Are Internet Subcultures the New Punk Rock?
I recently had the chance to chat with Jason Myles on the This is Revolution podcast.
We spoke about internet subcultures and the possibility of using social media for political education. We also touch on my teenage history as the guitarist in a screamo band (its real). Check our TIR’s recent episodes with Vincent Bevins, author of If We Burn, and friend of the pod
.I first started publishing my research into young online political subcultures in 2018. Since that time, its been incredible to see how the alt-media ecosystem has absorbed the concept of pipelines and politicization funnels. A few years ago it was a niche theory among academics but now its a strategy. I’m slowly working on a text that builds on this concept even further (into the real world).
After this episode I found myself thinking: how many 13 year old #MAGAcommunists will think differently when they are age 25? What influences might hey have encountered along the way? And when they are ready to get serious about politics, where will they choose to look? It seems likely that the only legitimate left wing voice they may have encountered would be Ben Burgis’ debate with Haz of Infrared. Strategically engaging with these ideas and communities is an important step for building pathways out of online irony and nihilism.
We spend a large part of the episode discussing my lecture on Extremely Online Politics. If you’re not yet following me on YouTube, I’ve been quietly archiving the Twitch streams for the last few weeks. You can find another 2 hours of live-stream content over there just about every week.
Also check out Jason’s writing on #MAGAcommunism: Virtual Insanity: A Freak Show for Left Media on Sublation Media.
If you find yourself in NYC this weekend, there’s a great program at
with artists DIS. They are screening Everything But The World on loop from noon - midnight on Jan 27th. I will be there on and off throughout the day.Lastly, we are slowly working our way through a massive edit for the next issue of
. This year we received an unprecedented amount of work. Its an exciting but slow process.