u/vemmahouxbois

In April, Olivia Nuzzi and Vice founder Shane Smith found themselves crossing paths at an intimateWest Hollywood gathering hosted by MAHAblogger Jessica Reed Kraus, also known as HouseInHabit. The event, co-hosted by Substack, celebrated journalist Jay Beecher, whose controversial book challenges the prevailing narrative surrounding Ghislaine Maxwell’s role in Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. The guest list, curated by Kraus, featured an eccentric mix of media figures. As Kraus later wrote, “A reporter on the phone the next day noted that most in attendance had endured some form of cancellation themselves.”
Later that evening, Nuzzi, Smith, Kraus, and other guests decamped to Chateau Marmont, the storied Hollywood hotel where the Los Angeles elite often gather. It was there that Nuzzi was spotted with Smith. While Nuzzi has largely remained out of the spotlight over the past year, she hasn't exactly shied away from LA's most visible social scenes.

Meanwhile friend of the pod Eric Adams recently obtained Albanian citizenship. 🧐

A new data investigation argues that The New York Times sharply changed the way it covers transgenderpeople beginning in 2022, moving from rights-based framing toward more skeptical, conflict-driven coverage that elevated opponents of transgenderrights and gave less prominence to transgender people themselves.

The analysis, published Friday by civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo in The Dissident, reviewed 3,242 Times articles published between 2014 and early 2026. Caraballo also published an accompanying data site, where readers can review the findings and methodology.

“This isn’t about any individual story,” Caraballo, who said the project took her two months to complete, told The Advocate in an interview Monday. “This is about the whole corpus of how they’ve covered trans issues over time.”

The New York Times did not initially respond to The Advocate’s request for comment. After this story was published, the paper rejected the analysis and denied that its coverage is biased or anti-trans. In a statement to The Advocate, Danielle Rhoades Ha, the Times’ senior vice president of communications, said the paper’s role is “to report accurate, fact-based information on all aspects of a story to help the public understand vital issues better.”

Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, said she undertook the project because years of criticism from transgender writers, journalists, and advocacy groups had often been met by the Times with defenses of individual stories. The problem, she said, was not always factual error, but the cumulative effect of framing, story selection, and prominence.
“It is harder on the individual level because there isn’t anything usually factually wrong with their stories,” Caraballo said. “But part of the problem is the framing, what they choose to highlight, and how much priority they give certain stories.”

Thanks to Robert Evans/Coolzone Media, I took a look at the website of the executive director of Peter Thiel’s recently exposed salon Dialog. It turns out he’s prime IBCK episode fodder and wrote a self help book called How To Be A Grown Up. He also has a YouTube prank channel called Do Princeton Grads Know Anything?

Reading Communion requires a strange leap of faith, a leap across a chasm into some alternate universe—several, actually. For in order to make sense of this book, one must be able to pitch one’s mind into a world where the Donald Trump of the past six years somehow doesn’t exist, a world where Christianity is somehow an entirely different religion than is generally manifested in American culture and politics, and a world where JD Vance himself is another person entirely. At times one feels as though one is actually reading Whitney Streiber’s Communion, the 1987 blockbuster about extraterrestrial contact, the content here so entirely alien to the world we now inhabit.

I’ve seen claims that Ezra Klein, Cory Booker, Bret Stephens, and Jared Polis were in the leaked member list, lol. The hacker behind this is maia arson crimew, who got ahold of the no fly list in 2023.

Dialog’s meeting in Dublin will feature sessions on topics weighty and, perhaps, less serious.
One session is titled “Bring Back Nuclear.” Another will focus on “Disinformation and Deepfakes.” Participants will hear about “Contrarian AI Takes,” “Three Predictions for Iran” and “Democracy Under Surveillance.”

One session is headlined “Build-a-Cult (Soapbox),” while another declares, “It’s Fun to Be in Charge.”
Optional activities include private tours of a distillery, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and the Guinness Storehouse. 
It’s unclear whether the data leak will change plans for the event.

Regardless, crimew, the security researcher, told Straight Arrow it’s surprising that the secretive organization’s information about some of the world’s most powerful people became public.

“It’s just wild to me how this once again shows that the people who run the world are so confident in their safety that they don’t really bother with any proper operational security,” she said, “not even for their ‘off the record’ secret conventions where they all network and discuss our collective future.”

This didn’t turn out to be exactly what I was hoping for, but I’ve seen some back and forth debate about current literacy rates in the States and what they mean and I know there’s a lot of people in education here who can parse this stuff way better than a layperson.

The headline here seems to imply post secondary students are/can read less than before but that doesn’t seem like that’s what the profs interviewed are really saying:

Carlos Noreña, a UC Berkeley history professor specializing in ancient history,said the amount of reading he could comfortably assign while expecting students to read a “substantial” portion of it has dropped over the past 20 years at UC Berkeley. 

“We are now reaching a crisis point where if the number (of pages) goes down further, it’s unclear to me whether my discipline of history can really be taught,” Noreña said. 

