After nursing others to health during warm-up phase, manic pixie dream girls pursue their own needs during manic phase of excitement cycle

So far we've been looking at the role that manic pixie dream girls play within the context of the restless warm-up phase of the 15-year excitement cycle -- coaxing wary guys out of their shells, so that the sexes can get reacquainted with each other, after 5 long years of refractory-phase hyper-sensitivity.

What happens to these girls once that role has been fulfilled, though, and the cycle enters the manic phase where everyone feels invincible and carefree? There's no longer a need for an earthly guardian angel to lift a guy up out of a deep psychological hole.

Roles are adaptive within a phase, and do not stay constant over time. New environment, new roles. Still, some may be better suited to a particular role than others are, based on their birth and development.

Once the wary people have been rescued from their emo funk by the manic pixie dream girls, during the warm-up phase, the MPDGs are then free to pursue their own social and emotional needs and fulfillment during the manic phase. They've been caring for others for the past 5 years -- it's time for a little vacation, a little break, a little "me time".

They were glad to care for others in the previous phase, and don't resent that at all. But now that that work has been done, it's time to play. They are not abdicating all duties and responsibilities, they're simply going on vacation. And it's not in a hedonistic degenerate way -- they just want to shake off their role of nurse and get footloose and fancy-free for awhile, in a wholesome way. As MPDGs, they were validating others -- now it's their time for receiving validation from others.

That's what was behind the backlash against the MPDG role during the early 2010s, after its heyday during the late 2000s: everyone understood that the MPDGs' function had been successfully accomplished, and now it was time for them -- and everyone else -- to move on to new roles during the manic phase. They were going to have more of a social life of their own, fulfill their own emotional needs, have others validate them rather than vice versa, and have some wholesome fun on their little vacation.

This change to the MPDG role shows up in a new focus on social independence during the manic phase movies with characters who, in the previous warm-up phase, may have been straightforward MPDGs. The girl in Ruby Sparks (2012) gets a life of her own, separate from her author-creator. The operating system in Her (2013) socializes with other OS's and leaves the human social ecosystem entirely. And the mermaid from Splash (1984) ends up leaving the human ecosystem of her love interest, taking him back to her own world under the sea.

This change was foreshadowed already at the tail-end of the MPDG heyday, in 500 Days of Summer (2009), where half the movie explores the MPDG leading a fulfilling married life of her own with another man, after having nursed the male protagonist out of his stagnant depression. It's not that manic pixies are fickle gypsies -- but that roles change along with the phases of the excitement cycle, and some other type of person may need her attention in a different phase (or she may need attention herself).

A more concise, impressionistic display of the changing of roles is this ad for Magnum ice cream with former MPDG Rachel Bilson from 2011 (infectious enough that I still remember it, despite watching minimal TV during my adult life). No longer nursing others through emotional rehab, she's now free to pursue a wholesome carefree treat of her own, on her own:



But the most intense signal of the changing roles is the "it's time for a little me-time" anthem that explodes during the manic phase of the cycle. These are not hedonistic, about cutting all social ties and responsibilities, egocentric, etc. They clearly place the desire for a little vacation and validation for themselves within the context of having already fulfilled their duties to others and behaved responsibly. It's simply time to take a break, catch their breath, and replenish their own emotional stores after having given to others, by having some carefree me-time fun. They will get back to their responsibilities to others, just after a brief rejuvenating vacation.

These anthems were performed by women who were born during a manic phase, just like the MPDGs were (early '50s, late '60s, early '80s). Also like the MPDGs, they socially imprinted on the manic phase environment when they were hitting their adolescent stride at age 15. And in one case, Avril Lavigne, she'd already played the MPDG role during the previous warm-up phase (the late 2000s, in "Keep Holding On" and "Girlfriend").

It's too bad that Cyndi Lauper and Shania Twain didn't have big hits from the late '70s and early '90s, when they would've been naturals in the MPDG role, to show the evolution across phases like Avril did. I assume that they at least resonated with the MPDG role during the warm-up phase, like other manic-phase births do in such an environment. By the time the manic phase rolls around, they certainly show signs of having been through a MPDG role recently -- I've taken care of others, now it's time for a validating vacation of my own.

They don't treat the generic topic of "me-time," though: it's a specifically feminine form of needing to unwind and receive some emotional validation from others. And that, too, is after having fulfilled a specifically feminine role -- nurturing others. That's why these fall into the broader "girl power" trend that characterizes the manic phase of the cycle. (There are different forms of girl power from women who were born during different phases, but that's a matter for a separate post.)

