I’m teaming up with my dear friends at Hear Me Out, a culture strategy firm in Brooklyn, for a pre-XOXO party in Portland this week. Our XOXO pre-party is on August 22nd and it’s free, but it’s also first-come, first serve. Listen to some great music, grab a drink, and vibe before things get crazy at the fest. If you hate networking, you’ll like this.

Click here to RSVP!

2008 Again, But Different

Last week, while I was on a break, I published a piece with GQ that tried to define what exactly the Biden era was. (Even when I’m not making content I am still making content.)

My overall conclusion was that the Biden Era was defined by stagnation. A sort of freezing and eventual bottoming out of culture. Sleepwalking Disney blockbusters, pop country hits, algorithmic fashion trends pulled from other eras, and Hawk Tuah girl. This summer, though, thanks, in part, to Vice President Kamala Harris entering the presidential race, but, also, due to an explosion of interesting stories across pop culture — Brat summer, Drake Vs. Kendrick, the rise of Chapell Roan, a new crop of young movie stars — it does feel like the cobwebs are finally being dusted off. And, at least for millennials of a certain age, the last time things really felt like this was the late 2000s. And I’m not the only one that’s noticed.

Writer Nate Jones in New York Magazine this week called it the return of “Obamacore,” writing, “We are conjuring the ghost of the Obama era — that earnest, optimistic, energized, celeb-obsessed, self-conscious, cringeworthy time.” Jones is, obviously, a bit more pessimistic than I am about all of this coming back. I have previously written that we all deserve a little cringe as a treat after eight years of misery, but I think Jones makes an interesting observation around Harris’ campaign. He argues it has been “constructed around a mood, rather than the other way around.” Which I wanted to interrogate a bit today. And the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week has been a good test of whether or not that’s true.

Let’s run through the highlights. On night one, Hillary Clinton wrapped up her address with Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song,” a libcringe leitmotif that The Washington Post’s Gene Park likened to Sephiroth’s “One Winged Angel” theme from Final Fantasy VII. Smooth-brained mainstream media orgs quibbled over “factchecks” that no one asked for or will ever care about. Twitch streamer Hasan Piker laughed off right-wing Eddie Munster cosplayer Charlie Kirk on a livestream. And then Kirk went on X and revealed he doesn’t know what happy families look like. Not sure I could love a son with a forehead as big as his, either, though.

And night two was defined by the state roll calls to officially nominate Harris, set to a regionally-specific soundtrack. Rapper Lil Jon performed “Turn Down For What” during Georgia’s roll call. And yes, he did the Walz line. Missouri got Roan’s “Good Luck Babe”. You can read the full list here. Though, I’d also argue another highlight was “This is my Dad, Doug,” a film made by Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s son Cole. *Aggressively taps the “this election is a referendum on American masculinity” sign* Oh, and former President Barack Obama made a thinly-veiled dick joke about former President Donald Trump. Nothing I can say about Obama’s role in the current vibe shift, though, could be as succinct and eloquent as this X post:

Just beyond the glitz and glamor of the DNC last night, protesters were being violently mass-arrested near the Israeli consulate in Chicago. A contradiction that most millennials should be familiar with. Yes We Can online, drone strikes abroad, and Occupy Wall Street outside.

And it’s true that Kamalamania is a little astroturfed. There are tells everywhere that Harris’ team is not totally with it. Her campaign’s recent use of a dril tweet in a press release seemed laser-targeted to piss me off, specifically. And dril told Rolling Stone this week he didn’t like it either and he wants $25 in compensation for it. But I’m not totally sure any of that matters. Yet, at least.

As I wrote in my GQ piece last week, the danger of the Obama years — one we eventually paid for in 2016 — was the assumption that his presidency was the prize for reaching the end of history. Liberalism had succeeded, conservatives had been squashed into a toothless opposition party, and millennials were safe to spend the rest of their days watching prestige television and drinking IPAs. But I don’t see that with Harris’ campaign and I haven’t seen that in videos I’ve watched from the DNC. Instead, I see a whole bunch of people across the left-ish side of the political spectrum trying to figure out what being American might mean out from under the shadow of Trump. A goofy attempt at articulating what our nationality identity is beyond the binary of the culture war. And, yes, that can be extremely cringe at times. And it’s definitely a little out of touch. But I think it’s relatively fine and, honestly, needed. Even if that means Hillary gets to blast “Fight Song” at us one more time.

