For reasons I can’t fully articulate tonight, this image almost perfectly encapsulates the past few years. Wild German romanticism combined with a perfectly timed message to the media. Things that don’t go, but somehow share a spirit.
Even the cropping (vs the original painting) somehow works in this context.
To answer my question, yes magazines are propaganda. They are glamour. They exist in the space between “what is” and “what we hope for” (and frankly, they wallow in and widen that space).
The problem is they do not necessarily help us get from where we are to where we want to be.
This article (“Start a 1-acre, Self-Sufficient Homestead“) is republished by Mother Earth News 2+ times per year, and has been for a decade or more.
Why?
Because the dirty little secret of how-to magazines is that they are not instruction guides, they are tools for guided dreaming.
I’ve advertised in them (when I read http://Smartflix.com ), and talked to their ad sales people
They’re very forthright, and explain that their readers are “aspirational”.
There’s an argument that the reason that people play the lottery is not rational expectations, but buying an opportunity to dream.
Related, the reason people buy Mother Earth News and all the other homesteading magazines is because it gives them enough data to give their dreams a patina of realism. Same reason Lucas Films puts greebles and exhaust marks on spaceships.
Doesn’t make them real.
…but when you dream about living on a small self sufficient farm, and you can picture it with an old tractor that you’ve greased the zerk fittings on, it’s a BETTER, HIGHER QUALITY dream.
In 1970s and 1980s folks talked about Star Wars, Blade Runner as “lived in futures”
So Mother Earth News, etc. give you a “lived in future” for yourself. Instead of just thinking “in 10 years maybe we’ll live on a farm”, you think “in 10 years maybe we’ll live on a 3 acre farm with an old Ford tractor and some Buff Orppington chickens”.
Much more “real”.
But notice the difference between the PATINA of a lived in future, and an ACTUAL future.
The patina is painted on the surface, and it doesn’t need to actually work, it just needs to LOOK real, not BE real.
This creates selective pressure for the types of articles that are written and – PRAISE GNON! – this is the kind of article we get.
Which sells better? “Live debt free on 4 acres” or “Hobby farming is very hard and very expensive”?
You know the answer.
Now, with this in mind, go to the newsstand and look at all the farm LARP magazines. Every headline on the cover, & every article inside matches the template I just laid out.
(Go read the rest of the tweetstorm, especially if you’re a city person interested in starting a farm.)
This tells us two things. Probably more, but let’s focus on two.
I used to be a magazine addict. I loved magazines, especially fashion magazines, especially weird or foreign fashion magazines. One of the reasons that I quit buying them (other than money), is that I started to think about how little value they added to my life. Yes, the pictures were pretty and I enjoyed posting some on my wall, and I liked the entertainment factor—but in terms of actually advancing my life, nothing.
During this time, I found that it was more satisfying to look at super-high-end fashion—couture—than it was to look at “regular people” fashion. Couture I knew I would never be able to afford, so I just enjoyed looking at it for art’s sake. The “regular people” fashion presented clothes to me that I would fall in love with, but couldn’t quite afford. It always left a bad taste in my mouth, because I found the perfect bag/shoe/coat to no avail.
Both types of magazines left a gap between what I was looking at and my actual life. One was large and expansive, and 100% fantasy—fun. The other was small
So how can we turn this to our advantage? How can the dream-gap work for me instead of against me?
Dream with details. Details make everything more powerful. The more realistic something is, the more it sticks in your brain (think about cartoon violence vs live-action) and part of that is the details. You’ll always viscerally remember how something smelled, or a specific texture during a significant moment.
It always struck me that Tony Robbins corrects people who say you should think about your greatest moments as a way to create a positive vision for yourself. No, he said on a James Altucher podcast, you should relive that moment. Mentally put yourself back there and experience all the little details. That, more than anything, will wake up your brain and give you the feeling of success that you’re after.
If you’re going to dream “realistically,” actually take the actions to do the things you’re dreaming. Otherwise, dream insane and dream big. Then your dreams will never fail you.