I searched the late '60s manic phase for examples, but came up empty-handed. The "girl power" songs from back then were more about social / political change, as the sudden eruption of the women's lib movement overshadowed the more mundane changing of phases in the excitement cycle. Without such a momentous one-time social revolution under way, I assume there would've been one of these anthems back then as well. Alternatively, in the pre-neoliberal era, it might have been unnatural to make songs that, in however qualified of a way, glorified me-time as opposed to couples-time, family-time, community-time, or country-time.

In any case, these anthems all made the year-end Billboard Hot 100 charts, and are some of the most iconic of the manic-phase zeitgeist.

"Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper (1983)



"Man! I Feel Like a Woman" by Shania Twain (1997)



"What the Hell" by Avril Lavigne (2011)

Lars and the Real Girl, a transition between robo-gf and manic pixie dream girl trends of the excitement cycle

On a whim last night I watched this critically acclaimed box-office disappointment, and it resonated so well with some earlier posts here on the topic of manic pixie dream girls and their place in the 15-year cultural excitement cycle.

First, recall that during the vulnerable refractory phase of the cycle, there's a retreat into the fantasy of obtaining a made-to-order robo-gf -- one who won't require all that painful social stimulation in order to court and woo.

Then, recall that during the restless warm-up phase that follows, the manic pixie dream girl archetype appears out of nowhere, as a kind of guardian angel to coax the male protagonist out of his vulnerable-phase cocoon, lifting him out of the emo funk that he'd been mired in throughout the previous phase.

Lars and the Real Girl came out in 2007, during a restless warm-up phase that should not have had the robo-gf and should have had the manic pixie dream girl. Instead of featuring solely one of those two types, the movie shows both, but in a way that is consonant with the warm-up phase -- leaving the emotional crutch robo-gf behind, and welcoming the charms of the manic pixie dream girl, as the protagonist works his way out of a deep dreary depression.

Even when the robo-gf is the focus of the plot early on, the protagonist is never depicted as enjoying a fulfilling retreat into fantasy (unlike The Stepford Wives, Weird Science, and the like). His attachment to his robo-gf is clearly shown as forced on his part, plainly an emotional crutch, and is treated as pathological by the other characters, who still want to help him through this awkward stage. This is the only way the robo-gf archetype can exist during the warm-up phase when people are itching to leave behind their emo-phase cocoons.

The manic pixie dream girl, for her part, doesn't get as much screen time as in other movies during the most recent peak of the type (the late 2000s). But it's clear what role she plays vis-a-vis the protagonist, does not exist so much for her own character arc across the narrative, and has the usual eccentricities in personality and appearance that are associated with the type.

A post on the birth phases of manic pixie dream girls showed that they overwhelmingly were born during a manic phase of the cycle. They imprinted on a social-cultural atmosphere of invincibility and carefree social relations during their introduction to the world -- and then again during their adolescence (around age 15), when they're hitting their stride socially. And sure enough, the actress playing the manic pixie dream girl in this movie was born in 1984, during the early '80s manic phase. It rarely fails!

Strangely, she is left off of lists of manic pixie dream girls. I'd been looking over them and watching as many as I could lately, to get a better feel for this character type, now that she'll be coming back during the early 2020s warm-up phase. But this movie had totally eluded my radar until mindlessly scrolling Amazon Prime.

She must have been left off because the type of people who write those lists are obsessed with individual personas, both because they're spergy nerds who don't understand social relations, and because they're status-striving types who see things as contests among individuals rather than a holistic superorganic social ecosystem. (The movie does a great job of portraying this aspect of real communities like small-town Wisconsin.)

What makes a character a manic pixie dream girl is not her individual traits that could be listed on a trading card, or an online dating app profile -- it is her relationship to the protagonist, how their social interactions drive the plot of him coming out of his emo funk. She is his earthly guardian angel, not just some isolated free spirit who wears barettes in her hair and is generally in an upbeat mood.

Another reason may be the total lack of irony or self-awareness in the movie's tone. If every other example of the character was played in a movie that was ironic or self-aware in tone, then how could this one be a true example of the type? Because tone has nothing to do with the relationship between the characters. Again, cultural critics are just doing superficial analysis, ignoring social relations and roles, and emphasizing stylistic choices like the degree of irony struck in the tone.

