The Dark Subcultures of Online Politics - Joshua Citarella

I really love what you do. I think it's very interesting, very unique. >> That's uh incredible high praise from the greatest cinematic podcast that I think exists. [laughter] >> I mean, there's only there's only so many people in the game that produce really beautiful video footage, >> and I think you seem to be in maybe the top spot there.

So, it's a it's a great honor. >> Thank you. Some may accuse me of all style and no substance. Uh but [laughter] uh you know, I I'll take whatever I can get.

>> How how do you describe what you do? You meet somebody at a cocktail party and they say, "What is it that you're interested in?" What do you say? >> I suppose I I first try to avoid the cocktail party if at all possible. But, uh, I used to say artist cuz that was what I did.

I would show work in galleries and museums. Um, now I say artist and internet culture writer. I'm a podcaster though. Most people know me for podcasting.

So, about a year ago, maybe a little over a year ago, I launched Doomcroll. We're now in episode 36, 35, something like that. Uh, and so it's it's a real transformation in that I used to publish to an audience of like 10,000 dedicated intellectuals and now it's like 100,000 weekly viewers and it's just a very very different game. >> And what is it that you're interested in?

What what is it you focus on? >> Uh, I mean, I guess it goes back to 2018. I wrote this book. It was a self-published book, really a long- form essay called Polit the Post Left that was looking at the mimemetic activity of teenagers 12 to 17 at that time.

Mostly people on what we would then call the postleft. Uh that means a little bit of something different now which you might associate with like post-liberal new right what have you. previously Bernie supporters, now people who've gone through that like Bernie to Trump pip pipeline. That's generally what we call post-left.

At that time, it meant eco anarchy, green anarchy, anarco primitivism, people who would reject industrial society and were 14 years old posting on Instagram. And I wrote a pretty extensive ethnography of how those people got into those politics. >> That sounds niche. ...