#hashtag things that make me critically insane

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

Doctor Who and its expanded universe could do a dozen dozen plotlines that ask "can a Dalek turn traitor/be redeemed/be good" and I would go absolutely insane for it each and every time.

[thawthebeez]

hey guys. tumblr user thawthebeez back at it again with yet another haikyuu essay B) the topic of today is one that i see NOBODY talking about which is crazy because this motif is (in my opinion) one of the main foundations of the kagehina community.

now may someone please explain to me why the HELL nobody ever talks about how whenever Tobio expresses an insecurity of ANY KIND, Hinata is ALWAYS the first one to swoop in and tell him not to worry about it?

yes, we've all established that Hinata Shouyou is the #1 Kageyama Tobio understander. we get that. BUT THIS IS ONE OF THE MAIN DISPLAYS OF THAT AND I'VE SEEN LITERALLY NOBODY SPEAK OF IT EVER.

i'm pretty sure there's an instance of it in season 2 (either that or my brain just made it up) when Tobio is a little worried about his and Hinata's quick attack not really working out but Hinata tells him "nah you'll figure it out eventually" or something along those lines. i'm not going to lose my shit over it because i can't find it but if you know YOU KNOW.

a part that i COULD find from season 2, however, was this:

here we have Tobio explaining how talented of a setter Oikawa is- how he's so much better than him- and it's clear that this is something he's insecure about given his facial expression.

THEN we have Hinata's INSTANT response:

and it blows Tobio away because WHAT

because, to paraphrase a little, Tobio basically just said "yeah oikawa can make any spiker look good no matter what team he's on" to which Hinata replied "yeah but that team wouldn't be Karasuno" which is essentially "Karasuno is strong enough as it is" BUT- if ur crazy- " dw he wouldn't take your spot babe" (<- which probably isn't how it's meant to be interpreted because they just finished talking about The Team That's Stronger As Six thing so like... context clues. it's probably not the insane interpretation).

ANYWAYS boom there it is. Tobio expresses insecurity, Shouyou swoops in and goes "Ermmmm Actuallyyyyy🤓" WHICH IS SO FUCKING ENDEARING ON IT'S OWN BUT THE FACT THAT IT HAPPENS MORE THAN ONCE AND AT SUCH A CRITICAL POINT TOO

the critical point in question being:

(context: Tobio just came back from his training camp in Tokyo and is a little frustrated because he's gotten so used to playing with other prodigies like himself so to go back to talented-but-not-prodigious players is a bit of a switch for him. don't get him wrong tho he loves this team to DEATH it's just a little different that's all. hashtag number one Tobio apologist right here)

SO THERE'S THIS! and it goes without saying that Tobio is DEEPLY insecure about his late middle-school days and being referred to as a king. Tsukishima adds a little salt to the wound and while I didn't take a screenshot of it Tobio makes this look of absolute HORROR after he says what he says

(which, side note, shows a lot of a character development within Tobio. especially since I've been flipping between season 2 and 4 a lot looking for these clips. Tobio didn't even notice when he was acting kingly before but he realizes it INSTANTLY now which is so so so good for him yayyyy character development!)

this also leads fantastically into my next tangent which is

TOBIO FUCKING APOLOGIZES!

now, admittedly this isn't entirely related to my thesis but i absolutely ADORE talking about this scene and i genuinely think it is one of the most prevalent displays of character development within Tobio because i feel like he tends to get overshadowed by all the other characters (especially Hinata, which i'm not upset about in the slightest like it makes perfect sense and if Tobio got all the attention all the time the show would be soooo unbalanced)

but I feel like a lot of people skip over Tobio's overall development over the course of the show. I mean compare s1 Tobio to s4 Tobio THAT IS NOT SAME PERSON ANYMORE. he grows so much over such a short period of time (which is another essay I could write. something along the lines of "Explaining Why Tobio And Shouyou Need To Be On Separate Teams Actually Because Character Development Purposes" because the amount of people i've seen on tiktok complaining about kghn being on separate teams and how they should just be on the same team forever makes my blood boil violently) and it's so refreshing to see Tobio's growth especially as a big Tobio enjoyer.

ANYWAYS back to the main thesis.

So Hinata steps in IMMEDIATELY here. literally cuts Tobio's apology off because HE HAS NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR. he was expressing his thoughts whatever that's fine he could have done it in a nicer way SURE but listen the guy still has a LOOOONNNGGGG way to go but still, nothing to apologize for. it's just growing pains, y'know?

now the quote "What's wrong with him being the King again?" appearing here isn't the first time we're seeing this. Hinata has ALWAYS been confused as to why calling Tobio a "King" is a bad thing. literally from day fucking one Hinata was like "nah dude I think that title is cool" WHICH, AGAIN, TOBIO BEING INSECURE ABOUT SOMETHING AND SHOUYOU REASSURING HIM THAT IT'S TOTALLY CHILL HELLO?????

LITERALLY FROM DAY ONE SHOUYOU HAS BEEN DOING THIS. THAT MAN MAY THINK TOBIO'S AN ASSHOLE SOMETIMES (and he kinda is) BUT NEVER WILL HINATA INHERENTLY HATE A PART OF HIM. and i don't think they realize it here nor do i think the realization comes soon after but at some point there will be the realization that they love each other. every single part. fucking Tobio probably realized it way back in junior high but that's a tangent for another time.

now this line.... this one right here...... oh my god i can be SO NORMAL ABOUT IT.

the main reason why Tobio had this look of HORROR on his face after he yelled at everyone was BECAUSE HE KNEW THE ENDING. he knew that yelling at them would have consequences (if it weren't for Hinata stepping in thank god). HE'S SEEN IT ALL BEFORE. in his final year of junior high he yelled at his teammates to run faster and jump higher and be better AND THEY LEFT HIM!!!

so Tobio yelling like this instantly makes him afraid that he's just ruined the entire balance of the team. he thinks he's going to be left behind again because he yelled and everyone is going to leave him BUT!!!!!

BUT SHOUYOU IMMEDIATELY JUMPS IN AND SAYS "idc what u say honestly if i don't like i'm just not gonna listen" OR, TO TRANSLATE "i'm not going anywhere regardless of what you say"

Tobio's biggest fear is losing this team. I literally do not need to explain why. that man would fucking DIE for this team (if you really need an explanation just to go the end of the Kamomedai match when Tobio admits that he's upset they lost because he wanted to play with that specific team more).

and for Hinata to essentially say "you could literally be as kingly as u want and i simply would not care, pal, i promise you i am NOT going ANYWHERE!!!" which has got to be SO FUCKING RELIEVING FOR TOBIO.

(also something something "nobody was there" / "i'm here" something something "doesn't matter what kind of toss goes up if you send it my way i'm hitting it" something something they're soulmates or whatever they are literally bound together by the universe they were destined to be together and it's a crime that universe kept them apart for so long and now that they're together they will always BE together two peas in a pod literally inseparable they are hot glued and duct taped together.)

and then there's this. i mean at this point you already know what i'm going to say like you get it by now but again IT MUST BE SO RELIEVING TO TOBIO to know that shouyou thinks his biggest insecurity is cool. that shouyou thinks that it's not something to be concerned about. that no matter what, no matter how much a King he is, they're not going anywhere.

SOMETHING SOMETHING "you drew stars around my scars" IF YOU EVEN CARE

and just the fact that it's always ALWAYS shouyou to do this. the fact that there was dead silence before shouyou spoke up. the fact that it's ALWAYS HIM there to understand Tobio (someone who has been misunderstood for as long as he can remember) GOD THEY DRIVE ME INSANE.

anyways thank you for being a witness to this madness👍

[katsu-curry835]

I cannot stress this enough tiktok has a policy whereby it CENSORS CONVENTIONALLY UNATTRACTIVE PPL. They will demote your video if you have wrinkles, an obvious beer belly, are too fat or too thin or have dwarfism. Among other horrid policies of course. The below is a leaked document from the moderators detailing what should be demoted by the algorithm.

I’m aware that most social media apps harvest your data, are prone to pipelines and shadowbanning and don’t pay their creators enough but TikTok is genuinely the w o r s t in every category. You genuinely lose nothing by not using it. Below is another image of a glitch that showed activist hashtags such relating to BLM with 0 views (they got shadowbanned)

Another huge problem that exists on the app is the radicalisation pipelines are so strong because the three minute vid and 150 character comment format completely flattens nuance. All it takes is for someone to sound confident and talk fast enough with a vaguely coherent argument before you start thinking that overpopulation is a myth and engaging in needless drama (see: Drew Afualo and Bela Delgato, Danisha Carter and her critics etc.) This is poisoning how we interact with politics. YouTube is nowhere near perfect but it at the very least rewards longer form content this stuff like video essays is promoted on there. Tumblr has no character limit so you can read the entirety of this shitty essay without me needing to cut things for brevity. Typing a TikTok comment has driven me insane before because 150 characters is not even close to enough to have an informed discussion. Who is correct has now become who can slam dunk on someone else the best.

I do genuinely think that Drew Afualo is a net positive for the world and I’m glad she’s using the TikTok algorithm to spread good messages. But let’s be honest here, her videos aren’t well researched takes on misogyny. And I don’t think they’re trying to be either. Drew shouldn’t be expected to sit down and research a TikTok while she’s shitting on some asshole; that’s not her style. I think the problem is beyond her control. People are taking her quips and one-liners to formulate their opinions on the world around them. This is ok in this example given that Drew a positive influence. But this can and has been weaponised so easily to spread harmful rhetoric left and right and when you’re on political TikTok it’s impossible to tell which is which. Misinformation is also shockingly common and incentivised by the format.

Finally, your attention span is dying. Let’s look at YouTube. YouTube’s policies make it so that longer content is rewarded and, and this is a crucial point, you choose what you want to watch. On TikTok, because you are given content with the assumption you’ll enjoy it, you have to decide while watching if you want to scroll or not. Eventually your window of tolerance of videos before they get good shrinks and you’ll end up judging the quality of the content based on the first seven seconds. Comparatively, YouTube has you choose videos assuming you’ll like them and therefore you’ll spend more time with the art before you decide whether or not it’s for you. When your attention shrinks to seven seconds on TikTok, this bleeds into other aspects of your life and is incredibly unhealthy (speaking from experience). I had to watch two hour long video essays to compensate for how TikTok was just wrecking my focus.

Most people know TikTok sucks and use it anyway but then encourage others not to get it. Why don’t we delete it? Here’s an idea, if you have TikTok, get rid of it now. Destroy its ubiquity and only use Tumblr and YouTube /j No but seriously delete the app I’m so happy I did. My life has improved infinitely since.

[ripplestitchskein]

Heey I really like your Stolitz and Helluva Boss Takes! They are very insightful and interesting to read. Your circus theory is adorable :)

I’m wondering, why do you think this fandom in particular is… so rabidly against media literacy. I too am an old trooper from the Destiel days and I remember the days when internet fans would beg for more complex characters that have grey morality. Also when people would BEG for gay representation like this. I’m so confused man. The “vivziepop critical” hashtag just makes me depressed. So many people seem obsessed to criticize this show and I don’t get it. I haven’t seen this much hate since Twilight. Also did the mistake of checking twitter… Also, why do people act like one person did everything when animation is a highly collaborative medium and there are 100+ creator names at the end of each episode? I’m so confused because I’ve enjoyed the show so much and went online to find fanart and fanfics and found… insane levels of hate and projection?? Why does everyone and their dog want to cancel this woman for making an animated TV show with millenial style sensibilities? Why are they saying the writing is horrible and atrocious when I personally think it’s better than Family Guy, Big Mouth, American Dad and many other adult animation show’s writings? I’m so curious because I’m from Eastern Europe and it feels like something particular about american culture doesn’t click to me in all of this…

Thank you so much Nonnie! If nothing else I might illustrate Blitzo’s little circus with everyone in their roles. I’m working on a Stolitz piece I am VERY excited about but maybe after that.

