July 21, 2023 • 45 mins
Dark Brandon Rises, a satirical riff on Fashwave gains liberal prominence, accidentally damaging Fashwave's legibility in far-right circles. DeSantis' own attempt at the aesthetic is rejected by conservative America.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Yeah, I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas as well.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Let's go Brandon, Let's go.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I agree, let's let's talk about Let's go Brandon. I
maintained the only good thing Biden has done so far.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's pretty funny. It's very funny.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
So this is like also the sort of attitude that
is actually necessary to like win the culture war side
of these things. It's not like defending yourself, and it's
not when they do something like put out this meme
like being like, oh my god, this is so dangerous
and like some responsible no funk with him right back,
(00:46):
you know, like boh, put some glowing eyes on Joe
Biden and make it looks like he plans to shoot somebody.
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So let's talk about the rise of dark Brandon.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
And also the other thing that they're kind of deterning
and reposting with here is like taking the uh what
is it, taking the fucking Brandon memes and let's go
Brandon meme, Let's go Brandon and going being like all right, yeah,
fuck it, call him Brandon, like doesn't hurt us, Like yeah,
we'll be branded.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
But Biden did that himself, when someone asked him about it,
he didn't know what it meant, and he was like, yeah,
let's go Brandon.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I actually I actually already had that clip inserted of
above this conversation jameson good job, good job, We're on
the same page.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, which is just being given the content.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
So Dark Brandon combines two different pro Trump memes while
trying to subvert them, both pretty successfully. I would say,
I'm I'm assuming everyone listening to this is is familiar
with the fuck Joe Biden, Let's go Brandon kind of evolution,
So I'm just gonna skip right past that because the
other half of Dark Brandon, I think is a little
(01:55):
bit more interesting. So Dark Brandon began with chronically online
life theftists doing a satirical riff on Dark Mega, replacing
the figure of Trump with an alter ego of Biden
and having and having this like mirror universe president appear
as some kind of like neoliberal socialist demagogue, because when
(02:15):
you replace the fascist figure with some largely ineffectual liberal
given like militaristic and socialist or anti fascist catchphrases, but
like otherwise leave the rest of the authoritarian ascetic stylings
of fascism. The result is pretty funny because it's Joe Biden. Yeah,
(02:37):
so again, I think I've read a lot of stuff
on this, and there's like a two two to like
academic reports on on Dark Brandon.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Some people believe that Dark Brandon started as like a
right wing meme. They are they are mistaken. They are
misreading irony poisoned leftists as being like like alt right
memesters common common miss tank.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
But also yeah, because you wouldn't want to be stuck
in a car with any of them, right.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
But Dark Brandon evolved into satirically imagining what if Joe
Biden was actually the militant communist dictator many on the
right made him out to be. With all of the
authoritarian impulses of Dark Mega turned on its head and
ironically targeted against Trumpian conservatives, Dark Brandon can be seen
hunting down at Trump voters for execution, or sitting on
(03:34):
a throne of air fifteen's with yellow laser eyes. I'm
gonna play I'm gonna play one video for us to
watch here.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
President, There's no way.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Out Joe Biden's America.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
He's putting on a skullman.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
No more malarkey tie me to a missile and fire
me into the suburbs.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I'm ready, genuinely quite amazing.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny stuff. I do like
the way that like Dark Brandon edits work is there's
there's there's this one smile that Biden does that looks
very like evil and mischievous that if you edit it,
if you like, edit in after he says something ridiculous,
it's pretty funny. So here we have here we have
(04:32):
a meme about Joe Biden publicly executing Patriot Front members
after they got arrested in Idaho. And probably my favorite
Dark branded meme is a picture of Biden with sunglasses
and a list of names. Has shinzu albe neutralized, gas
prices neutralized, COVID nineteen neutralized, Antifa fully armed, Roe v
(04:59):
Wade too coming soon, Global Homo coming soon, Communism coming soon,
which is pretty funny.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
It's good.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
So one of the reasons that Dark Brandon was able
to flourish where Dark Mega stagnated is that the Biden
version is both based on and never lost its sense
of irony, imagining the feeble, bumbling Biden as some like
hard lined, ruthlessly effective tyrant is in it is like
in innately humorous premise from like from the very beginning.