A final reason why it's ignored in discussions of the character type or overall genre, is that the characters are not metropolitan professionals. In the striver critic's mind, who else but yuppies and current private school kids could ever be going through a funk and need to be coaxed out of their cocoons to fulfill some higher purpose that requires social integration? Certainly not office drones in flyover country small towns.

All these exceptions recommend the movie over most of the more well known examples of the genre. The focus on the holistic social ecosystem, the sincere tone, and the humanistic portrayal of ordinary people from unglamorous walks of life -- really makes it feel like a throwback to before the current status-striving / neoliberal era. Unfortunately that meant it couldn't succeed much with audiences, but it's definitely worth watching.

Dancers show that corporeal women are ass women, not boob women

We return to an ongoing investigation that has shown that corporeal people are ass men / women, while cerebral people are boob men / women. Where else can we look for evidence? Dancing -- there are few activities more corporeal than that (there's basically no cerebral component to it).

After playing "Red Light Special" for the previous post, and knowing that I'm a fan of dancing, YouTube's algorithm suggested I watch this choreography video set to the song. "Choreography" may be stretching it -- stripperography is closer to what it is (no stripping or nudity, but NSFW).

Videos like these provide a large sample size of people that clarifies statistical impressions that might otherwise elude someone. There are dozens of women in the room, whether actually dancing or watching nearby. And there are dozens of other videos on that channel and others like it, which all show a pretty similar profile of dancers.

Notice that hardly any of them are large-breasted, and that if anything they tend to have more shapely ass-hips-and-thighs.

Aside from their static shape, which parts of their body do they emphasize while actively dancing? Far more from the waist down -- and when the upper body is involved, it's the arms and hands, not the chest region. They play up their facial expressions, whip their hair around, touch their hair or head or face with their hands -- literally the only part of their body that they avoid emphasizing is their tits.

Now, this is exotic dancing, and there are plenty of moves that are highly sexual. So it's not that they avoid drawing attention to their chests because it's too refined to indulge in such vulgar displays. If they all had big boobs, they would absolutely be heaving them around, bouncing them up and down, and touching or slapping them -- since that's what they're doing with their ass, hips, and thighs.

This tendency is true even for the women who are about equal above and below the waist. It's not just a matter of emphasizing whichever is larger.

It is already well understood that ballet dancers tend to have small-to-modest breasts, but the case of exotic dancers helps to rule out all of the existing theories about ballet dancers. It's already known that small-chested women tend to be the ones who join ballet to begin with -- not that ballet transforms large chests into small ones.

But the answers offered all suppose that it's about ballet's high degree of athleticism (at least in modern times), which would weed out women whose breasts were large enough to get in the way of the gymnastic-like movements. Or something -- it's not clear what the arguments are for large boobs being an impediment per se to athletics -- there are plenty of guys with flabby bellies and man-boobs who are on football, baseball, and hockey teams, not to mention bowling and golf.

My hunch is rather that large-breasted women are not as athletically gifted as a matter of their inner kinesthetic sense. I predict that they could remove their large breasts, and small-breasted women could get large implants, and their success in athletic training and performance would mirror other women who were similar to their original chest size. Big boobs and lower athleticism is correlation, not causation (they're both correlated to kinesthetic sense). That applies to all athletics -- dancing, gymnastics, cheerleading, soccer, softball, volleyball, whatever.

In any case, the exotic dancers show that athleticism is irrelevant. The kinds of dances you see in that video do not require minimal body fat, intense activity, explosive movements, or gymnastic-level skills. If it were the high degree of athleticism that kept large-breasted women out of ballet, then why are they also kept out of exotic dancing?

It clearly is not the physical requirements of the activity. The weeding-out process is at the level of "are you corporeal or cerebral?" or "do you have a high or low kinesthetic sense?" If big boobs don't make the cut at this basic level, it means that "ass woman or boob woman?" is related to the fundamental trait of "corporeal or cerebral," not just certain athletic activities that a corporeal person might pursue.

You could also ask them how clumsy they are. I'll bet boob women are clumsier on average than ass women, even at tasks that do not involve either region -- catching a ball, for instance. Related: rhythmic skill (one aspect of kinesthetic sense). I'll bet ass women have better rhythm, even at tasks that don't involve dancing -- tapping back or humming back a rhythm that you've just heard.

Finally, there's the matter of the target male audience for dancing -- are they ass men or boob men? I'm guessing ass men, judging again from the moves of the dancers that overwhelmingly emphasize the fertility region rather than the mammary region. (This dance fan is definitely an ass man.)