As far as your question. Whooboy is that a question I have both given a lot of thought to and found no real satisfactory answers, but I have some ideas.

I think it’s a mix of things and I think a huge part of it is the medium and the accessibility of the creators combined with the show reaching a huge internet audience other fandoms don’t really normally touch.

The audience numbers for both of the Spindlehorse/Vivziepop properties are ENORMOUS. On the main channel alone an episode will reach 20+ million views. This doesn’t include other channels that take the same episodes and put them on their channels and reach several million as well. The Nielsen numbers average around the 18-20 per episode but Nielsen ratings are a flawed metric especially with internet based media. We’ve seen some of the Amazon numbers as well and they are insane.

We also live in a time where people are under an extreme amount of scrutiny all hours of the day, the likes of which we really don’t have a comparison for in human history and we have a independent creator who was largely available to that fandom for a long period of time. A lot of media properties are corporate, are sanitized and managed by large PR firms. I think VivziePop said some things before she had fully grown and developed as a person that people latched onto as a core belief system, something the internet is really good at. There also isn’t a lot of grace given to people who change their views after taking in other viewpoints and information. If you say something it will live on in infamy and I think some of the hate stems from that.

I went into it a little in this post here that I just don’t think people are aware of the creative process that goes into making such a thing. An indie creator has to be way more transparent than a corporate entity to get the funding they need and that transparency builds expectations with people who can’t grasp that plots and characters change as the story actually develops. They are very used to prepackaged, sanitized and complete productions and this messy and chaotic realtime creative process is very foreign to them.

Critical thinking skills are also a precious resource in humanity in general, and when you’re dealing with a fandom this large you have more people who lack those skills than normal. These two shows do not spoon feed their audience, a lot of things are in the details and hidden under character complexities and I genuinely believe that they aren’t used to not being told flat out “this is what is happening. This is how the characters feel about it.” By the media they consume. We’re also dealing with two different shows with similar visual elements and comparisons are made between the two while ignoring the actual shows themselves. A great example is the chains in Hazbin for Angel and Husk being compared to the chain in the drug hallucinations in D.H.O.R.K.S. They are not remotely the same, or for the same reason but because they are visually similar, being from the same team people really thought they were on to something while ignoring the actual content and dialogue of the scene itself. Meme culture used for wrong imo.

Having characters that do “problematic” things, say “problematic” things and behave in realistic and nuanced ways is hard for people to separate from the creators or the fans. Any whiff of perceived “toxicity” is jumped on like rabid dogs. They believe it’s a reflection of what the creator and fans actually WANT in real life. It’s purity culture run amuck and it’s a HUGE issue. Like actual fascism in action and it’s extremely concerning to me but what can I do but continue to engage critically with what I like and provide analysis while enjoying it?

There is also this sense of competition in fandoms. My ship is less problematic than yours. My blorbo is a better person. Etc. It’s the silliest shit.

There is also a huge wait time between episodes. In a binge watching culture, or a serialized tv culture where seasons are completed and then released all at once or on a regular schedule with maybe a week or two between it is hard for the audience to retain what they saw previously and connect it. They also build up expectations and have months to sit with them only to be disappointed when it doesn’t play out how they wanted. The Sherlock fandom was notorious for this. The years long gap between seasons let things fester and rot and now we have a show like HB that will go months between episodes and take years to tell a story.

Being completely honest almost all the criticism I’ve seen is not rooted in actual problems with the show but people saying “if they had done X and X and X it would have be a better show” but because the show didn’t deliver what they specifically wanted it’s “not good”. Or they don’t realize it is delivering that, just at a very slow pace.

I think it can best be summed up by a lot of the internet are what me and my partner call “baby brained”. I don’t mean to be dismissive of real criticisms but I haven’t seen any that hold water yet that aren’t rooted in the things I’ve mentioned above. If I’m presented some I’ll engage with them logically and will use the text to determine their validity.

I have more thoughts on this but this is already pretty long so I’ll save it for specific posts on this subject. But like I always say, just block them and do things that make you happy with the things you love. You don’t owe them your time or your attention and the creators don’t owe them anything either.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP hi, I've wanted to send you a DM for some time, but every moment I chicken out. I'm new on Tumblr, just starting up my blog for jikook and want to ask you for advice. How do you deal with hate asks and comments? You cover controversial topics, talk straight and candid but in a level-headed way but at the same time you call out the b*llsh*t of both kpop stans and Armys and even Hybe. I just talk about jikook and I am getting people that already hate me and my blog. I imagine you must get more given all the topics you cover. How do you deal with it?

**

Lol I just delete them.

Actually, first I should say that if you're getting extremely abusive asks, escalate it to the reporting team on Tumblr. Use the report and block function and put in a formal complaint through the website. Some months ago I was getting hostile visitors to my blog that I dismissed as just trolls, after all, weird things happen online and especially on Tumblr every day - but turns out, they were more than just trolls. They were underemployed but fanatically motivated k-pop stans/commentators determined to physically hurt me in real life, because the facts I was pointing out were inconvenient for them, and my opinions critical of the k-pop industry and the sycophants trafficking in 'discourse' that excuses that bullshit, were difficult to counter with you know, words and reason. So physical harm in real life was apparently the only solution they had. I made a mistake by not taking them seriously till they tried actual physical harm. Thankfully, I was able to nip that in the bud by escalating to the privacy and reporting team at Tumblr, worked with some experts irl and now those people are permanently banned from using the platform under several IP addresses.

Of course, when I re-opened the blog, almost right away some people were upset that I was writing again, for whatever reason. But that's normal, lol, so I just ignore and delete those asks whenever they pop up. Lol. I don't know what to tell you Anon, but some people are just naturally... like that. They'd score above the average Dark Triad percentile. I know we typically make fun of toxic taekookers but many of those same behaviors we ridicule are found in various shades in k-pop spaces in general - the way this industry runs practically attracts those types. Like I'd go as far as saying the people playing the k-pop game best are taekookers and Tae solo stans. Hobi akgaes are really good at it too. I've said before, if you're a critical and contrarian person, k-pop is the perfect industry for you because you'll never run out of things to have a problem with.

Plus, half the time I have no idea what these people are going on about in my inbox anyway, so I just delete them. Before, during the pandemic, occasionally I'd post a few to tear down and laugh at since I had the time. But now airports are open and I'm back to working full time. I can hardly handle the 10s of asks I sometimes get daily, so it makes no sense to give those complaints any oxygen.

TL;DR

First, why are you chickening out? If you don't mind maybe not getting responses right away, please come say hi. :)

Sad to hear you're a new jikook blogger and already having to deal with BS. But also know it honestly just comes with the territory.

The way I deal with asks that are hostile or just read like they were written by an insane person, is to delete them.

There's also the option of turning off Anonymous asks completely. I know several bloggers sometimes take this route.

If it's especially weird, I report and block. I haven't had to do this in months but if it's extra weird, I report the ask directly to Tumblr's reporting team.

You should also note that the topics you write about can influence whether you get more or fewer weirdos. Shipping spaces are notoriously toxic, so if you'd like to continue writing on the topic, develop a tagging system that shields your content from taekookers, eg, abbreviate or add your blog name to the hashtag.

*

Good luck Anon. 💜

[struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor]

Wow, it’s so refreshing to read your point of view about charts and bb and all that jazz, I always felt like I was such an outsider because I more or less share the same opinion. I didn’t know about bb & charts before getting into BTS years ago, though I’ve been a fan of some rock bands previously in my teenage years, mostly because I didn’t care and… I still don’t. I mean I’m glad if that makes the members happy, especially Jimin who’s my bias, but at the end of the day this whole thing seems to be manipulated in so many ways so.. what’s even the point. It all seems like a huge dick measuring contest too, I understand why it’s important for people but it just feels like a huge scam to me. And the idea of buying a song or an album multiple times just for the sake of making it top the charts is beyond me tbh, as much as I love the band every bits of my wage is precious to me, I can’t throw money out of the window for… this kind of clownery? Like, why? I’d rather spend it to see the boys performing (please make Suga come to Europe ffs) or eventually buy some cute merch. It’s intriguing to me to see how people are consuming music nowadays and how social media shapes their experience as a fan. It’s not so much about listening to the songs, watching the mv just for the love of it, getting yourself drown into this feeling when you just feel the music and you’re transported by it, now it seems like it’s a lot more about performance. Being a fan almost seems like a duty, a second job, you have to mass buy, stream, make this hashtag trend. It’s all a facade really… I personally can’t relate to this, and I think it would be nice if fans chill out a little bit, is it really just a competition? What are you getting out of this? We need to get back to the root of it all, aka music.

Hi, thanks! I agree with you, it's a dick measuring contest and charts have no actual meaning atp (if they ever had one). Joining twitter for BTS was kind of a mistake because it really made me aware of that performance aspect of the fandom. It's only gotten worse in chapter 2. I appreciate how fans' efforts have really made BTS what they are now, but the list of cons is a long one. Buying multiple albums or digitals is insane to me as well, because, like you said, every bit of my wage is precious. I'd rather give my mom the money than millionaires.

I disagree about how Army consumes music though. I believe Army listen to BTS and watch their MVs and performances for the love of it, but, at the same time, they'll do those things even if they don't like the songs. Army definitely loves BTS's music or try their best to enjoy it and understand their lyrics and messaging. Even if there's sadly no space to dislike or criticize a song, it's unfair to say they don't love and respect BTS's music.

Thanks for the ask!

[webanglikethat]

Okay I absolutely need to know, what was the Italian fuyuka wattpad drama of like 2014 about??

okay so,

mind you I was around 9 during this time so my memory isn’t the best but I went through the pain of searching this person’s old account to gather proofs *sighs*

okay so there was this girl, let’s call her L.

L was around 19-21 at the time I’d say? so an adult, and I was a child. I feel like I need to highlight this for I was very childish at the time, ACCORDING TO MY AGE DUH 😭 and SHE was the adult who should’ve known better but I digress. also in no way (I hope) this represents her today. I do follow her on insta and she seems like a better person ! growth and redemption are powerful forces, and from what I can see, she seems to have embraced them — for that reason I have also blurred her name.

okay so L shipped herself with Caleb or Fudou Akio. she had a whole hashtag on wattpad as well as insta. it seemed harmless enough at first — you know, a harmless infatuation with fictional characters! after all, who doesn’t indulge in a little self-shipping? but as I soon discovered, this infatuation was a double-edged sword, and the blade was sharp (LMAO I’m trynna make this dramatic).

