Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas as well.
Speaker 2: Let's go Brandon, Let's go.
Speaker 1: I agree, let's let's talk about Let's go Brandon. I
Speaker 1: maintained the only good thing Biden has done so far.
Speaker 2: It's pretty funny. It's very funny.
Speaker 3: So this is like also the sort of attitude that
Speaker 3: is actually necessary to like win the culture war side
Speaker 3: of these things. It's not like defending yourself, and it's
Speaker 3: not when they do something like put out this meme
Speaker 3: like being like, oh my god, this is so dangerous
Speaker 3: and like some responsible no funk with him right back,
Speaker 3: you know, like boh, put some glowing eyes on Joe
Speaker 3: Biden and make it looks like he plans to shoot somebody.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the rise of dark Brandon.
Speaker 3: And also the other thing that they're kind of deterning
Speaker 3: and reposting with here is like taking the uh what
Speaker 3: is it, taking the fucking Brandon memes and let's go
Speaker 3: Brandon meme, Let's go Brandon and going being like all right, yeah,
Speaker 3: fuck it, call him Brandon, like doesn't hurt us, Like yeah,
Speaker 3: we'll be branded.
Speaker 2: But Biden did that himself, when someone asked him about it,
Speaker 2: he didn't know what it meant, and he was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's go Brandon.
Speaker 1: I actually I actually already had that clip inserted of
Speaker 1: above this conversation jameson good job, good job, We're on
Speaker 1: the same page.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is just being given the content.
Speaker 1: So Dark Brandon combines two different pro Trump memes while
Speaker 1: trying to subvert them, both pretty successfully. I would say,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm assuming everyone listening to this is is familiar
Speaker 1: with the fuck Joe Biden, Let's go Brandon kind of evolution,
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna skip right past that because the
Speaker 1: other half of Dark Brandon, I think is a little
Speaker 1: bit more interesting. So Dark Brandon began with chronically online
Speaker 1: life theftists doing a satirical riff on Dark Mega, replacing
Speaker 1: the figure of Trump with an alter ego of Biden
Speaker 1: and having and having this like mirror universe president appear
Speaker 1: as some kind of like neoliberal socialist demagogue, because when
Speaker 1: you replace the fascist figure with some largely ineffectual liberal
Speaker 1: given like militaristic and socialist or anti fascist catchphrases, but
Speaker 1: like otherwise leave the rest of the authoritarian ascetic stylings
Speaker 1: of fascism. The result is pretty funny because it's Joe Biden. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so again, I think I've read a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: on this, and there's like a two two to like
Speaker 1: academic reports on on Dark Brandon.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Some people believe that Dark Brandon started as like a
Speaker 1: right wing meme. They are they are mistaken. They are
Speaker 1: misreading irony poisoned leftists as being like like alt right
Speaker 1: memesters common common miss tank.
Speaker 3: But also yeah, because you wouldn't want to be stuck
Speaker 3: in a car with any of them, right.
Speaker 1: But Dark Brandon evolved into satirically imagining what if Joe
Speaker 1: Biden was actually the militant communist dictator many on the
Speaker 1: right made him out to be. With all of the
Speaker 1: authoritarian impulses of Dark Mega turned on its head and
Speaker 1: ironically targeted against Trumpian conservatives, Dark Brandon can be seen
Speaker 1: hunting down at Trump voters for execution, or sitting on
Speaker 1: a throne of air fifteen's with yellow laser eyes. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna play I'm gonna play one video for us to
Speaker 1: watch here.
Speaker 3: President, There's no way.
Speaker 1: Out Joe Biden's America.
Speaker 3: He's putting on a skullman.
Speaker 1: No more malarkey tie me to a missile and fire
Speaker 1: me into the suburbs.
Speaker 2: I'm ready, genuinely quite amazing.
Speaker 1: It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny stuff. I do like
Speaker 1: the way that like Dark Brandon edits work is there's
Speaker 1: there's there's this one smile that Biden does that looks
Speaker 1: very like evil and mischievous that if you edit it,
Speaker 1: if you like, edit in after he says something ridiculous,
Speaker 1: it's pretty funny. So here we have here we have
Speaker 1: a meme about Joe Biden publicly executing Patriot Front members
Speaker 1: after they got arrested in Idaho. And probably my favorite
Speaker 1: Dark branded meme is a picture of Biden with sunglasses
Speaker 1: and a list of names. Has shinzu albe neutralized, gas
Speaker 1: prices neutralized, COVID nineteen neutralized, Antifa fully armed, Roe v
Speaker 1: Wade too coming soon, Global Homo coming soon, Communism coming soon,
Speaker 1: which is pretty funny.
Speaker 3: It's good.
Speaker 1: So one of the reasons that Dark Brandon was able
Speaker 1: to flourish where Dark Mega stagnated is that the Biden
Speaker 1: version is both based on and never lost its sense
Speaker 1: of irony, imagining the feeble, bumbling Biden as some like
Speaker 1: hard lined, ruthlessly effective tyrant is in it is like
Speaker 1: in innately humorous premise from like from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: The ironic nature also made a Dark Brandon all but
Speaker 1: impervious from attack by conservative commentators on the right, because like,
Speaker 1: how can you attack this vibe? Like it's it's so
Speaker 1: ironic and absurd that like there's no way to be like, look,
Speaker 1: how dangerous the dark brighten memel what like come on?
Speaker 2: Guess?
Speaker 1: So Dark Brandon grew in popularity as Biden's Inflation Reduction
Speaker 1: Act also known as the IRA past last summer.