Noreña said while lectures are an important component of class, he assigns primary sources and critical writing to his students because the goal is to push them to read the material and develop their own views. When he first came to UC Berkeley in 2005, he would assign 100 pages per week for an upper division course, with the expectation that students would read 75 to 80 pages

[…]

Fellow history professor Trevor Jackson said he assigned three full books for his world history survey course. While he didn’t find that students struggled with them on a concerning or new level, he noted a decline across the board in people reading entire texts, especially nonfiction. 
Jackson also cut the amount of reading in his classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. After finding that shorter texts made in-class discussions more fruitful, there have been cases where he continued to cut reading — but not because students were struggling with it.

“Having an in-depth conversation about 10 pages is more pedagogically useful than having a shallow conversation about 100 pages,” Jackson said. 
Generally, faculty did not see a drop in student comprehension of reading material, although some did pinpoint blind spots in skill or technique. 
English lecturer John Shoptaw, who teaches poetry, said he has noticed his students come in not yet knowing how to hear and analyze the musicality of an Emily Dickinson poem. Sometimes, they also have trouble distinguishing between figurative and literal meanings.
Julia Fawcett, who teaches theater, dance and performance studies, said her students do well with identifying arguments in critical articles, but have more trouble with fictional texts that don’t have a line of argument to follow. 

These are all UC Berkley profs so YMMV, but I guess I’m mostly interested in how people are responding to recent headlines about literacy rates and claims that AI is already having a negative impact on student literacy.

I don’t remember what the prevailing attitude about Galloway is here, but I remember him coming up in talk about The Anxious Generation and his book about raising boys but I find him (performatively) obnoxious. It’s very funny that Weiss allegedly wanted him for 60 Minutes and is denying it now that he’s talking about turning it down:

A spokesperson claimed that Galloway actually approached 60 Minutes about a job. "We think Scott's great," the rep told the outlet. "When he approached us with a pitch for an Andy Rooney-esque segment in December, we were happy to consider it."

Galloway denied this version of events, telling the Post that Weiss had contacted him. "Bari called me and asked me if I'd be interested in having some sort of contributor role," he shared. "I said I would think about it and there was a discussion."

Admitting he was "not qualified to be one of their journalists," Galloway said, "we zeroed in on the potential of me contributing an Andy Rooney-like segment."
"I forwarded [Weiss] an idea for a segment," he added, noting that Weiss later texted him, "'Scott, also next time I see you we need to talk money.'" He reiterated, "Bari specifically reached out to me about getting involved. I know I didn't initiate this conversation."

This is a safe space for Bill Maher haters, right? How many exes do we think he and Wanda Sykes have in common?

THE DRAMA The Knicks and Spurs are currently playing against each other in the NBA finals, but that has basically nothing to do with this! A TikTok posted to the r/nba subreddit of a fight in the (maybe) Midtown Manhattan Five Guys captioned as "Knicks fans celebrating" has kicked off an absolute shit show that never once has anything to do with basketball!

Personally speaking, I doubt the person at the deep fryer was an employee as claimed. He isn't wearing a Five Guys uniform and has locs that would have to be in a hair net if he was on shift at any restaurant. Seems more likely it was unattended at the time and this was a customer who hopped the counter.

Some highlights of a massive, sprawling mess:

A couple instances of the same person "noticing a pattern" in the race of the participants in the fight (second), followed by another guy claiming you "Can't say it out loud though for some reason." Second instance of the latter gets deleted, but not before setting off a whole chain of responses:

Yeah but your innocent “pale” angels set a young women’s hair on fire. Call it how it is people just suck from all racial backgrounds.

I love coming to r/nba just to do racism

Based eats -12 karma and sets off back and forth incel allegations.

A flaired Raptors fan asks "am i tweaking or is this a massively racist comment being upvoted rn" and the author of the deleted "can't say it out loud though for some reason" replies "Please explain to me how this is racist" doubles down " How am I backtracking? Is it racist if I say Chinese people love eating rice? and ends up on an "i'm not mad, you're mad" rant.

Two invocations of January Sixth for the price of one and a "Americans amirite?" from a Toronto Huskies fan.

Speaking of Canada, Vancouver repeatedly catching strays in the comments:

Yup, as somebody who lived/lives in Vancouver during the 2011 riot after the Canucks lost, this is definitely heading the same direction. Gonna get a whole lot worse.

I get Vancouver wanting to burn it all down when the Canucks choked, but why are we burning our own city because we're supposedly happy?

If the city is not funding the NYPD to track down every single one these shit stains, across all of the many assaults these past few days, that’s a HUUUUUUGE L. Viciously gang beating a guy with chairs, that’s aggravated assault and attempted murder, these guys should be serving 5-10 years in prison. Absolute trash and terrible for society, you cannot have people thinking they can get away with this shit, gotta come down HARD, both to set a percent and to simply get these fuckers off the streets. I’m from Vancouver, after the 2011 Stanley Cup riots the city/police formed a special task force, combed through massive amounts of video/pics/social media, worked through tonnes of tips from the public, tracked down people’s identities, and brought them to justice. Ended up bringing nearly 900 criminal charges against 300 rioters. Cost $5 million, and took 4 years in all (some cases built quickly with charges soon after, other cases took more time), but money very, very well spent. The shitheads of Vancouver now know their actions carry consequences, the shitheads of NYC need to be taught the same. It’s very doable with proper funding/effort - for example in this case, their faces are all caught on camera, they probably all paid for their Five Guys by credit cards, their cell phones were pinging towers, there will be people who know them and don’t like them who can identify them if there’s a tip line with rewards, etc. If the city/NYPD fails to arrest them it’ll only be because of a lack of political will.