So Yeah. things quickly escalated when she began to despise anyone who dared to ship Caleb with someone else, particularly Camelia/Fuyuka Kudo.

she was extremely misogynistic and slutshaming her for *checks notes* being boring 

here’s an actual translation: 

"Camelia Travis/Fuyuka Kudo, what do you think of her? 💚 I HATE her to death, I don't like her at all, she's cute but lacks character, and I find her quite useless. I also hate the ship with her and Caleb u.u💚 and even the one with Mark u.u💚 #Cameliaxdieapainfuldeathforever u.u💚 Seriously, she seems like she's straight out of a fairy tale about princesses and it's just not right."

which to be fair this is alright ! disliking a character for their lack of depth is one thing, but L took it further, slut-shaming both Camelia and Silvia/Kino Aki.

here is the translation:

"She goes after both Mark and Erik, who are the guys two of her close friends are in love with; she's very slutty."

"[replying to someone who defended Cammelia] defenseless? She's a 'good girl,' okay no, I'd say slut who bats her eyes at every being with a penis she meets xD"

THERE WAS SO MUCH MORE. but I don’t have the mental strength to look for it. just imagine this but ten times even worse. SO. MUCH. SLUTSHAMING.

L’s behavior wasn’t just limited to these hateful comments. she even coined a derogatory hashtag—Cammerda, a portmanteau of Camelia and “merda,” meaning shit. this level of cruelty was so ??? staggering to me, especially as a child trying to navigate the complexities of fandom culture and online interactions 😭 she would write fanfictions and people would just wish death on Cam for no reason except blind following.

even as a nine-year-old, I knew this behavior was insane and I called her out. it struck me as profoundly wrong that an adult would invest so much energy in hating fictional characters and slut-shaming them. and obviously the irony wasn't lost on me that she hated Camelia for lacking character but absolutely adored Suzette and her non-consensual storylines. this hypocrisy was glaring but I digress. (also no hate to Suzette! I do wish her character was more than just being infatuated with Erik tho :/)

adding another layer to the madness was L’s homophobic stance. despite her apparent love for Yuri (girls' love), she openly criticized yaoi (boys' love) in the most derogatory terms. her comments on yaoi were not just dismissive but laced with homophobia. she repeatedly belittled yaoi as “dirty,” contrasting it with her praise for Yuri.

one comment left by a fellow user on her page pointedly addressed this hypocrisy:

“Secondly: do you hate yaoi? Fine. I'm not one to judge. But if you could please avoid saying 'yaoi sucks dick' every other minute, you'd be doing the world a favor. You need to respect other people's choices. For example, I don't really like yuri that much, which it seems you do. Yet, I don't go around announcing it to the world."

as a nine-year-old, I struggled to make sense of L’s behavior. i mean, the disparity between her actions and the maturity expected of someone her age was glaringly obvious to me, even if I couldn’t fully articulate why it was so wrong and why it felt so painful almost ? in my mind it made no sense. why are you wishing death upon them? I knew, even then, that what I was witnessing wasn’t just a difference in opinion — it was a display of toxicity and immaturity from someone who should have been a role model. 

so I decided to speak up and I’ll admit I was being childish (but in my defense, I was a child). I fought a lot with her because it made no sense to me. I called her out and did call her stupid, I’ll admit that LMAO. my voice was obviously drowned out in the cacophony of hate. L and her followers dismissed me, labeling me as naïve for not understanding the “depth” of their feelings. it was infuriating. it made ME feel guilty to the point where, three years later I reached out and apologized to her sister 😭

in the end I feel like my experience with L was a painful lesson about the complexities of fandom culture. it illuminated the darker side of online interactions, where anonymity can breed cruelty and where toxic behavior can overshadow the joy of storytelling </3 a silly football anime fandom turned into .. whatever the hell that was

so while I hope L has grown and learned from her past, as I see her flourishing on Instagram today, I can’t help but reflect on the impact her actions had on me back then. it’s insane to me that a nine years old knows better than to slutshame! 

anyway fandoms should be a space for creativity and acceptance, not a battleground for misogyny and homophobia ❗️

[cpopnatural]

11x4 Notes

-Chuck?

-the initials etched into the dashboard…

-hello?????

-washing the dashboard to rain transition that’s good

-in another life Dean would’ve been one of those hashtag van life people

-Roadhouse? Like the Valentine’s Day roleplay fam wedding location???

-how did Sam get in the car without the keys

-what is this camera angle

-this car scene with the song is so incredibly white I feel like a white woman film critic this episode reviewing EEAAO “the cultural context was just too specific to be relatable to a general audience”

-the line about having a life with a hunter, someone who understands the life :)

-“son” “don’t call me that” hell yeah Sammy

-Dean thinking Sam praying is absurd. Girl as if you don’t get down on your knees every season for that damn angel

-love the idea that Dean hates even valet parking he’s so protective

-the song choice is here is so good

-the train sound going in the background oh I love a little sonic foreshadowing

-Cas infodumping and then getting worried for Dean

-Dean would have have a phone password

-I mean. Surely he’ll let Cas heal him after this right

-Using the car door to cut his head off is insane

The moments tying the car with the family are genuinely really good. The script is written really well with great characterization for Dean and Sam. The idea of shooting the entire thing from the perspective of the car seems limiting but it’s a limitation that forces the show to make visual and narrative choices that are more creative and unique. Definitely mixes up the formula of the show really well. 8.3/10

[infinitecrime]

I feel like I should make a post detailing the Sebastian Stan drama because I see a whoooole lot of bad takes and misinformation and blatant lies going around. I’ve been on tumblr for nearly a decade at this point and this is genuinely one of the scariest and most out of control situations I have seen.

A quick summary for anyone who hasn’t been following: Last week, Seb was pictured with a women. Many assumed this was his girlfriend but this has not been confirmed. Fans began combing through her life and social media to find something incriminating. I feel like this is important, that the hatred came first, and the reason came after. They found a photo of the girl, from 2 years ago. I will include it for transparency (she is on the left): she is at an ‘Asian night’ party/club night, wearing a kimono. 

It’s insensitive to use culture as a costume, and to lump all the diverse and distinct Asian cultures together into one party theme, decorated with pound shop Chinese lanterns. It is cultural appropriation. A number of Asian people were understandably upset by this photo and her actions. 

But let me be very clear: These are not his actions. He was not at the party, he did not wear the kimono, he did not post or like the photo, he did not endorse, condone or defend the actions in any way. We have never seen them together before, so presumably this is 2 years before they met. He does not follow her or the friend that posted it 2 years ago on Instagram. There is no reasonable expectation that he ever would have seen this photo. He almost certainly did not know it existed.

He cannot apologise or seek redemption for someone else actions. He cannot set a precedent where he is responsible for everything everyone who comes within 20ft of him did, years before they even met. It is completely insane to expect him to do a full background check on everyone he makes out with, or to expect him and all his acquaintances to be ideologically pure, not be ignorant about anything and never make a mistake.

Some people seemed to realise that he cannot be held responsible for other people’s actions, so they invented something to pin blame on him: he defended her! I searched high and low for his statement defending her. He did not make one. Instead, he allegedly blocked a handful of people who spammed his comments with demands for apologies. At least one of these blocks has been outed as photoshop. If the others are real, we don’t know if it was him or his PR team. We don’t know if their innocent public comment alerting him to an issue was accompanied by vile death threats in his DM’s. Regardless, he is within his rights to protect his mental health by blocking people who harass him about something that is, frankly, none of his business. Blocking is not defending her.

I often hear: cancel culture is not real, it’s simply facing the consequences of your actions. So lets do an experiment where we outline the actions and consequences. If you were involved in the vile hashtags and threats made against him, ask yourself: Are these reasonable, proportional and deserved? Do I have the authority to distribute these consequences? Am I making the world a better place - or a worse one? Is my moral high ground getting a little shaky? 

Action: 

Kissed a girl who wore a kimono 2 years before they met. Allegedly (!!) blocked a few people who harassed him about it despite it being nothing to do with him.

Consequences:

Doxxed, pictures of his apartment and his address leaked online. He will almost certainly have to move from his HOME.

Intense death threats and suicide baiting, including #RIPSebastianStan trending, which his family may have seen and actually thought he had died, photoshopped articles and memorial pictures that say he died

Actual danger to his physical safety through the release of his home address

Emails sent to his newly signed agency and employers to get him FIRED

Severe damage to his reputation including news articles with his name and ‘racist post’ in the title, that do not make it clear it was not his post!!

Most likely a severe hit to his mental health, which he has said before he struggles with, particularly from all the KILL YOUR SELF CLOWN messages

If he was with the girl - well, I doubt he is now, so the possible destruction of his relationship, instead of her getting a chance to learn, educate herself, grow and be better.

I am genuinely concerned for his mental health - situations like this before have resulted in suicide (Caroline Flack springs to mind). His physical safety is also in danger. For the actions of someone else, years before they met. Please, stop this. Please see that you are making the world so, so much worse, and you could actually kill someone through this. Please exit the twitter echo chamber and think maturely and critically about whether your response is proportional, reasonable and necessary. Please see that he is a stranger to you, who is paid to do a job, and we have no more right to demand things from him or make him face consequences than we do our dentists or the cashier at the local shop. Please log off and go outside for a while.

[donnerpartyofone]

I've been trying to expand my horizons lately with some *activities* (shudder), and it's providing me with some pretty serious exercise, if not of the intellectual ilk, then just in terms of, like, managing my own pettiness. I am SO easily distracted by people's awful personalities that I almost lose sight of what I'm trying to do in the first place, and then before I know it I'm spending all my energy hating strangers instead of finding the benefits of a situation. Like I'm reading this fascinating, speculative anthropology text that traces the origins of modern show business to ancient shamanic traditions, and in the study group--largely composed of white Americans, many of whom are stage magicians or something--an alarming number of people seemed eager to proclaim that they "didn't get" a chapter involving the spectacle of Hell in modern entertainment, specifically because they're not Christian. Which is absolutely maddening, since no one complained about "not getting" the first 100 pages detailing the spiritual practices of long-extinct nomadic tribesmen in places like Siberia. These douchebags are just way to anxious to make sure everybody knows they don't read the Bible, just in case Penn Jillette might appear in a puff of smoke to shame them for not being atheistic enough.

Then on another night of the week, I'm in this Frankenstein discussion group--I've never read it before and I'm astonished by how drenched in shame and grief it is! Film adaptations usually describe Victor Frankenstein as a two-dimensional egomaniac who won't acknowledge his own hubris until his just desserts arrive, but the book (at least the first half or so) is hugely about feelings of guilt and disgrace and self-loathing. Then of course the group I'm in dogpiles on diagnosing Victor as a "white patriarchal sociopath", which like...I don't know if that really makes a point, as much as it expresses the joy people get out of saying hashtags out loud and misappropriating psychiatry terms. Like I'm not saying none of those things are construably true about Victor, but I don't think it's accurate to call someone a "sociopath" because:

A) they're shocked out of their minds by the gruesome reality, versus the idealized fantasy, of creating a zombie;

B) their actions have wildly unforeseeable consequences; or,

C) when wildly unforeseeable consequences arrive, they suffer a nervous collapse, and fail to do "the right thing", whatever that is in the outrageous world of one of the world's main horror novels.

Somebody dialed it back from "sociopath" to "narcissist", which was definitely more useful, even though it still smacked of the habit of pillaging the DSM just to be insulting, or to cover up your own inability to accurately observe and describe things organically. But uh anyway, once the words "white" and "patriarchal" slipped out, it seemed like everybody went insane with this urge to project all kinds of very modern intentions onto Mary Shelley and elevate her to the level of a Betty Friedan waging war against the folly of a male-dominated society.

