Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

Also the r/neoliberal subreddit can't be v happy with their erasure in this piece

Have you lived through the past three presidents and managed to still believe that Republicans and Democrats share a single corporatist overlord?

yes

Do you casually use “neoliberal” as an insult, even though nobody has spotted a neoliberal in the wild since Gary Hart’s 1984 presidential campaign?

Loaded question

Do you enjoy history lectures, but only when they are delivered by sarcastic, self-righteous people who conveniently omit anything that conflicts with their ideological worldview?

No

Well then do I have the book for you!

nice

My union remark came across more dickish than I meant it to. What industry are you in PK, and what is it about yr union that disinclines you towards them

My exposure to this crew is limited and the bits I’ve picked up make me think I’d find this entire enterprise insufferable but I want to know if I’m wrong. All immediate contact says smug young Brooklyn beardo dude nerds who live on Twitter and get their kicks from like clever room-of-mirrors in-jokes, think everyone else is dumb, have read some books (let me tell you), are expert leftists but just don’t ~give a fuuuuck~ about decorum and know how the world works and should be at 30.

Like that is probably only a partly true and shallow read, surely really good if you dig into it etc., but there’s so much right up front that’s hard to hurdle.

maybe that Politico writer shoulda taken it to 4 presidents

ClintonsAtTrumpWedding.jpg

Guy in my social circle lives in the Weird Twitter Rad Left hole (for real, obsessive) and it’s hard to disassociate him from anything that might be worthwhile from that corner. Insufferable at parties. Sometimes shows up with ppl he introduces as Twitter Friends. Took me a while to figure out who they reminded me of but it’s totally (sorry) a Fallon SNL bit:

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/the-bloater-brothers-at-shooters/n11478

All immediate contact says smug young Brooklyn beardo dude nerds who live on Twitter

and get their kicks from like clever room-of-mirrors in-jokes

think everyone else is dumb, have read some books (let me tell you)

are expert leftists but just don’t ~give a fuuuuck~ about decorum and know how the world works and should be at 30

The decorum thing is overblown - basically what you see on the John McCain RIP thread or Gawker or basically anywhere else that isn't MSNBC/CNN.

Like most stereotypes there are elements of truth, as well as elements that don't really fit. Felix and Matt for instance are huge softies if you read/hear any solo interview, and for all the talk of their ignorance, the show has covered a lot of topics their critics just don't care about (most recently the prison strike)

enjoyed the hot couch and dvd menu riffs. I went to a big state u and the campus I lived on had an entire low-rise on-campus apartment project for hot couch guys.

I enjoyed Matt's refusal to believe Will had ever encountered a hot couch guy.

wtf, is the concept of HCG just a way to be snobby towards the lumpenproletariat?

not a class phenomenon, hot couches exist at every socioeconomic strata

I searched for “hot couch guy” and got porn

wtf, is the concept of HCG just a way to be snobby towards the lumpenproletariat?

How on earth would that be your takeaway from a group of people recounting their favorite hot couch guys?

yes the segment was very affectionate

there probably aren't, like, wealthy hot couch guys, but otherwise yeah I think it exists as a phenomenon all the way from working class to college-educated professional class.

I dunno, Richard Branson seems like a billionaire hot couch guy but the couch is a chaise on an island.

there probably aren't, like, wealthy hot couch guys, but otherwise yeah I think it exists as a phenomenon all the way from working class to college-educated professional class.

azealia banks got me wonderin if elon musk is a hot couch guy

Insane ego/braggadocio about shit that no one else cares about or believes - yes, definitely

chaiselongue musk more like amirite

Weed unites people across many boundaries

surprised they didn't discuss the hot couch guy apartment smell, that dormy mix of socks, body spray, liquor and weed.

Sophomore year I lived in a mostly cool house of ag school students who were studying organic farming and that sort of thing, but there was this guy I'll call paul who, at every single house party we ever had, (which were otherwise mostly fun affairs), would at some point put on either Pinkerton or Paul's Boutique, take off his shirt, and enthusiastically put an old wooden door up on two chairs for beer pong, even though there was absolutely zero demand for beer pong in that crowd.

