Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

Lucy's back!

Amber get off chapo

Lucy Biederman's voice reminds me of Joan Cusack

I don't listen to *** **** but I love Stavvy on his own

Sometimes Lucy's normal speaking voice sounds like Felix's 'nebbish Jewish cliche' voice.

why would someone dread reading ulysses. that book is fun as hell.

Oh man Chapo ripping off UYD

I cannot listen to audio of Ben Sasse talking, even if it is for them to roast. He's a particular brand of dumb that comes from Nebraska, he is bad, and he should not be allowed to speak in public.

the Maria Farmer interview on true Anon is really something

At this point Chapo is just a bunch of pedophile jokes

I didn't really know where else to put this and it seemed appropriate here. Deeply aggravating me rn

https://images.dailykos.com/images/810122/large/20210120NYTFrontPage.jpg?1590611913&fbclid=IwAR0TPxAVL4IAoIN0aXRIu6MJZAQLE3i0zogSrQ_c_lAz1NLUG_wCPO03DAk

lordy

I've been really enjoying True Anon lately, except for the Azealia episode which I obviously skipped. maybe they've toned it down a bit, or I've just gotten more used to them? their breakdown of the Tolentino saga was pretty good I thought

started listening to this week’s episode and gave up, the shit about “oh, the 1619 Project is ridiculous and historians are really worried about it being taught in schools and people only like it because Ben Shapiro hates it” - fuck off, even if it’s flawed do you think current standards of historical education are going to be lowered by this?

yeah that take did surprise me a little bit, like I do want to look into it a little more and I have occasionally had issues with Nikole Hannah-Jones on other stuff, but really?

lots of ppl have grievances with the 1619 Project, but a passing potshot was not the best way to handle it probably

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/27/1948057/-Preview-of-the-Front-Page-of-the-New-York-Times-Edition-for-January-20-2021 -- in case anyone doubted it was real.

Azealia episode is fine

that nytimes front page mockup is psychopath shit

the inclusion of Bezos gave me hope for a second that it was satire, but centrists are that depressingly clueless I guess.

A coworker posted it unironically as well. What's that well-known formulation about internet satire that can't be distinguished as satire?

Something about how you can't parody extreme views on the internet because there are always people who actually hold the views and will take your post seriously, or it's smarter than that but I can't put it together right now

so is this whole scene a bunch of edgy american liberals who call themselves leftists because they hate idpol or what

"so are there any real drugs at this party or what"

having gripes with the application of identity politics =/= outright hatred of same

anyway if yer looking for liberals who minimize issues of race could I recommend this popular strain

A gentle reminder that provoking racial conflict between Americans to weaken the US is a tactical goal the Russian military assault on our 2016 elections sought to achieve. And did. They’re doing the same right now. Trump is their surrogate, don’t forget.

— Xeni Jardin 😷🏠 (@xeni) May 29, 2020

insane person

it's patterns of griping and the types of people doing it that are revealing. pretty sure everyone knows this by now & has already decided whose side they're on so I'm just griping too

dippy centrist liberals are kind of an easy target don't you think

they keep making them is the problem

the cynical use of identity politics to shore up the status quo vs "idpol"

the Tolentino thing was a jawdropping example of "when 'idpol' goes wrong"

ok but I’ve seen way too many people being celebrated within the irony/chapo/dirtbag/jacobin sphere for attacking things from antifascism to black feminism to the existence of trans people to anything more radical than fordist nationalism as being the same neoliberal identity politics as whatever clintonite bs you care to name. basically everyone in this crowd pulls this disingenuous shite to varying degrees so I hate them all

(TW:idpol- influential white men on the left have been particularly fond of this slippery rhetorical move since long before podcasts)

attacking things from antifascism to black feminism to the existence of trans people

citation needed

Angela Nagle was/is a thing. that terrible k-punk essay from years ago which is like the sacred text of this semi-tendency

but this is like being asked to prove trump is racist

I kind of thought nagle got dropped by the chapo crowd when more about her came out, no?

also, attacking dippy centrist liberals is coming back because they just proved that they still have a pretty firm grip on the democratic party, so not sure why it matters if they are an "easy target"

yeah Nagle was on only when discussing her book which was pre-being-problematic

Red Scare on the other hand is fair game as always

yeah I got the sense that Nagle was a thing for 6 months when a wide swath of people thought she had some special insight into the online right, and everyone kinda edged away from her in the last few years.

it was very quick

re nagle: the “virgin tumblr / chad 4chan” book she was so celebrated for (at first) had enough heinous cancellable shit in it but anyone calling it out was accused of being idpol tumblr liberals with mental problems who probably had blue hair and made up pronouns. she was belatedly dropped by some when she made the game too obvious but it was always her main point & appeal

I read the book and it was way too slight to be offensive on its own

other than the typos and laziness of course

though I do like the theory that they had her on because she was a secret reactionary and not because she'd written the first(?) book exclusively on the subject of the alt-right, and then they stopped having her on when It Became Too Obvious

they had her on (& lefty media positively reviewed her etc) because she spoke to things that many lefties of a certain type felt but weren't sure if was safe to express esp in the wake of trump- comforting left chauvinists by telling them what they wanted to hear

Have you read the book or heard the episode? They had her on because the alt-right was still relatively new and not that well or consistently documented in its particularities (nor was it done sufficiently in the book)

tbc I am trying to recall shit from over 300 episodes previous here but I do not recall any leftbashing

also did you happen to notice that this thread is absolutely chock full of ppl who listen to/enjoy this stuff AND are critical of it? Wild I know

I skimmed parts of the book online. I think "non-military women with PTSD are faking it" and "lol @ all these pages of wacky pronouns reddit told me came from tumblr" are offensive enough on their own for a start. plus her conflation of indigenous criticism of trudeau's racism with liberal claims of HRC's feminism as part of the same tumblr bullshit is about the purest example of this whole anti-idpol equivocation game I can think of

she's not a unique villain just a great example because she's less cagey than most of her "ex" peers (who certainly still agree with her general thesis). my only point is that reaction couched in leftist anti-idpol language is Actually A Thing here not just an invention of annoying twitter blue checks. it's an investment for this whole new left media clique, it's a glue. convincing fans of this is not going to happen

i'm not telling anyone that listening to chapo makes you a bad person i'm just saying a thing that people say is fake or overblown is actually a thing and i don't like it

ofc this isn't just about chapo but enough now

Even ignoring Chapo you’re just waving your hand at all of the vaguely public left. It’s weird because pretty much everyone I can think of under the age of 40, for instance, is aggressively pro-trans rights.

You are always quite vague about who these enemies are.