Me Too era dead: "Call your crush" TikTok trend

A recent post looked at signs from TikTok trends that the Me Too era is indeed over, and with it the broader vulnerable phase of the 15-year excitement cycle (2015-'19). Now we're into the restless warm-up phase.

The previous trend we saw was "surprise kissing your best friend," clearly a sign of people leaving their refractory states, coming out of their social-emotional shells, and feeling eager to mix it up with the opposite sex again -- albeit in baby steps at first, e.g. by practicing on your bff.

Also, the notion of "consent" is gone (the initiator makes their move without asking first). People will only hysterically demand consent for any and all forms of interaction if they are in a refractory state, hypersensitive to stimuli, and where the slightest mis-touch could crash their nervous system. Now that their energy levels are recovering to baseline, they don't mind if someone makes a move without asking permission. If they reciprocate, fine; if not, they'll push them away -- without, however, launching a hysterical witch hunt.

Prior to that trend was a similar although less intense trend -- playing a game of odd-man-out, where the loser has to call their crush and confess their feelings on camera. This began in the end of November 2019 and lasted into early 2020 -- the same time I posted here about various signs that girls were getting all horned up again (blatantly brushing against me in public places, catcalling me from their car, and so on, for the first time since summer 2015). So there really was a widespread breakout around the turn of the year, as predicted by my excitement cycle model.

Below is just one compilation from YouTube (search for others using "tiktok crush call / confession"). Some of them are clearly fakes, where the kids can't act at all. I don't recall any of them being real where the person calls another member of the group on camera, but given the "kiss your bff" trend, there might be some that are. Generally, though, these are genuine, since you can't fake the palpable nervousness when they're calling, or their explosive excitement if their crush says they feel the same way.



This was only the first baby step toward leaving their vulnerable-phase shells. A few months after this trend, they escalated from just letting their crush know, to planting a kiss right on their lips by surprise.

The other big-picture observations from the previous post hold here as well. This is a non-parasocial use of smartphone apps and so-called social media. TikTok, at least for now, is centered on whole trends rather than individual accounts. Although it does have functions for liking a specific item, commenting on it, and following a specific account, those are afterthoughts to the central purpose of browsing through variations on a theme. Users don't care which accounts hop on a trend, and don't stick with them long after their initial encounter with them while trend-browsing.

This trend is not like other internet-mediated fads, such as a hot new meme template. It actually requires you to interact with someone you know IRL, not from online. And you're not contacting them through social media, email, etc. -- it's a good ol' fashioned phone call. Intonation, tempo, non-linguistic vocalizations like laughter, all unfolding in real time, back and forth -- these corporeal qualities of conversations that people had assumed were dead after the adoption of text messaging, email, social media, etc.

And unlike cyber-communication, you're supported by your IRL friends, who are physically close by, perhaps patting you to boost your confidence, and either cheering along if you succeeded, or hugging to reassure you if you failed. And of course the process began with an IRL game, and the social pressure to adhere to the rules if you're the odd-man-out. None of these qualities carry over into the cyber-realm.

This trend, and the other one, show how current tech can complement or encourage reality, rather than poorly substitute for it. The presence of the camera recording the whole event provides an extra little bit of "the clock's ticking" pressure so you don't wimp out. It can then send the signal to a wide group of people, who can imitate the example, helping the activity catch on far beyond the original group. And it keeps the pressure from becoming too great -- there's plausible deniability when you're calling your crush "because I lost a TikTok challenge," rather than calling them entirely out of the blue. You feel less personal responsibility, making it easier to carry out the action, much like the classic "spin the bottle" game.

To conclude, I'm getting more comfortable calling the end of the cocooning social mood that's been growing since roughly 1990, after the outgoing mood that had been growing from circa 1960 to 1990, itself following the last cocooning period of roughly 1930 to 1960, and before that the outgoing mood of 1900 to 1930. These social moods are linked to trends in crime rates, with outgoing moods matching a rising crime rate, and cocooning moods matching a falling crime rate, for reasons I detailed here in the early 2010s. (Briefly, outgoing people have their guard down in public, making them easier prey for criminals, while cocooning people have their guard up all the time, making them harder to prey on. Similar to a predator-prey model from ecology.)

I'd always predicted that circa 2020 the crime rate would start rising again (based on the length of previous rising and falling phases), and that the social mood would shift back into outgoing, signaled by greater levels of interpersonal trust and letting your guard down as a result. I just don't see the "phone as personal shield" pattern that was ubiquitous in the late 2000s and most of the 2010s. These young people on TikTok could not be letting their guard down more around their friends and acquaintances. Contrast that against the picture of the 2010s, where each friend would be staring down at their own separate laptop / phone, even while seated less than a foot apart in a public hang-out space like Starbucks. Public hang-outs don't look like insect hives for drones anymore.

Aimee Terese pop punk tribute, "Girl All the Banned Guys Want" (Bowling For Soup parody)

Been awhile since I offered tribute to the muse, Aimee Terese. Lately I've been immersed in pop punk and power pop, so what better tune than a song that channels both? Like "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains of Wayne mixed with "First Date" by blink-182, also from the early 2000s, "Girl All the Bad Guys Want" by Bowling For Soup (original lyrics).

Its themes resonate with her role in the online realignment -- an anti-woke commie princess whose kiss transforms a frog twitter prince that had helped her out when she was in need.

* * *

"Girl All the Banned Guys Want"

2 A.M. Monday night, and I'm scrolling
To read the takes of a girl who's more edgy than me
Her name is Aimee, and she's anti-woke but left-wing
She's fond of groypers, but I'm not quite sure how to meme

And when she talks
All the simps show up with wedding rings
But she doesn't follow me

She's talking shit to blue-checks
Tweeting feet to frog guys
They're in and out of Twitter jail
Tucker vids in her eyes

Autistically amusing
Delightfully confusing
She posts about her boobies
I drool like such a newbie
As I fail miserably
Tryin' to @ the girl all the banned guys want
'Cause she's the girl all the banned guys want

She's Rosa Luxemburg, and I'm more Tulsi Gabbard
Her feed's a motley crew of posters that are comrades and chads
She says she'd like to find a hot-guy hot-take-haver
She'll never know I'd be the best thing for the group chat

And when she talks
All the simps show up with wedding rings
She'll never follow me

She's talking shit to blue-checks
Tweeting feet to frog guys
They're in and out of Twitter jail
Tucker vids in her eyes

She likes 'em from the trade class
Snowboard season pass
Flirting like they're Tarzan
Does a deadlift make a man?