A Lakers fan gets -6 karma for noticing: Theres some major dog whistling happen in this thread. That touches off an exchange between a Cavs fan and an unflaired user that culminates in:

There are obviously bad faith actors but it is not inherently racist to make observations and then extrapolate conclusions from those observations

A Dallas Mavericks fan gets a comment pointing out the race of the people in the fight deleted, earns the response: I wonder if you feel the same way looking at school shooters. The Mavs fan replies to a curt "fuck off" from a Knicks fan with: If it was a buncha white people doing this everyone would feel fine critiquing white culture. to which a Canadian (always a Canadian) asks: What’s your opinion on the people who stormed the capitol?

A polite stabbing in last year's Knicks-Pacers series is brought up.

An unflaired user is not going to hear any guff about crime in New York from a Dallas Mavericks fan: Definitely don’t wanna hear shit from the city that killed JFK lol. Say what you want about NYC, trump got outta there just fine.

A Raptors fan kicks off a whole set of debates about parenting techniques and outcomes for children raised by single mothers with "Parents should have beat some sense into these kids when they were young." This culminates in a Miami Heat fan reminiscing about being beaten by his mother as a child:

>Idk man, I was hit as a kid and I earned every ass whoopin. I remember my mom used to tell me to take a cold shower afterwards so I wouldn’t hold resentment.

Thats abuse with a coping mechanism. You are displaying family Stockholm Syndrome.

>Lol

After six hours, mods finally decided to step in and delete the post. RIP.

BACKGROUND

CANADA is a settler colonial state and constitutional monarchy belonging to the British Commonwealth in the western hemisphere that sits atop the united states in about all the ways you could name. Its ceremonial head of state is Lady Di's ex husband and its most recent ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is dating Katy Perry. He also has several well documented incidents of doing black face at parties in his younger days. Its current Prime Minister is a banker or something.

HOCKEY is the national blood sport of Canada, kind of like soccer on ice but a lot less boring and a lot more violent. While the dominant professional men's league, the NHL, has a nominally respectable image at home and abroad, the youth leagues are plagued by an ongoing crisis of sexual abuse, hazing, homophobia,and racism that has recently risen to a national scandal.

HEATED RIVALRY is a TV series that Canada has kindly and magnanimously allowed Americans to watch, to our immediate and profound regret. It was adapted by JACOB TIERNEY for television from a novel series by RACHEL REID about a magical world where male hockey players can bang and (eventually) admit to have feelings for each other without being paralyzed by past sexual trauma at the hands of coaches, trainers, or hazing incidents from peers.

HUDSON WILLIAMS (no relationship to defunct department store chain The Hudson's Bay Company) is a Canadian actor who plays one of the lead gay hockey players on HEATED RIVALRY. He grew up in Kelowna, British Columbia which is more or less the Jersey Shore of Western Canada.

SIMU LIU is another Canadian actor (there are many more than you realize) who was in BARBIE and SHANG CHI. People rarely seem to like it when he opens his mouth off set.

THE PWHL is where lesbians go to play hockey, with far less drama and also money.

TIM HORTONS is a dog water coffee shop founded by a Toronto Maple Leafs player who died in a car crash returning to Buffalo, New York from a game in Toronto in 1974. His blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit at the time of the accident. We do not claim this chain, DRAKE, or JUSTIN BIEBER.

THE DRAMA

If you're a tumblr veteran of any kind (thank you for your service) and you remember the kind of racist abuse Tyler Posey used to get from the Teen Wolf fandom for "getting in the way" of their lily white ships, then you can probably imagine the general abuse Hudson Williams tends to get just for being mixed race of Korean and European ancestry from elements of Heated Rivalry's fanbase. This dynamic has recently exploded, as someone dug up photos of Williams with swastikas and "AIDS" sharpied on him from the server of his former high school and sent them to TMZ.

This has turned into ongoing disputes along some truly bizarre identarian lines and flared up again when Simu Liu spoke up in defense of Williams, which only reminded people of why they disliked him for completely separate reasons.

Some people see it as an unfortunate reality of teen life:

I don't really care about whatever teenaged edgelord shit celebrities got up to so long as no one gets hurt. There's a difference between some stupid teenagers at a party drawing swastikas on each other to be offensive and grown ass people tattooing it on themselves to make a statement.

Others don't:

As a Canadian former high school student, I truly hope he knows better because a lot of us already did at that age

Where did he apologize in the TMZ article? I must have missed it. We do not know Hudson. We do not know if he changed or not. I will always side eye him for doing Black culture appropriation

Deeply regrets is not an apology. I do wonder when or if he will actually drop a real apology. If he doesn't then it's clear he doesn't truly feel sorry. And probably doesn't since he's still friends with some of those people.

