January 4, 2020

Online personas get paid in social currency, if not hard currency, but it's a status contest just the same

The anti-woke Left princess has detonated the vest again, responding to a Bernie supporter (and fellow anti-woke Leftist) who framed Liz Warren's campaign as originally leftist / socialist, but now marching to the center / re-entering the Earth's atmosphere:


After he said he laughed upon reading a tweet about "him and his ilk," she said he'd be laughing all the way to the bank.


That set off a cackling hysteria among the online personas about "getting paid to post" -- how risible! That was what really set them off -- Aimee suggesting that they benefit from framing political events in a certain way. "Where's the money in my bank account, then, galaxy brain genius?"

But Aimee means a "social currency" bank, not a hard currency bank. Because we don't have a handy literal phrase for non-monetary status contests, she used "bank" as a figure of speech.

Ironic deflection about "I don't get paid to post," coming from social media figures, obfuscates the nature of status contests among post-Boomer generations. See this foundational post on the generational structure of status competition, as well as a recent follow-up (also motivated by a perceptive Aimee Terese tweet).

Post-Boomers cannot compete in the niche of material wealth accumulation, since it is saturated with Boomers who will not leave the battle arena until they drop dead.

Gen X-ers moved on to the niche of lifestyle competition, but that has wealth requirements of its own -- just a lot lower than a house in a wealthy zip code, two homes, several new cars, etc.

Millennials don't even have the money for that, so it is competition over persona construction -- or personal brand building, social media points, leveling up your public-facing character / avatar, etc. Clicks, likes, followers, and perhaps some hard currency if you leverage those into a patreon.

That is what Aimee means when she says that a semi-popular social media persona is benefiting by framing Liz Warren's campaign as originally left-wing / socialist, and only now marching toward the center / re-entering the atmosphere. It excuses the SJW dupes who fell for her con job, as well as the professional Left who played her up as nearly-as-great-as Bernie for most of last year. Any persona giving such a take benefits by getting shitloads of clicks and other character-leveling-up points from those very same leftoid dupes -- who else would fave a whitewashing of Warren and the dupes who fell for her con-job?

Someone like Aimee, Shialabeefsteak, her podcast co-host Benjamin Studebaker, and the like, are not going to have their tweets and takes go as viral as the whitewashing take because nobody in the consumer base of social media -- left, right, or otherwise -- is demanding hard-nosed realist analysis, even if it's depressing. They want an emotional rush, and they will not reward online personas who do not give them what they want.

As material deprivation intensifies, count on the newer waves of status-strivers to deny that they're striving and competing for any kind of status or points, just because they're not getting paid in hard cash. Post-Boomers cannot get handsomely paid for anything, so they are re-locating to battle arenas that do not have upfront monetary costs to enter the fray and rise to the top of one's own pile of skulls.

On a related concluding note, this little spat also shows how hamstrung the Bernie "revolution" is in its attempt to take over the party elites, compared to the Trump "revolution" of 2016. As a non-progressive, I easily deciphered Liz Warren as a neoliberal con-jobber back in 2016 when she refused to endorse Bernie, then eagerly campaigned for neoliberalism incarnate, AKA Crooked Hillary. Way back then, I compared her role to that of Ted Cruz, the neolib / neocon who put on an act about being anti-Establishment in a bid to torpedo the true anti-Establishment campaign, Trump's.

The professional Right was almost entirely on the side of Cruz -- and those who were not, were at least sympathetic to him, saying he was just-about-as-great-as Trump but not exactly, etc. Just like the professional Left lining up behind Warren in 2020 -- even if they say they support Bernie, they're sympathetic to her, framing her as progressive / left / socialist but just not as much as Bernie, arguing for her and Bernie to sign a truce pact, bla bla bla.