(05:32):
The ironic nature also made a Dark Brandon all but
impervious from attack by conservative commentators on the right, because like,
how can you attack this vibe? Like it's it's so
ironic and absurd that like there's no way to be like, look,
how dangerous the dark brighten memel what like come on?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Guess?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So Dark Brandon grew in popularity as Biden's Inflation Reduction
Act also known as the IRA past last summer.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And memes out of that too, and it.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Also it also kind of spread Afternows broke that an
American drone strike killed the then leader of al Qaeda
on July thirty first, twenty twenty two. So around this
time period is when Dark Brandon broke containment. So Dark
Brandon kind of started in March of twenty twenty two,
and by by early August it has now left the
(06:28):
irony poisoned leftist like Twitter sphere and has now broken
out and is freely swimming around the liberal populace. So
come August, Dark Brandon no longer belonged to leftist ship
posters liberals started to catch on and make Dark Brandon
memes of their own, albeit much more cringey boomer versions,
(06:50):
And although most of these liberals probably didn't really know
what was quite being satirized, that didn't stop them from
trying to emulate this cooler, more edgy version of Biden
with glowing eyes. So here I have a two liberal
memes here with with someone reacting to the news that
there was no civilian casualties in the drone strike at
(07:13):
Kilty al Kainda leader having Biden shooting laser eyes down
from orbit and then also him eating ice cream in
front of an explosion, which is horrible, like a not
very good meme, but the fact that there was bad,
like very very bad, low quality dark branded memes is
actually very important for later.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yes, yeah, yes, no, it's good that this happened.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yes, the Internet has taken notice. And now there's a
new meme out there known as Dark Brandon, which shows
a badass Biden with super villain laser beme my malls.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
The liberalization of Dark Brandon was met with sadness from
the original memesters that pioneered the overtly ironic dictatory Old Brandon,
who commanded battalions of Antifa. The The ongoing liberal co
option of dark Brandon was thought to signal the death
of the meme, although a completely unintended positive side effect
(08:12):
of this recuperation seems to be taking hold. We'll have
we'll have more on that later. I have I have
a four other pretty bad dark Brandon memes.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Here go on with corn ROAs is fully fully me.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
It's not good. There's there's two of these are like
photoshop movie posters with Biden's face extremely poorly photoshopps on Tomeo's.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Ship, photoshops again this is ms pat Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
And then a poster for the Dark Brandon Rises with
the tagline that the Malarchy will end. Not not very
good memes. So it wasn't just overly online democrats on
social media who were spreading these dark branded memes. Soon enough,
White House staff joined in to celebrate the passing of
(09:07):
the kind of Neutered Inflation Reduction Act. On August seventh,
the White House Digital director shared a high contrast photo
of Biden grinning with red laser eyes pointed towards the
camera that quickly went viral. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut
posted a dark branded meme, which was a drawing with
yellow glowing eyes. Later that same day, and the Senate
(09:29):
Environment and Public Works Committee posted the same picture as well,
and the Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates posted
a whole ass Dark Branded meme, writing dark Brandon is
crushing it with a horribly cringing photo abided with red
laser eyes and white text that reads, your malarkey has
(09:51):
been going on for long enough, kiddo, Like, oh my god,
oh my god.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Now you know what, Garrison, we were just celebrating this,
but I think I am now a fascist. It's done.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
It of the White House Staff Secretary joined in by
responding to a tweet saying lasers shooting out of Joe
Biden's eyes is an official statement of administration policy by
saying that is indeed an official physician what anyway.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
So god damn it.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Many people, myself included, suspected that Dark Branded would suffer
through kind of a regular meme cycle and die off
pretty soon once it hit this like peak popularity, But
somehow Brandon showed a surprising amount of resiliency, partially due
to liberals being a few months behind and they're being
really nothing else for liberals to meme about, because this
(10:44):
was like one of the this time in Biden's presidency
was the first time the Democrats actually felt like they
had something to celebrate, and having this kind of overly
outrageous kind of joking meme was like the first bit
of like agit prop that liberals have like done since
Trump went out of office. And it's also like the
first effect of etchiprop they've ever done period. Now, Dark
(11:06):
Brandon showed one other surprising trait very soon, the ability
to influence actual Joe Biden. On September first, Biden gave
a prime time bombastic speech addressed to the nation and
spoke about the threats to American democracy from extremist mega forces.