Autistically amusing
Delightfully confusing
She posts about her boobies
I drool like such a newbie
As I fail miserably
Tryin' to @ the girl all the banned guys want

'Cause she's the girl all the banned guys want
'Cause she's the girl all the banned guys want
'Cause she's the girl all the banned guys want

There's her ghost again
With a cami on, and waves for days in her hair
She blocked my alt, made things so complicated
All I wanted was to see her naked

Now I am trolling blue-checks
Tryin' to be a frog guy
Hope I land in Twitter jail
Tucker vids in my eyes

I'm not from the trade class
I ain't got no season pass
All I got are dumbbells
Dumbbells, dumbbells...

Autistically amusing
Delightfully confusing
She posts about her boobies
I drool like such a newbie
As I fail miserably
Tryin' to @ the girl all the banned guys want

'Cause she's the girl all the banned guys want
'Cause she's the girl all the banned guys want
(There's her ghost again)
'Cause she's the girl all the banned guys want
'Cause she's the girl all the banned guys want
(There's her ghost again)
'Cause she's the girl all the banned guys want
'Cause she's the girl all the banned guys want

Delayed party realignment and the new crises of 2020

Nothing fundamentally has changed in my assessment of the 2020 election and beyond, from the analysis I did mostly in 2018 and '19 (navigate through those archives on the right). And I will continue to ignore the 24-hour news cycle and the unstructured "takes" of social media platforms.

But it's worth a post now, with Biden having formally wrapped up the Democrat nomination, and with sufficient time to assess the aftermath of the new crises this year -- the central bank printing trillions more dollars to bail out imploding markets, the coronavirus pandemic, and the angry liberal riots.

I'll split this into two posts: this one on the failed realignment of the Trump admin, and the new crises of 2020; another on the upcoming election, and near-term prospects for realignment under the non-Republican party (the Democrats or a new 2nd party that replaces them).

* * *

Starting with Peter Turchin's model of polarization cycles, the best analogy to the present is the 1850s, leading up to the Civil War. And using Stephen Skowronek's model of political regime cycles, we're specifically in 1856. I still think this will be like that particular disjunctive phase, which was hyper-polarized and lasted more than one administration (Democrats Pierce followed by Buchanan, before realignment under the Lincoln GOP), compared to the other less polarized eras where disjunctive phases only lasted for one (John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Hoover, and Carter). Polarization retards realignment, whereby political coalitions are shaken up and blocs from one party defect long-term to another party.

The current era is the Reaganite era, with the GOP as dominant party and Democrats as the opposition. Trump is a disjunctive president from the dominant party, threatening to up-end the consensus, and even delivering on some of that promise, although severely limited by trying to accomplish this within the party that has derived the greatest benefits from the consensus -- having created it.

A few cases where Trump has acted decisively against the Reaganite orthodoxy, despite largely failing to fulfill his 2016 campaign promises to realign the system: personal diplomacy to normalize relations with North Korea, jailbreaking thousands of (largely black) non-violent federal prisoners, and imposing some level of tariffs on some goods from some countries.

It's not possible to say one way or the other whether his increased welfare policies in response to the pandemic are unusual, since no other president in the Reagan era has had their orthodoxy tested by such a crippling pandemic. Maybe Reagan or the Bushes would have supported what Trump has done (unemployment benefits, eviction moratorium, student debt deferment, etc.), in the hopes of not crashing the economy. Maybe they would not have. But still worth noting that he didn't promote Social Darwinism, as the neoliberal consensus would seem to have demanded.

But like the last disjunctive president, Carter, Trump has overseen an administration that has mostly extended the life of the moribund status quo. Carter campaigned on ending the New Deal, and did deregulate a few sectors, but also oversaw the creation of two federal bureaucracies (the Education and Energy departments).

Trump's foreign policy has been belligerent toward the Russian sphere of influence, increased the number of NATO members (Montenegro), sent tens of thousands of Americans back into Afghanistan, invaded and indefinitely occupied northeastern Syria, returned to punitive sanctions and now outright assassination against Iran, failed in yet another coup against a social democrat Latin American state (Venezuela / Guaido), and so on and so forth.

The trade deficit has exploded under Trump, as de-industrialization of the economy continues apace. NAFTA remains in place, albeit re-branded, and so does the similar policy with China (PNTR). More iconic American manufacturers are now making their products in China, including former hold-outs like Pendleton Woolen Mills of Portland, Oregon. Funny, I haven't seen a single angry liberal rioter in Portland with a sign decrying the further destruction of good-paying manufacturing jobs for the local working class after Pendleton recently began making their clothing in China. ("Um, wow, xenophobic much?")

Trump has also overseen an explosion in the other form of the elites substituting cheap foreign labor for well-paid domestic workers -- immigration, which is literally off-the-charts compared to even Obama (it got so bad they needed to expand the scale of the y-axis). That's both legal and illegal. Not a single brick of The Wall will be laid.

To compensate for the destruction of the industrial economy, and to fund the never-profitable military's occupation of the entire world, the central bank has resumed printing money by the trillions. Unlike the boogeyman of "helicopter money," this gets laundered through the upper tiers of the finance pyramid until it stops trickling down past the professional-managerial class who make up the top 10-20%. This is not only the liberal yuppies in make-work tech firms during a stock market bubble, but also the conservative yuppies in make-work defense contracting firms during a military-spending bubble.

Accordingly, the state's fiscal health has deteriorated rapidly under Trump, with the national debt surging from $20 to $25 trillion, a huge amount absolutely, as well as a 25% increase in just four years. This continues the trend begun at the dawn of the Reagan revolution, which reversed America's status as a creditor nation -- not a debtor nation -- during the New Deal era.

And the public physical infrastructure and social services founded during the New Deal continue to decay, notwithstanding the unusual coronavirus protections.

* * *

All three of the major crises of 2020 point to the delay of realignment until at least the next election. Rather than spur responses from either side that would require shaking up the status quo, these crises have all been met with the same ol', same ol' from both sides.

Regarding the imploding economy and the sole solution of the central bank printing trillions to hand out to the elites, neither side is demanding a re-industrialization of the economy, which is the only sustainable source of funding for a modern society. Nor is either side demanding a radical de-scaling of the failing American empire, which will always be a gigantic drain on our fiscal health. Each side is hoping to print as much money as possible for elite bailouts while in office -- quantitative easing rounds 1-2-3 under Obama, QE infinity under Trump -- and hope that the cascading failures of this policy will strike when the other side is in power.

