campus, before we picked up The Communist Manifesto or sat in a sociology class trying to define “hegemony,” we were being radicalized in our pajamas, cereal bowl in hand.

We didn’t need professors—we had gnomes, Care Bears, and giant robots with feelings.

This is a love letter to the shows and movies that planted the seeds of resistance, empathy, ecological consciousness, and anti-authoritarianism in a generation now blamed for “killing industries” by refusing to play by the rules.

Spoiler alert: it was never college that radicalized us. It was media that taught us how to feel. Representation and stories are important.

1. David the Gnome

Theme: Mutual aid, eco-spirituality, anti-exploitation, sacred death David was no capitalist. He healed animals for free. He lived simply. He rode a fox. He died peacefully into the earth. This Spanish-Dutch animated series whispered to us that true power lies in humility, service, and harmony with the natural world. The trolls? Violent, greedy, toxic. Literally and symbolically. Gnome ethics were built on community, reverence, and refusing to exploit. It was cottagecore communism for kindergarteners—and it stuck.

2. Care Bears

Theme: Emotional intelligence, collective healing, anti-cynicism Long before we had therapy language, Care Bears taught us to feel. And more than that—to share our feelings. Their greatest weapon? The Care Bear Stare. Not violence, but a literal beam of communal emotion. Enemies were often misunderstood or lonely, needing compassion more than punishment. This was radical in a world already preparing us to armor up emotionally. Care Bears were tiny pastel anti-fascists of the heart.

3. Captain Planet

Theme: Environmental justice, anti-corporate resistance, global solidarity You knew this one was coming. Five diverse teens with magic rings summoning a blue-skinned eco-spirit to fight pollution and greed? The villains were always grotesque avatars of capitalism: oil tycoons, smugglers, and waste barons. Captain Planet didn’t mince words—humans were killing the earth, and it would take youth from all nations, working together, to fight back. It wasn’t subtle. That was the point.

4. Reading Rainbow

Theme: Curiosity, inclusion, education as liberation LeVar Burton’s tender guidance through the worlds of books did more to instill open-mindedness and empathy than any civics course ever could. Every episode showed us kids from all walks of life. It gave space for emotions, dreams, and cultural difference. It also modeled what it meant to listen to stories—especially those that weren’t your own. Reading Rainbow was the anti-dogma show. It made literacy a gateway to both magic and justice.

5. FernGully

Theme: Environmental grief, Indigenous wisdom, anti-industrialization This one hurt. Watching Hexxus—the oozing, oily, (and dare I say it- strangely sexy?) spirit of pollution—devour the rainforest while the fairies tried to save it was a formative experience in ecological heartbreak. It made “progress” look monstrous. And it wasn’t shy about its message: humans were destroying what they didn’t understand. Magic was nature. FernGully wasn’t just anti-logging. It was anti-colonial, anti-extractivist, and deeply spiritual.

6. Rocko’s Modern Life

Theme: Absurdist critique of capitalism, media, and suburban decay A wallaby. In a house. With a cow best friend. Trying to survive American life. But what a satire. Rocko wasn’t just funny. It was biting. We saw soulless corporations (“Conglom-O”), addiction to media, toxic workplaces, and the existential dread of 9-to-5 life. It primed us for memes, for burnout discourse, for recognizing the absurdity of modern existence before we even had words for it.

7. Dinosaurs

Theme: Climate change, corporate apathy, Indigenous erasure, patriarchal satire Yes, the show with the puppet dinosaurs. But have you seen the final episode? They kill themselves. The corporation causes an Ice Age. The baby asks if the sun will come back.This show was anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, and often deeply tragic. It dared to ask: what if we knew the end was coming and didn’t stop it? Oh, and “Not the mama!” is still a perfect metaphor for rejecting inherited systems of power.

8. Hook

Theme: Reclaiming childhood, anti-productivity, memory as resistance A grown-up Peter Pan, turned corporate drone, must remember how to play to save his kids. It’s a call to arms for inner children. A demand to resist the erasure of imagination in the name of profit. Captain Hook is the specter of colonial masculinity. Rufio is rebellion incarnate. This film told us our magic was still inside us—even when the world tried to make us forget.