Speaker 2: And memes out of that too, and it.
Speaker 1: Also it also kind of spread Afternows broke that an
Speaker 1: American drone strike killed the then leader of al Qaeda
Speaker 1: on July thirty first, twenty twenty two. So around this
Speaker 1: time period is when Dark Brandon broke containment. So Dark
Speaker 1: Brandon kind of started in March of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: and by by early August it has now left the
Speaker 1: irony poisoned leftist like Twitter sphere and has now broken
Speaker 1: out and is freely swimming around the liberal populace. So
Speaker 1: come August, Dark Brandon no longer belonged to leftist ship
Speaker 1: posters liberals started to catch on and make Dark Brandon
Speaker 1: memes of their own, albeit much more cringey boomer versions,
Speaker 1: And although most of these liberals probably didn't really know
Speaker 1: what was quite being satirized, that didn't stop them from
Speaker 1: trying to emulate this cooler, more edgy version of Biden
Speaker 1: with glowing eyes. So here I have a two liberal
Speaker 1: memes here with with someone reacting to the news that
Speaker 1: there was no civilian casualties in the drone strike at
Speaker 1: Kilty al Kainda leader having Biden shooting laser eyes down
Speaker 1: from orbit and then also him eating ice cream in
Speaker 1: front of an explosion, which is horrible, like a not
Speaker 1: very good meme, but the fact that there was bad,
Speaker 1: like very very bad, low quality dark branded memes is
Speaker 1: actually very important for later.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yes, no, it's good that this happened.
Speaker 4: Yes, the Internet has taken notice. And now there's a
Speaker 4: new meme out there known as Dark Brandon, which shows
Speaker 4: a badass Biden with super villain laser beme my malls.
Speaker 1: The liberalization of Dark Brandon was met with sadness from
Speaker 1: the original memesters that pioneered the overtly ironic dictatory Old Brandon,
Speaker 1: who commanded battalions of Antifa. The The ongoing liberal co
Speaker 1: option of dark Brandon was thought to signal the death
Speaker 1: of the meme, although a completely unintended positive side effect
Speaker 1: of this recuperation seems to be taking hold. We'll have
Speaker 1: we'll have more on that later. I have I have
Speaker 1: a four other pretty bad dark Brandon memes.
Speaker 2: Here go on with corn ROAs is fully fully me.
Speaker 1: It's not good. There's there's two of these are like
Speaker 1: photoshop movie posters with Biden's face extremely poorly photoshopps on Tomeo's.
Speaker 2: Ship, photoshops again this is ms pat Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then a poster for the Dark Brandon Rises with
Speaker 1: the tagline that the Malarchy will end. Not not very
Speaker 1: good memes. So it wasn't just overly online democrats on
Speaker 1: social media who were spreading these dark branded memes. Soon enough,
Speaker 1: White House staff joined in to celebrate the passing of
Speaker 1: the kind of Neutered Inflation Reduction Act. On August seventh,
Speaker 1: the White House Digital director shared a high contrast photo
Speaker 1: of Biden grinning with red laser eyes pointed towards the
Speaker 1: camera that quickly went viral. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut
Speaker 1: posted a dark branded meme, which was a drawing with
Speaker 1: yellow glowing eyes. Later that same day, and the Senate
Speaker 1: Environment and Public Works Committee posted the same picture as well,
Speaker 1: and the Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates posted
Speaker 1: a whole ass Dark Branded meme, writing dark Brandon is
Speaker 1: crushing it with a horribly cringing photo abided with red
Speaker 1: laser eyes and white text that reads, your malarkey has
Speaker 1: been going on for long enough, kiddo, Like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: oh my god.
Speaker 3: Now you know what, Garrison, we were just celebrating this,
Speaker 3: but I think I am now a fascist. It's done.
Speaker 1: It of the White House Staff Secretary joined in by
Speaker 1: responding to a tweet saying lasers shooting out of Joe
Speaker 1: Biden's eyes is an official statement of administration policy by
Speaker 1: saying that is indeed an official physician what anyway.
Speaker 3: So god damn it.
Speaker 1: Many people, myself included, suspected that Dark Branded would suffer
Speaker 1: through kind of a regular meme cycle and die off
Speaker 1: pretty soon once it hit this like peak popularity, But
Speaker 1: somehow Brandon showed a surprising amount of resiliency, partially due
Speaker 1: to liberals being a few months behind and they're being
Speaker 1: really nothing else for liberals to meme about, because this
Speaker 1: was like one of the this time in Biden's presidency
Speaker 1: was the first time the Democrats actually felt like they
Speaker 1: had something to celebrate, and having this kind of overly
Speaker 1: outrageous kind of joking meme was like the first bit
Speaker 1: of like agit prop that liberals have like done since
Speaker 1: Trump went out of office. And it's also like the
Speaker 1: first effect of etchiprop they've ever done period. Now, Dark
Speaker 1: Brandon showed one other surprising trait very soon, the ability
Speaker 1: to influence actual Joe Biden. On September first, Biden gave
Speaker 1: a prime time bombastic speech addressed to the nation and
Speaker 1: spoke about the threats to American democracy from extremist mega forces.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden stood outside of Independence Haul in Philadelphia, lit
Speaker 1: with high contrast red lights and uniformed marines on either side.
Speaker 1: Far right politicians and influencers reacted with shakun horror, calling
Speaker 1: the speech demagogic, outrageous, and divisive, while liberals and even
Speaker 1: some leftists praised the speech for accurately addressing the threat
Speaker 1: posed by far right actors in this country. But both
Speaker 1: of those on the right end left definitely noticed the
Speaker 1: Frank brandonness of the entire thing, especially with this being
Speaker 1: less than a month after the White House's own Brandon post.
