cookie23 wrote:
On a local level, the best analogy of Dan Bernstein's fall from relevancy is Howard Stern.
It is all about wanting to be accepted, liked, Hollywood Howey, Dan with the far left elite's, be part of an insufferable group.
During B&B Dan was a much bigger a-hole, his schtick of calling every caller stupid, dumb, goober. But what made him was his quick whit and unpredictability to go after say D-Rose being injured, etc. Also he could leave you crying laughing talking about so many issues.
I used to be a huge Stern guy, have not listened to him in over probably 15 years. Just zero interest. With Dan, I like following him on twitter now during Bears game and sometimes will listen, but very rarely.
I could care less about him being far left or him saying boobs, Cheryl Scott, etc. The preachiness and everything serious and no fun Dan is the turn off.
Howard Stern is different than bernstein. Stern is a typical frightened and selfish Baby Boomer. As a generation, they've controlled American life for a long time and they're loathe to give that up.
bernstein has a lot more in common with someone like the late Steve Albini. I think that bullying is part of that personality type. It's only the targets of their bullying that have changed. And it's weak because it's a path of no resistance.
https://safetypropaganda.substack.com/p ... eve-albiniQuote:
That brings us to what I call the “Gen-X problem.” If you haven’t noticed the trend, let me remind you of several other provocateurs of that generation who have aged into shriveled castratos raging against some alleged white christian machine that does not exist, claiming to be rebels while have functionally indistinguishable viewpoints from corny homosexual news anchors like Don Lemon or Anderson Cooper: Eminem staged concerts to shame Trump voters, Joe Roemer of Macronympha claimed that he would “murder Donald Trump” as if it was the hardest thing he could have said – not the corniest, Adam Parfrey’s Feral House imprint has transformed into a gender ideology manual, and so forth. All of these figures who developed infamy for their ability to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies of the media, society, and culture, ended up adopting and absorbing those viewpoints once the 21st Century took hold. Why?
In a now viral X thread, Albini explained the dilemma for me amidst a rant of sneering hypocrisy, name-calling and virtue signaling:
“For myself and many of my peers, we miscalculated,” said Albini. “We thought the major battles over equality and inclusiveness had been won, and society would eventually express that, so we were not harming anything with contrarianism, shock, sarcasm or irony.”
There you have it. Like Francis Fukuyama himself, Albini and other Gen-Xers falsely believed that they were at the end of history. They thought that all the political and ideological battles had been resolved, and that their words had no meaning. Who could possibly be offended if everybody was OK?
As you can see, this kind of thinking is delusional in several ways. First, Obama brought race back to politics to use as a branding device. And then, the election of Donald Trump changed everything. It was a direct affront to every misconception about the world that Gen-X held. The punk rock “fuck the system” Gen-X artists were forced to confront the fact that they had become the system. People like Albini then were useful carnival barkers in that they harbored the illusion that there was still something like an edgy, anti-establishment left still existent. Indeed, Albini’s viewpoint is a harbinger of what would eventually become the dirtbag left; their brand of toilet humor is substitute for the fact that they know in their fucking bones that they are conformists.