Thank you for this. I've long had the same feelings re: early Vice, and felt at times complicit as I was in my early 20s in Williamsburg in 2005 - 2011 and I thought I was cool and above-it-all. I saw the shift of Vice, and the shift in myself, and looked back on not just Vice but the whole culture around it and saw how terrible everyone was and what an abuse of irony it was. I think a lot of people have come to the same reckoning, and I'm glad they have (I've lost some friends who haven't). I've seen been thinking long and hard about the relationship between irony and cynicism, between cynicism and nihilism, and it all relates back to Vice, as well as early Gawker (e.g.: "Blue States Lose") and the culture of Brooklyn in the Aughts. I'd love to read your 50-page paper on the topic!
"I'd love to read your 50-page paper on the topic!"
This is literally the nicest thing I have ever read, I'm sobbing.
But I'm glad this feels like something that has been kicking around in your head—and I appreciate the shift in VICE, and how it really has become a valid, important news space...but that shift was brutal and slow.
Real question, because I'm not super plugged into the wider world of 'Left Discourse'. How seriously taken are the Red Scare women?
I only know about them from, following a little forensics in my chat history, one discussion about a Jezebel article in 2019 with another leftist friend. The Jez article was having none of their leftist posturing, my friend assured me he'd only ever heard them discussed as a case-study of a couple of people transiting the left-to-fash pipeline in real time. I kinda left it there.
I just got to imagine for a small podcast, an outlet like Jezebel calling them out on their SJW-face minstrel act would have been a big hurdle to overcome. But I guess people have short memories?
Well, first of all, and I’m not at all an expert, but they have this sort of embrace of bad behavior that I think taps into a lot of folks latent fear or rejection or “cancel culture.” They are leftists the same way that Glenn Greenwald is a leftist—in other words, I don’t think Jez and Red Scare have the same audience. It doesn’t hurt that they are women, divorcing themselves from claims of misogyny, and extremely “cool.” I would posit they operate in the same space, and with the target audience, that early VICE was after and as such, have a small but devoted and very loud following.
Also, as someone who lived a couple years in Harlem 'Those assholes in cornrows riding on dirtbikes' always seemed to be having a hell of a good time, and whether or not people complained about it (in a city where sirens, subway, folks boomboxes etc constantly subjected you to earsplitting noise) was and remains my unfailing 'shy racist' dowsing rod.
Ha, literally in the convo I had with my buddy about them in 2019 he mentioned that they overlap with GG philosophically so as to communicate 'These people are also assholes.'
Gonna be honest. As someone who was once butthurt in the early 00's for someone calling me out on using the word 'gay' as a general perjoriative, I was still shocked to see those photos of VICE from back in the day. We were collectively trash back then compared to where the baseline is now, but I feel like (or just want to believe?) that this would have been beyond the pale for me even then. It's nuts they were ever able to claim left cred.
Anyway, I'm just gonna put Red Scare back in the mental file with Tucker Carlson and the Trad Workers as 'Nationalists doing Socialism'. They're gonna peel off a decent amount of otherwise reachable people and that sucks, but then again, I can't think of a left space I've been in that wasn't predominantly white, English speaking, and college educated. I think they'd be less of a threat if we could figure out how to fill that vacuum and reach out better to members of the non-brunching-class.
I also have no ideas how this is to be done, to be clear. I also am white, English speaking college educated and middle class. I just recognize we're doing a shit job out reaching.
Interesting, thanks.
Great, thoughtful piece, thank you.. I'm revealing my un-hipness (and my age) here, but please, what is "edgelord?"
Great question actually. “Edgelord” means someone who makes themselves overly edgy or controversial to be shocking and for attention.
Thank you for this. I've long had the same feelings re: early Vice, and felt at times complicit as I was in my early 20s in Williamsburg in 2005 - 2011 and I thought I was cool and above-it-all. I saw the shift of Vice, and the shift in myself, and looked back on not just Vice but the whole culture around it and saw how terrible everyone was and what an abuse of irony it was. I think a lot of people have come to the same reckoning, and I'm glad they have (I've lost some friends who haven't). I've seen been thinking long and hard about the relationship between irony and cynicism, between cynicism and nihilism, and it all relates back to Vice, as well as early Gawker (e.g.: "Blue States Lose") and the culture of Brooklyn in the Aughts. I'd love to read your 50-page paper on the topic!
"I'd love to read your 50-page paper on the topic!"
This is literally the nicest thing I have ever read, I'm sobbing.
But I'm glad this feels like something that has been kicking around in your head—and I appreciate the shift in VICE, and how it really has become a valid, important news space...but that shift was brutal and slow.
Real question, because I'm not super plugged into the wider world of 'Left Discourse'. How seriously taken are the Red Scare women?
I only know about them from, following a little forensics in my chat history, one discussion about a Jezebel article in 2019 with another leftist friend. The Jez article was having none of their leftist posturing, my friend assured me he'd only ever heard them discussed as a case-study of a couple of people transiting the left-to-fash pipeline in real time. I kinda left it there.
I just got to imagine for a small podcast, an outlet like Jezebel calling them out on their SJW-face minstrel act would have been a big hurdle to overcome. But I guess people have short memories?
Well, first of all, and I’m not at all an expert, but they have this sort of embrace of bad behavior that I think taps into a lot of folks latent fear or rejection or “cancel culture.” They are leftists the same way that Glenn Greenwald is a leftist—in other words, I don’t think Jez and Red Scare have the same audience. It doesn’t hurt that they are women, divorcing themselves from claims of misogyny, and extremely “cool.” I would posit they operate in the same space, and with the target audience, that early VICE was after and as such, have a small but devoted and very loud following.
Also, as someone who lived a couple years in Harlem 'Those assholes in cornrows riding on dirtbikes' always seemed to be having a hell of a good time, and whether or not people complained about it (in a city where sirens, subway, folks boomboxes etc constantly subjected you to earsplitting noise) was and remains my unfailing 'shy racist' dowsing rod.
Ha, literally in the convo I had with my buddy about them in 2019 he mentioned that they overlap with GG philosophically so as to communicate 'These people are also assholes.'
Gonna be honest. As someone who was once butthurt in the early 00's for someone calling me out on using the word 'gay' as a general perjoriative, I was still shocked to see those photos of VICE from back in the day. We were collectively trash back then compared to where the baseline is now, but I feel like (or just want to believe?) that this would have been beyond the pale for me even then. It's nuts they were ever able to claim left cred.
Anyway, I'm just gonna put Red Scare back in the mental file with Tucker Carlson and the Trad Workers as 'Nationalists doing Socialism'. They're gonna peel off a decent amount of otherwise reachable people and that sucks, but then again, I can't think of a left space I've been in that wasn't predominantly white, English speaking, and college educated. I think they'd be less of a threat if we could figure out how to fill that vacuum and reach out better to members of the non-brunching-class.
I also have no ideas how this is to be done, to be clear. I also am white, English speaking college educated and middle class. I just recognize we're doing a shit job out reaching.