Speaker 1: The red lights, the background marines, and the impassioned and
Speaker 1: oddly well delivered appeal to fight for the soul of
Speaker 1: the country from the Trumpian mega extremist political faction set
Speaker 1: on dismantling democracy played very well. Uh, the whole the
Speaker 1: whole thing felt very dark brandon Esque. And the takeaway
Speaker 1: many people had is that they had somehow memed Dark
Speaker 1: Branded into existence. Do you know who else you don't
Speaker 1: want to fuck with? It's the products and services that
Speaker 1: support this vital, academic level research into Dark Brand and
Speaker 1: truly truly unparalleled work on the part of myself. You're welcome,
Speaker 1: Here's here's fucking ads. All right, we are back. Let's
Speaker 1: talk even more about Dark Brandon. I cannot believe I
Speaker 1: wrote three thousand, over three thousand words on this, all right. So,
Speaker 1: like many natural predators, Dark Brandon went through a period
Speaker 1: of hibernation, laying dormant through most of the winter, that is,
Speaker 1: until a huge resurgence in April of this year. This
Speaker 1: past April, Biden launched his new twenty twenty four re
Speaker 1: election campaign website, which not only featured a Dark Brandon
Speaker 1: error four h four page reading your lost Jack, Let's
Speaker 1: get you back on the rails, which is kind of
Speaker 1: funny but not really funny because it's doing the whole
Speaker 1: like Biden and track reference, And it's kind of funny
Speaker 1: because it's like a four oh four page, So it's
Speaker 1: like it's Dark Brandon telling you to get back to
Speaker 1: the regular website because you're now on like the part
Speaker 1: of the website that doesn't exist, because like Dark Brandon
Speaker 1: doesn't exist. It's not I'm overthinking this. I'm doing way
Speaker 1: too high concept. It's like Beaudryard analysis of this. This
Speaker 1: this joke is not that good. But beyond the Dark
Speaker 1: Brandon error four h four page, there is also official
Speaker 1: Dark Brandon merchandise. Biden's Dark line features dark blue monochrome
Speaker 1: images of Biden or Brandon staring forward with red laser
Speaker 1: eyes and a mischievous grin. The design comes on baseball hats,
Speaker 1: t shirts, mugs, stickers, and tote bags. Product descriptions are
Speaker 1: as follows best worn while vanquishing malarkey. Protect yourself from
Speaker 1: malarkey and the sun with this dark cap. Dark Brandon
Speaker 1: Dark Rose, what dark dark Brandon dark roast tea drinkers welcome,
Speaker 1: And finally, the worst one malarkey is tot's over after
Speaker 1: we re elect President Biden.
Speaker 3: This is the This is like the Internet equivalent or
Speaker 3: the me I don't know what the I feel the
Speaker 3: same way I feel in like old Yeller when you're like,
Speaker 3: well the dog's got ra you got to shoot it,
Speaker 3: Like there's no other ethical way to deal with This
Speaker 3: is like, but it's it hurts.
Speaker 2: It's like when someone's dad turns up to the skate park.
Speaker 2: This is what's happening here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got to shoot him otherwise they'll give everyone rabies, Right,
Speaker 3: that's what you meant, James.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's time for their life to end.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is also like fascinating because like the fact that
Speaker 1: that Biden, Joe Biden made assume direct control laser eye
Speaker 1: dark merch before Trump did is wild. And now Trump
Speaker 1: won't really ever be able to like capitalize on this
Speaker 1: sort of thing because Biden just beat him to the
Speaker 1: punch on this, and and and like in a way
Speaker 1: that's like not actually promoting fascism, which effectively this this
Speaker 1: whole thing effectively neutralized Trump's ability to cash in on
Speaker 1: Dark Mega and the fashwave aesthetic, which is just a
Speaker 1: pretty shocking and like amazing trajectory for fash wave.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: The latest appearance of Dark The latest appearance of Dark
Speaker 1: Brandon was during the White House Correspondence dinner this past April,
Speaker 1: when Biden handed off the podium to comedian Roy Wood Junior.
Speaker 3: Roy the point of is yours.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be fine with your jokes, but I'm not
Speaker 2: sure about Dark Brandon.
Speaker 3: The coolest thing the Libs were so happy to have
Speaker 3: a meme.
Speaker 6: A meme.
Speaker 3: They got one, they got one, and they were just
Speaker 3: it's one of those things again, like like a little
Speaker 3: kid having to shoot his dog. I just I couldn't.
Speaker 3: You can't take it away from him. They were just
Speaker 3: so happy.
Speaker 1: I have I do have three. I selected the only
Speaker 1: three Dark branded memes I like here for the very end.
Speaker 1: One is just Biden in a beard and eye patch.
Speaker 1: It says it's over Jack. One has Biden with a
Speaker 1: like a very like horrifyingly edited smile with laser eyes
Speaker 1: saying malarkey detected and it looks.
Speaker 3: Like the monster in a fucking like I don't know
Speaker 3: exactly what from. But like demon teeth, like nightmare teeth,
Speaker 3: the leftists are so much better at making these memes
Speaker 3: than anyone else.