Joe Biden stood outside of Independence Haul in Philadelphia, lit
(11:28):
with high contrast red lights and uniformed marines on either side.
Far right politicians and influencers reacted with shakun horror, calling
the speech demagogic, outrageous, and divisive, while liberals and even
some leftists praised the speech for accurately addressing the threat
posed by far right actors in this country. But both
(11:49):
of those on the right end left definitely noticed the
Frank brandonness of the entire thing, especially with this being
less than a month after the White House's own Brandon post.
The red lights, the background marines, and the impassioned and
oddly well delivered appeal to fight for the soul of
the country from the Trumpian mega extremist political faction set
(12:10):
on dismantling democracy played very well. Uh, the whole the
whole thing felt very dark brandon Esque. And the takeaway
many people had is that they had somehow memed Dark
Branded into existence. Do you know who else you don't
want to fuck with? It's the products and services that
(12:33):
support this vital, academic level research into Dark Brand and
truly truly unparalleled work on the part of myself. You're welcome,
Here's here's fucking ads. All right, we are back. Let's
(12:57):
talk even more about Dark Brandon. I cannot believe I
wrote three thousand, over three thousand words on this, all right. So,
like many natural predators, Dark Brandon went through a period
of hibernation, laying dormant through most of the winter, that is,
until a huge resurgence in April of this year. This
(13:19):
past April, Biden launched his new twenty twenty four re
election campaign website, which not only featured a Dark Brandon
error four h four page reading your lost Jack, Let's
get you back on the rails, which is kind of
funny but not really funny because it's doing the whole
like Biden and track reference, And it's kind of funny
(13:40):
because it's like a four oh four page, So it's
like it's Dark Brandon telling you to get back to
the regular website because you're now on like the part
of the website that doesn't exist, because like Dark Brandon
doesn't exist. It's not I'm overthinking this. I'm doing way
too high concept. It's like Beaudryard analysis of this. This
this joke is not that good. But beyond the Dark
(14:02):
Brandon error four h four page, there is also official
Dark Brandon merchandise. Biden's Dark line features dark blue monochrome
images of Biden or Brandon staring forward with red laser
eyes and a mischievous grin. The design comes on baseball hats,
t shirts, mugs, stickers, and tote bags. Product descriptions are
(14:26):
as follows best worn while vanquishing malarkey. Protect yourself from
malarkey and the sun with this dark cap. Dark Brandon
Dark Rose, what dark dark Brandon dark roast tea drinkers welcome,
And finally, the worst one malarkey is tot's over after
(14:47):
we re elect President Biden.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
This is the This is like the Internet equivalent or
the me I don't know what the I feel the
same way I feel in like old Yeller when you're like,
well the dog's got ra you got to shoot it,
Like there's no other ethical way to deal with This
is like, but it's it hurts.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
It's like when someone's dad turns up to the skate park.
