Disclosure: I haven’t watched much of his stuff. I know some of it is cringe, but I’ve seen some interviews recently where he was explicitly criticizing capitalism. Is he worth looking into?
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I disagree. It’s easy to get that interpretation if you isolate this skit from the rest of the text, but Bo goes as far as putting himself in crucifixion imagery to lampoon his own position as an authoritative media figure and former chud. Plus there’s the bits about Bezos being a monster working within the rules of a monstrous system (Bo himself even becomes a bit of a monster at the end of the Socko skit). It’s meant to be viewed in whole as one experience, and when you put all the pieces together, it connects the profound loneliness westerners feel with the hopelessness of climate change and the wealth of those succeeding under capitalism. This is supported by interviews he’s done out of character.
I do think it’s navel-gazey and too vague (I’ve seen the FD Signifier vid), but I think it’s still useful. The entry point for most white western libs into leftism is going to be their own social alienation, because that’s presently the major material condition which affects them (online leftists in particular talk about their own alienation quite a bit). What more experienced communists need to be able to do is use this sort of imagery to leverage solutions to social alienation which also further the material goals of less privileged comrades. In reading Mao and Freire, I think this needs to be in the form of actual organized mutual aid (vs temporary or optics-based affinity groups) which seeks to elevate the lumpens and precariat while lifting the veil of the ‘middle class’ from more privileged proletarians.
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I think one big difference is that, for instance, AOC promises that there is concrete action within the system that can solve the problems inherent to that system. It makes it harder to radicalise people to look beyond the system.
For people like this guy, while they don’t offer the solutions, they do point to the system as a whole as the problem, which then lets us step in and say, “yup, and this is why it’s the system as a whole, and why we can’t use that system’s rules to subvert it.” Which will then help us to radicalise people into looking for solutions beyond the system itself.
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I can see that. Anyone can sound good for a minute or two.
I’ve heard criticism from mostly non-white comrades about it that I don’t necessarily disagree with, but the Inside special for me was… informative. At that time, as someone in the healthcare field working 40 hr/week night shifts, constantly surrounded by Covid, constantly isolating, living alone, being turned away from hanging out with my friends because my residents were infected… Yeah, that shit sucked. A lot of the songs and sketches from the special resonated pretty heavy with me and I had to think pretty hard about myself, my life, and how fucked up things actually were after watching it. I think there’s some radicalizing potential there, too, with its popularity being so massive and with songs like “That’s How the World Works” explicitly calling to attention the means of production, necessity of revolution, colonialism etc. I think regardless of its faults, its ability to resonate so strongly with young people despite having opaquely radical themes makes it valuable, even if it tends to dip into individualist nihilism at some points.
Bo was in Promising Young Woman, one of my favorite movies of all time, and he did a phenomenal job. This is more about him as a performer, but I was pleasantly surprised to see him work so well in film. I do like his music and comedy as well, although he admits and everyone knows a lot of it has already aged like milk.
addendum: I also quit all major social media directly after seeing it. It helped finally push me over the edge into fully realizing how utterly manipulative and unhealthy it can be.
some characteristics of Robert:
- he’s got some good songs, if you like songs made by a person who makes songs such as the ones made by him
- he’s a funnyman who may or may not be moving toward socialism
- in Inside™, he mentioned his grandfather being a soldier in Vietnam like it was an admirable thing
- he’s probably not a good source for Marxist theory or geopolitical analysis
Libs watching comedy skits and fantasy movies:
Is this Theory? 🦋
my favourite liberal theoretician is Harold Potter
love him, not sure what the latest tabloid gossip about him is, but I was a fan back when he first started. I still hum art is dead to myself sometimes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo9pU1q8sy8
Art is Dead is when you knew there was something deeper going on with him. I believe he’s said he didn’t even like his comedy that much when he was younger, but it was vogue and he was already pushed into the spotlight as a teenager. Not that he didn’t benefit obviously and he should have been aware of the impact many of his offensive jokes would have had, but I think that for a celebrity, the ideas he’s instilling in people nowadays are a positive thing.
He’s not super radical or anything but he’s alright. I mean I personally don’t watch Comedians for political takes bc I will usually be disappointed but he’s alright, not a big fan of his comedy tho, just a personal taste thing
Hm, maybe like, Level 4 out of 8 in the radicalization funnel. He just needs one of us to knock on his door when he’s emotionally vulnerable to ask if he’s heard the good word of Marxism Leninism (maybe)
