FugaziArchivist

Maybe the solution is to stay off Twitter, but it's very disturbing to see the normalization of slurs happening in real time on there. White people saying the n-word with approval, the return of saying "gay" as a pejorative, lots of casual racism against Indian men, using the r-slur to describe something seen as stupid. I don't know whether this is a larger cultural lurch to the right, or whether it's mostly attributed to Musk's elimination of quality control and monitors on the platform.

I thought that during the 2020-2024 interim the Democrats were supposed to be building someone up for the next generation of the party. To no one's surprise, they've been doing exactly fuck-all for four years - but, for insiders who actually care about the party's future, who are they hanging their hat on? Voters' confidence in Kamala has tanked; Cuomo was maybe their man until the sexual harassment charges hit (side question: how was he able to skate on the nursing home scandal?). But anyway, who's the next empty neoliberal they'll run in future elections?

... and the whole expansion is a poison swamp?? Jk, although From Soft should just commit to the bit and troll us all.

The studio has seen the success of mainstream movies about consumer products, such as Air (Jordans), Barbie, Blackberry, Flamin' Hot Cheetos, Tetris, and the new Pop Tart one. They also figure that The Social Network took home some Oscars, so what the hell... Now they've hired you to write and direct a movie about Reddit and the average Redditor. What is the story about? Who's in it? How do you depict the cursed site?

I never watched it, but I've heard about this show both in passing and in "left spaces." Are any of these things true about it? Thanks.

--It is too on the nose with its social commentary. --The criticism it makes is obvious. --The subjects it tackles are low-hanging fruit of the digital era. --It is the stupid person's idea of a profound show. --Something about it being British led to more dunks on it. --The reason it entered left discourse in the first place is because it had potential as a critical text, but ultimately failed at it.

(If you're not on twitter, good for you, and you can ignore this). For everyone else: What's the deal with this annoying turbo-lib, Will Stancil? I don't know if this guy is getting DNC money or what. But he seems to be everywhere in "the discourse" now, quibbling about rent, inflation, wages, and line graphs. His message is that the left's pessimism is not commensurate with the reality of Bidenomics, and that economic conditions are good, actually. His logic is to then support the Democrats, who are looking out for us.

I keep seeing responses to his posts that say he has read the graphs wrong, that they're misused, and that he ignored other--more damning--graphs, etc. He then replies by saying it's his critics, in fact, who've misread the graphs (which is happening in a current fight he's in with Nate Silver lol). But my question is: a small uptick in wage here, a small drop in inflation there, maybe ketchup is cheaper... isn't this all moot anyway? We know that capitalism and imperialism form labor aristocracies at one pole and slums at the other pole, and that sure, wages can go up, but as Marx says in Capital, "the profit of capital rises disproportionately faster."

So something can be subjectively true and objectively false at the same time. Wages go up, but the whole system is rigged against us proles. If you miss the big picture as Stancil does, then you're left ignoring the vast disparities in wealth that capitalism has wrought. I mean, fuckin' a, even mainstream news reported that the ten richest people doubled their wealth during COVID. It's been known that there's something like $15 trillion stored in offshore bank accounts, untaxed. Meanwhile there is something like 1 billion people consigned to live in slums around the world. Anyway, I'm just irked by the dude and wondered why (a) he wasn't getting ratio-ed on twitter, and (b) no one was making this bigger picture argument about wealth disparity--at least that I noticed. Most of the dunks were limited to his misinterpretation of data.

The content of CushVlogs often veers into religious commentary (the most recent one especially). Why do you think Matt is so invested in it? I'm wondering if it's due to one or more of the following reasons: Americans are uniquely religious, so trying to divine anything about their politics requires interpreting their faith. Or: Part of being a revolutionary is believing in a prophecy that an ultimate goal will be achieved one day--a goal there's not much concrete evidence for--and in this way the revolution is faith based. Or: Studying religion comes with the territory of being a history buff (things like Luther and the Hundred Years War midwifing capitalism onto the world stage, etc). Or: Matt is obsessed with his mortality and is more and more curious about the big "Why are we here" questions. The reason I ask is because I don't hear much analysis of religion in left spaces now, and I think there's somewhat of a vacuum left by the Bush-era /stem cell-era libs who would call out jesus camps, televangelists, and mega-churches. (Like, that part of the culture war was deemed over by 2008-09)

And then we never heard from them again? The Dems were like, "oh no, blame that damn Parliamentarian who you've definitely heard of before, and who has a totally legit position that overpowers everyone, especially Harris and Biden." That was great.

Some guy will post a picture of a pretty standard looking pepperoni pizza and say: "Imagine not living in new york." And then there's the whole bodega discourse, which is also funny. "For you non-new yorkers, let me explain: a bodega is not a corner store. It's a place where you can buy gatorade, toilet paper, AND eggs." Thank you sir for explaining that to a slack-jawed yokel such as myself.