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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   27234 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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I like Uniquenameosaurus's [definition of cringe](https://youtube.com/watch?v=L0jhV4mLwmU. Something is cringe when it has two features:

  1. Enough traits to be recognized as an attempt to look impressive
  2. Missing one or two core features to actually be impressive

So, applying that to your example, alt-right people dressing up in Hawaiian shirts and carrying Tiki torches are trying to be impressive. The point of marching in uniform is to send a message like "We're a unified block! We're coordinated! Be impressed and afraid!" An actual Torchlight Procession would be frightening as a river of coordinated, uniformed people marched through a city. Evil? Sure. But the river of torches is going to leave an impression.

The tiki torches were an attempt to look impressive. But, in contrast to a big coordinated block of uniformed germans, the photos of the Unite the Right show a scraggly line of a few hundred people in street clothes. They lack the coordination and numbers of the earlier demonstration.

So, since the Unite the Right rally was trying to be impressive (and/or frightening), but missed core features to make them actually impressive (and/or frightening), they're just cringe.

The elite can certainly put their finger on the scale; it's always tricky to argue with people who buy ink by the barrel. But I the ability to call people unimpressive only goes so far. So I disagree that the elite can actually make arbitrary determinations.

So you're saying we need to up our intimidation factor when it comes to torchlight processions? Got it! 😀

And what about the people that were (pretending) to be scared of them? They were even cringier or more pathetic for me back in the day.

sure, but being less embarrassing than a bunch of actual scaredy cat crybabies doesn't win you many points.

A random musing:

At least so far as the media presented it, Unite the Right was comprised of... the ugly. That made them substantially less impressive/scary/worthy of respect. Which is intellectually stupid, and I know that, but I simply couldn't take them seriously. It changed the entire vibe from "we have power and can change the world" to "we are pathetic whiners."

I genuinely believe that a protest a quarter the size but a standard deviation more attractive would have been far more threatening to the status quo than what actually happened.

Unless you specifically recruit only rich PMCs or models it’s unlikely any standard American protest is going to be particularly attractive. Maybe like Japanese Americans or some other (much) lower obesity population, but otherwise it’s the fat that’s responsible for the ugliness.

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