Tag: Extremely Online

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Politics

Day 609 and Dark Brandon Rising

I really don’t know why I’m commenting at all on it except that capturing some of immediate sentiment of the moment has some value. But I watched Joe Biden’s Soul of America speech.

I wasn’t planning to but the siren call of the Twitter feed sucked me in. Like the rest of America, I feel the call of the discourse. And I have to say I’m surprised yet again at how divergent it feels.

I saw Dark Brandon Rising memes come to life. Our usually stumbling gaff prone president was on fire. Literally as the background was red. I want to know what they pumped him up with. And I don’t think it was a playlist. But he seemed passionate and he made as decent a play for the values of democratic norms as I’ve ever heard. But he also did it on a red lit stage with marines and the imagery of the presidency and norms means pearl clutching from all sides.

I don’t think it’s bad to call out that Trumpism involves election denialism. January 6th has a clear message even if it lacked finesse. It’s not like we are seeing Americans at their best after two years of pandemic. I suppose I recognize that it’s insulting and maybe insidious to say that some people are worse than others. But differences of opinions become a bit less valid when one wants representative democracy and one acts like brute power is fine if it serves their interests.

I felt like it came across decently and relatively unifying and I’m sad that this is a position that is contrarian or in dispute. I’m no fan of the man but I also don’t want to become Argentina or Albania. America is supposed to be better.

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Internet Culture

Day 599 and The Lamentations of Their Women

A bunch of people asked me about what happened to me on Twitter over the weekend. I’d been hitting a bunch of different niche communities like startup Twitter, finance Twitter, doomer Twitter, and discourse Twitter with a thread that has a bunch of extremely extra and occasionally outright hostile weirdos saying reactionary shit.

I think it all started when my friend Ashley wrote a post about the commodification of women’s bodies. She was responding to another piece of discourse and found herself getting dog piled by one of the most irritating but unavoidable portions of the the internet; reactionary angry young men.

I didn’t like that Ashley was getting ripped for functionally agreeing with right coded, socially conservative men. I thought “damn, you can’t win with them”.

Entering the Fray

I decided to jump in and tease some of these boys. My inner child loves to shitpost as she finds humor and playfulness protective. I promptly got blocked. I went about my business. Now that I live on our homestead in Montana, I’ve got a lot of chores.

But I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I kept discussing the damn discourse. I expressed my concern that we’ve got such an intense population of reactionary young men who act as if they are perpetually victimized. I expressed empathy for how men are getting screwed and mostly got told it is women’s fault. It did some numbers but it wasn’t going into a context collapse situation just yet. Basically another day on Twitter.

The thread started out with all of the empathy and good faith I’ve come to expect from niche Twitter. We avoided purity politics. Tucker graciously discussed his own journey and how he let go of anger and began taking responsibility for himself and his family. Jack made some jokes. A number of internet friends discussed the varied ways they handled the systemic discrimination that some masculine virtues experience in modernity. Much wisdom was shared about how different they had grown up to be men.

Later that night I wrote a throwaway post about how we’ve got a crisis of masculinity and maybe only other men can get through to angry young boys? I suggested that perhaps right coded men who discuss modern masculinity would have an easier time reaching them. I tagged Tucker Max and Jack Murphy as men who seem to have done a good job taking responsibility for their own lives.

I basically went to bed with a sense that people had been good to each other. And I didn’t really notice being quote tweeted by a niche main character in groyper Twitter or what it would mean for my tomorrow.

It Escalates

His thread contained the following:

  • A very intense discussion of the ethics of doing butt stuff and posting about your experience with polyamory and cuckcolding.
  • The ethics of charging for coaching and clubs and whether one can have masculine virtue if your wife sleeps with other men.
  • A surprising amount of hysterics about what constitutes hypocrisy if one claims to be masculine.

Basically a bunch of people who haven’t figured out their own shadow lives told me exactly how uncomfortable they were with other people’s sex lives.

But honestly it was just so much fucking butt stuff.