The coronavirus pandemic was the fault of open borders and global interconnectedness. At first, neither side wanted to impose travel restrictions, quarantines, or mask policies. The Republicans did not want these public health measures because they would diminish GDP growth for the near-term, and they are over-optimizers who want as much growth as possible at every moment. But the Democrats rejected these measures as well, albeit for liberal reasons -- travel bans are xenophobic, quarantines hinder the leisure / lifestyle striving of the urban professional class, and masks create a social-cultural climate of fear and stigma, which is worse than whatever material harm may be caused by a pandemic.

These two responses are no different from the '90s era of neoliberal consolidation, whether from the Gingrich revolution GOP or the Democrat crusaders for political correctness (now called wokeness). A realignment movement would have promoted public health over private profits, and material welfare over puritanical thought control. Neither side can even manage to take palliative measures like governmental distribution of masks for free on a regular schedule, let alone require that they be manufactured in America. All the costs and responsibilities have been burdened onto the individual citizen, which explains the failure to solve a collective problem like a pandemic, which requires a top-down state response.

Then there are the angry liberal riots of the summer. The response from both sides has been an extension of the neoliberal era's abdication of stewardship by the elites, and the socializing of costs and privatizing of benefits. Namely, let rioters destroy the cities, let the citizens eat cake, and do not allow police or military to come in harm's way to defend the public -- but make sure the police and military still collect publicly funded incomes, pensions, authority, respect, status, etc.

In the wielding of authority and force against riots, the Trump admin has been little different from the Obama admin, who also had to deal with BLM and other riots, mass shootings, cop killings, and the like, during 2015 and especially 2016. A hypothetical Biden admin would not do much different either, based on the Obama admin's record, and the Democrats' rhetorical support or at least rationalization of the riots this year.

A realigning non-Republican would have to come out in support of sending in federal troops to quell pointless destruction across multiple major and minor cities. The realignment angle to shake up the political coalitions would be something like, "You don't have to think that cops are infallible, and you can demonstrate against them -- but when you start burning down cities to no higher effect, leaving downtowns boarded up for months after the fact, we will send in teams of men with guns to protect the public welfare. We will not allow violent thugs to appoint themselves as a new unofficial police force, since they are unaccountable to a public that did not elect, appoint, or fund them."

That would be similar to the New Deal era, when the state was strong and elites were unified. During the last peak of civil unrest, in the late '60s and early '70s, both the Johnson and Nixon administrations cracked skulls and threw rioters in jail to limit the scale of destruction. With a weakened deregulatory state like we have today, though, we can expect a more open-ended path of destruction in the near-term. There were major riots in L.A. in the early '90s under Bush Sr., and he did manage to send in federal troops. But they were not nationwide like the peaks circa 1970 and 2020, and in any case the early '90s were not as far along the course of neoliberalization as we are today, so the state was still capable of doing something to protect the public.

* * *

One final point of clarification: the police themselves, as a collective entity, are to blame for their lack of involvement in quelling the riots. Conservatives love nothing more than to blame dickless liberal Democrat mayors for "giving stand-down orders," but the police don't have to obey those orders if they wanted to perform their supposed societal function of protecting the public from violent anarchy. The police union could organize a strike, surround city hall, or issue a polite statement of mutiny and dare the dickless liberal Democrat mayor to ruin himself by cracking down on, or withholding pay-checks from, cops who are only trying to put out an open-ended conflagration. A stand-down order is just a wink-and-nod among two elite entities that neither will be risking their own lives in order to protect the public, who pays their salaries and respects their authority.

That happened at the national level when Trump tried to get some disjunctive work done in shrinking our military's global footprint, by decreasing the numbers in Afghanistan. He also ran on this issue, both in general and specifically about Afghanistan. Instead, the military elites told him to go fuck himself, and we're sending tens of thousands of Americans back into Afghanistan, just to show the so-called Commander-in-chief who really calls the shots about the global military occupation. Trump had no leverage to strike back with, so he got over-ruled.

Mayors are even weaker than presidents, so there's no reason the police couldn't do the same thing to over-rule them and deploy their members to quell the riots. Or the federal military, for that matter. They had no problem over-ruling the president, surely they can over-rule a mayor. But the military's goals are directed toward expanding their sphere of influence, and that means focusing on foreign lands that are up for grabs, rather than the core nation that has long been solidly within the Pentagon's sphere of influence.

That's another case of conservatives being exasperated rather than figuring out what's going on. E.g., "Why do we send so many troops to patrol terrorists in Afghanistan, and we can't even send a few to patrol domestic terrorists like Antifa and BLM in our own cities?" Duh, because the military would not expand its sphere of influence by deploying troops within the core nation. Conservatives still refuse to de-sacralize the sectors of society that control their political party -- manufacturers, military / police / armed force, energy, and agriculture. They won't view the military as a collective entity with its own interests, forms of leverage, etc., that conflict with the interests and leverage of other sectors of society, including the general public. Same goes for the police, at a smaller scale.

They're not "the good guys" or "defenders of America," they are the promoters of a course of action that will maintain and expand their own institution's collective welfare. The Republican military cartel is no different in that respect from Democrat cartels like tech, finance, or media / entertainment.

The key change that we see today, compared to the good ol' days of the New Deal, is that the elites of all sectors in society have gradually switched from mutualism and occasional altruism -- taking risks, perhaps literally putting themselves in harm's way, to benefit the general public -- to parasitism, where they take from the public but provide little to nothing in return.

My Chemical Romance fans remain the most devout among emo worshipers, feeling saved by their god

Some bands have such die-hard fans that their music is nearly impossible to find in the second-hand market, and when it does show up, it commands a hefty price relative to everything else for sale.

Belonging to such a group's fandom is like joining a religious community, going to their shows is a form of communal bonding ritual, and the various material items associated with them -- musical media, clothing, etc. -- are given sacred significance. Parting with the group's albums would constitute sacrilege, whether you donated them to a thrift store, sold them for cash to a used media store, or just threw them out in the trash.

Defiling sacred objects in these ways would be grounds for a charge of apostasy -- and you wouldn't want religious norm-enforcers to find out about it, would you? Even if you did grow bored of them for awhile, best to just keep them somewhere around the home without using them. Christians don't throw out their Bibles, give them away, or sell them in a market for cash, just because they experience doubts.