Predictable response:

I was also a Canadian highschool student, and ive seen people do this and equally dumb things when drunk at parties.

Completely unpredictable response:

Bro I got arrested and did shit tons of drugs. I am not innocent. But there's drugs and then there's being a Nazi

Right? I am worried about all the people coming out and saying this shit is normal for teens than one particular actor having done it. Is it really seen as funny and just forgettable to party with Nazi imagery on your face?

I'm built different:

Yeahhhh if someone drew that on me - one it'd be washed off asap and two i sure as fuck wouldn't post it or show anyone it? It'd be destroyed.

It was fans:

He didn't post it, his batshit fans dug it from a classmate's old vsco account. I doubt he even knew this photo is out there. Also, genuinely, what even is vsco? 😭 If I had to keep track of every photo of me posted by everyone I knew on apps that I'm not even aware of, I'd go insane.

It wasn't fans:

I just want to add that I highly doubt it was fans btw. He has a dedicated network of haters who have been plotting to find & plant shit to get him cancelled, it's actually insane

The call is coming from inside the house:

Thank you for making things clear. I can't believe that people are using racism to be racist to him because, let's be real, this sub has been trying to cancel him for a bit now, whether it's because he smokes, parties, or has been seen next to his agents a bunch which must mean he's a cheater because they're women. I'm not even a fan of him but it's so obvious why he receives this treatment when his white co-stars don't.

Someone brings up John Hamm:

Agreed. Jon Hamm engaged in physical violence as part of a hazing ritual. Is it possible he genuinely regrets it because he’s now older and recognises it may have been a result of peer pressure and the culture of hazing and fraternities? Sure maybe. This is nowhere near that level and it people who think it is need to get offline for awhile. There is no conscious malice (e.g we’re not watching a video of him drawing it on himself and laughing) and the context is a drunken teenage party. This needs to be left alone.

Someone else clarified exactly what John Hamm allegedly did:

He dragged another kid around by his balls with the fork end of a hammer. That’s deranged regardless of your age so I’d say that’s one of those things we can judge people for, for what they did in their later childhood.

It isn't reddit in 2026 without a sidebar debate about zionism:

You know people can do two things at once, right? You can denounce Zionist and still call out Hudson. I mean with this, the racist social media account and him being a Black culture vulture - things aren't looking good for him.

Jesus fuck. Who has the energy to worry about this? We need to know less about each other.

Who cares that Hudson is racist? I'm sure a few people care or got hurt by his actions

A white kid drew a hate symbol on a half Korean kid and the Korean is racist? 

We don't know who drew the hate symbol

Same account further down:

He came out and said the Lettboxd account wasn't his. Interesting how he didn't do the same with the racist named social media account. He also does racist Black cultural appropriation so I would not be surprised if he did own that account

So your source is trust me bro

Things get infinitely weirder once Simu Liu has entered the chat:

This is why I recommend not raising poc in places that aren't diverse- they have to endure* bs like this. I recall a TT video I came across where a young man in college recalled having to smile while a white "friend" said a racist tirade to him in the middle of school. He was the only black kid in the class, and though he'd endured other situations like that, this white kid went in and must've gotten in touch with his slave trading ancestors bc the young man was so uncomfortable that he secretly recorded the tirade. The young man still had the recording from that day in high school and included it in the TT video. In both of these cases it's unlikely the young men told their parents bc its "just" an escalation of what they endured on any other day.

Two hours ago:

He would defend that. It's so weird that people use racism as a 'coming of age' plot point in their lives. Like if you never threw racial slurs around like candy and pranced around in a swastika, have you really lived? Let's not forget this guy put a 'c' in front of the nword and called himself that. Like is that a rule that if you're non Black and young you must be racist and do racisms? It sure does seem like it. I mean Miley Cyrus did say y'all all go through that phase

One hour ago and awaiting a response:

How was Hudson racist?

An extended argument:

Shocking that we've arrived at this place we're people are forgiving swastika pics without any acknowledgement from him

tl:dr version:

I’m outraged by racism. I’m not outraged over a 15-year-old teenagers being drunken edgelords. Seeing a swastika in a public school toilet was akin to seeing a dick with balls or the Super S. Did it make it right? Obviously not. Is this anywhere in the same ballpark as a hate crime? No. And clearly, it was *drawn* on him. I just can’t believe you supposedly work with victims of hate crimes, and you conflate it with this. If anything, the white people who drew it and then posted it should be apologizing.

and the other side:

A swastika drawn in a public school toilet is not akin to a dick or the super S. That is normalization. That's why is why it's so important for it to be called out publicly and clearly. The AIDS joke was written on him too. I do not accept he was unawares. I don't think that makes him a horrible person but it needs to be acknowledged. He has an opportunity to do something meaningful with his platform as someone who has become important to the queer community. He should use his voice.

another dispute:

It is a witch hunt for sure but in no way was that “edgy humor” common. Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in PWI or spaces but denying someone their humanity is not a normal part of being a teenager at all.

