I don’t think it was the memes or the virality. Trump basically mastered the infomercial but for politics. He sold America timeshares and made them feel good about it. He made it their identity, that lil boost of status you get from the timeshare which is simply an expensive hotel room sucking away your money year after year. It is amazing that nobody else is trying this to the degree Trump tried it. I.e., lying your ass off about some STUFF you get. They think people want to see their enemies roasted on a spit and that is all but he promised free healthcare, better healthcare, you will never lose your job, all countries of the world will be bested, all the jobs will come back, wages will rise, etc. etc. The enemy roast has to be seasoned with this spice of free stuff. DeSantis will never have merch. His candidacy has no whiff of the swag bag. Nor can he credibly pull that off. Maybe memes make people feel like all that is forthcoming, sort of like commercials do where you drink this beer and everyone loves you. You have to be the beer, have to make people feel that treats will fall from your cloak.
Maybe things have changed since I was 18-24 but when you are 18-24 24 a 40 year old man is OLD. Like OLD OLD. You just FEEL the oldness. I remember because my friend dated one and this was all we talked about. Her wrinkly boyfriend (who she dumped pretty fast). Does he get them to go out on a date with him? Maybe? Will there be an endless stream of 18-24 year olds who will be his paramours? UNLIKELY.
The difference between trump and desantis is the difference between Jack Harlow and machine gun Kelly.
Both guys are running the same playbook but with MGK it constantly feels like tryhard stunts that are hard to get worked up about, whereas when the Jack Harlow pr cycle spins up it feels like he’s just organically annoying in a way that sticks to your ribs.
It also, I hate to admit, requires some amount of inherent likability... the Fergie song is unfortunately catchy in the same way trump can unfortunately be quite funny (the paper towels, the McDonald’s buffet, complaining about how long a funeral is while speaking at said funeral, etc) -- see also: what sets the Paul bros apart from many many would be competitors.
All of which is to say I don’t think trump is some sort of unicorn, but being inescapably obnoxious as a public figure is harder than it looks and requires some level of natural aptitude that is harder to manufacture than it looks.
Terrible, terrible news that deaf people may be getting free hearing aids & cochlear implants from that monster on YouTube. Lock that disgusting criminal up! I shiver in fear at the thought that his ideas could be replicable.
Re: memes in presidential politics, I would look to Ron Paul's 2008 campaign, which was heavily driven and funded by support on Reddit. It's a more clear example of the memes making the candidate, I think.
Re: Trump...I have always thought his time being a top reality show lead for NBC framed his approach to politics, especially in 2015-2016. The amount of money for market research and quantitative polling that NBC likely put into him is massive. It certainly seems like he got a lot of data on what people liked about him, how he talked, how he related to them and internalized it. Which is to say, I don't think the memes were sufficient, but certainly helpful in his rise of Republican base support.
Rather than promote DeSantis and Trump like that and going meta on their hype machine, thus giving credence to these totalitarian fascist fucks, why not just point out, accurately, that all Republicans are terrorists?
The last thing in the world that I ever wanted to be a pedant over is the nu-metal/buttrock pipeline
but I have to point out that the "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" song was by Drowning Pool and not Disturbed.
I don’t think it was the memes or the virality. Trump basically mastered the infomercial but for politics. He sold America timeshares and made them feel good about it. He made it their identity, that lil boost of status you get from the timeshare which is simply an expensive hotel room sucking away your money year after year. It is amazing that nobody else is trying this to the degree Trump tried it. I.e., lying your ass off about some STUFF you get. They think people want to see their enemies roasted on a spit and that is all but he promised free healthcare, better healthcare, you will never lose your job, all countries of the world will be bested, all the jobs will come back, wages will rise, etc. etc. The enemy roast has to be seasoned with this spice of free stuff. DeSantis will never have merch. His candidacy has no whiff of the swag bag. Nor can he credibly pull that off. Maybe memes make people feel like all that is forthcoming, sort of like commercials do where you drink this beer and everyone loves you. You have to be the beer, have to make people feel that treats will fall from your cloak.
Maybe things have changed since I was 18-24 but when you are 18-24 24 a 40 year old man is OLD. Like OLD OLD. You just FEEL the oldness. I remember because my friend dated one and this was all we talked about. Her wrinkly boyfriend (who she dumped pretty fast). Does he get them to go out on a date with him? Maybe? Will there be an endless stream of 18-24 year olds who will be his paramours? UNLIKELY.
The difference between trump and desantis is the difference between Jack Harlow and machine gun Kelly.
Both guys are running the same playbook but with MGK it constantly feels like tryhard stunts that are hard to get worked up about, whereas when the Jack Harlow pr cycle spins up it feels like he’s just organically annoying in a way that sticks to your ribs.
It also, I hate to admit, requires some amount of inherent likability... the Fergie song is unfortunately catchy in the same way trump can unfortunately be quite funny (the paper towels, the McDonald’s buffet, complaining about how long a funeral is while speaking at said funeral, etc) -- see also: what sets the Paul bros apart from many many would be competitors.
All of which is to say I don’t think trump is some sort of unicorn, but being inescapably obnoxious as a public figure is harder than it looks and requires some level of natural aptitude that is harder to manufacture than it looks.
Terrible, terrible news that deaf people may be getting free hearing aids & cochlear implants from that monster on YouTube. Lock that disgusting criminal up! I shiver in fear at the thought that his ideas could be replicable.
Re: memes in presidential politics, I would look to Ron Paul's 2008 campaign, which was heavily driven and funded by support on Reddit. It's a more clear example of the memes making the candidate, I think.
Re: Trump...I have always thought his time being a top reality show lead for NBC framed his approach to politics, especially in 2015-2016. The amount of money for market research and quantitative polling that NBC likely put into him is massive. It certainly seems like he got a lot of data on what people liked about him, how he talked, how he related to them and internalized it. Which is to say, I don't think the memes were sufficient, but certainly helpful in his rise of Republican base support.
“Who cares why Darth Vader did it. Those kids didn’t have the Force and now they do. You people just want to complain”
why does it look like that deaf child is crying the android blood from the alien movies?
Hard to imagine how fast Mayer would have driven netflix or Hulu straight into bankruptcy but it’s fun to try.
Rather than promote DeSantis and Trump like that and going meta on their hype machine, thus giving credence to these totalitarian fascist fucks, why not just point out, accurately, that all Republicans are terrorists?