And certainly don’t count on magazines to get you where you want to go.
The story begins as it always begins. A girl—with a social media account, of course—wakes. She showers, puts on her makeup, and selects an outfit of the day. Perhaps today’s is a little more thematic than most. There’s somewhere special to go, something special to do.
Today is, of course, election day.
“tell me something I don’t know”
Next comes, a perfectly photographed spread of fruit or a food-styled smoothie bowl. Maybe she drinks a smoothie with a scoop of matcha and some kale. A celebratory brunch with friends. Whatever.
Now is today’s big event: a trip to the polls, where she can vote—but more importantly, beg the attendant to give her a couple extra “I voted stickers” just in case her first one ruins the shot.
She has planned this moment for days. The outfit, the styling, how to set off that sticker in just the right way. The vibe must fit with the rest of her feed. Aesthetics first, anything else second. After all, we vote because it’s the cause du jour, not because we genuinely want to.
The caption must be non-partisan, as to not alienate her followers, but with enough of an undertone that everyone knows who she voted for anyway. A blue heart emoji will do.
A check on the social media account to match the check on her ballot. Just like every other instagirl, she has voted and told the world about it.
There was an article posted on Politico today: Trump’s Culture Warriors Go Home. It’s the same article we’ve all read a million times before: a seemingly-even toned piece of writing that simply describes a phenomenon, and never ever ever tries to influence you not even a little bit of how to feel about it.
Factually, it’s mostly true:
Loosely lumped together as the celebrities of the “alt-right”—a label most of them have since disavowed—they hailed from different corners of the web and professed different views, but they were united by a shared disdain for progressives and establishment Republicans, and a shared faith that the disruptive outsider named Donald Trump could usher in the change they believed America needed.
Sure. If you’re going to lump Milo and Mike Cernovich together with Richard Spencer, this is how you would describe the group. It’s clear later in the article that the author understands the animosity between the two factions, but doesn’t care. They’re all equally bad, equally alt-right.
There’s been a lot of kerfuffle lately about how words matter. But you know what else matters? Word choice. Words and phrases that color how you experience the story in your mind.
Words like these:
There’s more, but I’m bored. Another disingenuous media piece that is entirely wrong even though it is mostly factually correct. It’s designed to paint its subject in the worst possible light without actually saying anything untrue.
For instance, take this choice paragraph, dropped after a passage that is clearly designed to make Milo look desperate.
In response to questions from Politico Magazine for this story, Yiannopoulos responded only, “Go fuck yourself,” via text message.
I’d wager to guess that Milo’s response has more to do with DON’T TALK TO THE MEDIA than anything (it’s a common occurrence on his Instagram), and yet it’s used as evidence for the narrative that “Milo is out of control.”
This is most evidence in the illustrations that were commissioned to accompany the article. What’s the best way to portray patriotism, yet make it weird and threatening? Go with a red, white, and blue color palette but change the white to yellow. That gives both the in-your-face punch of a the primary triad while also subverting a familiar trope into something that makes human beings look like sick, IRL versions of The Simpsons.
The opening illustration basically portrays an apocalypse. Perhaps this is what leftists envision when they think back to election day? If they were even aware of any of these people back then. I feel like they’ve been “elevated” by the media to the status of post-hoc boogeymen more than anything. If they were serious about talking about people who were active during the campaign, the would also mention people like Baked Alaska and Pax Dickinson.
Anyway, the illustration. Richard Spencer has been given a briefcase with a cross on it, despite him being about the farthest thing from Christian as I can think of. Milo is given a Napoleon complex. Chuck C Johnson is…having a heart attack? And Mike, of course, has been given pizza in reference to #pizzagate—the media’s favorite conspiracy to debunk because their version of it was designed to be ridiculous and completely debunkable. I also note the inclusion of a “Trump that Bitch” campaign sign, which was never a thing.
Even if you don’t read the article, this illustration shows you what you’re supposed to see, the WASTELAND of TRUMP SUPPORTERS in a SEA OF TRASH. This is not the type of illustration you give to a balanced, nuanced piece of writing.
