Is it just me? Can it really just be me? Can I really be the only one who wakes up every day, looks at my phone and begins to suspect that I am the main character in a Truman Show sequel where the plot twist is the director’s job is to keep upping the retard level to the point I work out this can’t possibly be real and start shouting “STOP”?
Don’t get me wrong, this cultural moment is not without its entertainment. This week, the lols were furnished by ICE who arrested and deported online “provocateur” Milo Yiannopoulos. “Provocateur” is French for someone who has made being an arsehole into a lucrative career. Don’t get me wrong: he’s undeniably a funny man. For example, last year he tweeted:
“What is the etiquette if you are going about your business and find yourself observing an ICE raid? I want to show a little respect and decency. Are you allowed to masturbate where you stand, in the street, or should you find some kind of awning or motor vehicle?”
Despite previously quipping that he would never move back to Britain because he “doesn’t speak Arabic”, this week he found himself on Piers Morgan’s show, chronicling the “brutality” of his deportation, confessing his shame at supporting President Trump and crying about the dehumanising treatment at the hands of ICE (for whom he’s previously advocated complete immunity). How could anyone with a conscience and a sense of humour not find this entire episode deeply amusing?
Milo, incidentally, is a very good example of the broader trend which it is the purpose of this article to describe. Ten years ago, he was a bright, edgy commentator who said provocative things about matters that were serious and important. He appeared on prominent podcasts like the Rubin Report and the Joe Rogan Experience to talk about the meaning of conservatism, censorship, the cultural vandalism of the progressive left, radical feminism, mass immigration and the rise of Donald Trump. You didn’t have to agree with all of his views to recognise that the issues he was talking about were significant and his acerbic quips were a way to shake his listeners out of the straitjacket of political correctness. He was part of a bigger conversation led by people like Jordan Peterson, Bret and Eric Weinstein, Sam Harris, Douglas Murray, Ben Shapiro and others.
Those were the big voices of the online centre and centre right who were breaking open the Overton Window imposed on reasonable people by the legacy media. They debated God, atheism, meaning, the decline of the West and its institutions and the future of our civilisation.
Who are the big voices of the online right today? And what are they debating? Here is forensic investigator Candace Owens debating whether Israel and/or the French Foreign Legion killed Charlie Kirk with the connivance of Erika Kirk. Here’s a debate about the future of MAGA with respected political commentator Alex Jones.
This stuff is inevitably popular because these people know exactly what they’re doing. Think back to that Milo joke about not wanting to move back to Britain because he doesn’t speak Arabic. The joke works because you get the idea: Britain has been overrun by Muslims. There’s only one problem: the overwhelming majority of British Muslims don’t speak Arabic. They’re not from the Arab world, they’re from Pakistan, India, Somalia, Turkey and Bangladesh. Milo is smart enough to know this but he’s also smart enough to know that the people to whom he is pandering do not. This is the essence of slopulism: smart people saying dumb things to profit from the ignorance of the baying mob.
Case in point: the entire online right has spent the last month screeching about the Lindsay Clancy story.