Unfortunately that visibility of discourse meant I suddenly got flooded with harassment. A coordinated re-tweeting campaign began. People started digging into back posts and old news headlines. My direct messages got flooded with threats against me and my husband. It was definitely enough that we started thinking about security around the homestead.

I can only assume someone’s group chat or some message board was like “look at the phenotype on this bitch”. And to be fair, some people came with good jokes about venture capitalists moving to Montana. But then there was the graphically racist, as in, “oh we still have Nazis” plot twist. I realized I might need to actually start blocking people. I felt modestly disappointed as I hadn’t been dogpiled in a long time. But protecting myself was more important.

Why

Now you can ask why am I even stepping into these spaces if they contain this kind of abuse? What can I say there is a part of me who enjoys a frisson of danger. The feminine urge to protect our menfolk often runs head long into the reality that they can be dangerous. Walking into male spaces has inherent risks if you take up space in public life.

I have to be honest honest with myself that there is a breed of men who considers all public spaces to be male. I am an offense to them even if I am in the process of lamentation for our men. The space I take up by existing with different preferences is proof enough I am an enemy to be subjugated.

So I guess I owe anyone I teased about blocking on Twitter an apology. There are some people in too much pain out there. And I am not in anyway responsible for their emotional health. Only they can choose to let go of the pain.

Categories
Politics

Day 598 and Reactionaries

I’m not entirely sure what possessed me to engage with a bunch of disposed reactionary young men on Twitter this weekend but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I took some pleasure in it. Cognitive dissonance and copium can feel like an amusing game if you don’t think too hard about the pain behind it. And I saw a lot of pain in the responses to me.

My husband asked me if we should increase security at the homestead. I told him I wasn’t sure if these boys were up to more than larping but in truth I’m not sure if teasing groypers and trolls is dangerous or not. The real danger is civilizational. We’ve got angry, disaffected, and emotionally violent men with nowhere to go and nothing constructive to do. Our politics reflects it but only barely.

What happens when the reactionaries go beyond Roe v Wade and clip the wings of democracy? Will the 19th amendment be up for discussion? You’d be surprised at what the discourse is considering at the moment. For all the whining about cancel culture, we’ve never had so much open consideration of rolling back modern liberalism.

I guess I’m glad that we are having conversations about the success of our current political and civilizational social contracts and whether or not some of our choices were failures. But if any of these boys thinks I’m giving up even an iota of the freedom to be responsible for my own life, well, they have got a surprise coming in.

Categories
Politics

Day 594 and Feminine Mystique

I spent my morning desperately trying to distract myself from the pain of menstrual cramps. It’s my first period being without the luxury of living on a city sewer and I am modestly grossed out by having to roll up my tampons in toilet paper and toss them in a tiny trash can.

If you haven’t had your own private septic system, well here is a lesson in rural living. You can’t be putting big globs of cotton into them. Technically you shouldn’t be flushing tampons into any kind of plumbing anywhere. But who amongst us hasn’t done so. Flushable wipes are a lie that big butt wipe has put a lot of marketing dollars into.

Were you uncomfortable reading that? I bet you were. The indignities of embodied life are plentiful but we especially dislike hearing about women and their reproductive system. Don’t trust an animal that can bleed for three days and not die amirite?! Something super mundane that is the reality for half the planet is treated as incredibly foreign and disgusting. I totally love how it makes me feel like a monster just for being human.

I am feeling this particularly acutely because the discourse around women and their rights is at a nasty place in America. We are barely a month out from Roe v Wade being overturned in America and the horror stories are pouring in. The curtain has been pulled back to reveal some unattractive realities.

And I’m not even talking about just abortion. A whole slew of reactionary positions are being floated by the Moldbug crowd and spun up into adjacent meme spaces by feral readers of Bronze Age Pervert. They are happily chatting away about the failures of liberalism and chief amongst them is women’s right to vote. It’s not at all shocking to hear open discussion about how the franchise should only be open to land owning heads of family. So naturally sorry women. It just follows.