And again it's like, while there are definitely socially critical strains in Shelley's writing (which was significantly a collaboration with her husband btw), I don't think the pat answer to "Why aren't there any substantial female characters in Frankenstein" has to be "because Shelley is smashing the patriarchy." Given the time frame, if she wanted Victor or Robert Walton or whoever to be female, she'd have to set up this whole thing about how each character was a genius and an iconoclast who defied contemporary sexist sanctions by launching herself, against all odds, as a globe-trotting explorer leading a crew of macho sailors to the edges of the world, or a career academic blasting through the limits of human knowledge despite the prejudices of her peers, professors, and public. The unfortunate reality is that sometimes when you want to make a strong point, you can't bring on all of your favorite thoughts and feelings at the same time, or else you wind up having to make all these justifications and explanations and contextualizations, and then before you know it, you're saying something else entirely. (People seemed sort of pissed off when I suggested this, but whatever, GOOD.)

Frankenstein was written in an era where science itself was a source of both wonder and terror, and it was ALSO importantly an era in which parenthood was fraught with potential horrors; Shelley wrote the novel in between the premature deaths of her first two children, and the notion of parenthood bringing tragic and perpetually haunting consequences is pretty much slathered all over the entire book, even in the lives of side characters. And the vanity of technology, and parenthood, are only two of the readily available lenses on the story; the book group itself was advertised as being angled toward Frankenstein's commentary on the prejudicial way in which human rights are assigned or withheld vis a vis race specifically. So like it's not really necessary to put your favorite words in Mary Shelley's mouth, so staunchly and exclusively, just because they're the words that get you the most likes on Twitter or whatever.

What I'm trying to say is not that people shouldn't do these kinds of thought experiments; I just mean like, I can TELL when someone is opportunistically using something as neutral as a classroom setting to try to get their personality validated the same way they do on social media, by being needlessly emotional or proscriptive or through basic sloganeering, and it's REALLY tiresome.

[letterboxd]

Savage Cinema.

From anarchists and adultery to milk baths and massacres, Matthew Turner shares five of the weirdest and wildest highlights of Hollywood’s pre-Code era, as #PreCodeApril comes to a close.

Pre-Code April was directly inspired by Noirvember, a month-long celebration of noir cinema instigated by Marya Gates (Oldfilmsflicker). I did Noirvember for the first time in November 2019, really enjoyed it, and thought it would be great to do the same thing for pre-Code movies. Although I’ve watched most of the classic 1930s films, I realised there were a huge number of pre-Code films I’d never seen (of my Letterboxd list of over 900 Pre-Code films, I have only seen 200).

As a sucker for a bit of wordplay, no matter how tenuous, I picked April partly because it’s six months away from Noirvember and partly because of the shared “pr” sound in April and Pre-Code. I’ve been absolutely delighted by the response—the #PreCodeApril hashtag on Twitter is a daily treasure trove of pre-Code-related joy, but I was genuinely thrilled to see the response on Letterboxd (here is my watchlist for the month). It’s been a real pleasure to see pre-Code movies constantly popping up in my ‘new from friends’ feed. My hope is that it’ll be even bigger next year—and that maybe TCM will want to get involved, the way they do with Noirvember.

Produced between 1929 and 1934, pre-Code cinema refers to films made in a brief period between the silent era, and Hollywood beginning to enforce the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines (mandatory enforcement came in from July 1934). The “Code” in question was popularly known as the Hays Code, after then MPPDA president Will H. Hays. As the depression set in and box office declined, theater owners needed fare that would drive cinema-goers to the movies. It was a wild time to be a scriptwriter; they threw everything at the page, designers added even more, and actors played out the kinds of scenes, from the suggestive to the overt, that would otherwise be banned for decades to come.

The following five films demonstrate some of Hollywood’s craziest pre-Code excesses. They’re still jaw-dropping, even by today’s standards, and notably give female characters an agency that would be later denied as the Christian morals of the Code overruled writers’ kinks.

Madam Satan (1930) Directed by Cecil B. DeMille, written by Elsie Janis, Jeanie Macpherson and Gladys Unger

A critical and commercial flop in 1930, Cecil B. DeMille’s utterly insane musical comedy stars Kay Johnson as a straight-laced wife who plots to win back her unfaithful husband (Reginald Denny) by seducing him at a costume party, disguised as a mysterious devil woman. The location of this party? Oh, nothing too fancy, just on board a giant zeppelin. (“Madam Satan or: How the Film gets Fucking Crazy on the Blimp,” as Ryan reviewed it.)

Madam Satan is not by any stretch of the imagination a good movie (the editing alone is laughably bad), but as a piece of pre-Code craziness, it really has to be seen to be believed. Co-written by a trio of women and set in just three locations, it goes from racy bedroom farce to avant-garde musical to full-on disaster movie after a bolt of lightning hits the blimp.

The film is justly celebrated (in camp classic circles, at least) for the wildly over-the-top costumes paraded in the masquerade ball sequence, but there’s weird outfit joy everywhere you look. Keep an eye out for an enterprising extra who’s come dressed as a set of triplets.

Call Her Savage (1932) Directed by John Francis Dillon, written by Tiffany Thayer and Edwin J. Burke

Adapted from a salacious novel by Tiffany Thayer, Call Her Savage was former silent star Clara Bow’s second-to-last film before her retirement at the age of 28. She plays Texas gal Nasa Springer, who’s always had a “savage” temper she can’t explain. In the space of 88 minutes she goes from wild teenager to jilted newlywed to young mother to prostitute to wealthy society girl to alcoholic before finally (it’s implied) settling down with her Native-American friend after discovering that she’s half-Native-American, something the audience has known all along.

Bow’s performance is frankly astonishing, to the point where you simply can’t believe what you’re seeing from one moment to the next. Sample scenes see her savagely whipping both a snake and her Indian friend, smashing a guitar over a musician’s head and violently wrestling her Great Dane… and that’s all in the first five minutes. She’s also frequently in a state of near undress throughout—one funny scene has her maids chasing her with a dressing gown because they’re afraid she’ll run down the street in her négligée.

The rest of the film includes alcohol, adultery, strong violence, attempted rape, murder, syphilis (not named, but heavily implied) and baby death. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of outrageous content and Bow is pure dynamite throughout. The film is also noted for being one of the first on-screen portrayals of homosexuality, when Nasa visits a gay bar in the Village frequented by “wild poets and anarchists”.

Smarty (1934) Directed by Robert Florey, written by Carl Erickson and F. Hugh Herbert

This deeply problematic sex comedy features pre-Code stars Joan Blondell and Warren William (often nicknamed ‘The King of Pre-Code’) at their absolute filthiest. Blondell plays Vicki, a capricious, happily married wife who gets an obvious kick out of taunting her husband, Tony (William). When he cracks and slaps her at a party, she divorces him and marries her lawyer, Vernon (Edward Everett Horton), whom she also goads into slapping her in a deliberate ploy to win back Tony.

Essentially, Smarty hinges on Vicki liking rough sex and it’s completely blatant about it, ending with her sighing “Hit me again” (the film’s UK title!) as they sink into a clinch on a couch, a rapturous expression on her face. It’s a controversial film because on the surface it looks like it’s condoning domestic violence, but it’s very clearly about Vicki’s openly expressed sexual desires—she wants to be punished and dominated, she just has a rather dodgy way of getting what she wants.

It might be unsophisticated, but in some ways Smarty is remarkably ahead of its time and ripe for rediscovery. To that end, it would make a fascinating double bill with Stephen Shainberg’s Secretary (2002). Oh, and it’s also chock-full of lingerie scenes (like most pre-Code films), if you like that sort of thing.

Massacre (1934) Directed by Alan Crosland, written by Sheridan Gibney, Ralph Block and Robert Gessner

Several pre-Code films (notably those made by Warner Bros) took a no-punches-pulled approach to their depiction of social issues, and star Richard Barthelmess actively sought out such projects. Here he plays Joe Thunderhorse, a Native American who’s become famous on the rodeo circuit. When he returns to his tribe to bury his father, he ends up fighting for their rights, taking on corrupt government officials and religious authorities.

Massacre is fascinating because on the one hand it’s wildly insensitive—Barthelmess and co-star Ann Dvorak are both cast as Native Americans—but on the other, it burns with a righteous fury and does more than any other Hollywood film (before or since) to champion the rights and highlight the injustices dealt out to Native Americans. That fury is encapsulated in a horrifying and rightly upsetting rape scene (it happens off-screen, but the cuts leave you in no doubt) that the film handles with surprising sensitivity.

In addition to being a passionate fight against racism and social injustice, the film also has some genuinely shocking sexual content. Most notably, Joe is seen making love to a rich white woman (Claire Dodd, who’s also in Smarty) who has an obvious sexual fetish, flaunting him in front of her friends and making a shrine in her room with Native-American paraphernalia.

The Sign of the Cross (1932) Directed by Cecil B. DeMille, written by Waldemar Young and Sidney Buchman

Yes, this is Cecil B. DeMille again, but no list of weird and wild pre-Code films would be complete without the jaw-dropping ancient Rome epic, The Sign of the Cross. Adapted from an 1895 play by Wilson Barrett, it stars Frederic March as Marcus Superbus (stop sniggering at the back there), who’s torn between his loyalty to Emperor Nero (Charles Laughton) and his love for a Christian woman (Elissa Landi), while also fending off the advances of the Emperor’s wife, Poppaea (Claudette Colbert).

The film is racy enough in its sexual content alone: highlights include the famous scene of Claudette Colbert taking a nude milk bath and an erotic “lesbian” dance sequence, where Joyzelle Joyner’s “most wicked and talented woman in Rome” does ‘The Dance of the Naked Moon’ at Frederic March’s orgy, trying to tempt Landi’s virtuous Christian, to the obvious arousal of the gathered guests.

However, it’s the climactic gladiatorial-arena sequence that will leave your jaw on the floor. Lasting around twelve minutes, it includes: someone getting eaten by a tiger, a tied-up, naked women being approached by hungry crocodiles, pygmies getting chopped up by female barbarians, elephants stomping on heads, a gorilla approaching a naked woman tied to a stake, a man getting gored by a bull, and gladiators fighting to the death, complete with blood and gory injury detail.

The whole thing is genuinely horrifying, even for 2021. Best of all, DeMille pointedly critiques the audience (ourselves included), by showing a series of reaction shots ranging from intense enjoyment to abject seen-it-all-before boredom.

Matthew Turner (FilmFan1971) is a critic, author, podcaster and lifelong film fanatic. His favorite film is ‘Vertigo’. The films in this article are also listed here: Five of the Pre-Code Era’s Most Outrageous Films.

