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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   33470 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 think Greer might be overfitting "TikTok users to "Zoomers." My tech illiterate lifelong Republican MAGA mother regularly sends me boomer-humor tier TikTok clips and she is obsessed with "based Black MAGA conservatives" spouting GOP talking points or praising Trump (sidenote: it is truly bizarre how civil rites fetishism is so prominent in the generation regardless of political leanings). I get similar stuff from my aunts and uncles. I think @Stefferi is right when he calls this as "normies vs fringe," although instead of fringe I'd say "nerds."

she is obsessed with "based Black MAGA conservatives" spouting GOP talking points or praising Trump (sidenote: it is truly bizarre how civil rites fetishism is so prominent in the generation regardless of political leanings).

"This guy would presumably be on the other side due to their demographics or status but is on our side instead" has always had great appeal, what's weird about it? Put the other way around, it's how Jackson Hinkle can have mass appeal in the Third World.

First, it's a matter of degree. If I saw a black guy with a MAGA hat on YouTube, I would think "huh, interesting" but I wouldn't instantly subscribe and share his videos to my friends and family. Second, at least in my experience, it's only blacks and, every now and then, a homosexual man. I never get videos about based Asians, or Native Americans, or lesbians, or trans people, or recent immigrants from the third world. And that makes sense to me, because the normie idea of Civil Rights seems to be "MLK did some stuff and we realized we should treat black people nicely, and then a few decades later some... other people did some stuff and we realized we should let gay people get married.". So those two groups are the most salient to normies.

"Ex-Muslim who dunks on Islam" is basically a stock character among the European right at this point, at least.

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