That also raises the costs to entry for initiates of the religion. You can't just stroll into a used media store, buy all their albums for dirt cheap, and then be a decent way along the path toward becoming a true fan. Nope: if you want in, you have to pony up, up front. It puts more skin in the game, keeping away halfhearted would-be members from a very tightly cohesive community. They don't want initiates who could just be "going through a phase".

The best example of this pattern is Iron Maiden within the church of metal. Ten years ago I was curious about them, and noticed how rare it was to find their CDs in the used music stores. When they did show up, they were at least $10 used, vs. half that much for the average album. Having taken a tour of various used media stores and thrift store music sections lately, that is still the case a decade later -- I saw only one CD of theirs (Powerslave), and it was $11 used vs. the store's standard $4 price. Not that I was looking for their stuff around 2000, but I'm sure it was high-priced back then as well, and back in 1990, and ever since the group's fandom came together.

It was far easier to find CDs by other metal gods like Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, AC/DC, and so on and so forth. Iconic albums of these groups were more expensive than usual, but were not nearly impossible to find second-hand. Although widely worshiped, they were not treated as the summit of the metal pantheon like Iron Maiden was and still is.

As part of my general interest in revisiting and reviving the culture of the late 2000s, I looked into getting some CDs by emo / scene / pop-punk bands of that era. I was never into it, but I do remember hearing it a lot at the used record stores -- it was the only contemporary style they played (along with older, canonical styles for record store workers and customers).

One exception was My Chemical Romance: in this post from my late 20s, I named The Black Parade as the last strong rock album of the past several years (the mid-late 2000s). Along with other observers, I noticed the similarities to "Bohemian Rhapsody"-era Queen. Pretty good stuff, I thought, considering that most people dismiss them as just another whiny emo band for angsty teenagers.

I also could not help but notice how widespread their appeal had become, with cute singer-songwriters like YouTuber Mia Rose covering "I Don't Love You" to viral success (6 million views back then is like 60 million today). Around that time a former tutoring student, who was a cultural normie, uploaded a video to her Facebook of her friend lip syncing and dancing to "Teenagers". She was also a normie, and both were from the pretty & popular crowd, not at all scene kids.

Although every normal young person back then knew who the other emo / scene / pop-punk groups were, I don't recall such widespread appreciation for them as for My Chemical Romance. And it's not because MCR was more musically mainstream -- they had a harder edge than Fall Out Boy or Panic! at the Disco, and were not dance-friendly (unlike other bands during the most recent heyday of dance-rock). You'd think that would have made them more marginal, especially among cute girls.

But they had a social and emotional appeal that transcended their strictly musical appeal, and kept them from being confined to sub-cultural status. Their plea to the audience was more intense, direct, raw, and honest, bringing legions more initiates into the church of emo than did the lesser gods of the pantheon. In retrospectives on that era from popular normie YouTube channels (the React crowd, ClevverTV, etc.), you can tell from their responses that MCR still touches more of a nerve than the other groups. Of all emo bands you may have ever been into, you're least likely to "move beyond" them, relegate them to mere "guilty pleasure" status, let alone reject and disavow them.

Sure enough, on my tour through the second-hand music spots, it was impossible to find any of their stuff at all. And not because it was obscure -- their two main albums both went triple-platinum in the US, or over 3 million in sales apiece. There are tons of copies out there somewhere -- just not in the brick-and-mortar second-hand market. Sacred objects are not given away or sold. Again, think of how many Bibles are out there in America, but how few copies there are in any given thrift store or used bookstore.

In fact, it was easier to find CDs by lesser emo deities like All Time Low, Taking Back Sunday, AFI, Paramore, and even the other two members of the trinity, Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco. As much as you may have resonated with their music, they didn't inspire the same level of reverence as emo Jesus, Gerard Way, so you won't be condemned to scene-kid hell if you sell some of their CDs to the local record store.

Evidently, listeners felt like Gerard Way wasn't just speaking to them, but saving them. Any cool dad or guidance counselor can listen to your problems, hear you out, make you feel seen, and so on. But diagnosing an illness is not as worthwhile to the patient as actually treating and curing them -- all the more miraculously when the healer is someone you've never even met.

I can't emphasize enough how dumbfounded I was by this turn of events. I was expecting to find multiple copies of both main albums littering the thrift store music sections, as cast-offs from when the angsty Millennial teens eventually grew out of their embarrassing MCR phase. Sure, I knew they were mega-popular way back when, and I'd seen some die-hard fans gushing about them recently on YouTube retrospectives. But there still had to be tons of former fans who just wanted to get rid of those reminders of their awkward teenage years, right? Not even close.

Turns out, those ultra-intense social-emotional bonds from the late 2000s, especially the experience of being spiritually healed or saved, elevated them into a summit-of-the-pantheon god like Iron Maiden for metalheads. It doesn't take a genius to predict that, of the various emo reunion acts under way during this return of the restless phase of the 15-year excitement cycle, the one for My Chemical Romance will most take on the character of a religious revival, a renewal of the fellow-feeling bonding the church members together, long after their awkward teenage years.

"Well I Guess This Is Logging Off" (angsty anthem for exodus from social media)

As the parapolitical bubble on both the left and right continues to implode, more and more people feel like exiting social media.

I assume most of those on the right have been outright suspended (along with left martyrs like Aimee Terese), but even lefties are pulling the plug. Among the handful of big-ish Twitter accounts I used to read, Heather Habsburg has joined fellow tall-girl poster Alison Balsam in the great beyond, Shialabeefsteak has gotten out of leftoid Dodge, and @as_a_woman and @shamshi_adad are usually deactivated. On the right, @that_groyper keeps remarking on how joyless the platform has become.

To encourage this exodus from social media, I wrote a song to the tune of "Dammit" by blink-182, to resonate with the bittersweet acceptance and moving-on stage of a break-up.

* * *

"Well I Guess This Is Logging Off"

It's alright to tag me
The hot takes about me
Their motives are see-through
They cancel for pageviews
The status competing
And endless subtweeting
The discourse is hollow
So please hit "unfollow" now

The third rails, the clout chase
The woketards, their arms race
In need of detoxer
Did you hear, he doxxed her?
A melee, a thought court
I'm posting the post-mort
On moral blackmailing
My network is scaling down

And I facepalm once again
I'll DM a friend
Someone who's still not banned
And won't hide behind deadpan

But every site's a slog
And I'm scrolling for too long
I'm going back to blogs
Well I guess this is logging off
Well I guess this is logging off

And maybe I'll see you
In the comments at YouTube
A wry joke, a tad lame
Familiar account name
I'll reply, and you'll fave
We'll pretend it's not gay
Our heyday is long past
So press F, I've left the chat

And you'll facepalm once again
You'll DM a friend
Someone who's still not banned
And won't hide behind deadpan

But every site's a slog
And you're scrolling for too long
You'll be going back to blogs
Well I guess this is logging off

Well I guess this is logging off
Well I guess this is logging off
Well I guess this is logging off
Well I guess this is logging off
Well I guess this is logging off

Me Too hysteria dead: "Surprise kissing my best friend" trend on Tik Tok

As further proof of the end of the vulnerable phase of the 15-year excitement cycle, and its Me Too paranoia and hysteria, there's been a viral trend on Tik Tok this year where the person records themselves stealing a kiss from their best friend who they have a crush on. It's mainly girls kissing guys, sometimes guys kissing girls, and a fair number of girls kissing girls. (Gays kissing their guy friend would get shot.)

Here's a compilation of examples, but there are loads more on YouTube (search for "kissing my best friend Tik Tok," include "lesbian / bi / wlw" for that category).



A few brief observations:

First, these girls making moves tend to be butt girls rather than boob girls, which fits with the experience of guys who get hit on or touched spontaneously in a club or party. Butt girls are more forward, boob girls more passive, in their mating strategies.

Second, around half the guys give off gay vibes, particularly the gay-whoosh hairdo ("undercut"). Quite a few of these have a repulsed reaction, and some outright say "I'm gay". How are girls so clueless about their own best friends these days, given all the cultural propaganda telling them how supposedly common male homosexuality is? (It's only 1% of guys.) Maybe it's that typical wishful thinking that girls have for their crush -- "he's not like other guys, he's straight".

And third, the whole bogus notion of "consent" from the hysteria of the past five years has flown out the window. It's not only because the girls are the ones making the unsolicited moves this time around. Even when the guy makes the move, and even when he is not hot and gets rejected -- even slapped -- it's nothing like a crime.

Why would he upload video footage of his quasi-crime for the entire world to condemn him over? Because unlike what she might have done in 2018, in the 2020s she isn't going to behave like a victim by lodging a complaint with some authority in the first place. He didn't get caught red-handed in committing a crime -- he took a risk and it blew up in his face. It's part of the "epic fails" category of online content, not "crimes caught on tape".

This trend has been going on for several months now, so it's not just a fad that's here today, gone tomorrow. Starting this year, people are getting into the restless warm-up phase of the excitement cycle, where energy levels recover to baseline. A crucial aspect of this shift is guys and girls leaving their cocoons and interacting socially and emotionally with each other again, especially in the context of courting, romance, and sex. They have left their "don't touch me" / "leave me alone" refractory state, which they had been hunkering down in from 2015-'19, the hangover after the soaring high during the manic phase of 2010-'14.

As things get back to normal, it's time to start taking some risks again, although not the greatest risks right at the outset. It's better for there to be a practice or warm-up nature to these exercises. So, why not practice on a close friend? It's safer and less threatening than revealing your feelings and making a physical move on your crush who is not already your friend, say at a school dance.

Tik Tok is the only contemporary case of social media and apps being used to complement reality, rather than substitute for it. With this trend, it gives the restless yet nervous person the extra dose of courage to just go for it -- they're not just randomly revealing their feelings for someone, they're simply following everyone else taking part in this widespread trend. The crowd nature of the phenomenon gives each individual cover -- no single one of them feels awkward when everyone else is doing it.

In a manic phase where people feel invincible, this ego protection is not so necessary, but it is during the warm-up phase when people are just coming out of their shells.

And unlike most other uses of social media, this Tik Tok trend is not parasocial. The person is not targeting someone they only know online -- it's their IRL bff. And they're not making a cyber-move, like sending an overwrought DM, but making a physical move in physical space, touching two physical bodies together. And they get an instant reaction from the other person -- good or bad, they know right away, and don't have to suffer through the minutes, hours, or days of waiting for them to text back.

This micro-trend, and the larger shift that it is a part of, whereby young people are no longer constantly "staring down at screens" in public places, disproves technological determinism. The devices and software respond to the users' preferences, not the other way around.

If people want to hide in the online world to escape real life, they can do that -- and social media will take over the population, as it did during the past decade. If they want to re-join reality, they can do that too -- and devices and apps will shift toward complementing or facilitating real-life activities rather than substituting poorly for them.

Lesbians cannot be manic pixie dream girls, but bisexuals can (the criterion of flirtatiousness)

Under quarantine I've been making an effort to figure out lesbians, after having figured out gay syndrome back in 2012.

A recent post reviewed the big picture, so I'll only summarize here. In a nutshell gays are psychologically, and somewhat physically, 6 year-old boys -- "ewww, girls are yucky" -- just with the sex drive of someone who's gone through puberty. They are neotenous, or resembling small children. Lesbians are the opposite, who even in their 20s resemble middle-aged women who are nearing menopause and in the winding-down stage of their sex life ("lesbian bed death").

At root, homosexuality is a permanent dislocation of the stage in the life cycle, and all the other aspects or symptoms of homosexuality stem from being in an enduring juvenile state (gays) or perimenopausal state (lesbians).

One of the consequences of lesbians being perimenopausal is that they aren't very flirtatious, obviously not towards men, but not towards women either (whether the target woman is lesbian, bi, or straight). Turning on that flirtatious charm belongs to young women or teenagers who have yet to get married, let alone reach menopause. If they were somewhat older, they would at least have to be young at heart in order to be a flirt.

Generally, though, once their hormonal profile shifts out of the libidinal 20-something stage, they lose their ability or inclination to flirt. In the life stages where she's married, she is only going to interact romantically with one man, to whom she is pair-bonded. Flirting is for earlier life stages where that bond has not been solidified yet, and she's interacting romantically with strangers or casual acquaintances, to judge which of them is most suitable for long-term marriage and family formation.