If boob men wanted to see the chest emphasized, they wouldn't watch a dance routine, but something simple like women jumping on trampolines (a la The Man Show), jogging, jumping rope, or whatever. Or an upper-body striptease. But nothing that would fall under "dancing".

Gay Peter Pan-isms: Aversion to baby-making / quiet storm songs

Back in 2012-'13 I solved the mystery of describing gay syndrome -- that is, the broad correlated pattern of traits that distinguish male homosexuals from heterosexuals of either sex. The standard frameworks were both retarded -- that gays are a kind of hyper-masculine male, or a kind of effeminate male.

The simplest framework is that they are a kind of pre-pubescent male child, one whose mindset is signaled by the view that "Ewww, girls are yucky!" That's the stage that their broad psychological, and to some extent physical, development is mostly stuck in.

It is only to the extent that adult females are neotenous (resembling children), that gays appear effeminate -- they both resemble children, gays far more strongly. But post-pubescent females have all sorts of mature traits that mark them apart from children, and from gays -- namely, anything related to motherhood (the maternal instinct, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, nurturing children, and so on).

The framework of "hyper-masculine gays" never had much support -- relative to heterosexual men, gays are smaller, weaker, more easily frightened, cry more, and are totally uninterested in girls, to name the most obvious non-masculine traits. Those are all explained by resembling a child of the age that still feels that "girls are yucky".

The only piece of evidence was that gays are highly promiscuous, which is more male than female-typical. I showed how that is easily explained in the "gays as pre-pubescent boys" framework -- what would happen if you gave an adult hormonal sex drive to a boy who was still mostly pre-social. He wouldn't feel strongly attached to anyone outside his household, and could easily cycle through friends and acquaintances. Boys and girls do this normally with friends at that age; gays differ only in having a sex drive attached to it, so they cycle through "friends and acquaintances who they get it on with," rather than just friends.

It's only during adolescence that the social sense fully develops, and people become more bonded to their peers and behave in a give-and-take way to maintain durable social circles. And since gays are still in the "girls are yucky" stage, their sex drive targets males by default, who boys are not averse to interacting with socially.

Long-time readers remember this; newer readers can search the blog for "gay" and "Peter Pan," "pedomorphy," or "neoteny". The evidence is extensive. Nobody had proposed the theory before, either professionals or laymen, and either from the left, right, or center.

* * *

Having reviewed the overall framework for the first time in awhile, let's add another example to the pattern. I wasn't even planning on looking for it, it just showed up when I was looking at different music genres.

There is a very well established genre called the gay anthem. It's not just disco-dancing stuff, as there are weepy torch songs in there too. There is major overlap between "hoe anthems" and gay anthems.

And yet there is a related kind of doing-it song that does not show up at all -- the baby-making song, or the broader genre of quiet storm song. To show how little overlap there is, Wikipedia's lists of gay anthems and quiet storm songs have around 200 songs apiece, and yet there's only 1 song that belongs to both -- "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston. And that's more of a torch song than a getting-it-on, baby-making song. Only 1 out of over 200 in common? That is not a minor difference.

There are a few near misses, where the same artist and album are on each list, but different songs from the album show up on either list (gay anthem first, quiet storm song second):

1985 - Whitney Houston, "How Will I Know" vs. "Saving All My Love For You"

1994 - TLC, "Waterfalls" vs. "Red Light Special"

1998 - Brandy & Monica, "The Boy Is Mine" vs. "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" or "Angel of Mine"

The case of TLC is revealing since you'd think "Waterfalls" would be the more normie-friendly song, and that "Red Light Special" would be the one for the over-sexed group, but it's the other way around. In the YouTube comments to the video below, unlike for a hoe anthem like "Gimme More" by Britney Spears, there's no stampede of gays rushing in to identify with the song, and the girls all refer to baby-making rather than letting their inner hoe shine.



What distinguishes baby-making songs (mainly a sub-genre of quiet storm) from the seemingly similar hoe anthems, or torch songs, that make up much of the gay anthem genre? It's the juvenile vs. mature form of social interaction that is assumed. An immature person can feel attraction, infatuation, be sexually active with another person, split apart afterward, and feel lonesome after the parting of ways. But only socially mature people feel the romance and one-on-one intimacy that goes along with long-term monogamy, marriage, raising families, and so on.

Baby-making songs are not about risking pregnancy by sleeping with just any old guy -- it's the special, unique one who you're invested in, and who is invested in you, to the degree that you wouldn't mind eventually forming a family together. If it's just about fucking any random hot guy, that's a hoe anthem, not a baby-making song.