Speaker 1: And my favorite is, this is a satirical rift on
Speaker 1: the This post has been fact checked by real American
Speaker 1: patriots trump Beam instead having an image of Dark branded
Speaker 1: with laser eyes. That's saying this post was fact checked
Speaker 1: by real Dark branded acolytes. So this is like fun
Speaker 1: and good, right, Like this is this is fine, But
Speaker 1: there's actually a surprisingly like positive result from this whole
Speaker 1: Dark Brandon sega, because even as far back as August
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, myself, some research colleagues, and other
Speaker 1: journalists that I have like no connection to all started
Speaker 1: to kind of observe the same thing. The liberal recuperation
Speaker 1: of the fast wave style via Dark Brandon seemed to
Speaker 1: seriously damage fast waves legibility in right wing circles. The
Speaker 1: normy use of dark Brandon had already appeared to have
Speaker 1: ceased all of the dark megaposting, because there was this
Speaker 1: influx of like Minion's Facebook Tier branded memes, which offered
Speaker 1: very strong levels of vicarious cringe that provided a social
Speaker 1: disincentive for anyone wanting to post laser Eye dark Mega
Speaker 1: memes due to their fear of being associated, even just
Speaker 1: asthetically associated with the liberal boomer Biden memes, which now
Speaker 1: represented this cringe and dead style. The widespread nature of
Speaker 1: Brandon laser eyes also seemed to seriously dampen the Patrick
Speaker 1: batemanification of characters like Homelander from The Boys, who was
Speaker 1: at the time becoming one of the far right's favorite
Speaker 1: memeable characters. There are few things that these online nazi
Speaker 1: weirdos fear more than their special toys being played with
Speaker 1: by normies, because almost immediately they're like esoteric play loses
Speaker 1: all appeal once the ormies like start using it.
Speaker 3: Like it's a signifier that you're part of the club.
Speaker 3: And if yeah, fucking the DNC is posting these memes,
Speaker 3: you're not part of the club anymore. Nope, Like there's
Speaker 3: no or it's not a club you want to be in.
Speaker 3: I guess yeah.
Speaker 1: So I still maintain that one of the best things
Speaker 1: Biden has done since taking office is utterly destroying fashwave
Speaker 1: by complete accident. I postulated this back in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: and it still pretty much holds true now. And it's
Speaker 1: not just my opinion either others have noticed that Brandon's
Speaker 1: disturbance in the far right to mean ecosystem has really
Speaker 1: taken effect. I'm going to quote Ali Brieland in Mother
Speaker 1: Jones quote. The fashwave athetic has already seen its best
Speaker 1: days and wasn't as pervasive on the far right Internet
Speaker 1: as it used to be. But by associating himself with
Speaker 1: a meme style that had partially descended from it, Biden
Speaker 1: and his earnest staff and followers have probably made it
Speaker 1: impossible for neo nazi edge lords to make fash wave
Speaker 1: posts for at least a bit. By enlisting fascist meme offshoots,
Speaker 1: the administration unlocked a code. Earnest Democrats like Biden may
Speaker 1: have a hard time being cool on the Internet, but
Speaker 1: they can kill hip stuff that bad people like that
Speaker 1: is extremely powerful. They made fash wave a bit cringe.
Speaker 1: Do you know what else is a bit cringe?
Speaker 2: Robert?
Speaker 1: That breaks the fact that we have to have advertising
Speaker 1: on my on my fash wave Biden Dark Dark Gear
Speaker 1: Brandon episode Garrison.
Speaker 3: The only the only purpose of studying or learning anything
Speaker 3: is to provide space for advertisements. That's why we do
Speaker 3: it all.
Speaker 1: No more, actually do you know, if you subscribe to
Speaker 1: the new Apple Premium, you can have no more more
Speaker 1: Larki because there won't be any ads. So there you go.
Speaker 3: That's right, all right, we.
Speaker 1: Are back and we are finally finally going to talk
Speaker 1: about Ron DeSantis and and his his kind of fash
Speaker 1: wave misfire. So this happened about a year after Dark
Speaker 1: Brandon had taken control, so there was at least a
Speaker 1: y like a good a good year's worth of buffer
Speaker 1: where fashwave was unacceptable and just not really even attempted
Speaker 1: because of how cringe it is at this point. But
Speaker 1: that did not stop the Dysantas war Room Twitter account
Speaker 1: from trying to do it. And then we will see
Speaker 1: what the right's reaction to this was. So, like I
Speaker 1: said at the beginning of the beginning of this episode,
Speaker 1: on the last day of Pride Month, DeSantis's campaign shared
Speaker 1: a video on their Desanta's war Room account attacking Trump
Speaker 1: for previously held positions seemingly in support of LGBTQ people
Speaker 1: and sayments that he said about, like allowing transgender women
Speaker 1: to compete in his Miss Universe pageants and allowing Caitlyn
Speaker 1: Jenner to use the bathroom of her choice in Trump Tower.
Speaker 1: This video opens with footage of Trump at the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen RNC saying that he would quote do everything in
Speaker 1: my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens unquote. Now this
Speaker 1: is pretty gross that the video opens this way because
Speaker 1: very importantly this this was just a month after the
Speaker 1: Pulse nightclub attack in DeSantis's home state of Florida, which
Speaker 1: killed forty nine people. That's why Trump was saying this
Speaker 1: is because there was just a massive massacre in the
Speaker 1: state of Florida. And the fact that Dysantis is opening
Speaker 1: up this Trump like homophobic attack ad by including this
Speaker 1: little bit is pretty is pretty gross. So this video
Speaker 1: then kind of transitions fifteen seconds in, accompanied by a
Speaker 1: dark synthetic beat to a black and white image of
Speaker 1: Dysantis standing in front of an American flag with red
Speaker 1: glowing eyes shooting out little laser lightning things, before a
Speaker 1: wave of pulsating images of Spartans and the Muscular Chad
Speaker 1: and clips of American Psycho, the Wolf of Wall Street,
Speaker 1: and Peaky Blinders. Overlaid on top of these flashing images
Speaker 1: are headlines and short clips about DeSantis's extreme anti LGBTQ
Speaker 1: policies that he enacted in Florida. I cannot think of
Speaker 1: anything more plorified.
