The new strain of the online ‘right’ often isn’t political at all, you’re right, it’s just the predictably dumb response to the ‘all men are bad’ movement of recent history. ‘Misogyny is good’ is one of the rallying cries of the new right because they can’t decipher complex arguments.
Also, I think friction-maxxxing is generally a good idea but it shouldn’t have such a stupid name. Maybe it doesn’t need a name? Just take a hike, wait for your coffee to brew, listen to an entire album. Let’s not make it a trend.
On the topic of gore, I've noticed that Halloween decorations have become incredibly gory. Like do people care that children walk the streets? Yes that stuff scares them. That's why most horror movies have an R rating. It's weird to me to see the blood and guts in people's yards for a month.
All the people listed have differing views and exist mostly to critique out of resentment (for having their time and achievements squandered by chuds) and have no ambition to establish a “post-right” (Parvini being an exception with his “sensible centre”), if you want to find the real post-right you need to dig into the nichés that people like me exist in… people who actually make calls for a third way and abandoning partisanship entirely.
Lots of food for thought here re: gore porn and porn porn. Interesting that gore has gotten so mainstream that kitschy violence has become the way that pop stars like Sabrina Carpenter can “act out” against the patriarchy (she has a running gag about killing off a man in each of her music videos)
Re: your last paragraph about Gore Porn. I think one factor that might be driving this is purely algorithmic (the algo knows people respond to children getting tortured, so congratulations, you get to hear about lots of children getting tortured. YOUR WELCOME.
Also on the contrasts with the reports about the Scully case: IMHO one thing at work here is that Capital E-Evil isn't really a thing our society believes in anymore, so it's the need convey a warning to avoid this at all cost doesn't exist for society. Evil probably isn't the word I really mean; "profane" is more correct, "unholy'. שֶׁקֶץ in the Bible, for example (usually translated as detestable or an abomination). Parts of TPOT treats Infohazard this way, but I don't think that's a universal sentiment.
This last paragraph also can be read as understanding some of the appeal of gore porn: it's proving how tough/cool you are by turning yourself into a psychological tank (in the WoW sense) and absorbing damage for funsies because you don't think it can harm you.
NPR had a segment today on "tropification"/reading for specific elements popularised in the case of Romantasy jn this case, this was theorised as "moe-elements" in the context of manga in the Database Animals book decades ago, the host seems mostly upset the books reify heteronormativity and wants literature to be socially responsible; I see that as a silly criterion for good literature although totally tasteless vice-signalling for attention or almost masturbatory violence and humiliation addiction (both in the books you describe as well as the KIRAC movie you criticised on Twitter, which I can't see due to the idiotic Online Safety Act but have heard more about from others) do suggest that artistic criteria in and of themselves are enough of a reason to see these as distasteful and sordid without being moralist (and those claiming your critiques here and there are just moralism are thus wrong and uncreative)
I see the ‘storytelling’ a lot on-line, people leaving out names and details even on posts that have pictures and videos. It’s always ‘a man’, ‘a woman’, at most a job description, not even age and only sometimes location. To me it comes across as untrustworthy compared to old-school journalism (which perhaps had an undeserved reputation) but younger people seem to really go for that sort of style. I guess it allows you to focus more on the core story (puppies were saved!) and whether or not it actually happened isn’t really that important.
When Who The Fuck Did I Marry was going viral on TikTok, I was supposed to finish reading a literary novel for my book club but I just wanted to keep going to the next episode in the series because she was such a good storyteller. The art of pacing and revealing and withholding information… a lot of writers just don’t have this skill.
RE: "Splatterpunk" *dons on blood-stained fedora, loops intestine around neckbeard like a scarf*
I'm a mainstream horror author but have read a few books in this genre and know a number of the people who write this stuff personally. Books like PLAYGROUND are not actually splatterpunk, although this term IS constantly (mis)used to refer to them.
The Splatterpunk movement started in the '80s as a reaction to the more staid, bloodless, gothic horror. Like special effects legend Tom Savini (FRIDAY THE 13TH, etc.), the OG Splatterpunks like John Skipp and Craig Spector, Joe Lansdale, and Clive Barker (ish) were influenced by coming of age during Vietnam. Death is not clean and bloodless. Death is messy and ugly, and the Splatterpunks wanted horror to reflect that. Their books were gory AF, but the gore had a point. The term "Splatterpunk" was deliberate, with each component having equal importance. Yes, the splatter is critical, but so is the PUNK.
