• @[email protected]
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    543 months ago

    Rogan’s entire career was predicated on the normalisation of reactionary right-wing beliefs/prejudices. He was the motte to the bailey of the Thiels and Bannons, easing perfectly normal dudes along the path, one casual joke at the expense of minorities at a time. And for a while it worked, to the point where Spotify bet the company on him. And then, the word “weird” entered the discourse, and people realised that casual cruelty and obsessing about strangers’ genitals weren’t the time-honoured values of a silent majority.

    It would suck to be holding Spotify shares right now.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil
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      3 months ago

      And then, the word “weird” entered the discourse, and people realised that casual cruelty and obsessing about strangers’ genitals weren’t the time-honoured values of a silent majority.

      Eh, we’ll see. I remember a lot of people thinking “#MeToo” was going to put a hard stop to sexual harassment in the workplace. And, for a brief moment, it did look like our social norms and criminal justice system would maybe do the right thing. But then the reactionaries got even more reactionary. Now we’re debating whether rape victims should bleed out on a hospital floor during an ectopic pregnancy while doctors huddle around fearful of losing their licenses if they try to provide treatment.

      Joe Rogan isn’t going away. If anything, his fascist dogwhistling seems to be bringing in more and more rabid dogs to his cult community in Austin, TX. My home state has never felt more fucked than it does today. Old enough to remember when “Keep Austin Weird” was charming. Not so much anymore.

      • @mojofrododojo
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        53 months ago

        imho you have a lot more to deal with vis-a-vis greg abbot and the GOP menstrual militia. Rogan’s a clown who’s gonna die shitting on the toilet. He has influence, but guys, Texas, for fuck’s fucking sake, look around at the dystopia you’ve built for women, Rogan doesn’t rate on the scale of Abbot and Ken “CAN’T INDICT ME” Paxton. You have much bigger, much worse, more pressing problems.

        Like Ercot lol.

        Rogan’s a fuckwit. You’ve got real problems.

        And musk!

        • @UnderpantsWeevil
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          53 months ago

          Rogan’s a clown who’s gonna die shitting on the toilet. He has influence, but guys, Texas, for fuck’s fucking sake, look around at the dystopia you’ve built for women

          Rogan is a vector for the hysteria that makes Abbott popular. Right wing media does a great job of creating scapegoats and bogeymen that distract from material reality.

          A guy who has been pivotal in mainstreaming anti-Trans fear mongering, hatred and fear of feminists and foreigners, and this fight club fascism is a big part of what makes conservative policy electorally viable.

      • @[email protected]
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        43 months ago

        I would bet that just like with “woke”, the right is going to take “weird” and use it. It’s what they do. They are the masters of projection, and love name calling. They’re shameless, too, so if you call them something, they just take it and turn it around. I am positive if this “weird” name calling campaign catches on, it will just become another right wing buzzword.

        • @[email protected]
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          43 months ago

          They’ll have a harder time appropriating “weird” and making it work as a self-label for their normative, dominance-oriented ideology. They’re quite happy with being seen as fearsome hordes, barbarians at the gates, deplorables even, but they need to be seen to be representing the silent majority, and pushing back against a diversity imposed from above by (((those people))). “weird” punctures that and appropriating it whilst maintaining the rhetoric about purifying American society and purging it of liberal degeneracy would be one hell of a jiu-jitsu move.

          • @[email protected]
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            13 months ago

            “Yes I’m weird, and I should be. Jesus didn’t tell us to be of the world, he only told us to be in the world. We don’t conform to that world, and we never will. Don’t hide your light under that bushel, but stand against the darkness that threatens to creep in. Stand against the devil and his minions. Stand against transexuals, leftists, and the woke mob. Stand against the abortionists, the evolutionists, and the false god of science. And when you do, every brother and sister here will stand with you. And all God’s people say-” [crowd] ‘Amen!’.

            A preview of things to come. Please excuse me while I go rinse my brain out.

            • @[email protected]
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              13 months ago

              They’d first need to make “weird” an exclusionary term referring only to their particular weirdness, and nobody else. Foreign cultures, obscure hobbies, unusual sexual kinks, religious cults, psychedelic countercurrents and so on don’t get to be “weird” unless they’re part of the conservative counterrevolution. Which would require effectively stripping the word of its meaning. And then, a short time later, somebody would point out that they’re no closer to the great American norm they profess to defend than all these this that used to be called weird.

              Also, “in the world but not of the world” may work for initiates into the cult, but is no good for convincing swing voters that one represents the Silent Majority. Fundamentalists need to couch their dogma (no pun intended) in rationalisations that sound like something a normal person who’s not a cultist might believe.

    • @suction
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      53 months ago

      Are you sure about that timeline?