Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

“I’m out of groceries” is some kind of uncanny valley of language. It doesn’t sound right but it’s not wrong either.

"out of groceries"
About 7,490,000 results (0.42 seconds)

have to be more specific

"well dear it looks like the grocery store ran out of groceries"
About 7,489,999 results (0.42 seconds)

"i'm out of groceries"
About 1 result (600 seconds)

https://www.thefabulous.co/qa/what-is-your-go-to-meal-when-running-low-on-groceries/

so alienated from the concept of "food" are the fabulous

tbh I think "we're out of groceries" is fine and "I'm out of food" is correct but the singular "I'm out of groceries" sounds wrong

You're out of food
I'm out of groceries
But I'm out of my head
When you're not around

i'm so lost but i'll probably never watch that and find out what the hell's going on

in certain parts of new orleans you make groceries

We're just dancing around the fact that we all love each other very much

xp❤️

cushvlog grillstream is a go: https://t.co/dtkkrteC4h & https://t.co/PFQ96jw5zj

— bad posts for bad people (@saywhatagain) September 9, 2020

Briahna Joy Gray and Virgil have a new podcast.

first ep ft. Glenn. seems like a great way to keep tedious bullshit safely stowed away on a pod I'll never listen to.

I assume it's going to be wonkier and that's a hard pass from me. The Virgil and Matt horserace episodes were unlistenable

yeah, the only two strains of content I need from any of these ppl are the reading series and some of Matt's more cogent/reflective big-picture solo stuff. and as little amber as possible

and the occasional movie ep. I ended up watching and sort of loving Assassin 33 AD.

xxxpost sounds like it will be better than CTH to be honest

Hit/ miss ratio def ain’t what it once was but I still get a lot out of it. Last one on the main feed was good as hell imo

Not all the way through the Pepe episode but really enjoying it. Will is such a sharp and articulate guy and a very good interviewer, and I think his energy gets kind of squashed by the others at times, or he focuses it more on keeping the show moving. I'm sort of bored of Felix and Amber and Virgil and would really listen a lot more to content consisting solely of Matt's rantings and Will's interviews.

Pepe episode was very good - they are often good at those kinds of episodes when they aren't filling space as they often seem to be recently.

Amber should stick to writing - this book review / screed is solid.

As it functions now, a hashtag campaign is largely an exercise in liberal networking. It offers in-group recognition, the illusion of power, the potential for moral absolution, and sometimes, conveniently enough, professional advantages for the enterprising white-collar progressive. For the more earnest social justice advocate — who probably works at a “job” rather than a “career” — Twitter allows them to participate in “the conversation,” where they can bear witness to suffering among like-minded people, even if it results in little more than a collective, therapeutic wailing into the privately owned digital void. If the authors’ political goals are largely PR campaigns, therapy, and consciousness raising for a more merciful middle class, it’s fair to say that Twitter has been wildly successful.

Only a few paragraphs of #HashtagActivism refer to the potentially nefarious machinations of Twitter — and they are all buried in the book’s afterword. In a publication about politics on social media, fewer than six pages are dedicated solely to the politics of social media. Net neutrality, surveillance, censorship, trolls, misinformation campaigns, and bots all appear to be minor concerns in the otherwise auspicious estimation of Twitter as a powerful and positive force. The authors do, however, appear to be concerned about Russiagate.

This paranoid insularity and PMC subculturalism can only exacerbate atomization and political obscurantism, even more than the New Left ever could. Yet there is a resistance to any consideration of its weaknesses, and a failure to even to address its potential detriments. Much of this stems from a fetish for novelty that has flourished since the cultural turn pronounced the death of dusty old class politics. Social media’s newness is taken as evidence of its potential, even when its own partisans write a book explicitly chronicling its 100 percent failure rate. At the heart of this denial is an ideology of will; this has to work, because it’s all that we have left — all the while, its greatest advocates sing its praises amid an unbroken record of defeat.

https://catalyst-journal.com/vol4/no2/the-poisoned-chalice-of-hashtag-activism

They're very good at selling movies that otherwise sound terrible.

The Richard Jewell ep really is driving home how the majority of modern media critics are either too craven or too stupid to actually do their jobs anymore

yeah I actually stopped listening partway through cause I decided to actually watch it, which is impressive because I hate every latter-day Clint movie I've seen

the long TrueAnon interview w/ Mike Davis is some really heavy shit. Do not listen if you can't handle a heavy dose of (totally reasonable) pessimism.

(also spookily well-timed as I'd started in on Old Gods, New Enigmas that same morning)

yeah that was a heavy listen

what the FUCK is Johnny Knoxville doing on this DSA fundraiser endorsing @Bradshaw2020!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/ozGtdtPl4y

— Henry Druschel (@henrydruschel) October 5, 2020

Putting the dirtbag in dirtbag left.

good for him

Pretty fun episode but what on earth was amber going for with her “lol libs think the virus transmits through the air” thing?

do not feed the amber

Gets hard for me to listen to an Amber episode anymore

eh her “bad takes” still I still really appreciate when she does stuff like deep dives on Kim Klacik etc.

ok that one got away from me—

her “bad takes” still make me consider things in ways I hadn’t

As for the libs and Covid I need to relisten bc it sounded like there was some talking past each other and she got in the weeds with her original point.

she said something about how liberals thought covid was an airborne toxic event, which is pretty imaginative on her part

yeah I wasn’t following her riff at all there but I feel fairly confident she understands (as well as any non-insane layperson) that CV-19 can spread through airborne transmission

I mean you can feel confident about that but she said what she said

anyway she doesn’t need me to cape for her. I dig her most of the time and I’m sure it’s not easy being on a pod with preternaturally good bullshitters like Felix or Matt

I mean you can feel confident about that but she said what she said

It felt like she was reaching really hard to do a both sides thing.

I didn't listen to that, but tbf the virus on one hand does techinically transmit "through the air" -- however not in the way that most people might assume without more info. It's not like you just get into an elevator someone positive rode in and get COVID, or get it from a passing jogger -- at least such transmission is extremely unlikely. Most transmission is still from prolonged (and especially maskless) exposure, it's just that it can occur in spaces where people are more than 6 feet apart if there's poor ventilation.

I didn't even notice Amber on transmission, was busy rolling my eyes at her arguments about this buying him sympathy votes (and rapidly backtracking).

Would not have expected Matt to be putting out by far the most Chapo content.

listened to the Antifada pod (never heard it before, no idea if it’s gen Good or Bad) w him on Q and it’s pretty great. love a good rant and his often chemically influenced musings on Cushblogs, but Prof Cushbomb mode best imo

Jamie Peck is cool but I've never found the Antifada pod listenable.

the dude who hosts seems like an idiot and was always taking Ls on twitter when I used to use it

yeah it's only worth listening when there's a smart guest

good to know. Looks like the second half is behind the Patreon paywall and I shan’t be doing that. I’ll wait til it’s available by other means

the cushvlog audio feed is the best ever (or at least most reliable/consistent) content to come out of the entire dirtbag left imo