However, the Trump supporters in 2016 were willing and eager to blow up not only Ted Cruz's campaign in that particular year, but his whole image and persona -- even if it meant alienating a large share of the conservative movement base, and whole swaths of GOP territory (the Great Plains). That full-frontal assault succeeded in the primary, and was crucial for Trump to win the general -- he was the anti-Ted Cruz, "not a true conservative" Republican, and voters were only too happy to choose him in historically blue states.

Bernie supporters in 2020 are unwilling and fearful to blow up Liz Warren's whole image and persona, especially if it would alienate large sections of the liberal / progressive movement base, and whole swaths of blue-no-matter-who territory (the Bos-Wash megalopolis). That is a sign that they will fail to win the primary, and even if their guy were chosen at the Convention (despite losing the primary), why he would fail in the general election -- Bernie will have been cornered into being another generic progressive representing the bi-coastal culturally liberal elites and their pet NGO projects.

9 comments:

  1. It's clear she meant non-monetary currency: "Oh and this is why "garbage ape" goes viral / isn't a "fascist" ".

    https://twitter.com/aimeeterese/status/1213380553463885824

    Gets rewarded in social currency by going viral (clicks, faves, new followers, possible invite to Chapo or other podcast, patreon bucks if he wanted them). And he doesn't get his brand value damaged with mob charges of "fascism" b/c he attacks Warren in a way that isn't attacking most of the professional progressive movement and its base.

    If he attacked the NGO-industrial complex, the prog movement per se, or "progressives" in an unqualified dismissive way -- like Aimee, martymacmarty, shialabeefsteak, etc. -- then he'd get charged with fascism. "You don't like progressivism? Wow, never knew you were outright fascist."

    Again contrast to the Trump movement of 2016 -- a big share of his hardcore supporters were telling "conservatives" to go fuck themselves, that "conservatism" has failed the people in general and even GOP voters themselves, that the "conservative media" is worthless and should all be incinerated.

    In 2020, the Bernie movement may feel comfortable attacking "liberals" in those unqualified terms, but not "progressives". In 2020, "liberal" is an out-of-date term for who those people are. The activist base, NGO complex, media outlets, online personas, etc., all have re-branded as "progressive" rather than "liberal".

    If they want to win, Bernie populist have to tell "progressives" to go shove their worthless "progressive movement" and "progressive media" up their ass.

    How else do they expect to get on the good side of independent voters who voted for / were sympathetic to Trump? Just do as the Trump revolution did, and sacrifice the deadweight of "your own side's" activist base -- Great Plains evangelicals in Trump's case, Bos-Wash progressives in Bernie's case -- in order to coax on board those who you have to reach out for -- industrial Midwest white working class for Trump, and same for Bernie.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Was thinking of Bernie fan reticence on blowing up Warren while rewatching a couple "Can't Stump the Trump" videos. The anti-Cruz one has over 300,000 views (Still makes me laugh-cry hearing Trump light up his Republican rivals at those debates: My language, oh my language! But Jeb said he'd pull his pants down and moon everybody, but nobody wants to talk about that!)
    https://youtu.be/AWgw95hpFzI

    Imagine this savagery in the Dem primary? Never!

    Anyway, Aimee's angry emoji is my favorite thing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Trump in '16 was more radical than Bernie, not just stylistically but substantively. "NATO is obsolete," our Mideast rivals may be "bad guys" but the alternative is ISIS chopping off heads therefore Assad / Saddam / Qaddafi are OK, slam a 35% tariff on every car truck and part that Ford tries to send across the border after off-shoring their factory to Mexico, not to mention ban the Muslims from entering, build the wall, etc.

    Most of the leftoids never heard his anti-imperialist or economic protectionist stuff b/c their brains are wired into the liberal / prog media machine. Their only awareness of his radical calls were build the wall, Muslim ban, etc.

    Until Bernie argues for disbanding NATO, Trump -- as a candidate anyway -- will always be more of a change figure. Bernie was supposed to follow in his footsteps, a la Reagan in Carter's, but the whole left side of the spectrum hijacked his movement and now it's largely another professional-class progressive racket.