I’m getting a lot of pushback from more progressive men (and by that I mean anyone who thinks women voting isn’t up for debate) on my feeds absolutely confident this isn’t happening. No one could possibly believe this they assure me. It seems so shocking to them. But I’m here to stare back into your soul and say “honey please.” It’s all up for debate when people are hungry and angry.

But since you need convincing. I’m telling you that regular people with normalcy bias have already decided I have less bodily autonomy than you. What makes you think these reactionaries have any respect for my franchise if you didn’t even notice the right to chose mattered.

It’s offensive to say this as women have never had more rights but also I’m still a second class citizen. And I’m a white married lady so I know how fragile my perch is and how very high in this delicate dénouement of the battle of the sexes. Progress is fragile. Branches can snap.

Categories
Politics

Day 592 and Politicians

We say we want accountable politicians but then we punish them when they hold firm positions. Principled politicians are begging ravages right now. Of course, they reward our fickleness with their own. It makes political discourse a conduit for performing accountability instead of doing it.

If a politician cannot hold a viewpoint or position that you disagree with but still holds your generation support, we’ve stopped having a civic body and instead developed into rabid fandoms. And we wonder why the leading lights of both parties only pay respects to their most radical members. Everyone gets abandoned in that situation. Your only options are bad ones.

I say this because I think it is time we started endorsing politicians for who they are as people, even if their policy positions might not align with yours. Trusting someone because they have demonstrated good faith is a social good. We should strive to be accountable to each other even in total opposition. That’s the only way anyone will ever build systems in which any of us are free. Otherwise it’s coercion anyway you slice it. And what’s fucked up is you probably know it but are ready to argue me on the technicals.

We have to expect others to have principles in order have them respect our own. That’s always been the fundamentally libertarian platform. That others have the freedom to hold firm in their own version of the good life and we should have our good life respected as well. Live and let live.

If just coercing someone to your side is enough for you, if mere compulsion is an adequate civilizational goal, then by all means reconsider if you are American. It’s an imperfect union.

Me having a line means that you can have a line too. Our respect for boundaries is what allows us to interact as adults capable of ring responsible for our own actions. Maybe it’s not ways to our advantage. But having a line means you can be trusted. And being trust worthy is safety.

Categories
Finance

Day 590 and Demography

User acquisition is my little niche in the startup world. While all founders are generalists my super power has always been getting the attention of customers. So I often enjoy little illustrative moments where basic principles of finding and speaking to your audience go awry.

I have tweeted extensively about my concern in the rising cost of core agriculture commodities in the face of shitstorm in the fertilizer markets. This isn’t that novel if you work in finance but it’s probably not a large group of people that are actively discussing fertilizer costs. I do not however buy fertilizer personally. I don’t finance it.

In the face of rising interest rates, partnering with Nutrien Financial™ can help you prepare for the future with confidence. Our latest blog post explores why financing your input purchases may be beneficial to your operation:🔗 nutrienagsolutions.com/blog/5-Reasons… #AgFinancing

I was served a tweet for Nutrien Financial. They would like me to consider financing my crop inputs. In fairness to this promoted tweet the final demographic detail Twitter may know about me is that I live on rural land with agricultural use zoning. I see how I got targeted. And I am delighted to be served this piece of thought leadership from them. But I’m not in anyway their customers base even though I mimic a lot that matches them.

Let’s compare this to another group of advertisements that targeted me this week. I got several pieces of direct mail in my physical USPS post. These folks knew that I had recently purchased a forwarding service from the USPS to make sure old post from my former Colorado address would reach my new one in Montana. Let’s take a look at what they advertised to me based on that piece of information.

A spread of several catalogs and promotional mailers for home furniture, blinds and window treatments and rural road paving services.

It looks likes advertisers who want to reach married couples that have recently forwarded their mail to a new address might be in the market for furniture, window treatments and also I guess rural road paving services. That one might be a rural Montana thing so slightly more niche.

Advertisers argue a lot about high intent audiences. That basically means someone who is likely to buy your product or service. Lots of people can fall into the typical demographic of what you sell but judging if if they are likely to be persuaded to make a purchase can save you a lot of money. Don’t sell to someone who isn’t buying.

