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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025

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What do you think of when I show you this image?

If you were paying attention to The News at the time, then you'd recognize this image captures important social commentary. It was disseminated by our very best, professional national media outlets. Attached to it was a story about a MAGA chud laughing in the face of a noble and indigenous savage. The media manufactured and corralled the narrative in less than a day. Full blast an hour or so before I knew the entire encounter available for viewing on Youtube. This was not much slower than the Twitter story of the mysteriously well armed (for Britain) chav(?) teen that is alleged to be warding off Pakistani Asian advances. Alternatively, a teenager making poor decisions.

I don't think the AI connection is very relevant here. You can argue the image generation enhances the meme, but I don't think it is central. The video is enough. To take off it requires a common understanding and a major demand. There's a lot of demand on Yookay Twitter. I judge that the demand can be largely laid at the feet of British institutions and culture which are paying a cost for past transgressions. You may judge differently. This does not absolve propaganda for feel mads or Twitter bucks.

My brain short circuits a little seeing a girl dual-wielding hatchet knife in public. That is not a situation that organically transpires. About the closest thing I can map it to is various criminal situations in lower-class environments filmed for entertainment.

I look forward to more information than five sentences in the Daily Record. Why do you lot need so many tabloids and why do they need to be daily? The Weekly World News is a world class tabloid.

Daily Record

This is a Scottish newspaper, so it's local rather than national, unlike The Sun or The Daily Mirror (and you get regional versions of those, e.g. The Irish Sun). A lot of the daily papers got hoovered up by the Murdoch behemoth and brought downmarket as tabloids to become profitable. Your question is a bit like asking "Why do you need the Minnesota Star-Tribune, isn't USA Today enough?"

Fair enough I was talking out of my ass. At least I now know where to go for my horoscopes. I don't exactly trust Russell, but I don't exactly not trust him either.