And yet you sound like you support the witch hunt.

Oh my bad, I forgot that saying people shouldnt be dehumanized and that its weird if you do it at any point (plus that people shouldnt be crucified for teenage mistakes) messes with that awesome parasocial thing you have going on.

Well first off, pretty few teenagers goofing around and being edgy and doing any kind of shit involving swastikas are not actually actively ”denying people their humanity”(God, you’re pompous), they are usually just being dumb teenagers not really versed in the evils of literal nazism. Or understanding how hurtful their actions are. Like you said, being edgy. And it was a pretty long time ago.

Second, you call it a witch hunt and then go on a miniature tirade , making this guy out to be a terrible person while acknowledging it is a witch hunt which means an extreme and unjust vilification of an innocent person, making the treatment of him sound fair yet the definition of Hunters role in that would then be innocence. You are very much all over the place.

A spilled bowl of alphabet soup would have a better argument. I’d really examine why you seem super eager to defend hypothetical swastika drawing teenagers but, hey, calls coming from inside the house.

>Well first off, pretty few teenagers goofing around and being edgy and doing any kind of shit swastikas are not actually actively ”denying people their humanity”(God, you’re pompous)

As we all know swastikas are not associated with any etho-nationalist or racist ideologies.

>they are usually just being dumb teenagers not really versed in the evils of literal nazism.

Like you said, being edgy. And it was a pretty long time ago. I know the American education system isn’t the best, but I’d assume 17-18yr olds have a firm grasp of the evils of the holocaust. Also, you talk as if 2017-2018 was shot in grainy black and white footage. It’s not even a decade ago. What are you on about? I know you don’t have to go too far down Reddit to find a weird rando reflexively defending racist adolescent behavior (and it wasn’t just the swastika. The man was also in a group named after a slur [ch*gga]) but are you not embarrassed to be this person?

So just skipping you referring to the whole thing as a witch hunt,huh? That’s the only reason I went after you, making it sounds like you understand the words you use while sort of feigning some empathy while clearly condemning the guy. You could just have said he is getting the deserved amount of shit for his actions. And honestly, nail us all the cross for the stupid shit we did as teenagers. You must be younger than 30 cause this whole shtick is the stuff of this cynical youth.

An argument about sharpie removal in the dark in the woods beginning here:

Okay but that ignores he also had AIDS written on him. I was not a perfect teenager, but if someone wrote that on me I would have immediately taken it off and wouldn't let anyone post it of me. I don't understand this deflection, he was involved in an edgy joke. I doesn't reflect him or his views. Let's just get an acknowledgement and move on

and ending here, somehow:

Hudson is not a POC

Happy Pride, support your local PWHL team or The Montreal Victoire, the defending league champions who also have a married lesbian couple on their roster.

Despite reaping billions in the weapons industry as cofounder of the military-tech company Anduril, Trae Stephens says he does not believe that “wartime profiteering is ethical, really, in any way.”

That was just one takeaway from an hourlong conversation he had with Gwyneth Paltrow on her Goop podcast last week, during whichStephens held forth on God, great power conflict, the male loneliness crisis, and what he thinks the Pope really meant when he said “Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” 

OOP presents a Gemini generated chart purporting to show that there is suspiciously pro-China activity in r/dataisbeautiful.

Things get off to a bad start when OOP concedes that there's no control group to judge these findings against:

How does this compare to other controversial subjects? Is it statistically strange or normal that skeptical comments score 4x worse?

>You're right. This is a good point to add a reference and I missed it. I'll try to add it

OOP then gets criticized for writing all their replies with AI.

Someone else notices that OOP is posting from a two day old account.

The chart is met with significant skepticism:

For those who don't even bother to check out the image, those "Several factual, calm, well-argued comments" are:

Are these numbers correted for fake projects? -51

Why is every post a (not so subtle) China bragging chart? -27

Another Chinese bragging chart. Yawn -23

To be frankly these are trash comments by any standard. And none of them have anything remotely close to "factual", "calm", or "well-argued". I don't know which trash AI made the visualization, but if you want to convince people that based comments are being downvoted, please select actually based comments. And don't even get me started with the forced correlation and bias inherent in AI-generated writing when a specific agenda drives it. Looking at the last 100 posts, 7 came from just 2 accounts Excuse me, what? A whopping 7 from 100 posts are from 2 accounts?

If these are bots they should be fired.

>It says the x axis = upvotes * sentiment classified by Gemini AI.

>So essentially whether the comment is positive or negative or whatever is up to AI, of which nobody knows the prompt that was asked nor has access to the comment database to check.

>In addition, I’m ethnic Chinese. I semi-regularly use Chinese to type. Sometimes I don’t change my phone’s keyboard and type anyways. Apparently that makes me a point of suspicion.

>Yellow peril type shi.

>Edit: If y’all want to see real bot networks in action, I have tracked accounts that have made 14k posts + 7k comments in 365 days.

>That’s 57-60 contributions a day. Every day. For a year. Pushing a certain political perspective obviously.