Sure you can convince someone they want something with aspirations and glamour but you have to be able to be convinced. It’s a lot easier to do that for a lipstick than a couch. Significantly harder to do for rural road paving I imagine (though I’ve never done it so I can’t be sure). The hardest has got to be financial products for large scale industrial agriculture purchases. Finding people with high intent to buy fertilizer seems pretty specific.

Marketers can and do try to gussy up these facts with fancy languages but getting attention and selling to people that want to pay attention are basic. I’m not the tactics aren’t complex and the work can’t get extremely technical but at least we know we are working with human desires. And I think it’s important to think through that when planning a campaign. Don’t want to overspend on convincing someone who isn’t even in the market to be convinced.

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Aesthetics Internet Culture

Day 588 and Skills Deficit

Today’s most exceptional viral Tweet is a Pyschology Today listicle that says the quiet part out loud. Men are lonely and struggling with how to fix the problem because women are higher expectations for relationships. I’m sure you are shocked by this.

A screen shot of a Psychology Today article summary that has circled the first bullet point in a red MS paint-style bubble. The circled text says “Dating opportunities for heterosexual men are diminishing as healthy relationship standards change.”

Apparently women prefer to be in relationship with men who are good communicators and emotionally available. That common sense piece of wisdom naturally caused the internet to erupt in mirth because I guess last week someone’s husband ate a peach. Women be asking for men to do more than be a paycheck and this has had mixed reception.

I struggle to understand some of the feminine discourse around husbands that don’t do any emotional or housework. My husband does most of the cooking. But I do worry about the fact that men don’t seem to be aware that you can fix not getting laid or struggling to keep a woman around just by learning some social loops. The pick up artist community wasn’t completely wrong that some aspects of dating are just techniques anyone can learn and it does help you build confidence.

I am happily married and missed the worst of the dating apps so my advice might be for shit but I do want help any lonely men out their with their up- skilling if they feel lost. I’m happy to help as your favorite male-brained autist that happens to be packaged as a cute but accessible girl. I’m basically a honeypot for right coded shape rotators. Except you can’t have me so I’m definitely safe to talk to. You too can learn how to communicate with women and even participate in hypergamy.

Categories
Aesthetics Biohacking

Day 587 and Transhumanism is Here

The wealthy are now dramatically better looking than the average person. This is not because because beauty is somehow genetically distributed more heavily to the rich but because you can buy good looks. I bet you are agreeing with me. Maybe nodding. You watch tv. But I’d be willing to bet you’d be surprised by how much work has been done because the good shit is discreet. It looks natural. Super natural.

The horrifying frozen faces, super symmetrical gravity defying boobs, and super puffy dick-sucking-lips are low status cosmetic work now. It’s what you get if you are either poor or have low status taste you haven’t yet figured out how to get rid of. You can tell and I can tell and everyone else can tell you had work done. Maybe you even like it. Porn is it’s own very popular aesthetic.

But looking like you are naturally beautiful requires a bit finesse. And wealthy beauty is natural. It’s more Napa Valley than San Fernando. I’d argue it’s not any less fake but but it’s so perfectly crafted as to aspire to the most believably close to natural as possible. In some cases it’s functionally transhuman at the rate they biohack their looks. Permanently shifting the Overton Window of beauty levels is arising.

Now good health is closely aligned culturally in our minds with good looks. That’s bullshit in a lot of critical ways but also broadly true in enough ways that it is common knowledge. So it feels truthy. This naturally brings up a lot of politics as to who deserves the world’s wealth and how do we determine that. “It’s the true and the beautiful obviously!” And well you can see it’s not a huge leap to fascism’s aesthetics.

I think we will see a backlash against slowing aging in noticeable ways. We will have a new hippie back to the land era of aging naturally. Except people will cheat it. We will hack finer and finer grades of the natural look to signal we value traditionalism but in reality the battle is over. Transhumanism may solve for longevity but it’s going to arrive by vanity.