The portraits don’t get any better. Here’s the one of Mike Cernovich.
This illustration kinda makes you sick when you look at it, and that is the whole point. The blue/yellow gradient is an inspired touch, as are the tattered campaign flags. And there’s more pizza. Stacks of MAGA hats crossed out tryin to make him look like some kind of obsessive who hates MAGA with a passion. For the record, Mike Cernovich has responded to this article with love.
These kinds of articles (hitpieces, really) are tiring. They’re really not worth it to respond to the way that I have with this post, but sometimes the bald, mean-spirited rhetoric of the media just gets to me. I feel compelled to point out all of the ways that they color the facts, literally and figuratively.
There is no possible way to read the original article and give any one of the subjects in it the benefit of the doubt. All the room that a good journalist might have left in for the reader’s objective consideration of the facts has been squeezed out by rhetorical tricks and malice.
I can see exactly what they’re doing, and I hope that this post will help you to see it, too.
It’s everywhere this week. You can’t escape it. Even my own dad brought it up offline.
The NPC meme.
I was going to write about it a few weeks ago, but never did because…there is a lot. What it means to be sentient, the side-effects of corporatization, IQ and personality type, the mask that we actively present to the world. You get it.
[Jordan Peterson voice] It’s a complex issue. [/Jordan Peterson voice]
Which is why I feel compelled to post Jordan NPCterson.
Not only is this the most beautiful meme I’ve ever seen, it allows me to talk about my changing attitudes toward JBP.
First off, the aesthetic. Great typography choices—the font is just hard enough to read that you have to take a moment to decipher “NPCterson.” (Which is a great pun in its own right.) I love how this one mimics co-opts the popular Millennial aesthetic of sticking something over a pastel background.
Now for the man himself. I read his book, but never got around to posting a review because I couldn’t really figure out what to review—most of what he gets at is already available in his YouTube archive. I would have written about the last chapter—the light pen, which I liked when I read it—but the longer I thought about it the more I kinda got mad at him for stealing his friend’s rad light pen, using it to write 10 sentences, and then never using it again.
I’ve been souring on him as a thinker gradually over the last couple months, but what really got to me was his reaction on the Kavanaugh confirmation. He stated on twitter that Kavanaugh should step down, thereby completely nullifying all the work that the Right had done to get him in there, and validating every underhanded tactic the Left used to try to keep him out.
And then he tried to walk it back as a “thought experiment.” That astounds me, honestly, to be in his position in this political and media environment and to say something like that and expect it to fly. Especially since we all know full well that it could happen to him at any moment.
My other favorite is a line from the Hoaxed trailer: “Falsehoods have consequences. That’s what makes them false.”
Uh, no. EVERYTHING has consequences. That line doesn’t even make sense.
I’m glad carnivory is working out for him, but I’m done paying attention to him and the rest of the “intellectual dark web.”
Did you think it would be anything else?
I’m glad he’s standing his ground.
Republican politicians have been cucking, selling out, and otherwise compromising for a long time now.
That’s how we got President Trump.
Even with the absolute struggle that we went through to get him elected, many of the old guard Boomer Republicans never quite got it: that it does not make you a better person to be civil with an opponent that has no intention of being civil back. It makes you stupid.
With the Kavanaugh debacle, some of them have finally woken up to what’s really going on.
How do we know this?
From Chad Pergram:
After Kavanaugh vote, Pence walked from the chamber with his detail to the exit which would open the doors up to the Senate steps. They swing the doors open…and all you can see is a throng of protesters across the plaza…and hear are protesters shouting “Shame! Shame! Shame!”
As Pence stands in doorway of Capitol at top of Senate steps, protesters across the plaza spot him and start shouting louder. His motorcade waits at the bottom of the Capitol steps.
Pence stands for a moment in Senate doorway, indecisive, w/protesters hollering. Pence then reverses course to exit Capitol another way. Pence walks a few steps. Pivots & says “let’s do it.” Pence then defiantly walks down the Capitol steps and waves to Kavanaugh protesters
Pence—Mike Pence—the mildest mannered complete opposite of Trump’s brash manner, has embraced the villain role that he has been given by the leftist mob.