Speaker 4: It really has shut down.
Speaker 3: FRAG just produced some of the harshest, most draconian laws
Speaker 3: that literally threaten trans existence.
Speaker 1: Congratulations, Ron Sander's mission a complic You win, all right.
Speaker 3: So first off, Garrison, it had been so long since
Speaker 3: I looked at a bit shoot video so.
Speaker 2: Weeks.
Speaker 3: So first off, fuck you for that.
Speaker 1: I had to watch a lot of bit chut videos
Speaker 1: for this episode.
Speaker 3: I yeah, I know. Yeah, So that's I mean, absolutely
Speaker 3: impenetrable for like anyone who is not out of their mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it is.
Speaker 3: It's this Yeah, sorry, James.
Speaker 2: It feels like his fourteen year old nephew who goes
Speaker 2: by like groyper Chad fourteen eighty eight unfortune.
Speaker 3: I'll describe what's happening as, like, you know, first you get,
Speaker 3: obviously the beginning, which I think is clear just from
Speaker 3: the audio, these clips of like Trump saying stuff that's
Speaker 3: not it's pro gay, you know, from back in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: and then it switches to like footage of like news
Speaker 3: articles about DeSantis, you know, doing horrible things to queer
Speaker 3: people in Florida, and like clips of pete leftists reacting
Speaker 3: to how bad it is and like clips of Ron
Speaker 3: de Santis like walking around or you know art of
Speaker 3: him photoshopped with like sunglasses or super.
Speaker 1: Muscular American Psycho stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, clips of American Psycho, clips from like like I
Speaker 3: think it was actually from the movie Troy, Yes it is, yeah,
Speaker 3: just to like make him look yeah it's yes, it's
Speaker 3: just sad. It's just sad.
Speaker 1: For example, So what one little snippet of is is
Speaker 1: uh one of these little one of these little like
Speaker 1: headlines is intercut between a Chad meme and a clip
Speaker 1: from American Psycho, and it shows dysantas in wearing sunglasses
Speaker 1: walking around with the headline Dysantis signs the most extreme
Speaker 1: slate of anti trans laws and modern history with this
Speaker 1: like pulsating music. So yeah, the whole, the whole second
Speaker 1: half of the video is just like that. The video
Speaker 1: seems to receive an almost universally negative reaction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so bad.
Speaker 3: It's famously dog shit like just instant failure, upsetting both
Speaker 3: Trump supporters and gay Republicans and confusing those who are
Speaker 3: actually sympathetic to Dysantis.
Speaker 1: Uh, because due to the bizarre imagery in the video.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read some of the comments under the
Speaker 1: Dessantas war room post. Nick Adams Alpha male replied, why
Speaker 1: is the Deus campaign sharing a video comparing him to
Speaker 1: Patrick Bateman? Isn't Bateman a serial killer?
Speaker 2: I think I'm sure that the whole Nick Adams thing
Speaker 2: is an extended bit, like it.
Speaker 3: Is literally impossible to tell Jesse.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, masculinity is an extended Matthew Weaver says it
Speaker 2: is disgusting that this ad is linked, apparently to the
Speaker 2: Dasanta's campaign.
Speaker 1: It makes me question my support for DeSantis.
Speaker 2: You love to see it.
Speaker 1: A George Santos staffer said, quote, this ad makes the
Speaker 1: meatball look a gay.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: Now, I don't wanna sy I.
Speaker 2: Think it's I think it's funny.
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty funny.
Speaker 3: But if you if you ever type out the sentence,
Speaker 3: this ad makes the meatball look gay. You can't. You
Speaker 3: can't be in America anymore. You have to go somewhere else,
Speaker 3: Like that's banishment, right, like they used to do in
Speaker 3: the old times, Like here's a backpack, off, you go off,
Speaker 3: you go can't. You're not allowed here anymore.
Speaker 1: Lisa Loves Liberty replied what An American First commentator with
Speaker 1: over one hundred and fifty thousand followers, asked, what's the
Speaker 1: message that the Dessentists team wants people to take away
Speaker 1: from this ad that associates Ron with flawed criminal individuals?
Speaker 1: Is it that rad is a bootlegging, psycho killer who
Speaker 1: commits financial crimes and has an achilles heel? Because that's
Speaker 1: what it's saying.
Speaker 3: God, that's so funny.
Speaker 1: And finally, far right activist, former congressional staffer and aspiring
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory documentary film producer Annual Bostik said, quote, this
Speaker 1: is the gayest ad in the history of political advertising.
Speaker 1: So that was that was roughly the response is to
Speaker 1: to to dessand it's posting this ad.
Speaker 3: All of this is extremely fun. I'm having a good
Speaker 3: time like this.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: The The only the only figure that I that I
Speaker 1: found who was in support of this ad like like,
Speaker 1: the only like slightly even slightly noble person who seems
Speaker 1: to enjoy this ad or thought it was a good
Speaker 1: choice was Ian Miles chungk. Everyone else on the right
Speaker 1: was a horrible decisie.
