Dark Brandon is fandom culture

For a very few people, the first Trump term was a live-action role-playing game; for everyone else, it was a YouTube channel.

And in Trump’s second term so far? Nothing. Even the rally numbers are way down. National conservatives who might have gone out to meet each other in 2017 are hunkering at home alone in their living rooms, swiping back and f... See more

But I think perhaps the main element in Musk’s radicalization is simply the feedback loop of the internet - Musk has millions of fan-boys cheering on his every lurch to the right, every tweet about immigration or Anthony Fauci or the ‘woke mind virus’. He’s a transhumanist enslaved by his own machine, a wizard deceived by the demon algorithm which ... See more

Even then, the frame itself might be useful. At a personal level perhaps it’s worth remembering that those feelings of outrage—you know the kind, the ones that fill you with such anger you just have to speak out right now , the kind where you’re summoned as if by strings to contribute your little piping neuronal voice to that huge ongoing mind of t... See more