Batfort

Style reveals substance

Tag: conspiracy theory

The Reader: Woke Capital, Right-Wing Fashion Trends, and a Trip to Barcelona

Schizophyllum Commune

Some days I’m productive. Some days I get lost in research. Some days I spend way to much time trying to decide if I’m an INTP like I always thought or if I’m an Ni-Ti INFJ instead, which would make sense given my predilection to symbolic thinking and getting overwhelmed under a sea of intuition. None of it really matters, except not knowing bothers me greatly. I’ve mostly made my piece with not knowing my exact IQ, but personality….

Perhaps this is a case of “if you can’t understand the world, try understanding yourself instead.” Or, it’s just me avoiding doing the work.

 


 

» If you are concerned with truth and are at all into fairies, conspiracy theories involving aliens, or hallucinogens of any flavor, run—do not walk—and read Owen Cyclops’ observations on demons. I’m not kidding.

» Hello, this is me trying to psyche myself up again, but: How to Make Money Online Starting Today

» On Woke Capital

So, people always bend the knee. People often take the path of least resistance. Corporate PR is used for both purposes, to show Power that the corporation recognizes its authority. It’s no coincidence that WokeCapital’s bio has read “Speaking Power to Truth, one tweet at a time”. That’s all that’s going on there, really. And recognizing that Power lies on the Left, and not on the Right, corporations take advantage of this asymmetry. You can never go wrong by signaling too far left, but you can afford to piss off righties, who have near zero cultural, political, or legal power. Just note how they go after Trump, who is ostensibly CEO of the country, when he rocks the boat!

» The retro-future is now: Bitcoin has been transmitted via HAM radio

» Cambridge Analytica Used Fashion Tastes to Identify Right-Wing Voters

“It’s all about learning who your supporter base is,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst of the NPD Group and the author of “Why Customers Do What They Do,” in an interview during the 2016 campaign. “How do they live? What are their trigger points? What words resonate with them? It’s worth its weight in gold, in the political arena just like the consumer arena. We call it demographic profiling, because voter profiling sounds like a dirty word, but that’s what it is.”

Fashion profiling is another facet of this approach, using data analysis to identify the way brands are perceived — and it should not come as a surprise to anyone.

Assessing value systems, and goals and priorities, via the clothes people wear has been a part of professional life for years. The “dress for the job you want” adage is an expression of fashion profiling. Calling someone a “Gucci person” or a “Celine person” is fashion profiling; opting for Levi’s over Rag & Bone makes a statement about associations and history and opens one up to fashion profiling — albeit in a manner that generally leaves much unsaid. Cambridge Analytica preyed on that human reality via algorithm, using data from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission.

» I haven’t listened to this podcast so I cannot endorse, but I’m intrigued: The Mysterious 1965 Death of Dorothy Kilgallen

» How to Break 5 Soul-Sucking Technology Habits

» Italian Vanity Fair looks to be doing some interesting things. I’m taking notes.

“We don’t have to close ourselves to our golden tower,” he said. “In Italy, we are living an era of populism and I can see the suffering of big newspapers because they are closing themselves into a very niche and snobbish explanation of reality.” He views the “simplification of complexity” as the opposite of that populist movement. “Philosophy can be very pop.”

Marchetti describes his strategy for Vanity Fair Italia as an “opera in three acts.” The first priority is online content, where he wants to publish exclusive songs, videos and content that will hopefully be newsworthy. “The goal is to become the center of the conversation in our country,” he said.

Next comes Wednesday’s print issue, which he has redesigned with creative director Massimo Pitis to have a more collectible, independent magazine aesthetic. It’s an approach he said he’s learned from fashion brands like Gucci: just because something is intended for wide audiences doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have the sophistication of a niche product. And the third act represents his ambitions for events.

» Crispin Glover asks a bunch of questions.

» I have a soft spot for Marc Jacobs because we share gut-ailment experiences, and sometimes you just need to read some good fashion writing.

 


Enjoy the YouTube recs now because I’m giving it up for Lent this year….

 

 

 

 

 

The grand, unifying conspiracy theory

Satan. It all leads back to Satan.

That’s all.

The Reader: Media Smears, Social Skills, and GaryVee

When I came up with the idea of #storyvember, I didn’t think about this series that I’ve started to feature on the weekends. Because this format doesn’t lend itself well to story, I’m not going to worry about smashing it into the “story” format just yet. I’ll chew on it for a while, and maybe by the end of the month I’ll modulate this list into a story of its own.

» IRB doesn’t apply in research online by social media companies, and now it’s starting to fail in real life. I don’t know if this is a win for dismantling outdated institutions, or a loss for humanity. Please be alert and aware in any medical setting.

