site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1427 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 23, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So the thing is, Amelia isn't real.

Not only is she not literally real, she isn't even figuratively real. There is no attractive sexually available 18-29 year-old alt girl willing to take direct action to fix the demographic crisis with you. She doesn't exist. This is the most perfidious lie of all.

I still think this matters.

"Right Wing Goth Girls don't exist, they can't hurt you."

The Right Wing Goth Girls in Question:

More seriously, propaganda matters. Maybe the real secret to Amelia isn't that she isn't real but more that she's a signal to woman that they can be patriotic and nationalistic in an alternative, egirl way.

You're not going to the right parties. I recommend NatalCon. (Though sadly many of them go for the tradwife look)

I understand the point you're making. At the same time, using an idealised female character as an abstract personification of your nation/culture/value system is not a new thing. Columbia, Athena, Aisling, to name but three examples of the proud lineage of which Amelia is a member.

Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean is a song i'm fond of.

Amelia is ... less ... than all of those, though. It does accurately signify many aspects of the culture/value system it emerges from, just not in a good way. It's just an internet meme about a hot girl. And even that's fine, I guess, the problem is there's nothing else.

I don't know what this means. What do you mean by "not in a good way"?

Columbia represented both the philosophical principles of the American founding (I may disagree with many, but they are serious and substantial) as well as a concrete people civilizing the frontier and building what would become the most powerful and prosperous nation on the planet. Amelia is a cute hot girl that represents no immigrants. Which is fine, but just not as substantial. Amelia is funny, and and accurately represents that the culture it comes from cares more about 'edgy memes' and 'looking at picture of attractive girls' than it does philosophical principles or material accomplishments. It's not that the former two are bad, they have their place, just... You can see this in the art, compare to this. I think Amelia's just a random internet meme of no unusual significance either positive or negative, but to the extent it really is "an abstract personification of your nation/culture/value system" what it says isn't good.

Sure. But bear in mind: this whole Amelia started a couple of weeks ago, and there are already videos of her quoting poetry at length that users of this board are calling moving. I'm sure the first draft of Columbia looked a little rough around the edges (and not a little racist against Native Americans) too.

She represents 'England is good, England is beautiful, English people are good, it's our home, all of this is under threat but we can save it together'. From where I'm standing that's immensely serious and substantial, and the ongoing crumpling of British political parties against this sentiment agrees with me. Amelia herself is just a pretty face on top of that, but so is Columbia a face on top of some rather arbitrary assertions.

building what would become the most powerful and prosperous nation on the planet

We did that before it was cool, and God willing one day we'll do it again. The wheel of fate turns and nations rise and fall.

philosophical principles of the American founding

Ethnonationalism and the underlying debate around what underlies culture, how well different ethnicities can live together long term etc. etc. is perfectly serious and substantial, as are more complex philosophical elements of British identity that are harder to pin down. Locke himself was English, of course, and in many ways you could say that it America was built in England even if later generations of pilgrims called themselves American.

Amelia is therefore an incarnation of Britannia, then?

Durr, I missed the most obvious example.

The thing about Amelia that doesn't apply to the previous meme is that Amelia originated from the left. The left made a propaganda piece so out of touch and unpersuasive that it made the right seem more appealing rather than less. The left tried to make a cautionary tale warning people to stay away from the dangers of right wing extremism and accidentally made their fantasy instead. This is not the right saying "come join us, we have cute alt girls", this is the left saying "stay away from those dangerous cute right wingers, they'll seduce you and convince you to rebel against the system" and the right saying "wow, that sounds even better than what I was expecting, sign me up!"

Every Amelia post is a troll against the left wing. The left can't meme so badly that they accidentally spawn right wing memes. (Almost) nobody actually thinks Amelia is real. She is a fantasy. But she's a fantasy that the left considers to be a cautionary tale propaganda piece (at least the subset that made the silly game) and put her in there as an antagonist. It's a dismissal of the left wing's warnings and concerns, saying "your worst case scenario is my fantasy". Her purpose is not to actually convince people to join the right to get cute girls but both to troll the left for warning against cute right wing girls, and also celebrate the idea of right wing girls and hopefully inspire more to step up and stand up for what's right while still being cute and alt at the same time.

There ARE girls on the right wing. There are going to be some who decide to cosplay as Amelia to show their support (Calling it now, next ShoeOnHead video has her purple wig at least cameo in reference to this even if it's not the main topic of the video). They're almost certainly not single: girls like that get snapped up immediately by high status men, but they do exist. Maybe if Amelia memes stick around there will be more of them 5 years from now. Maybe not. It is a fantasy after all.

Yeah, but in 50 years if we fix the culture, maybe there could be. It’s a hell of a lot better than ‘look, dude, IRL women are going to regard you with utter loathing and contempt for trying to fix the country, and society will punish you any way it can, but it’s still gotta be done’. And besides, everyone knows that anyway, which is why this took off. They’re just temporarily enjoying the thought of a world where it’s not so.

Well, yes, obviously it's a fantasy. But fantasies do have a place, and men have been fighting for fictional ladies for thousands of years. A symbol doesn't have to be a real person to be effective.

And as you say, the place of women in political discourse itself changes and evolves. Women went around and gave white feathers to able-bodied young men. Today you would expect young women to be disproportionately progressive, but that's not an eternal truth, and surely any movement towards encouraging young women to be more conservative would contain images as examples.

I don't think Amelia's going to change anything substantial by herself. She's just one more bit of internet froth. But there are worse things in the world that somebody enjoying or feeling encouraged by froth floating on top of the online sea.

It would amuse me deeply if the Right managed to claim purple hair in the future, as someone who was once roundly chastised for disparaging badly-dyed danger hair on girls.

Hell, I remember when blue hair was associated mostly with anime, and it was completely apolitical to say that blue-haired girls are hot. It wasn't that long ago. Associations can change very quickly.

I remember when blue hair was associated mostly with anime

Was that ever really a thing outside extremely online / fan circles?

I live in a place that luckily isn't excessively contaminated with anime culture and I'd say that before "purple haired girl" became a known concept, people would have pattern matched it to punk-adjacent weirdos. Ie. definitely not politically neutral.

Yeah, the girl I was thinking of had badly-dyed pink hair and was punk-left, thus my left-wing acquaintances getting pissed when I said I couldn't see the appeal.

Yea, it's the Manic Pixie Dream Girl fantasy with extra racism.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats