A very long video essay about the themes of the John Wick series, about rules, about whether bespoke suits make murder respectable, about whether a society that authorizes itself to kill your dog without consequence can be called “civilized,” and about whether a black shirt can be worn with a tie. I guess now’s as good a time as any to say: this video is unsponsored and I am no…
I’ve been watching a max-stats run of Disco Elysium ’s fascist political vision quest - cuz, hell no, I’m not disappointing Kim myself - and the portrait it paints of Measurehead is fascinating . in the base game, Measurehead is just a comically contradictory roadblock to meeting with Evrart: the philosophy of white supremacy spouted from a massive Black body. most players will…
this is the final Alt-Right Playbook. it’s called The South Bank of the Rubicon. thank you for watching this series the last eight years. I’m not going anywhere, but I’ll be turning my attention to topics other than conservative rhetorical strategies; going forward, I don’t see our battles being fought with rhetoric. support my work on Patreon and/or subscribe to me on…
New Alt-Right Playbook! This one was co-written with, and narrated by, Abigail Thorn of PhilosophyTube . We talk about the feint wherein a person is somehow rhetorically stronger being wrong on two fronts instead of one. If you think this is good work and would like to see good work compensated, you can back me and/or Abi on Patreon. Transcript below the cut. Say, for the sake of argument, you’re…
New Alt-Right Playbook! This one’s on spurious claims and how they don’t even need to be ARTICULATED to follow you around. If you wanna keep this series coming out (and maybe help it come out a little faster) do please consider backing me on Patreon or subscribing to me on Nebula . Transcript below the cut. Say, for the sake of argument, you are the kind of progressive leftist with a…
by a wide margin the weirdest video essay I’ve ever release: List of Songs that Represent “Smart Music” Ranked from Most to Least Appropriate to Put in a Video Essay this video is sponsored by Nebula, where you can watch ad-free and (sometimes, slightly) better edited versions of my videos for 40% off an annual subscription. just follow this link . as a quick note: YouTube has…
new video about Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy, and how everyone* keeps getting them wrong! this video is sponsored by Nebula, a place where you can watch the original version of this video before I had to tweak it for YouTube’s copyright bots. (by clicking that link, you can get an annual subscription for 40% off.) or you can just back me on Patreon , which is also cool and good.…
New video essay! On the Reverse Gish Gallop - how conservatives can ignore 90% of your argument and still appear to be winning. If you would like more of this, subscribe to Nebula and/or back me on Patreon ! Transcript below the cut. Say, for the sake of argument, you’re watching a political debate on TV. The conservative candidate has used their opening arguments to dump a truckload of dubious…
New Alt-Right Playbook, regarding the minimization of power imbalances with “enh, it’s not SO bad.” If you like this and my other work, do please back me on Patreon and/or watch me on Nebula . Transcript below the cut. Say, for the sake of argument, you and some other folks have gotten embroiled in a debate about the use of content warnings. One side has put forth the usual case:…
New video! Another miniature Alt-Right Playbook, about how Far Right recruitment is not dissimilar from pick-up artistry. Back me on Patreon . Transcript below the cut. Say, for the sake of argument, you’ve been having a knock-down-drag-out online with a reactionary for weeks. It’s been going long enough that you don’t remember how it started, or, entirely, what you’re talking about. The argument…
oh lookie another bite-sized Alt-Right Playbook. back me on Patreon plz . transcript below the thingy. Say, for the sake of argument, you’re twelve or thirteen, it’s the mid-90’s, you’re sitting across the table from your conservative aunt at a family reunion. (This aunt will, a decade from now, become a Tea Partier.) You have - you sweet, innocent child - brought up the subject of evolution,…
The Alt-Right Playbook: The Slow Breakup New Alt-Right Playbook! There’s a bunch of bite-sized videos like this in the works as I clear out the remaining points I wanna make before the series wraps. If you like this and wanna see more, back me on Patreon and/or follow me on Nebula . Transcript below the cut. Say, for the sake of argument, there’s this guy, this just real abomination, total…
A new video essay has appeared. The second Protagony, this time looking at Abed Nadir and the weird way modern audiences treat the fourth wall. If you like this video and would like to see more Protagony, Alt-Right Playbook, and what else have you in the future, consider backing me on Patreon ! Transcript below the cut: The doors open. The line starts to move. The usher takes your ticket and…
[spoilers ahead] 1. I will state my biases before the court: Maybe you have a person who is, for whatever reason, not in your life anymore, and you have missed them every day since you said goodbye. Their absence is a scar, a bit of ostensibly healed flesh that nevertheless acts up when the weather changes. That person whom you can think about, after several years of effort, for up to thirty…
[spoilers ahoy] Theme The person who is returning to Monkey Island here is, most obviously, Ron Gilbert. He got him brand back. Go Ron! And, look, I was skeptical. I mean, I was, above all, cautiously optimistic! But I was keeping my skeptic hat on the coat rack next to my hoodie, you know? I said the philosophy of The Secret of Monkey Island is “cheerful nihilism,” and I stand by…
Things I think about. Sometimes a video is just a place to put thoughts. I played Life is Strange and couldn't stop thinking about how the second half was in a completely different genre from the first half and how that seemed intentional. I played The Walking Dead: Season 2 and was really bothered that hardly anyone was talking about the abuse dynamics in Clem's relationship to Kenny. I noticed…
The first new Alt-Right Playbook since just after the pandemic began. This video was started two and a half years ago, and languished in various states of production through a severe back injury, an ADHD diagnosis, a case of COVID, and the general stress of living in ongoing crises of health and democracy. With the help of guest artist Micael Schuenker Alves and script consultant Isabelle Felix,…
[no spoilers] I’m going to do Norco a disservice by talking about it in the context of a bunch of other adventure games, so let’s flag this up top: Norco is probably the best adventure game released in the 2 ½ years since Kentucky Route Zero wrapped, and, unless my feelings change as I sit with it longer, probably going in my list of best adventures ever made. KR0 comparisons -…
[story discussion kept intentionally nonspecific, but you could not call it spoiler-free] I was offered a choice, an escape. A release. I was a few million lines of code running in an artificial body; a mental copy of a human lying in cryosleep somewhere I couldn’t remember. My synthetic body and mind were the escaped property of a megacorporation, living on borrowed time on a fractured…