To put as fine a point on it as I can: Splatterpunk was about using gore to critique society.
Seeing the success of the Splatterpunks, a new group of writers came along. For them, the gore was the point. The goal was to write the most fucked up thing imaginable. That movement became known as "Extreme Horror," which is the sub-genre to which books like PLAYGROUND belong. It's superficially similar to Splatterpunk, but isn't intended to have a deeper layer (and there are some people that argue that "Splatterpunk" was literally referring to a specific scene in the '80s, and it's not really possible to write Splatterpunk anymore).
People on BookTok use these terms interchangeably, but there's a good deal of nuance lost when they do so. OG Splatterpunk John Skipp actually released a primer last year called THIS IS SPLATTERPUNK, which I recommend as an intro to the genre: https://www.amazon.com/This-Splatterpunk-John-Skipp-Primer/dp/B0FH616ZQ3.
The Right is all over the road these days, ranging from Libertarian Lite to WFB fusionist conservatism to the nasty stuff spawned from the alt-right. And, yes, much of that is vile.
Libertarians don't get a lot of praise these days, as both political extremes code them as political peaceniks who want both sides to lay down their rhetorical, legal, and sometimes physical arms. In other words, they want the game called off. What fun is politics if you don't get to control what other people do and push them around and give them what for?
Similarly, the WFB fusionists aren't jonesing for a fight, either. Exactly what the Right doesn't want in the Trump era. The Right wants hot fission, not cold fusion.
Hanania seems to be personally all over the road, himself. His conservatism was always a strange bird, not surprising that he would disown the Right.
Speaking of The Blaze, Glenn Beck is a conservative weathervane, if not a chameleon. I say this because he is perpetually chasing the conservative movement du jour. He is a "conservative" pick-me. He's changed his persona more than David Bowie did.
"Libertarians don't get a lot of praise these days, as both political extremes code them as political peaceniks who want both sides to lay down their rhetorical, legal, and sometimes physical arms."
The problem is libertarians don't seem to have a plan B for when one or both sides says no.
Yay, a new Thought Digest! I always enjoy the hell out of these because I always learn something new.
1. Are you saying there's a market for freaky minotaur stories with beginnings, middles, and ends? I've been out of work a long time, pride and an empty sack is worth the sack.
2. "Radfem Hitler" is a provocative name.
3. I think bowling leagues should be a bigger thing. Earnest and cringey, yes! But also fun and you can wear cute shirts.
I could ramble on about gore and the passing history I have had with it (from Faces of Death, to Orgrish, liveleak etc) but I doubt I am all that interesting.
However, on the advertising front; I have seen far more of you through other channels than your own. Granted my exposure is usually visual in nature (youtube mostly), I like attaching a face and expression to discussions. But given what I have seen over the years just about every person I have followed and listened to is either aware of you, or has had you on as a guest. I know it prolly sounds gross, but reach out to those folks. Give them a target like "I have a call in show on x day at x time" and see if that yields some results.
That leads me to the question, what would you want those results to be? There are so many types of attention these days, and with them comes all sorts of tradeoffs. Are you looking for income? Relevance? Or maybe some form of community? They are all related and can overlap, but maybe picking one specifically is a good idea.
It's funny the next show is about liminal spaces because last year I was spending a lot of time driving a plow truck in Michigan (and some this year) and I used to listen to you frequently as a form of Art Bell-esk companion to the stark and vacant world I spent most my nights in. Looking back on some of the photos I took "liminal" would be a fitting description of the empty, dark, and surreal locations I spent time in.
anywho, hope all is well over there in Defaultworld.
The new strain of the online ‘right’ often isn’t political at all, you’re right, it’s just the predictably dumb response to the ‘all men are bad’ movement of recent history. ‘Misogyny is good’ is one of the rallying cries of the new right because they can’t decipher complex arguments.
Also, I think friction-maxxxing is generally a good idea but it shouldn’t have such a stupid name. Maybe it doesn’t need a name? Just take a hike, wait for your coffee to brew, listen to an entire album. Let’s not make it a trend.
Agree on the latter. Big part of this is ppl need something to write about
Haha don’t we all?
What am I missing about the strain of the right we’re talking about?