>None of this “7 posts in 100/dumb comment was downvoted” weak sauce.

Sorry, but this doesn't seem particularly controversial? 7 out of 100 posts are made by two chinese guys, posting from China, on chinese input devices, during chinese day hours. I'd bet that most posts glazing a particular country are made by... people from that country, no? Like, if I said this with another nationality, that wouldn't seem suspicious. 7 out of 100 posts portraying Sweden positively are made by Swedish guys on swedish computer during swedish day hours... kinda what you'd expect. And this place downvoting calm and reasonable arguments isn't exactly an outlier, either. It's Reddit. I'd be surprised if it was otherwise.

>OP unironically just provided evidence that there isn't a pro China propaganda campaign going on in this sub.

Things start to heat up as user TheRationalGooner mentions the flip side:

OP, you're going to have to show the "factual, calm, well-argued comments" in question, because comments in this thread are calling you out for this. If you have the receipts, show them. Furthermore, I would question your conclusion about how unusual this is. You'd have to compare it to other kinds of posts where people attempt to derail the thread by questioning the motivation or the data to draw a conclusion about whether it's unusual. Without a control group, it's just as plausible that people are annoyed by attempts to derail threads. I do agree about the selective pro-China bias in these posts. It *could* be state-sponsored propaganda, but it's more probable that these are being posted by organic Chinese patriots or some China fan. On the flip side, it's not like it's difficult to find posters whose entire posting history is anti-China content (just check out r/chinauncensored), but I'm guessing you wouldn't accuse them of being propaganda accounts. Real people have more diverse worldviews than you seem to believe.

TheRationalGooner is immediately accused of being a CCP agent, which, honestly, would own incredibly hard given the username.

Someone else points out r/chinauncensored's alleged relationship to Falun Gong, a banned religious movement that does in fact operate the right wing Epoch Times newspaper and are behind the "China Before Communism" dance troop Shen Yun. They are also, naturally, accused of being CCP.

NAFO has entered the chat and picks a fight with a self described China supporter:

>Which China? Actual China or fake authoritarian trash called PRC? 

I'm ukrainian and I donl't really care about any of what you're talking about africa. Only thing I care at this moment if they support muscovite scum. And PRC and Iran are. So I wish them both the worst.

This escalates:

>Yeah you shouldn't be especially after you completely ignored that your favourite China exploits and debt traps African countries right this moment and went on the rant that West is bad. But at least one of them support democratic country and the other supports literal nazi regime and oh wait China supports the nazis. Hmm I wonder who is good or who isn't right now. 

You can start by boycotting Chinese products and returning those drone parts.

Trigger warning for the 2/3 of the users of this sub who have caught bans from r/worldnews:

My anecdata from r/worldnews is that posts on the Israel-Palestine-Lebanon situation see roughly the same thing. Comments critical of Israel's actions receive large numbers of downvotes, while supporting comments get upvoted. I haven't seen quite this behavior on other subs; it's mainly been this one.

Something something both sides:

I do go to r/worldnews, since I was banned permanently from r/news. I said something like "Unfortunately, people tend to excuse damage from rioting when they agree with the subject of the rioters," in reference to damage from a pro-Gaza university thing. Permaban. What I'm saying is, it may be that r/news is heavily anti-Israel.

r/worldnews is fine actually:

I don't see the same thing there at all. Definitely leans more favorable for Israel than most places on Reddit, but the obvious criticisms are upvoted. What gets downvoted into oblivion are the comments that are pro Iran, Hamas, etc. If you come in to a post about some attack that hezzbollah did, then make a comment talking about how bad Israel is, you will get downvoted. If you come to a post about an attack that Israel did, and you talk about how bad Hamas is, you will get downvoted. Honestly, the place is more reflective of real life conversations and that will probably be a jarring experience to a lot of terminal redditors.

User fthesemods communicates the median SRD experience on r/worldnews then pivots to what is AFAIK a debunked conspiracy theory about Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell's influence there:

Plenty of people get banned for criticisim of Israel on worldnews. E.g say you think Israel is committing a genocide. Ban. It's because Ghislaine Maxwell formed the mod team there as lead mod, Maxwellhill. Her dad did this sort of pro Israel washing with his publishing empire as a Mossad agent.

Elsewhere, one brave warrior travels the post repeatedly telling people that no one from china could possibly be on reddit:

Reddit is blocked in China, unlicensed VPNs are illegal, and posting on foreign social media is restricted. Anyone doing all of that is already a very atypical slice of users.

The clear takeaway here is that everyone on reddit is a propagandist for NAFO, the CCP, Falun Gong, or the Mossad because reddit is secretly Casablanca for dipshits and dimbulbs.

BACKGROUND

Taylor Swift is a straight white cisgender billionaire married to a professional football player. She is primarily known for singing pop songs and flying everywhere in a private jet. She is secondarily known for appearing in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats as a cat.