That is the key to answering the question of whether lesbians can be manic pixie dream girls. They superficially check some of the boxes -- quirky, slightly tomboyish, "I'm not like other girls," etc. -- so there ought to be some lesbians within the character type. Only there are not, not just characters who are lesbian, but lesbian actresses playing a straight MPDG role. Indeed, the actresses who do play these roles are among the least lesbian-seeming women (Julia Roberts, Zooey Deschanel, Rachel Bilson).

And to reiterate a crucial point from my previous posts on the MPDG, it is defined by a relational role, not an individual personality or persona. Quirky habits, offbeat fashion -- that does not matter. She plays the role of an earthly guardian angel, someone who nurses a wary, down-on-his-luck man back to social-emotional health, so that he can accomplish great things and find true love (with her or someone else).

This recuperation takes place within a romantic context, so someone needs to take the initiative to get the romance started. But since the guy is in an emotional rut, it won't be him. He may be capable of longing, pining, and yearning -- but not taking the lead (yet). Rather, it is she who decides to kick things off, both to help another person and to set off on another one of life's many adventures.

And she can't very well ignite the initial sparks of their romance if she isn't flirtatious. She goes well beyond ordinary flirting, in fact -- striking up conversations with total strangers, giving them unsolicited advice or guidance on serious matters, or cracking coarse jokes with someone she's just met (when usually these require the two to be familiar in order to not sound vulgar). She is a playful instigator.

This demonstrates her eagerness to engage with people she only casually knows, or does not know at all, as with a young woman still looking for the right guy to eventually settle down with -- but unlike a long-married wife.

Why does the guy need someone like this? Because he's in a rut, possibly coming out of a broken long-term relationship or marriage, and he can't go right back into pair-bonding mode. He has to get warmed up with simple exercises first, and get back in social-emotional shape. That means a relationship with someone he knows only casually at most. It's practice before the real game where the stakes are at their greatest.

The MPDG is a kind of cheerleader, encouraging the guy to give it his best shot. Their relationship is a kind of pep rally before the actual game. And one of the hallmarks of the cheerleader is her flirtatiousness, making the first move in engaging with a crowd whose members she may only know casually or not at all.

Now we see why lesbians do not make good manic pixie dream girls. In their perimenopausal state, they find it difficult to seek excitement by flirting with casual acquaintances or strangers, especially when they are the ones starting it. So even if they did meet the criteria of empathy, nurturing instinct, slightly tomboyish behavior, and so on, they would not be suited to igniting the initial sparks of a spontaneous adventure. Again, that is regardless of whether the target were male or female, or if female, whether she were lesbian, bi, or straight.

I think if lesbians tried to play the MPDG role, they would intuitively pick up on the youthfulness of the role, but would focus on the behaviors that don't require them to be horny -- acting crazy / wacky / zany / random, blurting out weird or inappropriate things, and in general being reckless and impulsive. True, young people act that way more than old people. But that doesn't make them flirtatious, which requires a libidinal motivation. If the person isn't horny and window-shopping around for an eventual long-term partner, they aren't going to act flirtatiously.

Lesbians do not get as blood-pumpingly horny as normal women do, because internally they're far beyond that life stage, and are nearing the stage where sex is irrelevant (having already procreated, or not), but where affection, companionship, and pair-bonding are still important. So, as zany and impulsive as they may be able to perform, they won't be able to nail the requirement of flirtatiousness.

Bisexual girls on the other hand -- now that's a whole 'nother story. They most closely resemble male homosexuals in being more inclined toward a juvenile rather than a mature stage of life. They don't have to put on an act of excitement-seeking, they're that way naturally. They can be very flirtatious. They're a bit tomboyish. They're not particularly empathetic or nurturing, but they're still female, so they have a healthy instinct for taking care of others. And not that it matters, but they also have the "I'm not like other girls" surface-level traits as well.

Thus, bisexuals could be manic pixie dream girls. That would seem to be true whether they were targeting a sad-sack straight guy or a lovelorn lesbian. In fact, I'll bet lesbians see themselves not as a potential MPDG, but as a potential recipient of the MPDG's charms and cheerleading. And I'll bet they sense that such a free-spirited and flirtatious fox is less likely to be a fellow lesbian, and far more likely to be a bisexual.

As perimenopausals, lesbians feel like they're permanently undergoing a midlife crisis -- who better to attract the attention of a young earthly guardian angel looking to restore a deserving soul back to social-emotional health, so that they can find true love?

And now that we're entering the restless warm-up phase of the 15-year excitement cycle, these dynamics are about to kick into high gear, not like we've seen since the late 2000s. As in the previous heydays of the MPDG, the paragons will have been born in a manic phase of the cycle, now the second half of the 1990s (most recently, the first half of the 1980s).

So for all the innumerable readers here who are lesbians around 30 and feeling stuck in a romantic rut, just perk up your ears near your bi or bi-curious acquaintances, especially if they were born from 1995 to 1999. They'll restore you back to romantic health during the early 2020s.

I wouldn't mind seeing a movie or TV show treating these themes. It would be better than the typical woketard crap which makes anything about gays and lesbians ideological and valorizes the transgressive aspect. It would be more realistic, humanizing, and relatable for a normie audience to see a 31 year-old lesbian who's down on her luck, serendipitously runs into a 23 year-old bisexual free spirit, and the familiar MPDG plot continues from there.

They are not "just like us," but parts of their lives are familiar enough. And in any case, whatever the culture-makers can do to get away from the campy trannie focus of "LGBT culture," the better. Ditto for the retarded and mind-numbing obsession with "representation". If lesbians don't belong in a certain role, don't portray them in it. Cast who belongs there. Lesbians as the recipient of the MPDG's nurturing adventures, bisexuals as the MPDG herself.

The "vinyl" branding coup: records as collectible merch within status contests, not a musical playback medium

During my little posting hiatus, I finally went back to thrift stores and used media stores for the first time in nearly half a year. I hadn't looked through the music sections much for the previous 4 or 5 years, though, and the abruptness of the transformations there really jumped out at me. It's part of a more general trend since the 2010s, but I'll write more about other cases, and the big picture, later.

For now I'll just focus on the most salient example -- "vinyl".

I've been buying records and flipping through crates at record stores since I was in 8th or 9th grade, back in the mid-'90s. I still have most of them, too. But I never accumulated a large record collection because I bought them for utilitarian reasons -- to listen to music that I could not easily hear on CD, the format that most of my music has always been on.