"Both groups are competing with, and increasingly overtaking, the old-guard Dissident Right"
In what sense are they "overtaking"? Are they running faster? Pedaling harder on a bike? Earning more money? What does any of this mean?
The alt right already did liminal spaces in 2022, try to keep up.
The alt-right still existed in 2022?
Is DR your preferred pronoun for it hon?
On the topic of gore, I've noticed that Halloween decorations have become incredibly gory. Like do people care that children walk the streets? Yes that stuff scares them. That's why most horror movies have an R rating. It's weird to me to see the blood and guts in people's yards for a month.
All the people listed have differing views and exist mostly to critique out of resentment (for having their time and achievements squandered by chuds) and have no ambition to establish a “post-right” (Parvini being an exception with his “sensible centre”), if you want to find the real post-right you need to dig into the nichés that people like me exist in… people who actually make calls for a third way and abandoning partisanship entirely.
Lots of food for thought here re: gore porn and porn porn. Interesting that gore has gotten so mainstream that kitschy violence has become the way that pop stars like Sabrina Carpenter can “act out” against the patriarchy (she has a running gag about killing off a man in each of her music videos)
Re: your last paragraph about Gore Porn. I think one factor that might be driving this is purely algorithmic (the algo knows people respond to children getting tortured, so congratulations, you get to hear about lots of children getting tortured. YOUR WELCOME.
Also on the contrasts with the reports about the Scully case: IMHO one thing at work here is that Capital E-Evil isn't really a thing our society believes in anymore, so it's the need convey a warning to avoid this at all cost doesn't exist for society. Evil probably isn't the word I really mean; "profane" is more correct, "unholy'. שֶׁקֶץ in the Bible, for example (usually translated as detestable or an abomination). Parts of TPOT treats Infohazard this way, but I don't think that's a universal sentiment.
This last paragraph also can be read as understanding some of the appeal of gore porn: it's proving how tough/cool you are by turning yourself into a psychological tank (in the WoW sense) and absorbing damage for funsies because you don't think it can harm you.
NPR had a segment today on "tropification"/reading for specific elements popularised in the case of Romantasy jn this case, this was theorised as "moe-elements" in the context of manga in the Database Animals book decades ago, the host seems mostly upset the books reify heteronormativity and wants literature to be socially responsible; I see that as a silly criterion for good literature although totally tasteless vice-signalling for attention or almost masturbatory violence and humiliation addiction (both in the books you describe as well as the KIRAC movie you criticised on Twitter, which I can't see due to the idiotic Online Safety Act but have heard more about from others) do suggest that artistic criteria in and of themselves are enough of a reason to see these as distasteful and sordid without being moralist (and those claiming your critiques here and there are just moralism are thus wrong and uncreative)
(the NPR segment https://www.npr.org/2026/01/28/nx-s1-5690372/yes-romance-fantasy-novels-are-political)
I see the ‘storytelling’ a lot on-line, people leaving out names and details even on posts that have pictures and videos. It’s always ‘a man’, ‘a woman’, at most a job description, not even age and only sometimes location. To me it comes across as untrustworthy compared to old-school journalism (which perhaps had an undeserved reputation) but younger people seem to really go for that sort of style. I guess it allows you to focus more on the core story (puppies were saved!) and whether or not it actually happened isn’t really that important.
When Who The Fuck Did I Marry was going viral on TikTok, I was supposed to finish reading a literary novel for my book club but I just wanted to keep going to the next episode in the series because she was such a good storyteller. The art of pacing and revealing and withholding information… a lot of writers just don’t have this skill.
Re: Splatter porn- Back in the day you either saw Faces of Death or you didn’t.
Those books sound like a mile wide and an inch deep.
Have you read, The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect? It feels inevitable that we’ll finally touch the “other side,..” and use it as a playground. 🛝
https://mogami.neocities.org/files/prime_intellect.pdf
These TD’s are priceless, thank you. 🙏🏻
RE: "Splatterpunk" *dons on blood-stained fedora, loops intestine around neckbeard like a scarf*
I'm a mainstream horror author but have read a few books in this genre and know a number of the people who write this stuff personally. Books like PLAYGROUND are not actually splatterpunk, although this term IS constantly (mis)used to refer to them.