Categories
Community Preparedness

Day 572 and Internet Barn Raising

About twenty four hours ago the first “crisis” of the move to Montana appeared on the horizon. The very expensive, and corporate, moving company we’d hired called to cancel on our move to Montana. Three days before the move date. Which we cannot change as new tenants are moving into our soon to be former townhouse.

At first they claimed it was a lack of trucks and then it was a lack of labor. It was some series of issues you hear more and more of during these crumbling times. It was messy and chaotic. I’m not entirely sure on the full timeline or set of excuses as my husband Alex is “king” of the move as he’s the operational talent in the family. I’m just here to follow his edicts. The details are not completely crucial to the wider lesson.

We put out the bat signal that we were in trouble. We tweeted and put questions out in Discord. What do we do? What our options? Our extended community sprang into action. People called with truck rentals suggestions. People sent over recommendations for labor and talent. People called in favors to locate what we needed on both ends. And the truly incredible part is that people physically showed up. Like get on an airplane level. And more than one of them offered to physically come out.

I don’t want to put any identities on blast as not everyone is quite as social on social media as I am. But our internet community is all very much active and close in our lives. And it just showed. In ways that I don’t know I fully appreciated until we were in the lurch.

A dear fellow traveler friend who has been an “internet friend” for sometime, but because of the pandemic hasn’t been able to IRL with us, offered to get on an airplane and help us drive up the truck. We bought them a ticket. Locked it in. Let’s finally do the bonding. The perfect synchronicity of social capital and actual capital solving a problem money alone couldn’t fix. Because there are some things money can’t buy and you almost always learn what in a crisis.

Members of our preparedness community (some of whom will soon be our actual physical neighbors in Montana) stepped in as well. They also offered to fly down and help on our Colorado front end. A truly astonishing gesture of friendship and community. Alex coordinated on our end to meet them on arrival. A veritable barnstorming of new neighbors is set to welcome us. And we aren’t even their actual physical neighbors yet. The trust and humility one must have to welcome people in like this.

My heart must have grown a size in one day. It was a balm for any kind of civilization cynicism I might have harbored. Our people showed up. I’ve got tears in my eyes just thinking about it. I will say that our special interest in resilience and connection has been key in this whole beautiful experience.

Our people are those who feel the concerns of modernity and atomization, but who rather than blame our technical tools like social medics for decay simply leverage them to bring us all back to our humanity. If America is in for harder times, I’ve never been more optimistic about the people that will survive them together with me.

Categories
Internet Culture

Day 570 and Fuck Boys

I’m a little too old to have ever thirst trapped. It isn’t that I wasn’t aggressively on social media when I was younger and single but the forms and semiotics of the space hadn’t codified yet. Clout was a lot more protean in 2014.

I’m absolutely fascinated by how much sexual status is now played out by your consumption choices on Instagram and Tik Tok. You filter it because your dating apps remove you so completely from the context of each other’s lives. No one meets through friends anymore. The apps have dominated costal enclaves in particular.

This atomization is affecting our our behavior in some negative ways. The more we moderate our professional profile the harder it is to discern morals and intent absent from your best marketed self.

Everyone is signaling in a giant sexual market place where even electricians have to worry about personal brand. And this is the origin of the fuck boy I suspect. There is a kind of man (and I’d argue woman too) that just doesn’t play by fair emotional rules. People get atomized and they get comfortable using other people independent of their own agency to consent. Power and status has never been less clear.

This is all on the backdrop of a world where sexual mores are being restricted back to retrograde positions previously only held by the reactionary right last generation. Everyone else got a whole lot chiller about advertising their sexual lives just as the new generation of prudes would rise up. But also maybe everyone just wanted to go back to being prude. Vibe shifts are coming at you fast.

Our elites have never been more promiscuous. Everyone is fucking each other but not so discreetly as there once did in our British colonial past. Our gossip columnists have fewer boundaries and besides everyone knows visibility is good.

But if you had ever considered that you might hold yourself to more relaxed standards of acceptable social relationships well that was a mistake. You plebeians better shape up and go with the conservative social family ideal. Even the gays. Especially the gays. I’d buckle up for some rapidly shifting cultural waters as I don’t know where this goes but I’m not optimistic.