[robertsbarbie]

hi eris! can't say i have much love for aou or civil war but i'm glad they make you happy. barbie is a really good answer, honestly it feels so perfect that i can't believe they haven't already done something like that lol. also little mermaid!!!! that would be so fun. also thank u for reminding me of the dreamworks holiday specials, i should say that reminds me that one of my favorite pieces of holiday media is gift of the night fury. also since you brought it up: i should start mining for info to make ur present at the end of the month, so if u have any starstruck thoughts that you haven't had a chance to share please share them below (or any other disney channel media!!! neither of us should be limiting ourselves here) also side note: since i've now been paying close attention to your blog, i've noticed you talking about sooo many shared interests but i can't comment because i don't want to give myself away :( maybe on christmas lol

oh sorry i misspoke, civil war is one of my least favorite movies of all time i just think civil war is good tony stark characterization and aou is good steve rogers and characterization but everything else makes me lose faith in cinematic storytelling 💔

i don’t know why but i think about those dreamworks shorts all the time 😭 they’re so cute and dumb and like a greta way to blend media

oof such a loaded question i always have too many thoughts on, well, everything but especially starstruck i guess because it’d take too long otherwise i’ll tell you some powerpoint night ideas i’ve had but have too much ✨ social anxiety ✨ to follow through on:

All The Little Details In Starstruck That Drive Me Hashtag Insane: i know i’ve said this before but i’m such a details person that i think no matter how small those extra details in movies and tv shows are they really make the whole thing better and starstruck has so many! my favorite being the photographer at the beach that took photos of crying jessica leaving the phone booth and christopher looking at her but like he pauses and you realize while he may have told people about it he never sold the pictures! the first pictures of jessica released to the public is like a week later and it’s of her leaving her grandmother’s so it’s just!! idk the little things and i really could talk about them all night (i also want to one day follow through on my tiktok threat)

Have You Ever Seen Taylor Swift and Christopher Wilde in the Same Place at Once?: i don’t know who justin bieber is christopher wilde/ starstruck is actually based solely around the toxic media and building hype surrounding taylor swift, especially the unrealistic annoying romance aspect

Troy Bolton: Disney Channel’s Most Well Developed Character of All Time (also a brief examination of songs portraying his inner most thoughts which is why they’re ‘always’ singing): okay basically the title but yeah i have so many thoughts on him as a character and the way music is used throughout the story not as a storytelling method (like many musicals) but more as a coping or thought process method like in crazy ex-girlfriend

Bunk’d But It’s Actually Good: while i think bunkd is a grade a dumpster fire i do have ideas to make it actually funny (this is just a throw away one solely for the memes)

Why I Should Legally Be Allowed to Punch Christopher Wilde in the Face: it’s one slide and it’s just a screen cap of the ‘I don’t know anyone named jessica olson’ interview

Is Descendants a Good Commentary or Am I Just Bisexual: the answer is both but also neither

and these are just names i’ve come up with:

“Who Would I Legally Be Obligated to Cyberbully if Starstruck 2 Was Released”, “Starstruck Is The Worst Movie I’ve Ever Seen”, “The Anti-Himbos of Disney Channel”, “Would Alex Russo Survive In Modern Media: A Commentary on Flawed Characters”, “Why Ben from Descendants is the Love of my Life”, ect

also if it makes you feel better i have no time to critically think about who has me so i would love to talk about things we have in common 👀 (i don’t have a lot of opportunities to actually DISCUSS the things i like so i’d probably be too excited to over analyze it)

(p.s. sorry for the essay alakalsjksjsjdjd)

[shadowfromthestarlight]

A woman's name came up in polite conversation recently. She runs one of the school boards of which I have been critical of late. That board has been doing a horrible job, a complete disservice to the kids at that school.

"She's perfectly lovely," I was told by someone who knew her. "Yes, lovely," someone else agreed.

Here's the thing: I'm sure she is. I know many of these people. They're all lovely. Boards everywhere are populated with delightful, successful people who would be wonderful table partners at a dinner party. Politically, they are largely centrists.

And yet, woke perversities and the insanity of Critical Race Theory are being institutionalized on their watch.

And it's not just school boards. It's institutions of all kinds - corporations, foundations, NGOs...all of them, really. And, arguably, they are overseeing the dismantling of Western culture, of the Great Experiment.

This is not an exaggeration.

How can this be?

This is a source of some interest to me, so I decided to talk to a number of people about it. There are several factors at play.

First, about a decade ago, boards made a laudable effort to diversify themselves. In the process, they got what they asked for, which was not merely skin color diversity but opinion diversity. At least, they thought they wanted that. Or perhaps they thought their new members would smile and keep to themselves, just happy to be there.

Some of the new faces were considerably more radicalized than anyone may have realized. It's also possible they became more radicalized, as was the fashion, post Ferguson, and in particular, post George Floyd. Either way, most boards now found themselves with one or two very different voices in their midst, voices pushing for radical change.

Normally, this wouldn't matter. Boards are usually twenty or more people, and an extremist or two would easily be voted down.

But this time was different.

You see, if the extremist voices are "of color," it changes the social dynamic entirely. Remember, we are dealing with Lovely People here. Lovely People are virtuous. Lovely People don't make a fuss. Lovely People embrace diversity, and they want to be sure you know that.

So much easier to go along.

Plus, these new advocates for social justice were just so damn passionate. They pushed their agendas with vigor.

This has long been a crucial aspect of the American polity. The left cares about what it cares for more strongly than the right. They write letters to the editor, they go to town meetings. They hashtag ad infinitum. If it's Tuesday, it must be a women's march. Or a climate march. Or a food justice march. (Not kidding, it's a thing.)

Conservatives don't do these things. Or rarely, anyway. They get outworked, out hustled, and outshouted.

Many of the radical changes that have happened in our institutions also happened during the Trump administration. This is no coincidence. You see, Lovely People couldn't be seen to be Trump supporters. In places like Manhattan it was social suicide.

Lovely People didn't approve.

So, if you stood in the way of these new voices, the others would be on to your scent. They would sniff a Trumpist inside their boardroom walls.

Like I said, suicide.

There's also the matter of board...comity? No board likes dissension, and they especially don't like it when word of dissension leaks out. Group dynamics create groupthink.

But lastly, with private school boards, there has been an entirely unique factor at play. Most school board members have enrolled children. Put yourself in their place. Assuming you even had qualms about having your kids labeled "supremacists" and "oppressors," you were all too aware there could be real consequences if you resisted the New Order.

You see, the administrators and teachers were all enthusiastically on board. Stand in the way of this train and that letter of recommendation to Yale might not have the necessary adjectives.

Don't think they're above it, because they're not.

You might even have to find another school, and that's certainly a hassle, and it might not be a brand, like Dalton or Brearley, and that will be an issue next time you compare familial notes at the club. So where's Taylor now?

So, you see, if you're a Lovely Person, there's just no incentive to raise your hand, no incentive to say, "but wait."

The Lovely People don't get ahead by throwing bombs.

The problem is, progressive movements are never sated. The goal posts are always moved. The Lovely People will go along and go along until one day the revolution comes for them.

[sodrippy]

wait why is yanli getting zidian bad?

hi okay just right off the bat i want to say that i dont really think people are being purposely stupid or ignorant or whatever, BUT there is a rampant problem among (usually white) fans of this show of simply not engaging critically/thoughtfully with it and the OBVIOUS and OVERHWELMING asianness of it. like. it is a chinese show. set in chinese society. about chinese characters. now i myself am not east asian so there are even things i dont clock or understand, of course, but there’s already been so many things ive seen float across my dash or on fandom blogs that scream White to me (the implicit viewing of the societal setup as some kind of chinese translation of white aristocratic society, for one, which is insane to me bc its so obviously not the same but whatever ill give it a pass, or the apparent inability to understand the DEEPLY ENTRENCHED familial ties and loyalty, which is also incredibly obvious to me but idk. maybe white people cant understand the inherent complexity of family fhdcnx. im kidding...mostly.)

one of these things is this view of jiang yanli. theres some different things about this whole ‘yanli Deserves zidian’ take that suck, right. on the basic level, the hashtag girlboss angle is ugly. this is the simplest thing to understand i think, as it happens to numerous female characters across popular western media all the time. the weaponized femininity bullshit from 2012 era mcu stans. the ‘this woman is kind and soft and gentle, but thats not ENOUGH for me to see her a real character deserving of respect and agency, she HAS to be VIOLENT and BADASS for me to care’ rhetoric is, i think, familiar enough that we can all recognize why its shitty and devaluing. its insulting to yanli to basically say ‘youd be better and cooler if you got real angry and hurtful’

(additionally on this hashtag girlboss thing- something i didnt fully understand until it was explained to me is why that scene of yanli talking back to jin zixun in wwx’s defence was Not a ‘wow shes standing up for him, incredible!’ moment and much more of a ‘oh holy shit this is a huge socially precarious move’ which is expanded upon in ellian weiwuxianisms post here)

okay now. about zidian. to me, it is GLARINGLY obvious and i assumed it would be to anyone whos seen the series in general, that zidian is a vehicle for trauma. its an object that not only metaphorically represents the abuse suffered by the yunmeng siblings, and the horrific cycle of anger and unhealthy emotions that jiang cheng is stuck in, but LITERALLY represents that, as we see it being used exactly for that purpose. zidian is an heirloom of violence and the fact that jiang cheng wields it now holds incredible meaning, again about the cycle of abuse that he was unable to be freed from, the weight of filial duty twisting painfully with what should have been love, and so on. 

its hard for me to articulate what i mean here, but its like. jiang cheng having zidian is so much more than just being badass and cool, theres SO MUCH tied up in that which speaks to his childhood, the abuse he and his siblings suffered, the way anger now has a vicegrip on him as well, how he’s turned into his mother’s reflection, how his first taste of love as a child was embittered by anger. i know this isnt about him, but i hope explaining these things makes it easier to understand that there is a great deal going on around and about zidian, and that to simply be like ‘well i think yanli should have zidian because its baller’ is so insultingly reductive, and divorces both zidian and yanli of their contexts and stories, and is just like. why would you want her to have it? why would yanli ever take zidian in the first place?

again, i really hope this makes sense and goes some ways towards explaining where i’m coming from, and why i think its just. extremely not cool and very reductive to thoughtlessly throw that together. i get if you read this and youre like ‘ok but its not that deep’ but respectfully. it REALLY is lol. it is that deep and i take it really personally when people are so flippant and repeatedly uncaring about the SPECIFIC context and meaning that this show has AS a piece of asian media. if you have time to think extensively about and write essays for your fave boring white media, you should direct the same energy into understanding non-white media you consume as well.

[innuendostudios]

Here’s How to Radicalize a Normie, a video essay on how the Alt-Right and their fellow travelers recruit. Clocking in at 41 minutes, 6756 words, 633 individual drawings, and 27 sources (including three full books), it is by far the longest and most heavily-researched video in The Alt-Right Playbook. I am very tired.

It took so long to put this behemoth together that my Patreon started to dip. So, maybe a little more than usual, if you want to keep seeing videos like these, please consider backing me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

Say, for the sake of argument, your friend Gabe is starting to worry you.

Gabe’s always been just, you know, a regular guy. Not very political. He likes video games, sci-fi, comics, Star Wars, and anime. White guy shit. The only offbeat thing about him is you suspect there’s like a 20% chance he’s a furry. For all intents and purposes, Gabe is a normie.

But recently Gabe’s been spending a lot of time on some radically conservative forums, and listening to radically conservative podcasts, and picking some radically conservative arguments with you and your friends. You never would have expected this, not from Gabe, and, given the speed it’s happened, it’s worrying to think where it might be headed.

How have the Alt-Right gotten their hooks into your friend?

If you’ve ever known a Gabe, this video is for you. Here’s How to Radicalize a Normie.

Step 1: Identify the Audience

What you need to know before we begin is: around 2013, the Nazis went online.