Speaker 3: Again, if if you're not as if you're not a
Speaker 3: terminally online leftist like us if you're one of like
Speaker 3: the nice sweet liberals who who liked the Joe Brandon memes,
Speaker 3: the Dark brand and memes. Ian Miles Chong is a
Speaker 3: Malaysian senior citizen, a fire right youth influencer through a
Speaker 3: series of decisions that you don't need this to be explained,
Speaker 3: but he's one of the people that Elon Musk cares
Speaker 3: about the most in this world.
Speaker 2: You can google a picture of Ian Maleschung and understand
Speaker 2: everything you need to from that picture.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 1: Fox News called the Dissentist campaign's use of the ad
Speaker 1: mystifying and an unforced error. Now I'm also gonna doe
Speaker 1: that's so good. I'm I'm also gonna play a short
Speaker 1: clip from Miami, Florida's local CBS affiliate.
Speaker 5: By the way, the video that you're just about to
Speaker 5: see has over twenty four million views. I will do
Speaker 5: everything in my house to pretend our lg GQ citizens.
Speaker 5: The video then suddenly veers in a different direction, accompanied
Speaker 5: by dark images, loud music, mixed images of governor with
Speaker 5: shirtless muscular men, including actor Brad Pitt. A prominent group
Speaker 5: that represents LGBTQ conservatives also, when on Twitter criticizing the video,
Speaker 5: saying Florida governor can't tell the difference between common sense
Speaker 5: gaze and the radical left Gaze labeled the scientist positions
Speaker 5: as dangerous and politically stupid.
Speaker 1: So I think that clip's also just a good reminder
Speaker 1: of the level of specialized political analysis that you're getting
Speaker 1: by listening to this show versus what you get on
Speaker 1: local news. Yeah, because this local news can never explain
Speaker 1: this nones No.
Speaker 3: If you if you were to hand this over to
Speaker 3: a team at MSNBC, they would die, they would be.
Speaker 1: That's the next cliff I have. The next clip I
Speaker 1: have is them handing this over to MSNBC.
Speaker 3: This is one of my favorite days at work we've had.
Speaker 1: First of all, the DeSantis campaign sent out a tweet
Speaker 1: later that night saying, quote, opposing the federal recognition of
Speaker 1: Pride Month isn't homophobic. We wouldn't support a month to
Speaker 1: celebrate straight people for sexual orientation. It's unnecessary, divisive and pandering.
Speaker 1: It's very very cool. So here is here is here's
Speaker 1: the cliff of of m s NBC reacting to this ad. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's gonna be. It's gonna be, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be, it's gonna be pretty good.
Speaker 7: Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis is defending a controversial and frankly bizarre
Speaker 7: campaign video that attacks for President Donald Trump's views on
Speaker 7: l g b t Q rights. Donny Deutsch a man,
Speaker 7: extraordinaiy What am I? What am I looking at there?
Speaker 8: And extra stopped?
Speaker 1: Okay for a while, what I'm doing here?
Speaker 8: And the answer is, well, first of all, he's DeSantis
Speaker 8: is flailing and he's trying to continually move to the
Speaker 8: right of Trump. But this lgbt Q thing is just
Speaker 8: do you think this is moving voters?
Speaker 1: Are you?
Speaker 8: And to pay Trump as a patron of this group
Speaker 8: is you know, as an ad guy, There's one thing
Speaker 8: I learned over yours is people aren't stupid. Okay, you
Speaker 8: just and I don't know the voter that's going to
Speaker 8: see that and go, you know what, Trump, I'm going
Speaker 8: You're my guy. And it's just DeSantis is such a dark, dark,
Speaker 8: dark character. I've talked a lot about on the show.
Speaker 8: How at the end of the day, a candidate Trump,
Speaker 8: even though you know, we eviscerate him and there is
Speaker 8: a likability if you're a Trump guy about him, he's entertaining,
Speaker 8: he's a loungeacked, He's this and that. This guy is
Speaker 8: just the dark the Prince darkness. And that is one
Speaker 8: of the darkest, most bizarre, twisted, deviant ads I've ever seen.
Speaker 7: Well, he was defending it yesterday. Bipartisan backlash to the video,
Speaker 7: by the way, many people calling it homophobic. Governor DeSantis
Speaker 7: standing by the ad, calling it fair game.
Speaker 6: I think, you know, identifying Donald Trump as really being
Speaker 6: a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream, where
Speaker 6: he was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants,
Speaker 6: I think that's totally fair game because he's now campaigning
Speaker 6: saying the opposite, that he doesn't think that you should
Speaker 6: have men competing in women's things like athletics. And so
Speaker 6: we've been very clear on it that we believe in
Speaker 6: protecting the rights of our girls and the rights of
Speaker 6: women athletes to be able to participate with fairness and
Speaker 6: with integrity.
Speaker 7: In response to those remarks, Trump campaign spokesperson said, quote,
Speaker 7: a desperate dissanctus campaign with a flailing candidate is in
Speaker 7: its last throes of relevancy.
Speaker 3: First off, such bad analysis of that video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean if they're completely out of their debts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, No, No, the point is not that he
Speaker 3: is so dark and evil. The point is that this
Speaker 3: is incompetent and impenetrable. You could just say that it's okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's my job to understand this ship and I don't. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Beyond beyond, beyond dissandis being the prince of darkness, as
Speaker 1: we've only established. Yeah, why try to.
Speaker 3: Make him sound cool.
Speaker 2: This is what he's doing.
Speaker 1: This is the thing, this is the thing they don't understand, right,
Speaker 1: this is why, this is why Dark braindon happened by
Speaker 1: complete accident like it was. It was so effective because
Speaker 1: there was no way for liberals to concoct this themselves.
