It's one of these guys: I can't be the only one who fucking hates these guys. A Marxist analysis of fucking Glitter?! I don't even want to lash out against this particular channel, but it's part of a larger phenomenon on the internet left that I want to address here, after I've read HLR's rant.
Zizek was a fucking mistake. There, I said it. He's part of this pop-philosophical culture that festers through the online left, when he makes a "Marxist analysis" of Pokemon Go! or Kung-Fu Panda, which inspired a whole lot of pseudo intellectuals like pic related to pick up where Zizek left and to turn his approach into lifestylism. Having an anime profile picture and sharing surreal memes on your Twitter is just as bad as any CPGB-ML member waving a Stalin banner because he abolished tution fees - you are LARPing as an intellectual, hipster-ish e-personality, and of course everybody is wrong but you, and of course you have the weirdest kinks.
These people are absolute cancer. They are trying to subvert garbage culture, like trashy games or movies, by engaging with it on a level which it doesn't deserve, it is no different from a liberal hipster saying he likes the Captain America movie from 1990, for no other reason than to forge his virtue-signalling personality - or like Tarantino recycling some b-movie for no content but just for the form. All these people, the lolicon avater Leftcom as well as the "ironic" IdPol soy and cuck poster belong into this specific circlejerk of absolute insufferable pseuds who would do a Lacanian analysis of the Super Mario movie but absolutely scoff and viciously lash out against actual socialists IRL. In this sense, they represent everything wrong with the left - online career-building by cloaking yourself like an edgy pseud. As a concrete example, look at this horseshit: twitter.com/deepcomrade/status/999285896078856193 I've read Adorno and Marx and had a peak into DeLeon and I have no idea what this cunt is trying to say - I believe even someone who isn't well-read but just an intelligent person can figure out how this guy just tried super hard to use big words to discredit something for no reason, it reminds me on my time in school, when I had no idea what was talked about last lesson but it's a social science so I can bullshit my way through it. And of course, Muke retweeted it - someone who probably hasn't even read the book cover of a work of Adorno!
These guys choose communism as an "intellectual" identity. They are all trash, and need to be removed, one way or the other.
I have nothing against Zizek himself, I just don't like the type of online lifestylism he has spawned. Zizek has said himself he despises being a pop-philosopher (whether or not that's true can everybody judge for himself), and his takes were refreshing in the beginning, but his terrible online imitators are shit.
Thomas Sanchez
contain your anal anguish The video on K-Pop was quite alright, it's almost totally focused on the class aspects.
Jack Smith
So, was it from my post or from Onanist Socialist's post?
I think this misreads the impulse, although that might be me projecting my own older behaviours onto it. It's not about actually engaging seriously with whether Sonic Adventure 2 is postmodernist, as an attempt to subvert the game, or to make a serious political point. It's pure comedy, it doesn't actually require good marxist analysis, it's entertaining that someone did a Marxist analysis at all.* A second, possibly equal impulse is instead that it's an easy and accessible way of getting across basic concepts. A marxist analysis of the balance of class forces in reality will either be ridiculously oversimplified, and therefore to many people unappealing. Okay, you've explained class divisions, you've got your proles and your bourgs, but now you're seriously fucking telling me guys on a $1mil salary are the same as me just because they don't own a factory? Yeah, right. Jog on mate. Now, a proper Marxist analysis can break things down further - but then you've actually got to understand the basics to understand it, you can't just jump straight in and know what's going on by instinct. But if you take fiction, the lines are drawn much more clearly. Tropico doens't have nuanced social classes, because it's a videogame and it doesn't need them, nor does it allow them to develop iteratively out of a random process, and even if it did the characters don't care. So from that, you can still show the balance of forces in class-society in a simplified and internally consistent form.
*Similarly, much of the entertainment of Nazbol or other gangs doesn't come from the fact someone made a good infographic about the necessity of Posadism, with high quality graphic design and so on, merely that someone made an infographic with competent graphic design.
Every time people like that say they're going to make a Marxist analysis of some pop culture trend or piece I'm immediately reminded of Garland's "time for some game theory" piece. It seems to be a common trend: you want to be perceived as someone will employ galaxy brain concepts to analyze a phenomenon that is very public and accessible, but also be read and understood by the dumb people who will find that idea either cool or humorous, so you announce your complex methodology out loud and spill a lot of dumb banalities instead.