If gays are socially-psychologically like pre-pubescent boys, then of course they don't resonate with the tone of quiet storm songs, which assumes a couple that is adult, romantic, and pair-bonded. But hoe anthems and torch songs would certainly work for gays: in their pre-adolescent and mainly pre-social state, little boys (and girls) already cycle through friends and acquaintances "promiscuously," it's just that gays have an adult sex drive attached to this process, so that they are sexually promiscuous while cycling through them, and perhaps feeling all woe-is-me after the acquaintanceship inevitably breaks apart.

* * *

In typical libtard fashion, the push for gay marriage assumed that equality before the law required equality in nature -- "just like us," "same love," etc. But gays could not be more different from normal men in the relevant domains of life. If the crusaders wanted to allow them to get married, it should have been in terms of giving them the privilege despite being so different, as a form of tolerance. I don't support it, but that's the only way to do it if you do.

Instead we just got a bunch of risible propaganda making claims about how the world works, which normies already know is bogus. It politicized and weaponized social science, as part of a polarizing culture war, rather than a civil liberties approach (tolerance, admitting the vast differences in nature).

What if you got the social science wrong? Then is it OK to revoke the rights and privileges that you based on it? Libtards never stop to think about that. If scientific discoveries -- or basic common sense -- disprove your claims about nature, and those claims are the foundation for your rights argument, then your argument is incredibly fragile. A robust argument is made independently of whatever the state of nature is, a topic to which we'll return in future posts.

Strangers saying "Hi" again, as vulnerable phase of excitement cycle ends, and further changes in social weather conditions

About a month ago I posted a brief update on the transition out of the vulnerable phase of the 15-year excitement cycle, noting that there seemed to be a dead lull in public spaces around the turn of the year. Well, that has since passed, and we're back on track into the restless warm-up phase. Maybe people really just were going through one last chrysalis stage before emerging anew.

Teenage or 20-something cuties continue to brush against me in public places, although no more catcalling so far since the end of last year (I did say it's rare even when it's in the air). That was unlike the previous 5 years, when everyone was in a refractory phase.

Another update to the social weather report: I've noticed strangers saying "Hi" first, or at least responding with "Hi" when I initiate, at the public park that I sometimes go for a long stroll around. The rate has been pretty high, with only a few anti-social killjoys, and this has been true even when it's dark and you'd think they might be nervous talking to strangers. But nope: friendly neighborly behavior is back.

Was it ever gone? Absolutely: I wrote about it during the last time it was still somewhat in the air, in the summer of 2015. (I focused on the generational divides, but was still picking up on a change in the social weather conditions.) That's the same summer I pointed to in the other posts, as the last time I had been brushed against or cat-called by hormonal honies in public places where there's no expectation of a sexually charged atmosphere.

No matter what aspect of the social weather conditions you use, they all return the same picture -- the beginning of feeling over-sensitive to social stimuli had begun sometime in 2015. It did not vanish completely overnight, so I still noticed these social behaviors that we associate with the warm-up or manic phases, but they were not common enough as before, showing that the vulnerable phase was transitioning in. And I can't think of any such examples from 2016 through most of 2019 at all.

The example of strangers from the same neighborhood saying "Hi" shows that it's not just the return of sexually charged interactions between males and females. It generalizes to all forms of social stimuli, whether the other person is too old for you to be attracted to, whether they're the same sex, or whatever else.

To make a prediction, I think people will start chatting more with cashiers in the early 2020s. I've noticed a steady decline in my own willingness to chat with them over the past 5 years, despite being on friendly, talkative first-name terms with them back during the manic phase of the early 2010s (in a different city back then -- not that I've ghosted them since!). And I haven't seen many other people chatting it up with them either, not like I observed in the early 2010s anyway.

Looking further forward, I think the most reliable hallmark of the manic phase will hit, during the late 2020s, when people feel comfortable talking to strangers at length in public places, to the point where they become regular conversation partners. They'll be flying high, feeling invincible, nothing could go wrong.

The last time I took that social leap was in 2012, and made a regular realtalk buddy at the Starbucks I used to hang out at. A real eccentric conspiracy-minded Boomer, someone to blow off steam with, make observations about what was going on around us, and other typical barfly stuff.

