November 2024

Take Another Bite

By in extraordinary popular delusions, jests japes jokes jollies, media/propaganda, the geist of the zeit

Oliver Bateman:

But the mask always cracks eventually. Maybe the creator changes political teams and the commenters revolt. Maybe the audience demands ever-nuttier content the creator won’t provide. Maybe fellow creators smell weakness and move in for the kill. Or maybe, just maybe, the creator realizes anyone dumb enough to blindly follow him while paying for the privilege is an absolute lunatic. The result is always the same: blood in the digital water.

The comments fill with betrayal. How could you do this to us? We supported you. We believed in you. We were your frens. The creator’s response reveals the truth both sides denied: this was always a parasocial transaction, never a genuine “I/thou” relationship.

A creator’s audience will defend them against any criticism, until the moment they don’t. Then the same passionate defenders become even more passionate attackers. The parasocial delusion breaks, but the intensity remains. Hell hath no fury like a follower scorned.

There’s been a lot of talk about the ongoing political realignment, in which the left/right coalitions that have held since the mid-20th century have fallen apart and reassembled along different lines. A minor variation on that theme, one which I am enjoying greatly, is liberals becoming the equivalent of the toothless rasslin’ fans of yore going apoplectic at the shenanigans in the ring. The internet made it impossible for fans of sports entertainment to earnestly believe in it, but somehow, it seems to have made political marks even more gullible.

Shake the slab of flesh
Taunting for a fetch
Time to ring the chime
Whet the appetite
Teeth are grinding tight
Reinforcing life
Drooling down the side
Eyes are bulging wide
Yes, the price is right
The cut is very tough
Gristle’s good enough
They all need a bite
The cut is very tough, you bit the big bluff
Take another bite

— Prong, “Prime Cut“

Better Late Than Never

By in books

Fellow fans of Theodore Dalrymple’s essays, rejoice; for I have made a serendipitous discovery. Nothing but Wickedness: Idleness, Madness, and the Culture of Decline, his out-of-print? never-printed? long-delayed? book, is finally being released this week. I pre-ordered my copy from Blackwell’s. Hurry up and get one before it disappears into limbo again.

What Toys We Are

By in jests japes jokes jollies, the geist of the zeit

“And what he thinks — and what I think, too — is that it just shows what toys we are in the hands of Fate, if you know what I mean. I mean to say, it’s no good worrying and trying to look ahead and plan and scheme and weigh your every action, if you follow me, because you never can tell when doing such-and-such won’t make so-and-so happen — while, on the other hand, if you do so-and-so it may just as easily lead to such-and-such.”

— P.G. Wodehouse, “Fate,” Young Men in Spats