This is what's happening here.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Yeah, you've got to shoot him otherwise they'll give everyone rabies, Right,
that's what you meant, James.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, Yeah, it's time for their life to end.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
This is also like fascinating because like the fact that
that Biden, Joe Biden made assume direct control laser eye
dark merch before Trump did is wild. And now Trump
won't really ever be able to like capitalize on this
sort of thing because Biden just beat him to the
punch on this, and and and like in a way
(15:40):
that's like not actually promoting fascism, which effectively this this
whole thing effectively neutralized Trump's ability to cash in on
Dark Mega and the fashwave aesthetic, which is just a
pretty shocking and like amazing trajectory for fash wave.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The latest appearance of Dark The latest appearance of Dark
Brandon was during the White House Correspondence dinner this past April,
when Biden handed off the podium to comedian Roy Wood Junior.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Roy the point of is yours.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I'm gonna be fine with your jokes, but I'm not
sure about Dark Brandon.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
The coolest thing the Libs were so happy to have
a meme.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
A meme.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
They got one, they got one, and they were just
it's one of those things again, like like a little
kid having to shoot his dog. I just I couldn't.
You can't take it away from him. They were just
so happy.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I have I do have three. I selected the only
three Dark branded memes I like here for the very end.
One is just Biden in a beard and eye patch.
It says it's over Jack. One has Biden with a
like a very like horrifyingly edited smile with laser eyes
saying malarkey detected and it looks.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Like the monster in a fucking like I don't know
exactly what from. But like demon teeth, like nightmare teeth,
the leftists are so much better at making these memes
than anyone else.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And my favorite is, this is a satirical rift on
the This post has been fact checked by real American
patriots trump Beam instead having an image of Dark branded
with laser eyes. That's saying this post was fact checked
by real Dark branded acolytes. So this is like fun
and good, right, Like this is this is fine, But
(17:35):
there's actually a surprisingly like positive result from this whole
Dark Brandon sega, because even as far back as August
of twenty twenty two, myself, some research colleagues, and other
journalists that I have like no connection to all started
to kind of observe the same thing. The liberal recuperation
of the fast wave style via Dark Brandon seemed to
(17:56):
seriously damage fast waves legibility in right wing circles. The
normy use of dark Brandon had already appeared to have
ceased all of the dark megaposting, because there was this
influx of like Minion's Facebook Tier branded memes, which offered
very strong levels of vicarious cringe that provided a social
(18:19):
disincentive for anyone wanting to post laser Eye dark Mega
memes due to their fear of being associated, even just
asthetically associated with the liberal boomer Biden memes, which now
represented this cringe and dead style. The widespread nature of
Brandon laser eyes also seemed to seriously dampen the Patrick
(18:40):
batemanification of characters like Homelander from The Boys, who was
at the time becoming one of the far right's favorite
memeable characters. There are few things that these online nazi
weirdos fear more than their special toys being played with
by normies, because almost immediately they're like esoteric play loses
(19:00):
all appeal once the ormies like start using it.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Like it's a signifier that you're part of the club.
And if yeah, fucking the DNC is posting these memes,
you're not part of the club anymore. Nope, Like there's
no or it's not a club you want to be in.
I guess yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
So I still maintain that one of the best things
Biden has done since taking office is utterly destroying fashwave
by complete accident. I postulated this back in twenty twenty two,
and it still pretty much holds true now. And it's
not just my opinion either others have noticed that Brandon's
disturbance in the far right to mean ecosystem has really
(19:37):
taken effect. I'm going to quote Ali Brieland in Mother
Jones quote. The fashwave athetic has already seen its best
days and wasn't as pervasive on the far right Internet
as it used to be. But by associating himself with
a meme style that had partially descended from it, Biden
and his earnest staff and followers have probably made it
impossible for neo nazi edge lords to make fash wave
(20:00):
posts for at least a bit. By enlisting fascist meme offshoots,
the administration unlocked a code. Earnest Democrats like Biden may
have a hard time being cool on the Internet, but
they can kill hip stuff that bad people like that
is extremely powerful. They made fash wave a bit cringe.