I haven't even bothered "hanging out" in such places over the past 5 years -- I can see from outside that it's totally dead inside, where everyone is hunched over a screen of some kind, in total isolation from one another, like some spergy computer lab. There was already a heavy amount of that during the last manic phase, but there were enough exceptions to liven the place up.

On a final speculative note, maybe it's just me, but I've found myself singing out loud in public again for the first time in what seems like forever. Tonight I was in a good mood and "Listen Like Thieves" came on in the supermarket. A week or so ago, it was "What Makes You Beautiful" (one of the younger girls who works there got a kick out of that). Around that time, the thrift store was playing new wave b-sides and deep cuts all night (first time I remember getting to sing along to "Hot in the City" or "Feels Like Heaven" in public).

I've just lost that emo feeling that everyone had in public during the late 2010s -- it's not just how I myself felt, but my reaction to others. Even if I'd felt in the mood, knowing that everyone else was in an emo funk and therefore not receptive, would've kept me quiet.

When was the last time I felt so uninhibited in public? Definitely during the last manic phase, when it seemed like Trader Joe's had a new wave playlist running every night. Sometimes I stopped by just to sing along and get into the groove. As for a year? I don't know, 2014 or '15, at least at the degree of regularity that I find myself doing it now. The peak was 2013, as with so much else during that phase...

Any other suggestions for behaviors and changes to be on the look-out for, let us know in the comments.

"No More Mr. Vice Guy" (radlib to anti-woke conversion song, in honor of Shialabeefsteak & co.)

It's interesting to learn that not everyone in the anti-woke faction of the Left started out that way. Here's a self-description of the ideological origins of one of the current generals in the anti-woke Left army:

yeah, I've been a democrat voter since about '95. I started my path to my views now after 9/11. I was a raging identitarian radlib between 2000-2005 before that thing was even part of public consciousness.

— Bloomberg/Warren 2020 Unity (@Shialabeefsteak) July 29, 2019

You wouldn't have thought it, but that just means that presumably lots more used to be polarized libs and had a coming-to-anti-intersectional-Jesus moment. I think that like Shia they came from the angry straight white guy demographic -- the one that the woke-ist Establishment is obsessed with herding in their direction, lest they join the Alex Jones fanbase and vote Trump. They're the ones that Vice Media targets using rebellious left-wing cultural posturing that is poisoned with neoliberal economics.

How else are the liberal elites going to make alienated young white guys ignore the fact that the fully Democrat-controlled government destroyed their chances of universal healthcare, unless they wave around a meaningless culture-war distraction like gay marriage that you can troll your racist Republican uncle with?

To tap into and encourage that conversion-anger, here's something for the formerly-woke Left, set to the tune of an angsty anthem all-timer:

* * *

I used to be such a rad, rad lib
Till they quoted Adolph Reed
I'd open borders to minimize wages
I followed Laci Green

I got no friends 'cause they're checkmark chasers
They can't retweet "Nazis"
And I'm getting real called out
And I'm cappin' screens

No more Mr. Vice guy
No more "YAAAS KWEEEN!"
No more Mr. Vice guy
They say, "No clicks -- he's unclean"

I got no friends 'cause they're checkmark chasers
They can't retweet "Nazis"
And I'm getting real called out
And I'm cappin' screens

No more Mr. Vice guy
No more "YAAAS KWEEEN!"
No more Mr. Vice guy
They say, "No clicks -- he's unclean"

My dog muted my account today
My cat told me "yikes"
(Reply guy, oooh)
Ma's been canceled off of social media
And dad undid his likes

I went to Verso, incognito
As I began to post,
The rose emojis, they recognized me,
And punched us Bernie bros

They said,

"No more Mr. Vice guy"
"No more! YAAAS KWEEEN!"
"No more Mr. Vice guy"
They said, "No clicks -- you're unclean"

Topless protests prove Me Too is dead, and that pol junkies are boob men / women, not ass men / women

After seeing topless protesters hijack Bernie's rally in Nevada, I can't help but fit that into the broader pattern detailed in an earlier post about how political junkies are boob men and women. The men fixate more on T than A, and the women are either busty or at least favor displaying their boobs rather than ass to an audience. The explanation is that political junkies are cerebral, which is correlated with being a boob man / woman, while corporeal people tend to be ass men / women.

That post drew on evidence from social media personas, but here we see the same pattern emerge in a different context (IRL protests).

In fact, these women protesting dairy farming are only one example of a larger tendency toward topless protesting, most notably the FEMEN group (they're Slavs, so they don't have either T or A, but always chose to display the top rather than bottom). Then there was the #FreeTheNipple thing. Both of those were part of the Slutwalk era during the last manic phase of the excitement cycle in the early 2010s, before the Me Too phase of the late 2010s.