Maybe it was never released on CD, or the CD was in smaller supply / out of print, or the CD came out after the band's heyday and was only bought by die-hard fans who would never sell it into the second-hand market. Unless you had money to burn, that meant turning to records -- if the album came out before the '90s, it was guaranteed to have been released on LP, in a decently large supply (relative to later CD releases of the same album), and previously owned by a widespread casual audience who were happy to sell it into the second-hand market after the band's heyday was over.

This was even more true in the '90s because radio stations had just made the transition from records to CDs, so all of the old supply had flooded into the used record stores. And unlike a virtual medium like streaming, a physical medium needed to be stored in every radio station that wanted to play it. So there would be multiple copies of an album in a single store, from the many stations in the area that used to play it over the airwaves.

Record-hunters got lucky in the '90s: we benefited from a one-off transition in radio formats, and did not have to rely on "end-users" parting with their treasured copies to re-sellers. (Nightclub DJs were another one-off source of supply getting liquidated into used record stores during the '90s.)

Generally speaking, the copies once stored in radio stations are in far better shape, since they were a business investment, and the owners didn't want to have to buy new copies because the DJs had handled the first copies poorly. Aside from audiophiles, most retail buyers didn't care that much, though, and accepted a somewhat degraded sound over the long-term -- possibly they would be over that band by that point anyway. If you've seen what "thrift store records" look like, you know what I mean.

This history is to remind people that records used to be utilitarian objects, meant to be played, and that they had a similar role as CDs.

Circa 2010, there was a conscious branding coup to supposedly "revive" the record format. Now, with 10 years of a track record to judge from, we see that it was not the revival of an old thing, but the kicking-off of a whole new thing. Namely, the treatment of records as non-utilitarian collectibles, meant not necessarily to be played (occasionally perhaps), but to max out the stats of the collector's collection, in a status contest among other collectors that takes place over social media.

* * *

To demonstrate the role that records now play, we will simply look at how they are treated compared to other uncontroversial playback media -- such as CDs and digital downloads -- and compared to collectible status objects. Across the board, their treatment is in common with status objects, not playback media. I'll focus briefly on four patterns.

Over the past five years, streaming music has nearly replaced other forms of playback. CDs and digital downloads have fallen into oblivion, while records have seen sales volume and unit prices go skyrocketing. Big box stores barely stock CDs anymore, and they're all multi-artist compilations of contempo hits -- but they do stock a variety of albums on LP from both current and classic performers. That parallels the choices in the clothing section, where they have t-shirts of various new and old acts. Big box stores can't sell streaming music, only physical stuff like merch -- and since they stock records, but not really CDs, records are now merch rather than a playback medium.

Records are also sold these days at the merch tables of a concert, unlike CDs or a digital downloading station, but just like concert t-shirts. Concert-goers already listen to the group's music in a utilitarian format (whether they own a CD / digital file, or stream it), but they might not have exclusive merch to boost their fan stats. Just like they might not have a t-shirt exclusively available on tour. Records sitting on merch tables is the most blatant signal of all.

Nobody uses social media to show off their CD collection, their extensive iTunes library, or the sum total of all their Spotify playlists. Those are utilitarian playback formats. But search any social media platform for "vinyl collection," and you'll get inundated with posts and videos showing off their treasure trove of collectible status objects, much like other collections of desirable memorabilia meant to occupy shelf space rather than be used (e.g., concert-exclusive shirts).

Finally, there's no zero-sum relationship between owning a song on record and streaming it. If both were playback media, there would be some degree of favoring one over the other. Back when records were a playback medium, they fought with CDs -- you already own the album on LP, so why buy the CD? Or you already own it on CD, so why buy it on LP? Ditto for the zero-sum fight between CDs and iTunes in the 2000s.

Listeners try to avoid intentionally piling up duplicates not just within a medium but across media. Yet record collectors go out of their way to buy albums on LP that they already own (CD / mp3) or rent (streaming). The only case where someone would have bought a duplicate copy on LP, back when it was a playback medium, was if it had something unique, collectible, and merch-like, that the CD or tape lacked -- an impressive fold-out poster, it was signed by the band, or whatever.

For newly released albums, the status contest may not involve the entirety of your music tastes, but your ranking within the fandom of a single performer. You may not be an overall "record collector," but you do own records of all the albums by your favorite performer, like Taylor Swift. Here, the LP is treated as collectible "merch" that only the elite tiers of the artist's fandom are willing to pay top dollar for. And not only at concerts, as already discussed, but in big box stores, Urban Outfitters, etc. Records allow fans to buy their way into higher positions on the fandom totem pole. And even then, some pressings are more elite than others.

"Wow, you claim to be a Taylor Swift fan, yet you don't own 1989 on vinyl?"

Or, "Oh don't get me wrong, your ordinary vinyl of 1989 is amazing, and if I were just getting into vinyl, I'd for sure jump all over it, too. But trust me, the clear & pink vinyl version released exclusively for Record Store Day is actually worth the endless hunt to track it down."

* * *

In those not-so-imaginary remarks, we see three of the hallmarks of this new era of records as status objects.

First, the release of "small batch" pressings, in non-black colors, to appeal to status-object-chasers. This trend speaks for itself, and I'll just add that the only colored / patterned vinyl I have is from indie / alternative / punk bands from the '90s or earlier. But all copies were pressed that way, it was not used to create multiple versions to collect. The unusual coloring reflected the outside-the-mainstream musical style of the group, whereas now the unusual color shows that it's a rare edition of a mainstream-styled album.

Second, the relentless re-branding of "records" or "LPs" as "vinyl". They're different objects, with different purposes, for a different sort of owner, so they can't very well be called by the standard old names.

Hard as it may be to believe, nobody ever used the term "vinyl" back in the day (i.e., before 2010). "Records" or "LPs" were used to refer to the format overall, individual copies, and the section of a store where they were located. For a single store's name, and for the entire class of stores that sold them, "records" was the only term.

An example with all usages: "Unable to find it on CD, I finally found Fear of Music on record -- and the record is in really great shape, a former promo copy from a radio station. I picked it up from the record section of Joe's Record Paradise, easily one of the best record stores out there."

Since the shift of 2010, these usages are now covered by "vinyl," although the individual copies are reluctant to be called that. Vinyl is a mass noun, referring to the material that the copies are made out of, not a count noun that could refer to a particular copy. Still, that doesn't stop the strivers from inserting their shibboleth via the term "vinyl records" (as opposed to records made out of some other material?). And on at least one YouTube channel that I browsed, she said "my vinyls" to refer to individual copies (she was a Millennial who collected albums released after 2010).

