MrBiffo
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WEDNESDAY BLOG: ARC DE TRUMP
🕑 Added 2025-01-22 12:06:09 +0000 UTCMorning all. Happy Wednesday…?
Well. America is getting what it voted for. For better or worse, thaaaaaat’s democracy.
There’s lots I could say, but after his first four years… I feel different about it now. Too tired, I guess, to even be as terrified and alarmed as I should be. There’s just a weary sense of inevitability that this happened, and – loathe as I am to admit it – I actually get why people voted for him – despite EVERYTHING – and why people raise up the despicable, loathsome, Musk.
The Left has failed in America, as it’s failing here too. Utterly.
It has its priorities all wrong, and I’m not seeing any acknowledgement or understanding from politicians on that side that they remotely understand why Trump won again, what voters are looking for, or what they’re angry about. So many people feel abandoned by the system, patronised by those in power, ignored and irritated by perceived virtue signalling. People are struggling and are desperate for bold change about the things that matter to them.
Generally social media is much as it ever was – the same polarising discourse. Insults and outrage. Nothing learned. The pendulum keeps swinging to extremes and it will continue to do so until people stop reacting instinctively and start looking at the why of this. We need to reflect, and stop the reacting for, like, five minutes.
“Centrist” has become a dirty word – any middle ground is frowned upon, and it’s become so that you have to believe wholesale in one extreme ideology or the other or you’re somehow as bad as the other side. People are shouted into shutting up. You can’t even acknowledge where your own “side” might’ve gone wrong anymore without being labelled as a traitor, or sympathising with the “enemy”.
Every major issue is distilled down into all or nothing, and nuance and discussion is frowned upon. I predicted all of this on a Digitiser2000 post from almost a decade ago. I’ve been watching this tide creep in ever since. That was back during Gamergate, which was very much the canary in the coalmine as far as the way the world has gone politically.
There are a few voices speaking up on the left – I don’t always love Jonathan Pie, but he did a pretty good video this week which echoed the same frustrations I’ve been feeling. But anyway. I’ll shut-up now.
I just hope all of you are doing okay.
Moving on.
I’m close to being finished with Ep 6 of Digi Level 2. There’ll also be a seventh mini episode for some of the backers who paid for that tier, which we’ll share with our upper tiers on here too. I also want to do a kind of debrief ep with Gannon and Sanja, talking about the trials and joys of making the series.
The main takeaway though is that – when real-life didn’t get in the way – I ‘ve really enjoyed making it. I’m still enjoying making it.
I was struggling a bit with the initial final edit of Ep 6, but I’m on a roll with it now.
Now here’s a thing: I keep dreaming about Digi Live. It’s always a similar dream; Gannon, Eli and Sanja are in it… it’s the day of the show and we have a lot of props, but no real idea what the show is. I’ve not written a script, and figured we’d just wing it on the day. Everyone’s looking to me for guidance, but I’m running out of time to come up with something.
I mean, it’s not entirely divorced from the truth; part of what I’ve loved about our live shows is the feeling of winging it… just a bit. I mean, there’s always a script, we do rehearse, but we keep all of it loose enough to allow us to be surprised. It’s a real rush; that feeling of it all teetering on the edge of a crash.
Part of why we’re leaning back into Digi Level 2, and utter nonsense, a bit more this year – while still keeping our other channel going – is because we couldn’t come up with a way to do live shows based upon our current main channel videos. I really want to do more live stuff, but I also want to keep the same sort of chaotic format – which our newer content doesn’t always lend itself to. It may end up being on a smaller scale than last time, but rest assured I’ve not turned my back on it.
And I say this as Sanja is beginning the edit of Digi Live 2 footage.
Right. That’s it for now. Back to the coalface. So to speak.
Oh! And Biffo's Brain tomorrow night at 7.30pm, if you're around. Will send a reminder tomorrow.
Paul
Comments
Jamie Boden-Johnson
You still got room for two refugees from the USA? Scary, terrifying doesn’t quite describe it. I’m not a lefty, and there is really no left in US politics. Ok you’ve got Bernie but that’s it. You’ve the GOP who are like the reform party, and the Dems who are like David Cameron Tories. And the Dems failed as they went all Hollywood.
Matt Kimber (Timberwolf)
You're right, there's something about this time which just feels like weary inevitability. It's that feeling you're not going to be able to go anywhere online without seeing constant reactions to whatever the latest performative rage bait is. I find it grimly fascinating that the main reason for friends and acquaintances of my age becoming more right wing as we get older is not the traditional accumulation of wealth, but a worn-down feeling of, "my liberal friends are always screaming about how this is bad and that is awful and I need to be taking action, and I don't understand any of it and none of them seem to care that I just want to go to work and pay my bills and enjoy my free time without having to be constantly outraged about everything" that builds up into a feeling of alienation - one which the "centrist" accusation seems purpose designed to be driven into and turned into them-vs-us resentment. Social media has been brutally complicit in this process - indeed all of the big corporate ones offer you a vast array of tools to hide the shock jocks from your feed but make it impossible to stop seeing the people you follow reply to it, repost it, put their own takes and dunks against it... Meta are even saying they're going to forcibly show more of this style of content in people's feeds, and we won't be able to stop ourselves from creating an endless well of it because the temptation of being able to fleetingly appear Smarter Than Someone Else On The Internet is just too strong. I find myself in bunker mentality this time round - I'll still read the news to find out what's going on but I'm already muting politics channels and finding myself becoming more and more detached from social media. Maybe that's where the redemption will come from; we'll all get so fed up and exhausted with "online" that we meet up more in the real world and become used to getting along with a diverse group of people with different backgrounds and opinions again.