Katy Perry is a staggeringly divorced, equally heterosexual pop singer currently attached to former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. She has a California state law named after her for her practice of coercing old people into selling her their real estate holdings, including a nun whose last words on this earth were "Stop Katy Perry." She is also infamous for recording songs with the titles "I Kissed A Girl" and "Ur So Gay" as well as being rude to drag queens backstage at SNL.

Lady Gaga is a bisexual, ambiguously cisgender* woman whose relationship status I do not care to spend the time looking up. She is an award winning musician with an acting career more robust and diverse than Taylor Swift, yet sometimes equally poorly judged (see Joker: Follie A Deux, multiple Ryan Murphy projects). She is currently tied with Ariana Grande for acting nominations at the Academy Awards with one apiece.

*For one comment she made one time in an interview that people refuse to be normal about.

The Bisexual Pride Flag has three primary colors; pink (pantone #226, Hex D60270, RGB 214, 2, 112, CMYL 0, 99, 48, 16), purple (pantone #258, Hex 9B4F96, RGB 155 79, 150, CMYK 0, 49, 3, 39) and blue (Patone 286, Hex 0038A8, RGB 0, 56, 168, CMYK 100, 67, 0, 34). There is no teal on the bisexual pride flag.

Charli XCX, whose fanbase are "little gay criminals" who "commit bank fraud," was left out of Swifty drama for once. Charli Green is Pantone 14-0340 XCX, Hex #8ACE00. It is not represented on the Bisexual Pride Flag, but Rachel Sennott is.

Gaylors are a deeply unwell segment of the Swiftie community attached to conspiracy theories that Taylor Swift has been secretly telling her fans that she is gay, bisexual, or somewhere else on the Kinsey Scale past a one.

THE DRAMA

The subreddit r/SwiftlyNeutral, which claims to be the home of reasonable Swifties and not the deranged psychopaths who put up pop socket bounties on celebrities they dislike, was prompted to revisit their feelings about her 2019 attempt at a pride anthem "You Need To Calm Down." The remembrances were not fond:

It was the epitome of the queer capitalism era. Remember all the elaborate pride spreads that Target used to do and now it's just a sorry, forgotten corner of the store? I feel like for a songwriter of her calibre (and I'm not just talking about Folkmore, she's capable of writing upbeat songs too: Speak Now and Red) she could've written a better queer solidarity song. It's also kinda forgettable? 😭 I'm never skipping Born This Way by Gaga, but YNTCD feels like a drag to listen to.

for me, born this way felt like it was written by someone who was actually in the queer community and knew what the language was at that time, it comes off as more genuine. YNTCD kind of felt like the straight girl who watched untucked twice and started trying to use queer slang, like the positive and accepting energy is there and i love that, but the execution wasn’t great 🫣 however i did love that she followed it up with promoting and donations to GLAAD. i think her intentions were good but it just didn’t quite hit the mark.

I don’t think it has aged badly because it was criticized from the moment it was released, you could say it was already aged by 2019 standards. I think it’s a fun song to sing along to, but as a political statement… it’s pretty shallow and the equation I get bullied online by trolls= homophobia faced by queer people shows she has issues viewing something trough a lens in which she has to decenter herself The fact that THIS song for some fringes of the fandom meant an outing of her own queer identity is still so funny

Put a pin in the bolded segment, lmao.

As someone who’s LGBTQ, I felt the song was way too overt and on the nose and not in a good way. But I kinda feel she was purposely trying to be overt and transparent with her liberal stance since people were criticizing her for being too apolitical before. I do have to agree with critics though that said that Taylor comparing the vitriol she gets to the bigotry the LGBTQ+ community gets is plain tone deaf regardless of her good intentions. The song is so bad but has come to be a camp cult classic though. Hot take though, but I think Taylor is a strong and wonderful gay icon/ally. Her doing subtle things like naturally having a trans man as the love interest in the LH music video and having her backup dancers who are same sex/gender dancing romantically together during the Eras Tour “Lover” performance, is the kind of subtle LGBTQ visibility that goes a long way and is way more (imo) effective than this stereotypical video.

Put another pin in the bolded segment, lol. There's a drinking game on the way.

You might think that the drama here is whether or not the song sucks, but you would be wrong. There is little disagreement that the song is weak "millennial cringe" (a slur that zoomers use too liberally, tbh) that embodies the peak of "rainbow capitalism." No, you see, the real drama kicks off under someone saying they disliked how Taylor represented homophobic people in the music video for the single:

I really disliked how the homophobes were portrayed - like they're all dumb poor hillbillies who can't even spell properly, when there are so many homophobes in suits in, say, the government. it was especially glaring when all of the "queer friends" were rich celebrities. it felt really classist (742 upvotes)

Someone agrees:

If there's one thing that Ms Taylor Allison Swift is gonna do, it's draw upon (profit from) identity while ignoring class 💅

An assertion is made:

Tbf, left media portrayal of conservatives as evil stupid ugly people plays a role in conservative people getting influence cuz there will be a portion of neutrals who'd go like "they are not thaaat bad as they say" and get influenced

Someone chides that this is liberal bias, not leftist bias.

