Part 2/7:
Coined by anthropologist Alexei Yurchak, hypernormalization was initially used to describe the final days of the Soviet Union. It illustrates how citizens came to accept a version of reality that was clearly broken yet upheld by pervasive propaganda. Individuals lived under a system they knew was failing, yet they pretended it functioned. Yurchak indicated that this led to a paradox: the populace was aware of the lies, yet they continued to play along, fabricating a façade of normalcy.