So now, an anecdote will be more like: "I mean, I already have 1989 in my Spotify, but I just had to pick it up on vinyl, too. It's quickly becoming one of my most prized vinyls. I got it from the vinyl section of The Vinyl Countdown -- which, not gonna lie, the most amazing vinyl store of all time."

As far as this non-striver is concerned, the only usage of "vinyl" is for the material that records are made out of -- "180-gram vinyl," "red vinyl," etc., are all fine.

If you doubt the evolution, see this video retrospective of Amoeba Music, a group of record stores in the Bay Area and L.A. The section signs inside the stores all used to say "records" or "LPs," but by the time when there are customers wearing full hipster beards -- i.e., the 2010s -- you can see some signs like "clearance vinyl". As recently as the 2001 opening of the L.A. store, the exterior neon sign had to say "LPs" rather than "vinyl". (Naturally the YouTube channel is vinyl-branded -- called "Vinyl Eyezz," with a "Vinyl Rules" poster prominently displayed in the video's frame.)

Third and finally, the central role of Record Store Day in morally laundering the re-branding coup of elite PR / marketing / advertising firms contracted by the corporate cartel of record labels. The annual event began in the late 2000s, though I don't remember hearing about it or noticing that the local college-town record store was participating in it until 2010, when I gave it a quick plug here on the blog. I figured it was all about going to physical stores instead of downloading mp3s from iTunes, supporting local hang-out places rather than big box stores, and keeping some kind of music scene going.

As early as 2014, a commenter here chimed in to say that Record Store Day had begun as a supposed attempt to promote local / indie record stores, but had turned into a marketing bonanza by the major labels who got to release RSD collectors' editions for strivers. He said that was noticeable by 2010, although I don't remember that about the particular store I was going to at the time. At any rate, over the course of the 2010s, Record Store Day came to be more about the record format (the big labels re-branding it as collectible vinyl, and strivers piling into the stores to scoop it up for status points), and less about the record stores themselves (as a community focal point and hangout for non-striver music lovers).

I'm just glad I didn't play a role as a blogger in hyping up the vinyl branding coup. To the extent that I ever discussed records as a playback medium, I always said they're fine, though I preferred CDs since they have greater dynamic range and are easier to get ahold of for less money, but both were preferable to lossy compressed digital downloads (let alone even lower-quality streaming, which I have barely commented on). I never discussed "must-owns" on vinyl, never shared a "recent epic vinyl haul," or any other striver-collector kind of treatment of records.

The big labels could not directly promote the new way of behaving toward records -- the strivers who make up the campaign's target audience like to believe they're non-conformist, that they follow independent stores more than corporate chains, and so on and so forth. The labels had to go through a trusted establishment like the local, independently-owned record store. And the branding of the event itself was not part of the main re-branding campaign -- it contained the word "record" rather than "vinyl," and it seemed to be more about the brick-and-mortar stores rather than the format of recorded music. Only after you went inside the store were you bombarded by the "vinyl" branding that tried to shift your mind into striver-collector mode.

I haven't looked into how aware the record stores themselves were of this re-branding campaign as the central motive for the annual event. Maybe they were aware but were desperate to enjoy any increased foot traffic during the era of digital downloads and then streaming. Or maybe they were unaware, taking it as a sign of good faith by the labels that only local / indie stores were being chosen for the events, and not Walmart, Target, etc.

In any case, the PR coup required trusted "brand ambassadors" like the local indie record store to disguise the ulterior motives of both the corporate labels on the supply side and the striver-collectors on the demand side, whether or not the stores were aware of their larger role in the shift away from records as a playback medium to vinyl as a collectible status object.

* * *

Further posts in this series will tie this trend into others like it, to see the big-picture change since the 2010s. One will look at the insane price inflation that has accompanied the shift from treating records, video games, and other tech-related things as utilitarian to treating them as collectible status objects. Another will tie all of these separate trends into the overall picture of the generational structure of status contests. And we'll also look at the timing of these changes to see why the 2010s was the pivotal time for striver-collector mania to take off.

Song about Anna Khachiyan vs. the leftoids (Marina & the Diamonds tune)

Easing back into my regularly scheduled posting with another tribute song to an anti-woke left figure, Anna Khachiyan, following the one about Aimee Terese. Marina & the Diamonds inspired this one as well -- "Hollywood".

It's sung in Anna's voice about her online and IRL ecosystem, leading up to and just after the Bernie 2020 season. She's half-disgusted yet half-fascinated by what she observes and participates in. That resonates perfectly with the themes and the tone of the original song.

No time this time for a photoshop mash-up of her and Marina, but her reply guys can do the work. Seeing her decked out in an American flag costume would be just as hilariously out-of-place as in the original music video.

* * *

"Online-world"

Astorian kween is the Astorian meme
Astorian kween is the Astorian meme

She is a post-grad girl in Astoria
Brown bangs, haute-WASP, called Olivia
I asked her, Why would you wanna join the online hive?
"'Cause I don't wanna end up in L.I., giving wine-mom vibes"

Policing discourse with a "yikes"
Leveled-up with woketard likes

Online-world infected your brain
You wrecked a working-class campaign, uh-oh
Now you're simping for the DNC
Posting ameriKKKa memes, oh oh
I'm depressed by the left in America, oooh
I'm depressed by the left in America

I block the blue-check geeks tryna screenshot me
Saying open borders downsize workers' pay
They said, "Wow, you must be settler European"
"A redneck Tennessean"
Actually, my dad's Armenian

Your timeline's just The Times
Red-rose branded liberal gripes
Leveled-up with woketard likes

Online-world infected your brain
You wrecked a working-class campaign, uh-oh
Simping for the DNC
Posting ameriKKKa memes, oh oh
I'm depressed by the left in America, oooh
I'm depressed by the left in America

Astorian meme is the Astorian kween
Astorian kween is the Astorian meme
Is the Astorian meme

Online-world infected your brain
You wrecked a working-class campaign, uh-oh
Now you're simping for the DNC
Posting ameriKKKa memes, oh oh

Online-world infected your brain
You wrecked a working-class campaign, uh-oh
Now you're simping for the DNC
Posting ameriKKKa memes, oh oh
I'm depressed by the left in America, oooh oooh
I'm depressed by the left in America