Paul was a tall lanky dude with long blonde hair and in my memory he is always on rollerblades. He was a huge Opie and Anthony fan and couldn't shut the fuck up about Whip-em-out Wednesdays (WOW), and made his own girlfriend flash the crowd at an Opie and Anthony show. She left him not long after that. He often bragged about her "great fuckin tits dude, great fuckin tits" to us. Everything was a "great fuckin x dude, great fuckin x." Maybe just a hair too alive to be a true hot couch guy.

There were others, like the guy who actually smuggled cooking wine from the dining hall for drinking purposes. A lot of memories of being in an efficiency campus apartment with seven other dudes and two girls listening to Meddle, making an extremely blurry late night run to quik chek, and later waking up on the hot couch. The pink floyd asses poster was probably the crucial piece of decor.

Hot couch guy is basically a dirtbag but with no style or aesthetics.

the off campus houses that were just giant hot couches

This ep gave me intense flashbacks of scratched up family guy DVDs face down on coffee tables and broken guitar hero guitars

Hot couch guy is basically a dirtbag but with no style or aesthetics.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Monday, September 3, 2018 9:30 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

doesn't even have his own raw mattress

Woken up by my feet being licked by a couch guy’s pit bull (named Turbo)

there probably aren't, like, wealthy hot couch guys, but otherwise yeah I think it exists as a phenomenon all the way from working class to college-educated professional class.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Monday, September 3, 2018 4:45 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

may I point you in the direction of silicon valley

or really anyone involved with bitcoin who isn't broke by now

I still have dreams of the hot couch I slept on in Cincinnati in 2014. I got the cool spot. My bandmate woke up in cat pee.

or really anyone involved with bitcoin who isn't broke by now

I guess technically this is going to include me soon, oh fuck am I doomed to see my couch heat up???

i have literally woken up on a hot couch with the running scared dvd menu on the tv

I was long out of college by 2006 and have no recollection of the movie Running Scared existing

haha I've just realized that it's the paul walker movie from 2006 i had no idea existed that's he's referencing and not the gregory hines and billy crystal movie which is what my experience was

Sarah Jones on the book and the boys

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/chapo-trap-house-book-dirtbag-manifesto-satire-liberalism-socialism

For those who missed out on lo-fi Matt call-ins

https://thisishell.com/interviews/1019-matt-christman-brendan-james

Matt & Virgil on Zero Books:

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/dietsoap/episodes/2018-09-05T16_55_02-07_00

Gets into the book, their reactions to the reviews, the growth in popularity of DSA and AOC, and how even a basic social-democratic platform would be a great thing to have about now

My friends @CHAPOTRAPHOUSE have written the funniest Guide To Revolution since Pol Pot's zine from his Paris years. (There are cultural references I don't get, but I trust the jokes still landed.) So buy it, read it, then burn it. Because like Nike, it's an affront to patriotism.

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) September 6, 2018

wow, they know *the* dennis perrin? they really did make it big

a true radical would burn before reading

ah it's iatee... burning as brightly as ever

dennis perrin is actually dennis miller

Chapo has hit the big time, fans are bootlegging shows, the tape trading will start soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgxrO3aCGeM&feature=youtu.be

how soon until they all drop solo podcasts on the same day?

Trying that link again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgxrO3aCGeM

thanks for the link, didn't want to go last nite. was funny, Mac DeMarco played a surprise show at the venue across the street yesterday. can't imagine how insufferable the combined crowds downtown were for this and that.

Micah Uetricht interviewed Matt for Jacobin.

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/09/chapo-trap-house-guide-to-revolution

Ha, thanks for the show link. I think people have been bootlegging the live events since they’ve been having them. Somebody on the dirtbag leftist/Chapo fan Discord posted a full show right after it happened in May of last year, I think.

great version of "playing in the band" in this show

I have mixed experiences with E1 but this one, which features Felix doing his Knausgaard knock-off character, is absolutely killing me

https://soundcloud.com/episode-one-868768631/e1-e1-live-disaronno-presents-lonely-at-the-top-50#t=0:00