Hate groups in the US, as tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center, had been growing in number since the noughts, but, between 2012 and 2014, they dropped by almost a quarter. Patriot groups dropped by over a third. However, hate crimes stayed about the same. Radical conservatism was not shrinking, but decentralizing. Still radical, still often violent, but now full of white nationalist nomads unlikely to join a formal organization.

This didn’t make them harmless. What it did was protect their asses from the typical hate group cycle: getting the public’s attention, making allies in conservative media, swelling their numbers, and then eventually disgracing themselves with failures, infighting, and, often enough, members committing horrific acts of violence, which come with social and sometimes legal consequences for all the other members.

So the Alt-Right and their fellow travelers these days don’t so much have members. They have hashtags, followers, viewers, and subscribers. This insulates them from their own audience. If Gabe, as a member of that audience, were to go out and commit a crime on their behalf, there’d be little doubt they had a hand in radicalizing him, but it’d be very hard to claim they told him to do it. On some of these sites, where Gabe spends hours and hours of his day, he’s never created an account or left a comment; the people radicalizing him don’t even know he’s there.

This distributed nature is what makes the Alt-Right, and the movements connected to it, unique. (You may remember a notable proof-of-concept for this strategy.) Doing almost everything online has, as compared with traditional hate movements, dramatically increased their reach and inoculated them from consequence. The trade-off, as we will see, is a lack of control.

And so we come to Gabe.

Gabe exists at the intersection of the kinds of people the Alt-Right is looking for - straight white cis men who feel emasculated by modern society, primarily, though they do make exceptions - and the kinds of people who are vulnerable to recruitment. Gabe fits the first profile in that he got bullied in high school, and often feels he has to hide his nerdy side for fear of getting ridiculed. The Alt-Right also has success with men who can’t get laid or recently got divorced or feel anxious about an influx of non-white people in their community. These things can make one feel like less than the confident white man they’re “supposed” to be. And it’s the closest they will ever come to being minoritized.

Regarding the second profile, it’s important to know that Gabe is not categorically different from you or me. He’s a cishet white dude - his problems are not unique. There isn’t a ton of research into the demography of the Alt-Right, but there may be a higher-than-average chance Gabe has a history of being abused or comes from a broken home. You don’t know if it’s true of Gabe, he’s never said. But most abuse survivors don’t become Nazis. The things that make people like Gabe recruitable tend to be situational: it happens often during periods of transition, as dramatic as the death of a loved or as benign as moving to a new city. Things that make people ask big life questions. Gabe has concerns like economic precarity, not knowing his place in a changing world, stressful working conditions. In other words, Gabe is suffering under late capitalism, same as everyone, and it’s entirely plausible he could have gone down the path to becoming a Leftist.

This is not to make an “economic anxiety” argument: the animating force of the Far Right is and always has been bigotry. But the Alt-Right targets Gabe by treating his “economic anxiety” as one of many things bigotry can be sold as a solution to. It is their aim that, when dissatisfied white men go looking for answers, they find the Alt-Right before they find us.

Step Two: Establish a Community

Were Gabe pledging an old-school hate movement, there would probably be a recruiter to usher him into an existing community. But that’s the kind of formalized interaction modern extremists try to avoid. Online extremism has many points of entry, and everybody’s journey is unique, so rather than be comprehensive we will focus on what are, in my estimation, the two most common pathways: the Far Right creates a community Gabe is likely to stumble into, or infiltrates a community Gabe is already in.

The stumble-upon method has two main branches, one of which is just “Gabe ends up on a chan board,” which we’ve already done a video about. The other is kind of the polar opposite of 4chan’s cult of anonymity: Gabe ends up in the fandom of a Far Right thought leader.

These folks are charismatic media personalities (that’s charismatic according to Gabe’s tastes, not ours; I don’t understand it, either). These personalities may gain traction on any number of platforms, from podcasts to reportage to blogging, though the most effective platform for redpilling is, and yes I am biting the hand that feeds me, YouTube. They may get Gabe’s attention through fairly standard means, like talking about or even generating controversy to get themselves trending, while some of the more committed will employ dubious SEO tactics like clickbait, google bombing, and data voids (just pause for definitions, we don’t have time).

What they tend to have in common, especially the most accessible ones, is that they don’t present themselves as entry points to the radical Right. In fact, many did not set out to be Far Right thought leaders, and may not think of themselves as such (though they are often selling products, of which the Alt-Right are among their biggest purchasers, and it’s not like they’re turning the money away). How they present is the same way anyone presents who wants to be successful on social media: accessible, approachable, authentic. The face-to-face relationship a budding extremist forms with their recruiter or the leader of their hate group’s local chapter are here folded into one parasocial relationship with a complete stranger.

Why this person appeals to Gabe is they’re not selling politics as politics, but conservatism as a kind of lifestyle brand. They rely heavily on criticizing or ridiculing the Left: feminists are oversensitive, Black people unintelligent, queer folks doomed to loneliness, and trans people insane; I dunno if it’s a coincidence that these are all things Gabe thinks about himself in his low moments. By contrast, they don’t sell conservatism as having sounder policies or a more coherent moral framework, but that abandoning progressive principles and embracing conservative ones will make Gabe happier. Remember, Gabe isn’t looking for white nationalism or misogyny, what he wants is the cure to soul-sickness, and these friendly micro-celebs are here to offer a shot of life advice with politics as the chaser. It is extremely important that politics be presented as a set of affects, not a set of beliefs.

The second pathway is infiltration, which is its own beast. Media personalities sometimes become gateways to the Right almost by accident: they do something edgy, a part of their audience reacts positively, and, facing no real consequence, they do it more; this leads to further positive reinforcement from conservative fans, the rest of the audience acclimates, and the cycle repeats, the personality pushing the envelope further and further based on what flies with their increasingly conservative audience. In this way, they become a right-wing figure by both radicalizing and being radicalized by their audience.

Infiltration is deliberate.

The Far Right will reliably target any community that has 1) a large, white, male population, 2) whose niche interests allow them to feel vaguely marginalized, and 3) who are not used to progressive critique of said interests. This isn’t to say progressive critique doesn’t exist, or hasn’t been baked into the property from the beginning, but that it has been, so far, easy for white guys to ignore. As such, progressives within that community probably don’t talk politics much, and women and minorities are perfectly welcome to post, same as anyone, but just, you know, don’t, don’t make identity politics, you know, like, a thing.

Given Gabe’s proclivities, he’s probably already in a number of fan communities where he can geek out and not get teased. And this is where the Far Right will go looking for him

Communities are at their most vulnerable to infiltration at times of political discord. This can happen naturally - say, a new property in the fandom has a Black protagonist - or it can be provoked - say, a bunch of channers join the forum and say provocative things about race to get people arguing - or both. Left to its own devices, the community might sort out its differences and maybe even come out more progressive than they started. But, with the right pressure applied in the right moment, these communities can devolve into arguments about the need to remove a nebulously-defined “politics” from the conversation.

The adage about bros on the internet is “‘political’ means anything I disagree with,” but it’d be more accurate to say, here, “‘political’ means anything on which the community disagrees.” For instance, “Nazis are bad” is an apolitical statement because everyone in the community agrees. It’s common sense, and therefore neutral. But, paradoxically, “Nazis are good” is also apolitical; because “Nazis are bad” is the consensus, “Nazis are good” must be just an edgy joke, and, even if not, the community already believes the opposite, so the statement is harmless. Tolerable. However, “feminism is good” is a political statement, because the community hasn’t reached consensus. It is debatable, and therefore political, and you should stop talking about it. And making political arguments, no matter how rational, is having an agenda, and having an agenda is ruining the community.

(Now, it is curious how the things that provoke the most disagreement tend to be whichever ones make white dudes uncomfortable. One of life’s great, unanswerable mysteries.)

You can gather where this is going: a community that doesn’t tolerate progressivism but does tolerate Nazism is going to start collecting Nazis, Nazis whose goal is to drive a wedge between the community and the Left. Once the Left acknowledges, “Hey, your community’s developing a Nazi problem,” the Nazis - who are, remember, trusted, apolitical members of the community who might just be kidding about all the Nazi shit - say, “Did you hear that, guys?! Those cultural Marxists just called all of us Nazis!” Wedge. Similarly, any community members who say, “but Nazis though” are framed as infiltrators pushing an agenda, even if they’ve been there longer than the Nazis have. They get the wedge, too.

This is how fandoms radicalize. They are built as - yeah, I’ll say it - safe spaces for nerds, weebs, and furries, and are told that the Left is a threat to their safety. Given a choice between leaving a community that has mattered to him for years and simply adjusting to the community’s shifting politics, the assumption is that Gabe will stay. This assumption is right often enough that a lot of fandoms have been colonized.

What is true of both of these methods - Gabe finding the Right or the Right finding him - is that Gabe does not come nor stay for the ideology. He’s here for the community, the sense of belonging, of being with his people, of having his fears validated and his enjoyment shared. The ideology is simply the price of admission.

Step Three: Isolate

There is a vast, interconnected network of Far Right communities out there, and Gabe is, at this point, only on the periphery. In order to keep him in, they need to disrupt his relationships to other communities, and become, more and more, his primary online social space. Having made this space hostile to the Left, they now seek to break his connections to progressives elsewhere in his life.

This is hard to do online. The whole appeal of moving radicalism to the internet is that your away-from-keyboard life doesn’t have to change. You are crypto the moment you log off. Some thought leaders will encourage their audience to cut ties with Family of Origin, or “deFOO,” but, even then, they can’t monitor whether the audience has actually done it the way an in-person movement could. And so alienating Gabe from the Left is less controlled, and, consequently, may be less total. How much Gabe isolates is up to him.

But the vast majority of Far Right media presumes an alienation from the Left. Part of conservative bloggers and YouTubers making the Left look pathetic is doing a lot take-downs and responses. This is a constant repetition of the Left’s arguments for the purpose of mockery, and, for Gabe, it starts to replace any engagement with progressive media directly. He soon knows the Left only through caricature. It also trains him, if he does directly engage, to approach the Left with the same combative stance as his role models. (For reference, see my comment section.) And this is only if he doesn’t partake in one of the many active boycotts of “SJW media.”

In addition to mocking the Left’s arguments, they also, curiously, appropriate them. This is one part sanitization: liberal centrism is more socially acceptable; indeed, many figures on the outer layers think of themselves as moderates, even as they serve as gateways to radicalism. But, also, many of Gabe’s problems could be addressed by progressive leftism, so they sell him racist, sexist versions of it. Yes, there is a problem with workers being underpaid and overextended, but the solution isn’t unions, it’s deporting immigrants; yes, there is a chronic loneliness and anger to being a man in the modern age, but it’s not because of the toxic masculine expectations placed on you by the patriarchy, it’s women being slutty; yes, wealth disparity does mean a tiny percentage of elites have more influence over culture and politics than the rest of us combined, but the problem isn’t capitalism, it’s the Jews. And it’s hard for Gabe to reject these ideas without, in the process, rejecting the progressive ideas they’re copied from; the Right’s “take the red pill” is, to the untrained eye, similar to the Left’s “get woke.” (Or, at least, the bowdlerized version of “get woke” that is no longer specifically about race which came to fashion when white people started saying it, grumble grumble.)

Take the red pill or reject them both; either is a step to the right.