» They did it to Mike Cernovich and co earlier this week. Now they’re coming for Julian Assange. Caitlin Johnstone is always worth a read.

The point is to create public revulsion for Julian Assange, thereby killing sympathy for his unconscionable persecution and dampening the impact of any future WikiLeaks releases. The point is to marry Assange’s name with the idea of bad smells, so that the public will begin to find themselves increasingly disgusted by him and everything he stands for without quite remembering exactly why they feel such disdain for him.

» Socialite Magazine is an interesting read, for those of us who struggle with social skills. I find that for myself, it’s not the actual skills involved (I can get along with anybody if I have to), rather it’s the realization that I need to deploy those social skills and that I could, in fact, make a new friend at any given point in time. Perhaps that’s the difference between Extraverted Feeling (me, even though it’s weak) and Introverted Feeling (the ISTJ who writes Socialite Mag)

» A little birdie told me that Colourpop’s Boss Brow Gel is a dupe for Glossier’s Boy Brow. Ordering some now, I’ll report back when I have an opinion.

» Hawaiian Libertarian has graced us with a new post. Look past the gloss of “tinhat conspiracy theorist” and look for the big picture—Keoni knows what he’s talking about. Read and learn.

» K-pop has avante garde music, too

» In honor of #storyvember: What is a Story?

» Watch out for the goo-roos slipping blood into your taco (read this if you’re trying to launch a business or sell a product)

» Intro to Visual Culture (warning: lots of academicese)

  • “Visual Culture” studies recognizes the predominance of visual forms of media, communication, and information in the postmodern world.
  • Has there been a social and cultural shift to the visual, over against the verbal and textual, in the past 50 years, and has it been accelerating in the past 10 or 20 years?
    • Or are our written, textual, and visual systems continuing an ongoing reconfiguration in a new (recognizable) phase?
  • Study of visual culture merges popular and “low” cultural forms, media and communications, and the study of “high” cultural forms or fine art, design, and architecture.

 

Image of the Week: “you can do it” edition

Originally, I was going to post that photo of Nikki Haley in the UN. It sufficiently summed up the week in politics. But it doesn’t jive with my personal experience for the week, so I’m not posting it.

This week has been long.

I’m growing tired of so much change in my life, and yet this week just piled on more: new boundaries to my conception of time thanks to the writing of Elliott Jaques, more layers to my understanding of the globalist cabal, the death by suicide of Kim Jong-Hyun of SM Entertainment (also YouTube’s algorithm keeps recommending me SHINee videos and it’s killing me) and changes at my workplace that will render me effectively isolated. I haven’t slept well. I’m tired.

But there’s good news. Reading between the lines of WordPress’ inflated pageview stats, a few real people have checked out Batfort this week. (Hi, people!)

Though I’m tired, I’m motivated.

So with that in mind, this is a photo of Jeff Bezos’ office when he was just starting out, in 1999.

I’m no Jeff Bezos, but we all have to start somewhere.

Image of the week: skywriting edition

It used to be my longstanding policy that if I ever became Supreme Dictator for Life, the only acceptable skywriting would read “SURRENDER DOROTHY.”

However.

I will make an exception to that policy for the first thing that made me laugh today. This, right here:

I’m leaving in the boomercropping because it also brings me lulz

Apparently some Navy pilots in the Okanogan got really, really bored today.

There’s probably some larger point (heh) in there somewhere about trolls and discipline and the state of our country, but I’m going to ignore it and giggle and peace out for the night.

Happy Friday, y’all.

The memetics of milk and cereal

First, it was milk. (Thank you for that, Shia.)

Now, it’s cereal.

What’s next, cookies?

 

There are literal Hitlers under every bed and inside every closet, it seems.

Memes are becoming reality at an increasingly rapid pace.

The line between mindset and meatspace is becoming increasingly blurred.

 

Earlier this week, I was checking out kids books for a friend’s daughter.

There was a whole section of Berenstein Bears.

I couldn’t bear to check the spelling.

 

Think it, and it will exist.

Terrifying or exhilarating?

You get to decide.

Course Description: The Structure and Function of Conspiracy Theories

This course is designed to provide students with an in-depth understanding of theoretical conspiracies and their genesis, including: 1) types of conspiracy; 2) dynamic conspiricism as a worldview; 3) burden of proof and unfalsifiability; 4) the function of paranoia and other psychological phenomena in theory development, including the concepts of projection and epistemic bias; 5) socio-political origins, influence of critical theory, and the elucidated difference between institutional analysis; and 6) the political use of the term and its media tropes. Prerequisites: basic psychology, introduction to memery, Alex Jones studies.

Suggested reading:

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