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PaperclipPerfector  29d ago (text post)   33438 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025

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Scott Greer writes about the differences between the millennial "Online Right" and the Zoomer right:

The youth are primarily on TikTok and Instagram, two platforms which the Dissident Right has little presence on. The Online Right is a Twitter-based phenomenon. The youth prefer streaming and clips. The Online Right, by contrast, prefers text over video. The Online Right's content still centers around writing posts, while Zoomers obsess over videos. The Online Right mostly hates TikTok as either slop or a tool for Chinese subversion. Meanwhile, the youth love it.

Much of the big conservative content on TikTok would be mocked by the Online Right. Videos of black influencers proving that that Dems R The Real Racists get millions of views on there. It's mostly basic bitch conservatism that would get dunked on by the Dissident Right–if it were posted to Twitter. But it doesn't, and proves popular among right-leaning Zoomers.

{snip}

Most young Trump voters share more in common with FanDuel Americans. As I wrote last year of this group:

There are many things that blackpill right-wingers that don't upset FanDuel Americans. Eroding WASP norms and new ones that approve of visible tattoos and smoking weed in public? The FanDuel American doesn't know what a "WASP" is, doesn't mind tattoos, and smokes weed himself. Radically changing demographics that's making America less white? The FanDuel American doesn't care, brags about his black friends, and thinks diversity makes his favorite team better. Nobody going to church? The FanDuel American doesn't go either. Everyone wasting money on sports bets and OnlyFans? So does the FanDuel American.

The FanDuel American has some conservative instincts. He likes the free market. He supports the troops. He stands for the National Anthem. He doesn't list his pronouns.

But this isn't what he truly cares about. He cares about distractions, and he strives to make enough money to pursue them.

https://www.highly-respected.com/p/we-are-the-youth

This is essentially the Richard Hanania low human capital theory. While Hanania screams it from the rooftops with the subtly of a hammer pounding on an I-beam, Greer packages it more carefully, reminding his readership that the tatted-up MMA guy podcast-ranting about 5G giving him cancer is not a historical part of the Right; the Right needn't tribalistically defend his antisocial behavior.

I disagree with the notion that the dissident right has a weak presence on tiktok. I am seeing lots of dissident right content on tiktok and the comment sections are on fire. Tiktok has more freedom of speech than most big tech platforms and has an algorithm that makes it a lot more likely for niche content to go viral. There is a reason why tiktok is overrepresented in producing memes and trends. Tiktok is more interconnected and users are less siloed into tiny communities than most other platforms.

The group that is missing on tiktok isn't dissidents, it is the mainstream republicans, never Trumpers and American enterprise institute types. These groups need to seriously take a look in the mirror and have a long think about why their message has a non existent resonance with tiktokers. Just because Dick Cheney wears a suit doesn't make him respectable.

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