(20:21):
Do you know what else is a bit cringe?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Robert?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
That breaks the fact that we have to have advertising
on my on my fash wave Biden Dark Dark Gear
Brandon episode Garrison.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
The only the only purpose of studying or learning anything
is to provide space for advertisements. That's why we do
it all.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
No more, actually do you know, if you subscribe to
the new Apple Premium, you can have no more more
Larki because there won't be any ads. So there you go.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
That's right, all right, we.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Are back and we are finally finally going to talk
about Ron DeSantis and and his his kind of fash
wave misfire. So this happened about a year after Dark
Brandon had taken control, so there was at least a
y like a good a good year's worth of buffer
where fashwave was unacceptable and just not really even attempted
(21:31):
because of how cringe it is at this point. But
that did not stop the Dysantas war Room Twitter account
from trying to do it. And then we will see
what the right's reaction to this was. So, like I
said at the beginning of the beginning of this episode,
on the last day of Pride Month, DeSantis's campaign shared
a video on their Desanta's war Room account attacking Trump
(21:55):
for previously held positions seemingly in support of LGBTQ people
and sayments that he said about, like allowing transgender women
to compete in his Miss Universe pageants and allowing Caitlyn
Jenner to use the bathroom of her choice in Trump Tower.
This video opens with footage of Trump at the twenty
sixteen RNC saying that he would quote do everything in
(22:17):
my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens unquote. Now this
is pretty gross that the video opens this way because
very importantly this this was just a month after the
Pulse nightclub attack in DeSantis's home state of Florida, which
killed forty nine people. That's why Trump was saying this
is because there was just a massive massacre in the
(22:38):
state of Florida. And the fact that Dysantis is opening
up this Trump like homophobic attack ad by including this
little bit is pretty is pretty gross. So this video
then kind of transitions fifteen seconds in, accompanied by a
dark synthetic beat to a black and white image of
(22:59):
Dysantis standing in front of an American flag with red
glowing eyes shooting out little laser lightning things, before a
wave of pulsating images of Spartans and the Muscular Chad
and clips of American Psycho, the Wolf of Wall Street,
and Peaky Blinders. Overlaid on top of these flashing images
(23:19):
are headlines and short clips about DeSantis's extreme anti LGBTQ
policies that he enacted in Florida. I cannot think of
anything more plorified.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
It really has shut down.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
FRAG just produced some of the harshest, most draconian laws
that literally threaten trans existence.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Congratulations, Ron Sander's mission a complic You win, all right.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
So first off, Garrison, it had been so long since
I looked at a bit shoot video so.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Weeks.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
So first off, fuck you for that.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I had to watch a lot of bit chut videos
for this episode.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
I yeah, I know. Yeah, So that's I mean, absolutely
impenetrable for like anyone who is not out of their mind.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah, like it is.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
It's this Yeah, sorry, James.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
It feels like his fourteen year old nephew who goes
by like groyper Chad fourteen eighty eight unfortune.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I'll describe what's happening as, like, you know, first you get,
obviously the beginning, which I think is clear just from
the audio, these clips of like Trump saying stuff that's
not it's pro gay, you know, from back in twenty sixteen,
and then it switches to like footage of like news
articles about DeSantis, you know, doing horrible things to queer
people in Florida, and like clips of pete leftists reacting
(24:40):
to how bad it is and like clips of Ron
de Santis like walking around or you know art of
him photoshopped with like sunglasses or super.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Muscular American Psycho stuff.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, clips of American Psycho, clips from like like I
think it was actually from the movie Troy, Yes it is, yeah,
just to like make him look yeah it's yes, it's
just sad. It's just sad.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
For example, So what one little snippet of is is
uh one of these little one of these little like
headlines is intercut between a Chad meme and a clip
from American Psycho, and it shows dysantas in wearing sunglasses
walking around with the headline Dysantis signs the most extreme
(25:27):
slate of anti trans laws and modern history with this
like pulsating music. So yeah, the whole, the whole second
half of the video is just like that. The video
seems to receive an almost universally negative reaction.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah, it's so bad.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
It's famously dog shit like just instant failure, upsetting both
Trump supporters and gay Republicans and confusing those who are
actually sympathetic to Dysantis.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Uh, because due to the bizarre imagery in the video.
