Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

‘capitalism is built on the ruthless exploitation of workers!’

*snorts another line sourced from criminal network built on horrific brutality*

succesful podcast hosting would be pretty much an absolute guarantee of drug addiction for me. "work" twice a week for like an hour, lots of disposable income. it's a recipe for disaster. which chapo member will end up at the betty ford clinic?

I would've said Amber but she hasn't been around much. Matt seems the most likely.

it’s def matt

chapo book is just a new surface for hoovering coke y/y

I'll give them this, their book pitch this week was the first semi-convincing one

(also contains what is to date their only convincing pitch for actually buying the book)

― Simon H., Monday, July 9, 2018 5:11 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no simon, i’m funny and correct

lol

I am pretty hopped up on cold meds myself. I like 2 live on the edge

they probably just borrowed some coke from nick mullen

coke is stupid but consumer-driven responses to the horrors of capitalism are always grossly insufficient

don’t worry no one’s calling for a cocaine boycott

whew

we should all be using more cocaine in solidarity with the indigenous peoples of Bolivia etc

I am calling for a cocaine boycott

smoke weed instead dudes it’s chill af

Haven't we already covered the folly of ethical consumerism

I am also calling for batteries to be included with everything fwiw

buy a newspaper? BATTERIES
gas? BATTERIES
batteries? BATTERIES

(this post brought to you by the battery board of america)

lmao bizarro

if u mean "didn't I bring up the folly of ethical consumerism to justify my continued consumption of shitty comic book adaptations" then the answer is a resounding YES

xp

Bizarro's in the bosom of Big Battery

Also IN MY DEFENSE we wee discussing an adaptation that doesn't actually exist yet

wee wee hurrr

who can honestly blame these podcasters for doing the worst drug

buy a Before Watchmen comic? BATTERIES

is it weird that I don't care what drugs they, or anyone does

xp lol

that Big Battery in full btw

https://i2.wp.com/techpoint.ng/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/big-battery.jpg?fit=500%2C369&ssl=1

damn

absolute unit

metallica wrote “battery” about that one

lmao

I get more judgmental about coke than even meth or opiates. It's just so '80s Wall Street lame (and maybe I'm biased because it was just like taking really expensive Ritalin for me).

I owned fairtradecocaine.org for a couple of years, I wanted to get logo t-shirts printed up with a caricature of Pablo Escobar wearing Buddy Holly glasses.

Lol that nerds who called their podcast Chapo Traphouse would one day make enough $$ to become real boy coke heads.

we all have a dream

Felix would somehow be the least annoying Chapo on a coke jag. Amber definitely the most.

hardcore lefties doing performative cokehead schtick is p gross imo

― Οὖτις, Monday, July 9, 2018 6:51 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they're performative hardcore lefties. their contribution to leftist politics in the USA begins and ends with the amount of people that started listening after the election and either joined the DSA, became more active, or at least more aware of (sorry) neoliberal ills and the possibility for a better future. early on i said they had a responsibility to be more serious because of their platform, but they've burrowed into their niche and are past the point of reaching people outside of, like you said, talk radio disputes played out on twitter. half of them come from money, they're "problematic," their sister shows are Red Scare and Cum Town. their leftist "credentials" or whatever don't exist and they don't care. neither do i, though i understand why people do - they're certainly not representing their "cause" or whatever very well by flaunting their drug use.

ftr i despise cocaine & what it does to people, haven't done it in years, but them straight up posting a picture of chopped up lines on that dude's book was hilarious. again, i listen to the show (and RS and CT) because they're fun, not because i agree with them. but as always, ymmv

Amber is the only one of them that I get the sense has any activist bona fides and she's almost a peripheral member. That said, I think their contribution to the revitalization of DSA is actually quite important even if it might have been semi-accidental.

I agree, but how big a part did they play? I didn't want to overstate their influence bc I'm not sure

I mean I was very much a person who had become politically complacent/dejected, and the Bernie campaign, DSA revival etc have actually made me take small steps to involve myself for the first time in years. And listening to Chapo, as much as it's largely just entertainment and blowing off steam, has contributed to my feeling that the world of the possible has expanded.

I mean I think it's the same as any kind of political entertainment that accompanies a movement -- it doesn't cause the movement but it reinforces it.

I mean if you want data on the impact of Chapo you will never get it. But excessive fealty to data is part of what got us into this mess.

Cmon, Matt’s drug of choice is booze and maybe weed.

I admit I am somewhat trepidatious about how they'll collectively handle the higher profile that may or may not accompany the book release.

the impact of Trapo is probably bigger than the impact of the Daily Show/Colbert Show and its attendant Rally To Restore Sanity/Kissinger guest spots

I would estimate a few hundred people have joined DSA via the pod (~150k listeners, subtract the non-Americans and people who don't d activism or who already organize with other folks...) but I can't discount the idea that people conflate them with "the left" and assume it's brotown all around, which might well have dissuaded others who might otherwise be open. (Hence a good chunk the new upswing in interest in DSA that came with AOC's victory.)

I do wonder if it's appropriate to characterize Red Scare as a "sister podcast" - they're beginning to exhibit a reactionary streak I've never detected from CTH