As this rhetoric slips into his day-to-day conversation, even as seemingly harmless “irreverence,” it may strain relationships with people who are not entertained by this shit. Off-color comments about race and gender can certainly be wearying for female and non-white friends, which can lead to a passive distance or an eventual confrontation [“why is everyone but me so sensitive?!”], which only seem to confirm what his reactionary community says about liberal snowflakes. If he says these things on social media, he may get his account suspended, and, if he comes back under an alt, you can bet his new reactionary friends will be the first to reconnect, applaud the behavior that got him banned, and repeat should he get banned again. A few cycles of this and he’s lost touch with everyone else.

Also, his adoption of the insular, meme-laden terminology of this community makes him less and less comprehensible to outsiders.

Over time, sources of information get replaced with community-approved ones: conservative news, conservative YouTube, conservative Wikipedia if he’s really committed. The Algorithm soon takes note and stops recommending media from the Left. He stops watching shows with a “liberal agenda,” which usually means shows starring women and people of color. Now, there is evidence that the human mind responds to fictional characters similarly to real people, and that consuming diverse media can decrease bigotry in ways roughly analogous to having a diverse group of friends, which is one of many reasons we say representation matters. By consuming a homogenous media diet, Gabe stymies his ability to have even parasocial relationships with anyone who isn’t a cishet conservative white dude or one of their approved exceptions.

To the extent that any of this happens, it happens at Gabe’s discretion and at his own chosen pace. It has not been forced on him, only encouraged and rewarded. But the fact that it hasn’t been forced can make him all the more willing to accept it, because it seems safe to consider; even though his life and social circle are changing to accommodate, he does not feel committed. But many Gabes have walked these halls, and, if they close the door behind them, there’s nowhere left to go but down.

Step Four: Raise their Power Level

(...and they say we ruined anime.)

Consider the ecosystem of the Alt-Right as layers of an onion, with Gabe sitting at the edge and ready to traverse towards the center. (No, I’m not just going to reiterate the PewDiePipeline, though, if you haven’t seen it, go do that.)

The outer layer of the onion is extremism at its most plausibly deniable. Without careful scrutiny, the public-facing figureheads could pass as dispassionate, and the websites as merely problematic rather than softly fascist. It is valuable if Gabe believes this as well; that, at this stage, he believe the bigotry is simply trolling, the extremists an insignificant minority, and any report of harassment faked. That he believe where he is is as deep as the rabbit hole goes. And that he continue to believe this at each successive layer.

People in the deepest crevices of the Alt-Right self-report getting redpilled on multiple issues at different times in their journey to the center of the onion. If Gabe’s first red pill is about the SJWs coming for his free speech, he’ll think that’s all anyone in his community believes; there’s no racism here, people are just making a point about their right to use slurs. Then, when he gets redpilled on the white genocide, he’ll laugh at those Alt-Lite cucks who tried to sweep the race realists under the rug, and at himself for having once been one, but acknowledge that those channels and websites are still useful for onboarding people, so he won’t denounce them. At the same time, nobody takes those manosphere betas seriously.

And this process is reiterated with every pill swallowed: gender essentialism, autogynephilia, birtherism, Sandy Hook truth, pizzagate, QAnon if he’s really out there. The heart of the onion is typically the Jewish Question, but these can happen in any order, and in any number. But each layer sells itself as being, finally, the ultimate truth. Each denies the validity of the others; the layers ahead don’t exist, they’re made up my liberals, while the people behind are asleep where you are now awake. That’s why they chose “the red pill” as their metaphor: take it, and everything will be revealed. That’s why it cozies up with conspiracism. But what’s supposed to follow is that this knowledge help Gabe in some way, and it doesn’t. Blaming immigrants doesn’t actually fix the economy, and hating women doesn’t make men less lonely. But, having been alienated from everything outside the onion, once that sinks in, the only recourse on offer is to seek out the next pill.

And pills are easy to find. Those within the network have laissez-faire relationships, even as they, on paper, disavow one another. When they need a source or a guest host, they aren’t going to go to the Left; they’re going to feature each other. The Left is the enemy; their ideas are beneath consideration, and the only reason to engage them is for public humiliation. [Shapiro’s book.] But you can interview “western chauvinists” and that doesn’t mean you’re endorsing them, just, you know, it’s fine to hear ‘em out, nothing should be off-limits in the marketplace of ideas. Besides, Nazis are apolitical.

And because these folks keep showing up in each others’ metadata, regardless of what they say, Google thinks there is definitely a relationship between the guy “just asking questions” and the guy denying the Holocaust. Gabe is softly exposed to many flavors of conservatism just slightly more radical than he is now, and is expected, at the very least, to not question their presence. This is an environment where deradicalizing - listening to the Left - would be sleeping with the enemy, but radicalizing further? You do you, buddy.

Gabe’s emotional journey, however, is somewhat more complex. If you’ve spent any time reading or watching reactionary media you’ve probably noticed it’s really. fucking. repetitive. It’s a few thousand phrasings of the same handful of arguments. Like, there’s only so many jokes about attack helicopters! But these people just crank out content, and most of it’s derivative; the reason to pick one personality over another isn’t because they say something different, but because they say it differently. Gabe just picks the affect it’s delivered in.

Repetition dulls the shock of the most egregious statements, making them appear normal and prepping him for more extreme ideas. Meanwhile, the arguments themselves? They’re not good. (BreadTube will never run out of shit to debunk.) They are repetitive because they’re not good. They’re mantric. A good argument you only need to hear one time; if you can follow it, internalize it, and explain it to someone else, you know you’ve understood it. But a bad argument can’t convince you on its own merits, so it will often rely on affect. This can be the snappy, thought-terminating cliche, or the long, winding diatribe that sounds really sensible while you’re hearing it but when someone asks you for the gist you can only say “go watch these 17 videos and it’ll all make sense.” Both these approaches are largely devoid of content, but, gosh, if they don’t sound sure of themselves.

And that mode can be very persuasive, but it doesn’t stick the way a coherent argument does. It needs to be repeated, the affect replenished, because the words matter less than the delivery. There needs to be a steady stream of confident voices saying “we’ve got this figured out and everyone else is stupid” or Gabe’s gonna notice the flaws. They are not well-hidden.

And the catch-22 of returning to that stream over and over is that these communities are stressful even as they are calming. People afraid they will die virgins go to forums with people who share and validate that fear, and also say, “Yes, you will die a virgin.” People afraid Syrians are coming to kill us all watch videos by people who share and validate that fear, and also say, “Yes, Syrians are coming to kill us all.” Others have already pointed out that rubbing your face in your worst anxieties is a form of digital self-harm, but I need to you understand the toxic recursion of it: Gabe is going to these communities to get upset. Every emotion is converted into anger, because sadness, fear, and despair are paralyzing but anger is motivating; Gabe feels less helpless when he’s pissed off. And so, while he’s topping up on reassuring nonsense, he’s also topping up on stress. And, being cut off from everything outside the network, the only place he knows to go to release that stress is back to the place that gives it to him. It’s a feedback loop, pulling him deeper and deeper on the promise that, at some point, relief will come.

It is a similar dynamic that keeps people in abusive relationships.

When someone in Gabe’s community makes a racist joke, they are presenting Gabe with a choice between the human interaction of laughing with his friends and his societal responsibility not to be a fuckin’ racist. And not laughing seems ridiculous; everybody’s friends here; no one’s getting hurt; this is harmless. And so the irreverent race joke draws a line between the personal and the political, and suggests that one can be safely prioritized over the other. One way to look at radicalization is being asked to stick with that seemingly innocuous decision as the stakes are raised incrementally: first with edgier humor, and then comments that are funny because they’re shocking but you couldn’t really call them jokes, and then “funny” comments that are also sincerely angry, but, in each instance, since he laughed with his bros last time, it stands to reason he should keep favoring the personal over some abstracted notion of “politics.”

This is why the progressive adage “the personal is political” is among the most threatening things you can say in these spaces.

I’m not trying to make a slippery slope argument. Most of us who laughed at edgy jokes when we were teenagers didn’t grow up to be Nazis. It is a slippery slope in the specific context of being in community with people trying to radicalize you. Gabe is a lonely white boy in need of friends, and laughing at a racist joke is personal, while not laughing is political. Staying in a community that has Nazis in it is personal, and leaving is political. The personal is what brings people together and the political drives them apart. (The “only if some of them are bigots” part of that sentence is usually lopped off). There’s this joke on the internet that nerds perceive only two races: white and political. Following that logic, what could be more apolitical than an ethnostate?

They are banking on his willingness to adapt his beliefs to suit an environment that meets a need. That same need can be satisfied by white nationalism. There are few things more seductive to people who doubt their own worth than being told you are valuable simply for being white. And you can sub in male, cis, straight, allosexual, or able-bodied. It just takes priming: by the time Gabe officially embraces bigotry, he’s already been acting like a bigot for months. The red pill is simply the moment he says it out loud.

Change Gabe’s surroundings, and you change Gabe.

Step Five: ???

The final step in a traditional extremist group would be getting a mission. But that is one thing the Alt-Right can’t do. Once you start giving clear directives, you can’t play yourselves off as a bunch of unaffiliated hashtags and think tanks; you are now a formalized movement accountable to its followers, and can be judged and policed as such.

To my mind, Charlottesville was an attempt to become such a movement, taking things offline and getting all the different groups working collectively. And, as so often happens when these people get in the same space - especially with no official leaders or means of control over their members - it backfired. Their true colors came out before they were ready and a counter-protester lost her life.

This would be the point where, historically, an extremist group starts to disintegrate. Their veneer of respectability gone, they’re now hated by the public, the media wants nothing more to do with them, and everyone not in jail turns on each other or goes underground. This is also the point where the liberal establishment says, “My job here is done,” and utterly fails to retake control of the narrative, allowing the next batch of radicals to pick up more or less where the last one left off.

But to an already-decentralized group like the Alt-Right, Charlottesville was bad but eminently survivable. People retreated back to the internet, with its code words and anonymous forums, but that’s where much of the work was already done anyway. The platforms where they organized kept tolerating them, the authorities still didn’t classify them as terrorists, and any disgraced figureheads were replaced with up-and-comers.

The major change in strategy is that it doesn’t seem anyone has tried to formalize the Alt-Right since.

So where does that leave Gabe? He’s gone through this whole process of largely hands-off indoctrination - and I should stress his journey may look like what we’ve outlined or it may look different in places, this video is not comprehensive - but now he’s swallowed every pill he cares to, he blames half a dozen minorities for everything he sees as wrong with the world, and no one will give him anything to do. You’ve got this ad hoc movement frothing young men into a militant fervor and then just leaving them to stew in their own hate. Should we really be surprised at how many commit mass shootings?

This is a machine for producing lone wolves.

Leaving men to take up arms of their own volition is a way of enacting terror while being just outside the popular conception of a terror cell. There are also, of course, more classic militias that will offer Gabe clear directives - they’re recruiting from the same pool. And Gabe may stop short of this step, settling in a middle layer that suits him or finding the inner layers too extreme. But violence is the logical conclusion of an ideology of hate, and, should Gabe take this step, he can approach violence in the same incremental fashion he approached conservatism.

He can start with yelling at people on Twitter, and then maybe collective brigading, DDoS attacks, sharing dox, leaking nudes, calling their phone numbers, texting them pictures of their houses from the sidewalk. These acts of cruelty become games of oneupmanship within his community. All this can start as far back as Step 2, and get more intense the deeper he goes. Some people join explicitly partake in harassment and violence the way Gabe joined to talk about anime.

But this behavior can serve as a kind of buy-in. The Left and the feminists and the LGBTQs and the Muslims and the immigrants are all, within his community, subhuman. You’ve maybe heard the conservative catchphrase “feminism is cancer”; well don’t treat cancer by having a respectful exchange of ideas with it, but by eradicating it down to the last cell. Cruelty against the Left is framed as righteous.

From any other perspective, posting someone’s bank information is something you might feel ashamed of. Which creates a psychological imperative not to consider other perspectives. A thing that keeps people in is staving off the guilt they will reckon with the moment they step out. Gabe is also aware that anything he’s done to the Left could be done to him if he leaves; some communities even keep dox on their members as insurance. And the things he’s been encouraged to do to the Left will likely make him feel that the Left would never take him now; the radical Right is the only home he’s got. Harassment becomes another tool of isolation.

Steadily, options for Gabe are whittled down to being a vigilante or a nihilist. There are periods of elation: moments the Alt-Right feels it’s winning - or, more accurately, the people they hate are losing - are like cocaine. They are authoritarians, after all. But the times in between are mean and angry. They are antisocial, starved of emotional connection, consuming incompatible conspiracies that may at any point run them afoul of one another, devoted to figureheads who cater to but cannot risk leading them, and living under constant threat of being outed to the Left or turned on by the Right for stepping out of line. Gabe took this journey for the sense of community and purpose, and, but for the rare moments everything goes their way, the Alt-Right can’t maintain either. They can only keep promising his day will come, a story he could get from a $5 palm reading.

The feeling there’s nothing left but to kill yourself or someone else is so common it’s a meme.

But there is always a third option: Gabe can leave.

Pre-Conclusion: For Fuck’s Sake Do Not Make Gabe Your Whole-Ass Praxis

Before we continue, I want to state plainly that Gabe went off the deep end because he found a community willing to tell him that, because he is a cishet white man, the world revolves around him. Do not treat him like this is true.

If a fraction of the energy spent having debates with America’s Gabes were spent instead on voter re-enfranchisement, prisoner’s rights, protections for immigrants, statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, and redistricting, Gabe’s opinions, in the societal sense, wouldn’t matter. Reactionary conservatism is a small and largely unpopular ideology that is only so represented in our culture and politics because they’ve learned how to game the system.

And I get it. Those are huge problems that are going to take years to address, where, if you know a Gabe, that’s a conversation you could have today. And, if you think you can get through to him, it is worthwhile to try. This is a fight on many fronts and deradicalization is one of them. But it is only one, so please keep it in perspective. It sends an awful message when we spend more time trying to get bigots back on our side than we do the people they are bigoted against.

Your value as a lefty does not hinge on whether you can change Gabe’s mind.

Conclusion: How Gabe Gets Out

He may just grow out of it. These communities skew young, and some folks hit a point where hanging with edgy teens doesn’t feel cool anymore.

He may become disillusioned after the movement fails to deliver on its promises.

He may become disillusioned if something goes wrong in his life and his community isn’t there for him, if he feels they like his race and his gender but don’t actually care about him.

He may be shocked if he sees the Alt-Right at its worst before being appropriately conditioned. Charlottesville was a step too far for a lot of people.

His community may turn on him for any perceived unorthodoxy, and he may leave out of necessity.

He may be separated by circumstance from the community - a trip with no internet, hospitalization, arrest - and not be able to top up on the rhetoric. This may lead him to question his beliefs.

His community may disappear, either tearing itself apart or getting shut down by authorities.

He may have incidental contact with populations he’s supposed to hate, and have trouble reconciling who they are in person with what he’s been told about them. In his community, people bond over shared intolerance, but, suddenly, being tolerant helps him make friends. (This is one reason the Alt-Right has made a battleground of the college campus.)

He may form or revisit relationships outside the network, people who can offer him the connection he’s been looking for. This may reintroduce outside perspectives. More importantly, it rekindles his ability to have healthy relationships at all, something the Alt-Right has estranged him from.

As with recruiters, it seems these “escape hatch” relationships can sometimes be parasocial; coming to respect a public figure who is on the Left, or is critical of the Alt-Right.

Someone he is close to may compel him to choose, “me or the movement.” A lot of young men leave to save a romantic relationship.

Hearing stories from people who’ve already jumped may help; there aren’t a lot of public formers, and some raise suspicions as to their sincerity, but it is getting more common, and may be the closest we get to exit counseling for the Alt-Right.

He may become aware of the ways he’s being manipulated, or have them revealed to him, maybe because he stumbled into BreadTube, I dunno. Knowledge that you are being indoctrinated is no guarantee it won’t work - you are not immune to propaganda - but it can help one resist.

And he may revisit a core belief system that used to guide him, be it religion or social justice or a really wholesome fandom, and be reminded of the identity he used to have.

Moments like these, in isolation or in aggregate, can inspire Gabe to jump. They are also good times for friends to intervene. The reach and the impunity that comes with the internet means it has never been easier to fall into reactionary extremism. It has also never been easier to get out. People who exit skinhead gangs often fear for their lives; for Gabe, there’s a chance getting out is as simple as going to a different website. Much of his community does not know his name or his face and he may not important enough to dox.

What doesn’t get Gabe out - not reliably, not that I have seen - is an argument with a stranger who proves all his facts wrong and his ideology bunk. Facts don’t always work because facts don’t care about his feelings. This was about staying in a community, and holding onto an identity, that mattered to him. It was about belonging, and that is something a rando from the other side of the culture war can’t give him and probably shouldn’t be responsible for.

The theme here is human connection. Before he can do the work of disentangling himself, and facing the guilt of what he’s believed and maybe done, he has to know there’s somewhere for him on the other end of it. That the Right hasn’t ruined him. They’ve told him all of history is groups fighting each other over status, and, without his clan, he’ll be an exile. He needs a better story.

I don’t know that lefty spaces are ideal for this, in no small part because bringing someone who’s a bit of a Nazi but working on it into diverse communities is… questionable. And it probably wouldn’t be good for him, either; having just gotten out of a toxic belief system, he’s going to be deeply skeptical of all ideologies. In a perfect world, people who care about Gabe could build for him - to use a therapy term - a holding space. Someplace private - physical or digital - where Gabe can work out his feelings, where he is both encouraged and expected to be better but is not, in the moment, judged. That comes later. It is delicate and time-consuming work that should not be done in public, but we find these beliefs, built up over the course of months or years, tend to fall away very quickly with a shift of environment. Change Gabe’s surroundings and you change Gabe.

But, instead, a lot of people who jump are functionally deprogramming themselves, which is working for a lot of them, but it’s haphazard, and there are recidivists.

If you don’t personally know a Gabe, or have training as a counselor, you may not be in a position to help him. Possibly there are things you can do to disrupt the recruitment process or prevent infiltration of spaces you’re in - I’m looking into it, but talk to your mods - but, elephant in the room: meaningful change will require reform on the part of platform holders. Tools to disrupt this process already exist and are being used on groups like ISIS, but they’re not being used on the Alt-Right because they try oh so very hard not to get classified as terrorists (and also any functioning anti-radicalization policy would require banning a lot of conservative politicians, so there’s that...).

But what makes our story better than theirs is that the fight for social and economic justice, though it is long, and difficult, and frustrating, when it works, it fulfills the promise the Right can’t keep: it materially make people’s lives better. I am not prone to sentimentality, or to giving these videos happy endings. But one thing we have that the Alt-Right doesn’t is hope.

[olivedoesmagic]

Hey about your glitchcraft notes, I can understand why pop culture magick can leave a bad taste in one's mouth. Working with egregores and spells in pop culture can feel overwhelming because there is just so much jargon and hype like, you have literally so many overpowered characters and Gods, it feels like trying to eat a processed sugar coated breakfast everyday. I feel like traditional magic is much more formal and "cleaner" because it's more serious and acc makes sense.

Yeah. I’m guessing you took a look at my journal? On my acrians website. ^^; I just generally do not want pop culture outside of this blog attached to my name. That’s why I formed the “Olive Brimstone” Alias, because “Acrians Locket” my true magickal name can easily be traced back to me, and in general, while I do have somewhat of a “respect’ for popculture magick, do to Army of Wax, and it’s lectures, I just don’t want that shit attached to my name you know? The only author I’ve really seen write about it publically and write “grimoires” though I’d hardly consider his books “grimoires” is “Taylor Ellwood” and having purchased copies of his work, I read them, and as with all his work, didn’t feel like I really “learned anything” from the purchase. 

My spirits don’t really like Ellwood, which has steered me away form him. I used to talk to him, we used to be associates under my real name, even facebook friends before I deleted my facebook do to loathing the app, so I won’t say that he’s a bad man he’s verr bright, and some of his work is “interesting” enough but outside of E.A Koetting, S.Conolly, and Orlee Stewart (who some people such as V.K Jehanum who I have my own issues with- take issue with her because she takes down videos criticizing her) I don’t tend to trust most “occult influencers” as I shouldn’t and the only reason I trust E.A Koetting despite seeing him as someone with a brand, and trying to often sell you something and that something being often expensive (which isn’t his fault that’s how it often is in the occult world and  he does this for a living), who’s work I purchased finding it very hit or miss, is because Satan and my other demons defended him avidly to me, which they haven’t done for other occultists, and I still sometimes frequent his BALG forum, where the people be it misled in my opinion and often beginners to intermediate say for the mods, do have interesting things to say, and the right spirit about them.

So yeah Ellwood’s work is all your gona find published about pop culture systems, which is really a shame. I always say and feel free to parot this, that tumblr, reddit, tick tock, facebook, and the like are terrible terrible terrible places to learn about magick! I have seen so many idiots on this platform it’s ridiculous. Even the blogs that are supposed to be truth speakers are idiots. (This isn’t magick? are total hacks and you can quote me on that). 

Glitchcraft is a very interesting subject. It’s a subject I’m not afraid to talk about on this blog because of the “Olive Brimstone” alias I’ve constructed! I created “Olive Brimstone” to talk about, Pop culture magick and reality shifting. That’s mainly it. While my demons (of the Goetia) have mainly steered me away from reality shifting, I plan to return to it, and maybe even publish my diary on it! Mixed with a few philosophical essays and information that I’ve gathered.

I’m not new to self publishing I have two books out under a seperate, seperate pen name, and two more books coming out under my real name fairly soon.

I have had really really bad experiences with pop culture magick. Back when I was insane (which you can read about in my journal but why would you that thing is so fucking thick to read from start to finish-) but I have “done it’ so to speak.

I have a distinct lack of respect for a good deal of otherkin and in general I don’t think one can be based off pop culture magick alone and if you start working with gods, demons and spirits, and you are otherkin? They’ll snap you out of that real quick, especially if you choose to work with pop culture spirits. 

You: I’m Kaneki

Kaneki: No your fuking not

Still I might talk about it on this blog. I implore you as I do all witches, to use the “glitchcraft” hashtag. It was coined by my good friend Steller.Chaos who you can find on TickTock. Which again, terrible terrible place to learn magick! Popculture magick suffers because online and tumblr and the like is the only real place to learn about it! Which was my original point that I lost do to my rambling. I would suggest be skeptical, and proceed with caution, but if you think you can handle it, do so but do so with care. Good luck to you and everyone on their glitchcraft journey.

-Olive Brimstone