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A Good Post

(It’s actually going viral on 2024 Tumblr.)

What Is Theo Von’s Whole Deal?

I am very excited that comedian Theo Von interviewed Trump this week — and not just because it’s responsible for one of the wildest recorded clips of a former president ever. Von has been at the top of my “what is this guy’s whole deal” list for a while. I’ve also had more than a few readers ask me to explain why he inevitably shows up in everyone’s YouTube recommendations. And, actually, I was talking to a few Comedy Podcast Extended Universe fans I know just last week hoping to get an answer to that exact question. Here’s what I got.

Von spent most of the 2000s floating around the MTV/Comedy Central reality TV world without breaking through much. In 2011, he started his first podcast and has essentially been hosting one or more shows continuously ever since. His current main show is This Past Weekend, which is what Trump appeared on, but he’s also a frequent guest on Joe Rogan’s show and regularly collaborates with other podcast comedians like Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino.

This Past Weekend is ostensibly a comedy show, but Von is extremely open about his history of addiction and so there’s a lot of discussion about sobriety and mental health. His interview with Jon Mulaney post-rehab is honestly pretty good. As far as Von’s politics go, to put this as simply as I can, I think he’s just sort of an idiot. His jokes are decidedly not politically correct, but I think they’re far less malicious than Rogan’s. I actually find his stuff even softer than Shane Gillis, though similarly schlubby.

So, yeah, Von is well-connected, produces a prolific amount of content, he’s kind of dumb, but a pretty decent interviewer. His interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders is pretty good too.

Ronda Rousey Has Taken The Title Of “Worst Reddit AMA Of All Time” From Woody Harrelson

Ronda Rousey, former WWE wrestler and UFC fighter, tried to hold an AMA on r/SquaredCircle, the wresting subreddit, this week. I guess she was trying to promote a Kickstarter she’s launching for a graphic novel she’s writing. Weird.

Unfortunately for Rousey, every comment, and I mean every one, is asking her about a tweet she posted in 2013 sharing a conspiracy theory video about Sandy Hook being a hoax. The comments were so overwhelmingly uniform that she didn’t even bother answering any of them. It’s an incredible comment section. A real poster’s garden.

The previous title of “worst AMA ever” was held by Woody Harrelson, who tried to use Reddit to promote a movie he was starring in called Rampart. You can take a trip down memory lane by clicking here.

Richard Hanania Is Having A Bad Time Right Now

Richard Hanania, Silicon Valley’s new favorite race science advocate, has been having a tough time with Kamalamania. He’s one of those guys that writes endless Substack posts about how conservative values around sex and gender just so happen to be the exact values that are actually innate human programming. Loves to use the term “sexual marketplace,” etc.

This is why Hanania seems particularly bothered by Harris’ Bushwick-based hipster stepdaughter and decided to post about her during the DNC last night. For reasons you’ll understand in just a sec, this was a mistake. Deciding to comment on Ella Emhoff’s style caught the attention of the Menswear Guy who ratio’d Hanania so hard that Hanania accepted a true poster’s defeat and hid the post.

And while Menswear Guy’s reply to Hanania was extremely brutal, I’d say this quote tweet was actually much more devastating.

It’s All Kicking Off On Furaffinity

Alright, I’m going to do my best here to explain what’s happening with Furaffinity, one of the oldest furry communities on the web. A lot of the info I have comes from this really good thread from X user @Hakopla1.

Furaffinity was taken offline this week and briefly hosted a spoofed version of the site meant to steal user information. As the owners of Furaffinity tried to regain control over the domain, the hackers then got into the official Furaffinity X account and used it to accuse the site’s founder, who died earlier this month, of being a pedophile. The hackers posted that they were affiliated with the notorious troll site Kiwi Farms, but weirdly enough, Kiwi Farms actually put out statement saying they had nothing to do with it and even shut down registrations to curb some of the activity around it. The hackers also got into the personal X accounts of Furaffinity mods, including site’s late founder. And, as of this morning, the site is still down.

If any Garbage Day furries don’t know this already, we’ve got a furry room in our Discord if you need a place to chill until this gets resolved (keep it PG-13). Godspeed.

A Good DNC Post

Some Stray Links

P.S. here’s ACAB includes mini horse.

***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***