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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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One of the less talked about outcomes of Musk buying twitter is the predictable revelation that he's sort of a dweeby edgelord. Some of the things he retweets are absolutely perfect mappings to "the weird IT guys have been passing around this meme all week. eye roll"

I think he has just enough self-awareness to catch this much of the time. One of his ticks is a retweet with a single word comment - "true", "this","wow" etc. But other times he goes full 'sperg. The one this week was him retweeting the "AI fashion show" that included (among the Pope, Nancy Pelosi, and Kim Jong Un) an AI Elon in a weird speedo quickly followed by a suit of armor.

But keen observes will see that the shtick has been going on for some time. Elon has learned to deploy a simulacra of high end verbal intelligence - dramatic pauses, quickened speech patterns with some jargon thrown in, and verbal intonations that make you think he's bestowing something deep upon you. If Musk and Aaron Sorkin ever team up on a show, I will pen my suicide note to it.