Speaker 1: They were they were they were only copying the asthetic
Speaker 1: stylings of of of like ironic leftists. So yeah, everyone
Speaker 1: is just baffled by this sad saying, there's absolutely no
Speaker 1: way of understanding what's going on here. There's there's absolutely
Speaker 1: no like larger trends that that like may be at play.
Speaker 1: But obviously we we we've kind of offered some insight
Speaker 1: into what's been going on here, and in the end,
Speaker 1: DeSantis's attempt at fash wave has been rejected by conservative
Speaker 1: America either through it's just sheer like esoteric strangeness, and
Speaker 1: also the kind of the the whittling away at at
Speaker 1: at Fashwave's power that the dark branded meme has been
Speaker 1: doing for so long. There's just nothing first of all
Speaker 1: appealing about this, which makes all that remains just incredibly
Speaker 1: just like just like off putting, so like what we
Speaker 1: have here from disantas like in the actual video, but
Speaker 1: besides the obvious like homophobia, is a sort of like
Speaker 1: meme soup, combining some elements of like fashwave and some
Speaker 1: like dark mega imagery, with other imagery from from right
Speaker 1: wing meme tropes that have also gotten popular the past
Speaker 1: few years, like Patrick Bateman, who's who's kind of more
Speaker 1: popular in like the Schizzo wave subgenre just still heavily
Speaker 1: tied to fash wave, kind of like it glorifies the
Speaker 1: set ex the mental illness to push you towards doing
Speaker 1: like extremist violence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then I should say the the aesthetics of
Speaker 3: like how a specific subculture depicts mental illness, yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, And there's there's a bunch of other like
Speaker 1: pop culture sigma figures. In this video, there's images of
Speaker 1: the real life Chad mistaken in news coverage as a
Speaker 1: generic body builder. But this is actually like a very
Speaker 1: specific online meme that's like not like it's not niche.
Speaker 1: And there's there's also like a very a very specific
Speaker 1: uh dysantist Chad Wojack in this video. So and in
Speaker 1: the end, like this attempt at kind of reviving a
Speaker 1: soft fast wave style or you know, kind of dark
Speaker 1: mega style for an attack ad by the Disanta's campaign
Speaker 1: was basically wholesale rejected by conservative Americans and with with
Speaker 1: no with no other politicians co signing this. The only other,
Speaker 1: i mean notable figure who applauded this was Ean Miles Chung.
Speaker 1: Uh no, no, no one note thought this was a
Speaker 1: good idea. Most dissentis of supporters were off putted. The
Speaker 1: only people who really like liked this were like chronically
Speaker 1: online fascist zoomers who are either not old enough to
Speaker 1: vote or just barely old enough to vote.
Speaker 3: Yeah they are teenage Nick Flintz fans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like because like they're the only ones who are like,
Speaker 1: well understand what's going on. So it like becomes a
Speaker 1: cohesive message, because if the average viewer isn't turned off
Speaker 1: by like the intense homophobia or the anti Trump angle,
Speaker 1: the alienating editing style and online references and other kind
Speaker 1: of bizarre attributes like the the the music, the flashing images,
Speaker 1: it either left most ordinary viewers confused or just like
Speaker 1: turned off. And so in the end, like I think
Speaker 1: there is there is a recurring trend here and that
Speaker 1: like Dark Mega didn't help the Republicans win the mid terms,
Speaker 1: like that that that was a pretty pretty big defeat
Speaker 1: for them. All of all of the work they were
Speaker 1: doing beforehand to like to like start getting people like
Speaker 1: riled up, get making making like attention grabbing authoritarian memes,
Speaker 1: all of like the critical rice theory stuff. None of
Speaker 1: that panned out in the actual elections. And whatever DeSantis
Speaker 1: is doing sure doesn't seem to be helping him beat Trump.
Speaker 1: The only person who who is who is winning right
Speaker 1: at this is Dark Brandon. Dark Brandon strikes again. He
Speaker 1: is the one that actually has made has made sure
Speaker 1: that Desantius cannot use this playbook. Dark Brandon is sitting
Speaker 1: on a gargoyle over top of whatever city in Florida
Speaker 1: DeSantis lives. Dark Brandon is is our watchful protector. He is,
Speaker 1: he is, he is our silent guardian.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna Garrison was just talking about this image of
Speaker 3: Dark Brandon sitting on a throne above. I'm gonna say, Miami.
Speaker 3: They lifted up their shirt to show their new Dark
Speaker 3: branded chest tattoo, and wow, that must have been what
Speaker 3: was that twelve hours in the chair gear the big,
Speaker 3: it was big.
Speaker 1: It was well, the first day was thirteen hours, at
Speaker 1: the second he was twelve hours. So good wolds thirteen
Speaker 1: twelve at the end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good. That's good, very big.
Speaker 2: Will you run out of battery or the eyes are
Speaker 2: always going to glow? No?
Speaker 1: Actually those are fluorescents, so I have to stand in
Speaker 1: the sun for for like ten minutes to charge them
Speaker 1: up and a last about.
Speaker 3: Like five hours.
Speaker 2: Magic hajike love that. Yeah. I have a conspiracy theory here.
Speaker 2: I believe that Rondi Santi's fourteen year old nephew grew
Speaker 2: Bitchad fourteen eighty eight was extremely online, so online that
Speaker 2: his parents took away his phone and he just lost
Speaker 2: all contact with the internet circa like early twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: and then run A Santas asked him to make an advert,
Speaker 2: and this is what happened.
Speaker 3: So the ad.