The Splatterpunk movement started in the '80s as a reaction to the more staid, bloodless, gothic horror. Like special effects legend Tom Savini (FRIDAY THE 13TH, etc.), the OG Splatterpunks like John Skipp and Craig Spector, Joe Lansdale, and Clive Barker (ish) were influenced by coming of age during Vietnam. Death is not clean and bloodless. Death is messy and ugly, and the Splatterpunks wanted horror to reflect that. Their books were gory AF, but the gore had a point. The term "Splatterpunk" was deliberate, with each component having equal importance. Yes, the splatter is critical, but so is the PUNK.
To put as fine a point on it as I can: Splatterpunk was about using gore to critique society.
Seeing the success of the Splatterpunks, a new group of writers came along. For them, the gore was the point. The goal was to write the most fucked up thing imaginable. That movement became known as "Extreme Horror," which is the sub-genre to which books like PLAYGROUND belong. It's superficially similar to Splatterpunk, but isn't intended to have a deeper layer (and there are some people that argue that "Splatterpunk" was literally referring to a specific scene in the '80s, and it's not really possible to write Splatterpunk anymore).
People on BookTok use these terms interchangeably, but there's a good deal of nuance lost when they do so. OG Splatterpunk John Skipp actually released a primer last year called THIS IS SPLATTERPUNK, which I recommend as an intro to the genre: https://www.amazon.com/This-Splatterpunk-John-Skipp-Primer/dp/B0FH616ZQ3.
The Right is all over the road these days, ranging from Libertarian Lite to WFB fusionist conservatism to the nasty stuff spawned from the alt-right. And, yes, much of that is vile.
Libertarians don't get a lot of praise these days, as both political extremes code them as political peaceniks who want both sides to lay down their rhetorical, legal, and sometimes physical arms. In other words, they want the game called off. What fun is politics if you don't get to control what other people do and push them around and give them what for?
Similarly, the WFB fusionists aren't jonesing for a fight, either. Exactly what the Right doesn't want in the Trump era. The Right wants hot fission, not cold fusion.
Hanania seems to be personally all over the road, himself. His conservatism was always a strange bird, not surprising that he would disown the Right.
Speaking of The Blaze, Glenn Beck is a conservative weathervane, if not a chameleon. I say this because he is perpetually chasing the conservative movement du jour. He is a "conservative" pick-me. He's changed his persona more than David Bowie did.
"Libertarians don't get a lot of praise these days, as both political extremes code them as political peaceniks who want both sides to lay down their rhetorical, legal, and sometimes physical arms."
The problem is libertarians don't seem to have a plan B for when one or both sides says no.
Well-stated. Agree 100%
I think this splatterpunk impulse has always been about making a catalogue. See: 120 days of sodom.
I have been writing about splatterpunk for kids series barf-o-rama i cant believe this shit exists please notice me
I just looked this up, and he wrote Animorphs beore this. I loved Animorphs!
Yay, a new Thought Digest! I always enjoy the hell out of these because I always learn something new.
1. Are you saying there's a market for freaky minotaur stories with beginnings, middles, and ends? I've been out of work a long time, pride and an empty sack is worth the sack.
2. "Radfem Hitler" is a provocative name.
3. I think bowling leagues should be a bigger thing. Earnest and cringey, yes! But also fun and you can wear cute shirts.
I could ramble on about gore and the passing history I have had with it (from Faces of Death, to Orgrish, liveleak etc) but I doubt I am all that interesting.
However, on the advertising front; I have seen far more of you through other channels than your own. Granted my exposure is usually visual in nature (youtube mostly), I like attaching a face and expression to discussions. But given what I have seen over the years just about every person I have followed and listened to is either aware of you, or has had you on as a guest. I know it prolly sounds gross, but reach out to those folks. Give them a target like "I have a call in show on x day at x time" and see if that yields some results.
That leads me to the question, what would you want those results to be? There are so many types of attention these days, and with them comes all sorts of tradeoffs. Are you looking for income? Relevance? Or maybe some form of community? They are all related and can overlap, but maybe picking one specifically is a good idea.
It's funny the next show is about liminal spaces because last year I was spending a lot of time driving a plow truck in Michigan (and some this year) and I used to listen to you frequently as a form of Art Bell-esk companion to the stark and vacant world I spent most my nights in. Looking back on some of the photos I took "liminal" would be a fitting description of the empty, dark, and surreal locations I spent time in.
anywho, hope all is well over there in Defaultworld.