Incidentally, the re-emergence of topless protests is another sign that the vulnerable phase of the cycle is over, and we're now in the restless warm-up phase. No way this could have happened during the height of Me Too, when women in a refractory phase felt hysterically vulnerable to unwanted sexual attention. Nor is anyone in 2020 going to call Bernie rape-y or molest-y for staying on stage with topless young women, rather than averting his eyes and making a bee-line for the exit like a good male feminist.

Earlier there was bra burning during second wave feminism. Streaking during the '70s was not political, and in any case cannot resolve the matter because the entire body was shown, not only one area or the other.

When only one region is shown, it's always about taking off their tops, not baring their buns. Nothing prevents them from taking off their underwear, or wearing a g-string or something, and twerking around on stage. Or only pulling down their pants enough to moon someone. The fact that mooning is already a widely established form of revealing private parts to diss someone, and yet is never done during these racy protests, shows just how inclined they are away from the back and toward the front.

Will Bernie get 0 of 219 delegates in Florida? And a more general collapse in Eastern states?

If you don't treat politics as a form of therapy-tainment, ignore most of the "analysis" coming out of the pro-Bernie media (including social media). It's not just clueless and delusional, but triumphalist at a stage where Bernie is basically tied with Buttigieg (and slightly behind in the delegate count, the only thing that matters for winning the nomination).

As usual, Aimee Terese and Benjamin Studebaker at What's Left? are among the few with any audience whatsoever who are looking at things objectively. Here's their episode on Iowa, which extends into the broader issues that are limiting Bernie's appeal this time around vs. 2016:



With two of the early states already done, intense focus is now shifting to the remaining early ones, Nevada and South Carolina. But rather than jump on this media circus, let's zoom out and look at one of Bernie's biggest obstacles coming up -- Florida. It's the 3rd biggest state by population, and will deliver almost as many delegates as Texas (219 and 228).

Last time he got killed there with only 34% of the vote, lost every Congressional district, and won only a handful of unpopulated counties. But this time he may do so poorly that he winds up getting nothing at all out of the gigantic delegate pool at stake.

Among the Florida polls at RCP, two are recent with a large sample size (in the thousands), polling "likely" rather than merely "registered" voters. Bernie is polling just 10% statewide, which would prevent him from winning any state-level delegates (he'd need 15%). And given his loss in every Congressional district and poor county performance last time, it's hard to believe that there will be at least one district where he'll outperform and get 15% at the district level. It may sound like 5 points isn't much, but that would be a 50% increase over his statewide average. Nor are there any hippie college towns where he cleaned up last time.

The only two candidates who look eligible for delegates are the two Establishment favorites -- Biden and Bloomberg, each with just over a quarter of the vote. The others are, like Bernie, around 10% or less. Buttigieg is at 11%, and could enjoy some last minute support from undecideds in order to clear 15% in at least one district and perhaps statewide. Whereas you're mostly already for Bernie or not. In one of the states most hostile to populism, it's hard to believe there will be a last-minute surge in favor of the increasingly woke socialist.

Whether Bernie gets literally 0, or lucks out and wins a handful of delegates, is not the point. It's a sign of his broader cratering from his 2016 peak -- and unlike in New Hampshire, this time attached to a far larger magnitude. He's lost not only some support to Warren, but presumably to either Biden or Bloomberg.

If Bernie got about 35% in 2016, lucks out and gets 15% this time, that leaves 20 points worth of defectors, or anti-Bernie newcomers. Lyin' Liz, the usual source of poaching his support, is only at 5-10% in Florida. That would still leave 15-20 points who switched from Bernie, or are newcomers, to a more centrist / moderate / Establishment candidate.

From polling so far, it looks like the only place where his campaign's gambit to go all-in on wokeness and diversity will pay off is among heavily Hispanic areas in the Southwest, which does include large states like Texas and California that he lost last time. It's not a Hispanic gain in general, or else he wouldn't be getting wiped out in Florida.

It remains to be seen whether his gains in California and Texas can balance out the coming destruction in Florida. And for those who don't remember 2016, he lost the primary by 12 points -- to win the nom this time, he has to vastly improve over last time. To vastly improve among the large states, he'd practically have to win the whole enchilada in California and Texas, since he's coming up empty-handed in Florida.