Speaker 1: So I tried tracking down who made this advert. I
Speaker 1: messaged someone who I suspect of making it, who ignored
Speaker 1: my message. To be fair, I I messaged them on
Speaker 1: my Julius of Vola sock puppet on Telegram and they
Speaker 1: still ignore my message. So I I there. The video
Speaker 1: was not created by the Disantis team himself. It was
Speaker 1: it was it was. It was embedded in their war
Speaker 1: room Twitter feed. It was tracked back to this at
Speaker 1: a one time pro Trump account called Proud Elephant, who
Speaker 1: has a corresponding Telegram channel. So this guy Proud Elephant is,
Speaker 1: from what I can tell, the origin point of this video.
Speaker 1: I can't seem to find it in any earlier places.
Speaker 1: I've tried getting into contact with him to figure out
Speaker 1: what his intentions were for like if if he made
Speaker 1: the video or if he found it from somewhere. But
Speaker 1: this is why I said I I I clarified that
Speaker 1: the Disantis team shared this video on their official campaign account.
Speaker 1: They did not make it themselves, which is also pretty
Speaker 1: funny because they didn't spend any money on this thing,
Speaker 1: and it still like was a massive shot in the face.
Speaker 1: Like it's just like huge, huge blowback. They didn't need
Speaker 1: to like embed this video made by like whatever weirdo
Speaker 1: loner who has like final cut pro on his computer,
Speaker 1: Like there's there's really there's really no reason, like they
Speaker 1: have an actual ad team and for some reason they
Speaker 1: did this instead. Now also as a part of this research,
Speaker 1: I joined as many Dysantis Telegram channels as I could.
Speaker 1: I scrolled through months of posting. I scrolled through all
Speaker 1: like all three of the official Dysantis campaign Twitter accounts.
Speaker 1: Nothing else in their propaganda quite compares to this video.
Speaker 1: It is such a weird outlier that makes me really wonder,
Speaker 1: like who who both who who was operating the the
Speaker 1: DeSantis war room to Twitter account that that like hit
Speaker 1: publish on this tweet with this with this video embedded,
Speaker 1: and like what their relation is to the rest of
Speaker 1: like the Dysantis like media strategy, because it's just it's
Speaker 1: just it is. It is utterly, utterly baffling.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think some of it can come back to.
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, kind of about a month so, I
Speaker 3: think before the election, the Trump campaign came out with
Speaker 3: this really weird, very four Chan inspired sort of like
Speaker 3: ad video for the campaign that like a lot of
Speaker 3: Democrats you know, made fun of, but it was a
Speaker 3: pretty effective ad. And I you know, I wrote about
Speaker 3: this some at the time, and I talked with the
Speaker 3: guy who'd been doing attack ads and stuff and was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I think this is a pretty successful
Speaker 3: ad because it it feels authentic in a way that
Speaker 3: political ads don't. And my guess is that when this
Speaker 3: got presented to them, people at the DeSantis campaign were like, well,
Speaker 3: this could be that for us, right, this could be
Speaker 3: us leaning into something that's it's new, but it's like
Speaker 3: real and it's representative of how kids, young people are
Speaker 3: talking these days, and that will build the kind of
Speaker 3: excitement and the kind of like conversation around our campaign
Speaker 3: that can help take us to the next level. And
Speaker 3: I think the thing that they missed there was that Trump,
Speaker 3: in sort of you know, signposting to that online alt right,
Speaker 3: was adopting and kind of making his own a real
Speaker 3: movement that was representative of some things that were appealing
Speaker 3: to a lot of people. And this is not right,
Speaker 3: Like there's been no ground swell of people who are
Speaker 3: into this, like these weird like the only ground swell
Speaker 3: of a lot of normies getting into fash wave has
Speaker 3: been dark branded, like like normy normy Republicans did not
Speaker 3: adopt like this kind of shit in and mass And
Speaker 3: I think it was a mistake, Like it was a
Speaker 3: it was a it was a mistake to think that
Speaker 3: like I don't know, like random like goop heads were
Speaker 3: going to see their candidate compared to a serial killer
Speaker 3: from a famously off putting and be like this is a.
Speaker 2: Good call for us.
Speaker 1: This is my guy. Yeah, like no, like not not
Speaker 1: everyone is like a seventeen year old suicidal alright, teenager,
Speaker 1: Like that's actually not their prime base if you want
Speaker 1: to win an election, there aren't.
Speaker 3: Many of you kids, Like they don't want teenagers voting.
Speaker 1: At all, which is it's also really weird that DeSantis
Speaker 1: has been given multiple opportunities to to pull back the ad,
Speaker 1: saying it was it was a mistake. It was not,
Speaker 1: it was not officially made by our campaign. It shouldn't
Speaker 1: have been shared. But every time they've been given this opportunity,
Speaker 1: they doubled down on the ad.
Speaker 2: That's his whole thing though, like never admit fault, always
Speaker 2: pushing forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that is that is like a staple
Speaker 1: of fascism, but like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, man, well.
Speaker 3: Anyway, that's good stabbing stuff. I'm well, Garrison, this has
Speaker 3: made my week.
Speaker 1: This has been a fucking time to be alive. This
Speaker 1: has been far too much of my week has been
Speaker 1: putting together these like three thousand, four thousand words.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad. I'm glad everyone was able to come
Speaker 1: away from this as as enlightened, as as god.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, brand, I have entered a state of nosis.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you for.
Speaker 1: This.
Speaker 2: I've achieved enlightenment.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, long lived dark brandom.
Speaker 3: It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
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Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.