This is significant.
(Some of) the people who used to want to play nice now understand that it’s not possible. They didn’t capitulate to the mob, didn’t back down on the vote. Kavanaugh himself personified this by not withdrawing or buckling under the pressure.
Despite the absolute batshit insanity shown by the protesters on the left, the Republicans held firm. They didn’t go through quite the gauntlet that Trump or Kavanaugh ran, but they withstood the heat and they stood firm.
It seems like after years of never-Trump whining and ~bipartisan cooperation~ which leads to horrific things like Obamacare, the Repubs finally decided that they were not going to take it anymore.
This makes me feel marginally better about the future.
See also Lindsay Graham. I’m going to start paying attention to him.
“The Mind of Jake Paul” debuted yesterday.
I would have watched it yesterday, but my internet wasn’t set up yet. Gotta love moving.
Shane Dawson—who has been on a tear recently with his recent documentary series on Grav3yardGirl and Jeffree Star—is also someone I don’t really know or care about. (Sorry, Shane—but I did subscribe!)
I love internet culture, and I love it when interneteers get introspective on what makes the internet so weird and so great. Shane is investigating that kind of stuff right now, and I can’t dislike it.
One of the driving questions behind Shane’s documentary is shaping up to be “Are there sociopaths on YouTube?” with the obvious follow up “And is Jake Paul one of them?”
From my perspective, the answer to the first question is “DUH.” Yes, of course there are sociopaths on YouTube. There are also narcissists and people with depression. YouTube is great because it lets all sorts of people produce content, many of whom have alternate mental or physical states.
I once started playing “spot the sociopath” at work. When it becomes clear that there are low-level sociopaths in normal, everyday places (hint: they don’t always act the way you see in movies), it’s not surprising at all that some of them would gravitate to YouTube.
One of the problems of doing business online is that the stuff that gets clicks—out of curiosity, or outrage, or shadenfreude—is not the stuff that leads to long-term virtue and happiness. The most perverse of incentives.
If someone isn’t firmly grounded in themselves or some form of truth, I could see how a huge audience, lots of positive reinforcement, and wads of money would lead you down a path of delusional self destruction.
It’ll be interesting to watch how Shane’s series plays out, mostly because these things are just as much about Shane as they are about the actual subject. Literally half of the Jeffree Star series was Shane being self-conscious about how poor and inadequate he felt. Jeffree was super-gracious about everything, and I don’t know if Shane played it up for laughs, but it did not add any value to the series.
Either way, I’ll be watching the Jake Paul series.
Maybe by the end of it I’ll know the difference between Jake and Logan.
It’s another one of those instantly-iconic photos. So much to see, so much subtext, and yet the subtext is somewhat visible.
The photo that got AJ banned from Twitter.
There’s a saying around my parts of the internet: “If you’re taking flak, you know you’re over the target.”
Well.
A spurt of articles cropped up this week warning us all of the dangers of only eating meat. At one point I would have said it was a conspiracy, but at this point I think it’s just a knee-jerk reaction from the parts of the universe that are a) just now hearing about carnivory and b) no conception of living a life that isn’t what they’re told to live.
Here is a good place to remind you that carnivores tend to have a higher-than-average tolerance for risk.
Here is also a good place to remind you that I have yet to find an instance of a carnivore with scurvy. At this point, if somebody had the balls to stick with this diet long enough to get scurvy at all, they’d surely post about it. (If only for the clicks.)
Now I wish that a media figure would do it: quit plans out of spite to give himself scurvy and prove us all wrong, only to find out 12 months later that he’s healthy, happier than ever, and in possession of a spine for the first time in his life.
Anyway.
I’m not interested in debunking the nutrition science of the articles–that’s not my jam. There are plenty of other blogs that cover the nutrition stuff.
I’m much more interested in the rhetoric and mindset techniques. Once you see how they do it in one article, you start seeing it everywhere.