    Obviously he's better than the other Dems running, by far -- I mean he's fallen far short of where he was meant to go, based on Trump's opening the door for him on so many anti-globalization themes in 2016.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Aimee's haters going after her voice is more proof of their bad taste. Soyboys who want a husky-voiced bull dyke to dom them since they're incapable of seizing the initiative with girls.

    Normal red-blooded men upon hearing Aimee's mellifluous girly-girl voice and Aussie accent:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwfErYUoqx8

    ReplyDelete
  5. This spat shows why prog guys treat women worse than culturally moderate or conservative guys do -- progs insist on men and women being identical, in phenotype and in how they're treated. So when women act like typical women, prog guys are surprised and angry, then blow up at them in a way you never should toward women.

    Women are children, relative to men. When they occasionally misuse a word that has a negative connotation (like "ilk") toward someone who they aren't meaning to insult (like a fellow anti-woke leftist), that's just the childlike nature of women being women.

    You have to expect that to take place when you have women in your political scene, and you have to handle it in a way that adults do toward children -- either ignore it if it's not that big of a deal, or gently chide them for not knowing the negative connotation they just used.

    But you don't go nuclear on a kid. They're qualitatively different from you, requiring different treatment -- and because they're less developed / more vulnerable / etc., they need more protective treatment and to be handled with kid gloves.

    In this case, Aimee's use of "ilk" wasn't a big deal, and can be easily ignored. Her main point was substantive, respond to that. But even on the substantive point about getting rewarded for framing events a certain way, he lost his cool (not atypical for the irony crowd, whose affected lack of feelings is meant to disguise seething rage, a la "Minnesota nice").

    Aimee and other political wahmen are aware that their behavior is different, qua being wahmen, and that if they act up or get distracted by ADD, someone should politely and gently step in to mansplain them or guide them back on the proper path. Not just for interpersonal relations, but saying things like "I need a man in my life to take away my phone and credit card, I am so irresponsible."

    Still, you have accept that wahmen are gonna act like wahmen, and that there will be an asymmetry of expectations because men are generally more mature and relate better to strangers, while women are more childlike and relate better to those living within their own household and very close friends.

    Parents don't blow up at their children, and men do not blow up at their wahmen-folk.

    ReplyDelete
  6. She's sharing more insights along these lines today and my understanding of this status phenomenon is so much better. She said something about them being so cruel and your trans-radicals post came to mind. Frankly, it comes to mind all the time. Steve Sailer used to go on about people doing things for status and I could never wrap my head around what he was getting at. Trying to understand my abusive journalist, and your's and Aimee's comments have helped me much better understand these bullies and what Sailer kept mentioning as a major factor in many people's behavior.

    ReplyDelete
  7. IQ is not lower in childhood, so it's not that wahmen are dumber, have less insight / analysis to contribute to a political discussion. You're as bright or dull in childhood as you will be in adulthood.

    But you may express your insights with others in a way that is socially rough-around-the-edges if they're strangers, just as with an intellectually precocious child.

    And by "child" I mean minor -- wahmen aren't necessarily like tiny schoolchildren in behavior, but usually max out around high school / college age in social development vis-a-vis strangers.

    The only aspect of IQ that is lower in childhood is "crystallized" intelligence, meaning how much knowledge you've accumulated owing to your "fluid" intelligence. So, bright wahmen may be more susceptible to malapropisms and not so attuned to connotations of words, but that has nothing to do with the substance of their claim.

    ReplyDelete
  8. TFW you're trying not to overreact to the princess linking to you, but you can't help wanting to pick her up and spin around, with her 5'2 body flying in mid-air...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYnpisHe0X0

    ReplyDelete
  9. Please help Aimee again. She's been taking it on the chin. First, by top tier journalist, briefly, and now there's a meltdown cuz race. I hate seeing it.

    ReplyDelete

You MUST enter a nickname with the "Name/URL" option if you're not signed in. We can't follow who is saying what if everyone is "Anonymous."