And though it's early, I'm sensing a major weakness in the Eastern states. In the rural Midwest (Iowa), Bernie repeated his 2016 performance (narrowly losing what amounts to a tie), with no real change in turnout. And if anything, he seems to be improving over 2016, or at least staying the same, in the West Coast and Plains states.

But in New Hampshire, there was a gigantic surge of new primary voters who were not populists motivated by Bernie, but MSNBC-addled status quo defenders. Not to mention his losses to Lyin' Liz. Beyond the sheer drop in support from 60% to 25%, he did not remain decisively above 2nd place, winding up only 1.3 points above Buttigieg. A decisive win, given his 25% share, would have been for 2nd place to have 15% or less, not right behind him.

His utter collapse of support in Florida fits into that Eastern pattern, but does not conform to a Southern, Hispanic, or Sun Belt pattern (contradicted by CA and TX).

Aside from South Carolina, where the campaign has been investing heavily solely for early state narrative value, Bernie doesn't look too good in the other Southeastern states, polling 10-20% in states where he lost last time but at least picked up 30-some percent of the vote. That, too, points to an Eastern pattern, since he is improving in the Southwest (including Texas).

If you look at the Congressional districts that flipped in 2018 to narrowly give Dems the House, they were all yuppie districts, but they were concentrated along the Eastern states, both Northeastern and Southeastern. This was not a populist surge, but a status quo clampdown akin to the Know-Nothing movement of the 1850s, only this time blaming Russia rather than the Pope for foreign interference.

The result in New Hampshire is ominous, portending an echo of the 2018 mid-terms, at least in the parts of the country where it was originally resonant -- the Establishment center back East, whether in its Northern or Southern form (the 13 original colonies, and thereabouts). Sadly for Bernie, that includes one of the biggest states -- New York -- as well as other large ones like Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He lost those all last time, but may lose even worse this time, due to the MSNBCIA outpouring.

Farther away from the power center of the nation, these hysterics don't resonant as strongly. Despite having 25 Congressional targets in Texas, including many yuppie ones, the Dems only managed to flip 1 from the GOP in 2018. Russiagate, Muellergate, Impeachmentgate, etc., must not play very well down there. They're too far away from the center of power to feel like it seriously matters which faction of the DC Deep State is being elevated or demoted at any given moment.

That seems to extend all the way out to California, although there are pockets of Resistards there too -- and yet, far less of a presence than in their bi-coastal counterparts along the East Coast. And evidently not so much in the Pacific Northwest or Hawaii (good ol' Tulsi).

Something to keep your eye on. It's extremely dangerous for his campaign to see an MSNBCIA revolt even in New Hampshire, where they are relatively less reflexively pro-Establishment. By transitivity, the other states along the Bos-Wash power corridor will show even greater declines from 2016 for Bernie as concerned citizens yuppie cable news junkies pour out in order to save our democracy from the dark pall of fascism. Apparently this pattern will extend all the way down to Florida.

"I Sub Myself" by the Replinyls (song for parasocial Valentine's Day)

No emo whining about Valentine's Day -- we're out of the vulnerable phase of the 15-year excitement cycle. Time to start having fun with things again.

What better way than an ironic take on the parasocial character of relationships in these too-online times? Ironic in the fun-loving sense -- an unabashed celebration, disguised by self-deprecation. (As opposed to ironic in the joy-killing sense -- raw deprecation of others, disguised by adulation.)

We're entering the first year of the restless warm-up phase of the cycle, so the following tune from 1990 could not be more apropos:

* * *

I scroll myself, I want you to scroll me
When I get banned, I want you to parole me
I stop myself, I want you to F5 me
I unfollow myself, I want you to subscribe me

I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself
Ohhh
I won't stalk anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no

You're the one who makes me bust brain cells
The start and end on my timeline
When you're logged on, I'm always lol-ing
You're gonna swipe me right

I crash my site, and feel you restore me
Think I would die if you clicked on ignore me
Though there's ten-thousand tweets, I'm gonna fully explore you
Just feed me red meat, I'll forever simp for you

I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself
Ohhh
I won't stalk anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no

I scroll myself, I want you to scroll me
When I get banned, I want you to parole me
I stop myself, I want you to F5 me
I unfollow myself, I want you to subscribe me

I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself
Ohhh
I won't stalk anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no

I'll stalk you
I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself
Ooof, ooof, ooo-ooof, aaahhh

I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself
Ohhh
I won't stalk anybody else
When I come to browse you, I sub myself

I sub myself...