I mean, a few minutes into the "Marxist analysis" of Shrek and look, I get it. It's obviously tongue-in-cheek and I'm not complaining that it isn't a real super high-quality Marxist theory, but good lord, "this guy represents the proletariat and this other guy the bourgeoisie xD", really? If you're going for the classic comedic formula of highbrow-meets-lowbrow-and-thus-humor couldn't you use some Marxist categories beyond that? And yet as simple, shallow and fucking stupid as his "analysis" is, he still manages to misuse some of the concepts, god help us.
In general I agree with you. This is an annoying trend, even though Zizek is not (solely) to blame. This thread actually reminded me of Sam Kriss, who 100% must have started his career as one of those guys, and who could be accused of having literally fisted a nun to death and his biggest crime imo would still be those videogame analyses that he wrote for Jacobin.
Blake Jones
Yeah, he's actually said before he feels his best work is his lacanin stuff, not his political or media analyses. According to him he's more or less forced to do that kind of stuff by his editor.
Samuel Smith
These fucking cunts will never achieved anything engaged in their shitty ass Bookchin style lifestylism. They don't matter jack fucking shit though, if the workers suddenly rise against capitalism i'm sure none of these motherfuckers will be relevant or an important voice along these movements, probably will be sitting home "supporting" said movements on their twitter accounts while getting a few Patreon bucks. ChapoTrapHouse tier Brooklyn "intellectual" dogshit
Jordan Lee
I will quibble with this. For the comedy to be effective, the shoe has to fit, so to speak. When the cuck philosopher made a post modern analysis of Sonic Adventures 2, he was taking a tool - post modern analysis - and applying it to a field where its application is broadly appropriate - deconstructing a narrative, in this case of a game. In effect you could make videos like this about all kinds of modern media products, which would be more or less hilarious depending on the standing or sophistication of the work that is looked at. You can do a post modern analysis of the plot of Sonic Adventures 2because that was what post modernism is for, broadly.
Contrast this, however, to the Shrek-video, which was rightly called out supra. It has two problems, namely that a Marxist analysis (if you can call it that) is being applied to a setting for which it is not appropriate, and the analysis itself being only nominally Marxist. To the latter point, what the video actually does is identify aspects of the movie with a number of Marxist tropes, and re-construct the narrative using those blocks. This is of course not what a Marxist analysis would entail, as such a critique would either look at the political economy that was at the basis of the movie, or try to analyze the same in the world of Shrek (if the latter were attempted however, it would necessarily run up to the limits set by the former, which is blatant to the point of creating logical inconsistencies, hence the point about it not really being suited for a Marxist analysis in the first place, except in the before mentioned meta sense).
All to say there is a good way to do this and a bad way, and the channel in question does both.
you're just as bad as people who download sonic diaper fetish porn, that's how empty your political views are, they're literally the same as degenerates jerking it to infantilism and feces
the only qualitative good leftist yt channels are all at least self-proclaimed ML third worldism disqualifies him from being ML, he's a revisionist
Christian Collins
no u
David Baker
t.edgy chan kid. If you disagree with them, go and tell them in their comments section. If you hate them so much then just don't bring them up. I don't really like them either, but I'm ambivalent towards them because the biggest threat to the left isn't fucking HBomberguy analyzing sonic.
Stop trying to fit in and be edgy, you just come off as a reactionary Zig Forumstard to be honest.
Grayson Fisher
Err, third worldism is based and actually works.
Adam Reyes
I really like this channel. Don't take it too seriously brah
Xavier Russell
test
Isaac Mitchell
not an argument. jordan peterson is a true pop-philosopher, zizek doesnt have a millions redditpede following who DESTROY and REKT cultural-marxneopostmodernism. reals > feels get rekt!@!11111
Robert Richardson
I don't buy /cow/'s theory that Peter Coffin's gf is a doll, but the guy has to be one of the dumbest 'leftists' out there.
Blake Brown
Isn't all of those 'a marxist analysis of ' really just for fun? Can't people have fun? Also, it's a good introduction of ideas to people who have no clue about what maxrism is and have a fondness for Sonic or Shrek. Don't you care about the average person.What you want a dry powerpoint presentation?
This whole post is stupid as fuck. Also your painting of it as 'garbage culture' ust sounds puritanical and makes you sound like a grandpa who can't get the stick out of their butt.