An expert expresses skepticism:

No offense, but I have never been exposed to this theory and I'm pretty steeped in political analysis. Did you get it from somewhere or is it a personal hypothesis, or something else maybe? (-1karma)

The response: Donald Trump and Andrew Tate got cancelled too hard and that is why they returned like Obi Wan Kenobi. (Andrew Tate is currently in Russia getting dunked on by the entire political spectrum while facing sex trafficking charges in three countries.)

A bold participant asks have you even been to an anti gay rally:

The homophobes in the government part is fair. But her depiction was realistic; that’s what ordinary American homophobes in the US look like. Have you ever seen an anti-gay protest? They are mostly white, lower class, and dumb, but mostly dumb, hence how they vote. Let’s start calling things by what they are. (-5 Karma)

Someone replies that statistics disagree, white people are the second most gay affirming race. (No sources cited)

They double down:

Have you ever been to an anti-gay protest during Pride? That’s what she was depicting, and she got it right. (-3 Karma)

The rejoinder:

If you're going to insist on generalizing homophobes by class, please get it right at least lol. A lot of small-business-owner types, realtor types, and labor artistocracy are homophobic. None of that is lower class. I am thinking about my queer friends, and the first literal 5 that come to mind are themselves "lower class". In fact queer people are subjugated in ways that often place them in the working class or outside of work entirely. You're just using lower class as a slur instead of as part of an analysis, and it's gross.

Triple down.

TL;DR on the knockout blow: I now work even deeper South than in those instances, and just yesterday two educated men who are paid well made a trans joke.

Can you even imagine, two educated men who are paid well made a trans joke. Surely not in my America!

Rebuttal: I don’t care about their education level.

Another choice argument from someone who wants better representation for rich, black homophobes in media:

"Statistics disagree" "But have you considered my anecdotal experience?" You can't be real. The truth is, since this song came out, we've seen plenty of homophobes come out of the woodwork who look nothing like the kinds of people who have the time of day to protest pride parade. Like yeah, no shit protesters would look jobless but that doesn't mean most homophobes are as well. And the video's decision to paint homophobia as the white and ugly choice gives leverage to homophobes who aren't white or ugly to claim a dishonest narrative.

Elsewhere, the gaylors have entered the chat:

I think it’s really interesting how she dressed herself in this video. I am straight and wouldn’t consider to wear a wig that’s very close to the bisexual flag in a song about the LGBTQ+ community. I have to lean towards she was trying to send a message but backed out of straight up (no pun intended) saying it. I love the song. I think it’s very fun to sing, especially on the way to work at 7 am lol. I do not think this is commenting she’d do now but I have to wonder if that’s because she feels unsafe doing so at her popularity status.

At the time, I thought it was her coming out as bi, but now I’m more of the mind that she was following a trend and trying to rehab her image.

But an apparent bisexual pops that bubble.

Another is bubble is blown:

She should’ve leaned into her true fanbase: cottagecore bisexuals and lesbians. Start gardening. Chop wood. Make “Betty” actually about a gay couple like I thought it was for so long.

And swiftly popped:

That would require authenticity i think. She wouldnt give up mass appeal for that.

Someone else spams the thread multiple times to assert that putting one trans man in one video one time makes her a great ally. No one citing this seems to be aware that he has a name or what it might be, but as per usual, no one is beating the transmisogyny allegations, lmfao. God forbid trans women get anything that won't be construed as taking attention from literally anyone else. I'm sure you'll get that role as a serial killer in a Ryan Murphy show you're so desperate for some day.

Someone suggests they don't really think conservatives listen to her, which brings out a batshit meditation on geopolitics:

I was thinking more of people in developing countries, because she's at a Michael Jackson level of fame where everyone knows of her. I'm half Turkish although I live in the UK, turkey is quite a conservative country so it wouldn't help her to be pro LGBT in the Turkish market, probably true of other countries like Indonesia, Poland, china, etc. I'm not American so I can't really comment on what American conservatives would want from her. In the UK she's very popular across the aisle

Developing countries, you know, Indonesia, Poland, China, etc. The other poster concedes:

Good point; I was limiting myself to a very American perspective. Also to be fair conservatives might like Taylor more than I realize; I live in a bubble of Reddit and queer furries, so I definitely need to defer to people with more experience.

"I live in a bubble of Reddit and queer furries," you're welcome for that flair, motherfuckers.

RuPaul catching strays out of absolutely fucking nowhere:

Look It’s catchy, I like the beat, the lyrics however are lame, no queer person thinks this is genuinely uplifting, I feel like this song was made by RuPaul for drag race.

Deep in the basement at minus eight:

Anybody who thinks anything other than "she made this song to piss off her conservative, multi millionaire dad" is wrong. The liberal baiting thing she did a handful of years ago was literally to make her dad angry, the dad who paid his daughter's way to fame by being a pretty white girl with ambiguous political views. There's no doubt she's full magtard, and she's slowly priming her audience into agreeing with her too, since that's the more popular stance these days. But she doesn't care, she will just go where the money goes because she is a cash cow, not some genius songwriter with a bleeding heart.

Happy pride, stream Brualist by Kim Petras.