You don’t even have to get past the headline on this one to run into a fallacy:
What’s going on is Mikhaila Peterson is now offering online consultations, and expecting to be compensated for her time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, especially when a lot of people want to talk to you, and you have to figure out some way of mediating that.
The same people will tell you to go see a therapist. But it’s ok to pay a therapist because they’ll keep you within the medical system.
Sentence number one: “Mikhaila Peterson eats beef three times a day. She fries or roasts it, adds some salt, and washes it down with sparkling water — and that’s it. No fruits or vegetables. Just meat.”
Notice the word choice. FRIES.
Sure, if you’re putting a steak into a frying pan, you’re frying it. But does anybody really refer to cooking a steak as frying? No. “Frying” conjures up associations with deep frying: lots of grease and heavy, unhealthy food. (Which in itself is a slander of a good deep fry.)
Most carnivore steaks are cooked up in a cast-iron skillet with some butter. If you want to call that frying, whatever.
Then we launch into more attacks on making money: “She said she simply can’t afford to blog all the time, while raising a child, for free. (Her husband is a business consultant.)”
Why, exactly, is her husband’s profession relevant to this conversation? Unless you’re trying to imply that her husband is pushing her to make money like the dirty capitalist shark he is. Mikhaila is very up front about her intention with the consultations, and it’s definitely not along the lines of “snake oil salesman take your money and run.”
Now it’s time for battle of the inane expert quotes from people who are 200% vested in keeping their spot in the top of the expertise hierarchy.
“I don’t see any health benefits of a diet focused primarily on red meat,” said Kristen Smith, a registered dietitian nutritionist with the Academy of Nutritionists and Dietetics, who said she’s seen the carnivore diet’s popularity grow on social media. “There’s currently no research to support that this type of diet has favorable long-term health outcomes.”
vs
“Especially for somebody who’s untrained and not very knowledgeable, I think it’s dangerous for her to be pushing this as a lifestyle,” said Ethan Weiss, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. “People are very impressionable, especially people who are sick and they want to be better, and they’ll try anything. I worry that this kind of thing is taking advantage of some people who are really struggling.”
There’s that word again. Dangerous. I think I’ve heard that word spoken about her family before….
Anyway, we have two arguments from medical authority that warn us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. We also have a lot of unspoken assumptions:
I’m getting tired of this article. It’s not all bad–a pretty good primer of carnivory if you overlook all of the DON’T GO OFF THE PATH messaging.
This next article is funny in the pity-laugh kind of way. The author either cannot fathom the idea of doing something out of the norm, or is heavily handedly trying to scare you away from doing it, too. Or maybe both.
First of all, we have to revoke all shreds of authority from the people on Team Carnivore. The standard arguments: Shawn Baker’s medical license was revoked (he was reinstated), neither is Mikahila Peterson isn’t a real doctor (she never said she was), and psychologists like Jordan Peterson have no training in nutrition (neither do doctors, FYI).
This line kills it:
No, hun. Not just arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis–an autoimmune condition that caused her joints to deteriorate so badly she had two joint replacements by the age of 20. For those of you out there who are unfamiliar with the relentless darkness that comes with having an incurable illness, it has a HUGE impact on daily life. This isn’t just “tee hee I stubbed my toe,” this is life-altering levels of pain.
The article goes on to “debunk” in nutritional terms why the carnivore diet is totally bad for you.
I’m just gonna list my favorite words and phrases.
Except for this paragraph. This one is my favorite.
You could, arguably, take supplements for all of the deficiencies that eating only farm-raised animals brings on. Many of the diet proponents, including all of the people mentioned earlier in this article, do not promote taking supplements because they believe that meat is nutritionally complete. But if you were being smart about it you could certainly improve the diet by adding vitamin pills and fiber powder. Neither of these is as good as getting those nutrients from real, whole foods, but it’s better than nothing.
I do get my nutrients from real, whole foods.
Those foods are meat and eggs.
What are you gonna do about it?
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