9. The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Theme: Othering, religious hypocrisy, liberation through love Disney somehow smuggled a film about ableism, religious abuse, and ethnic cleansing into theaters. Frollo is the Church as state. Quasimodo is the hidden child, kept from knowing his worth. Esmeralda is fierce, compassionate, persecuted, and heroic. “God Help the Outcasts” is still a plea for a better world. I still get shivers when I hear Esmeralda pray for others while the other church members pray for themselves in a materialistic way. This wasn’t just a fairy tale. It was a gut punch with stained glass and bells.

10. The Iron Giant

Theme: Anti-militarism, chosen family, the soul’s resistance to programming “You are who you choose to be.” The Giant—a weapon built for war—chooses to save instead of destroy. It’s a child’s introduction to free will under oppression.Set against Cold War paranoia, this film questions the military-industrial complex. It’s about friendship, trauma, fear, and sacrifice .And it dares to say: even the most destructive force can choose peace.

Conclusion:

So the next time someone says, “You got brainwashed in college,” smile sweetly and say, “No, I just paid attention to cartoons.”

Because we were learning to fight back long before we had words like “intersectionality” or “late-stage capitalism.” We were watching magic creatures, queers in disguise, and animated rebels speak truth to power—and we believed them.

We still do.....

.... Okay... Yeah, I can't rightly close out this post without mentioning one more.

11. SpongeBob SquarePants

Theme: Anti-work absurdism, queer-coded resistance, radical joy under late capitalism, and the dignity of the unproductive soul

Let’s get this straight: SpongeBob is not just a goofy sponge in square pants. He is a revolutionary figurehead of resilient joy in a capitalist hellscape.

He wakes up with enthusiasm. He loves his (objectively terrible) job. He flips Krabby Patties like it’s high art. He’s underpaid, overworked, and micromanaged by a crustacean obsessed with profit margins—and yet? He sings. He dances. He cares.

But this isn’t naivety. This is radical choice. SpongeBob doesn’t ignore the bleakness of Bikini Bottom—he simply refuses to let it steal his light. He creates meaning from the meaningless. He crafts joy in a system designed to crush it. He queers our expectations of success, masculinity, productivity, and purpose.

And around him? A cast of characters who reflect the real human condition under capitalism:

Squidward Tentacles:

An artist trapped in customer service purgatory. He once dreamed of symphonies, sculptures, self-expression. Now he clocks in, gets yelled at by fish, and clocks out with barely enough energy to sigh into the void. Squidward is the creative soul sacrificed to survive. His bitterness isn’t cruelty—it’s grief. He is what happens when society demands productivity from people whose spirits are built for beauty. But deep down, he still cares. He keeps playing the clarinet. He wants to believe.

Plankton:

The most tragic intellectual of the sea. He went to college. He studied. He tried to build something. And all he got was crushing debt, a floundering business, and a lifetime of failure. Plankton is the embittered academic, the would-be innovator crushed by monopoly capitalism (aka Mr. Krabs). He's not evil. He’s disillusioned. He represents every person told that education was the way out—only to find the doors locked and the rent overdue.

Patrick Star:

Unemployed. Unambitious. Unintelligent—at least by conventional standards. But profound in the way that really matters. Patrick is a cosmic reminder that being is enough. He doesn’t contribute “productivity,” but he contributes presence. He loves SpongeBob deeply. He brings laughter, softness, absurdity. In a world that only values output, Patrick is the patron saint of sacred stillness, neurodivergence, and unconditional friendship.

Mr. Krabs:

Let’s not mince seaweed—Krabs is the ultimate capitalist caricature. He commodifies joy, hoards wealth, underpays his workers, and still acts like he's the victim. He represents the lie that profit is earned through hard work—when in truth, it’s stolen from labor like SpongeBob’s and dreams like Squidward’s.

And yet, through it all, SpongeBob stands tall (well, sponge-height). He refuses to become jaded. He finds magic in the mundane. He builds cardboard castles and jellyfish kingdoms inside the broken shell of an economy that devalues everything soft, slow, and sincere.

SpongeBob teaches us:

• You don’t need to win capitalism to have worth.

• Joy is resistance.

• Art can be silly.

• Friends are more valuable than prestige.

• You are not a machine, and that’s sacred.

He is, perhaps, the last radiant hope at the bottom of a very deep ocean.And he reminds us: even when the world asks you to sink—float. FINAL NOTE: We weren't brainwashed. We were bewitched. By stories that taught us to feel deeply, question authority, love the earth, and choose kindness over conquest.

These weren't just shows. They were early resistance literature—smuggled in through VHS tapes and Saturday morning reruns. And they worked.

Stay weird. Stay radical. Stay gnome-pilled.