I'm going to read some of the comments under the
Dessantas war room post. Nick Adams Alpha male replied, why
is the Deus campaign sharing a video comparing him to
Patrick Bateman? Isn't Bateman a serial killer?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I think I'm sure that the whole Nick Adams thing
is an extended bit, like it.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Is literally impossible to tell Jesse.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well, yeah, masculinity is an extended Matthew Weaver says it
is disgusting that this ad is linked, apparently to the
Dasanta's campaign.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
It makes me question my support for DeSantis.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
You love to see it.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
A George Santos staffer said, quote, this ad makes the
meatball look a gay.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Now, I don't wanna sy I.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Think it's I think it's funny.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I think that's pretty funny.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
But if you if you ever type out the sentence,
this ad makes the meatball look gay. You can't. You
can't be in America anymore. You have to go somewhere else,
Like that's banishment, right, like they used to do in
the old times, Like here's a backpack, off, you go off,
you go can't. You're not allowed here anymore.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Lisa Loves Liberty replied what An American First commentator with
over one hundred and fifty thousand followers, asked, what's the
message that the Dessentists team wants people to take away
from this ad that associates Ron with flawed criminal individuals?
Is it that rad is a bootlegging, psycho killer who
(27:44):
commits financial crimes and has an achilles heel? Because that's
what it's saying.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
God, that's so funny.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
And finally, far right activist, former congressional staffer and aspiring
conspiracy theory documentary film producer Annual Bostik said, quote, this
is the gayest ad in the history of political advertising.
So that was that was roughly the response is to
to to dessand it's posting this ad.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
All of this is extremely fun. I'm having a good
time like this.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
The The only the only figure that I that I
found who was in support of this ad like like,
the only like slightly even slightly noble person who seems
to enjoy this ad or thought it was a good
choice was Ian Miles chungk. Everyone else on the right
was a horrible decisie.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Again, if if you're not as if you're not a
terminally online leftist like us if you're one of like
the nice sweet liberals who who liked the Joe Brandon memes,
the Dark brand and memes. Ian Miles Chong is a
Malaysian senior citizen, a fire right youth influencer through a
series of decisions that you don't need this to be explained,
(29:09):
but he's one of the people that Elon Musk cares
about the most in this world.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
You can google a picture of Ian Maleschung and understand
everything you need to from that picture.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Fox News called the Dissentist campaign's use of the ad
mystifying and an unforced error. Now I'm also gonna doe
that's so good. I'm I'm also gonna play a short
clip from Miami, Florida's local CBS affiliate.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
By the way, the video that you're just about to
see has over twenty four million views. I will do
everything in my house to pretend our lg GQ citizens.
The video then suddenly veers in a different direction, accompanied
by dark images, loud music, mixed images of governor with
(30:03):
shirtless muscular men, including actor Brad Pitt. A prominent group
that represents LGBTQ conservatives also, when on Twitter criticizing the video,
saying Florida governor can't tell the difference between common sense
gaze and the radical left Gaze labeled the scientist positions
as dangerous and politically stupid.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
So I think that clip's also just a good reminder
of the level of specialized political analysis that you're getting
by listening to this show versus what you get on
local news. Yeah, because this local news can never explain
this nones No.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
If you if you were to hand this over to
a team at MSNBC, they would die, they would be.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
That's the next cliff I have. The next clip I
have is them handing this over to MSNBC.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
This is one of my favorite days at work we've had.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
First of all, the DeSantis campaign sent out a tweet
later that night saying, quote, opposing the federal recognition of
Pride Month isn't homophobic. We wouldn't support a month to
celebrate straight people for sexual orientation. It's unnecessary, divisive and pandering.
It's very very cool. So here is here is here's
(31:30):
the cliff of of m s NBC reacting to this ad. Uh,
it's it's it's it's gonna be. It's gonna be, it's
gonna be, it's gonna be pretty good.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis is defending a controversial and frankly bizarre
campaign video that attacks for President Donald Trump's views on
l g b t Q rights. Donny Deutsch a man,
extraordinaiy What am I? What am I looking at there?
Speaker 8 (31:56):
And extra stopped?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Okay for a while, what I'm doing here?
Speaker 8 (32:01):
And the answer is, well, first of all, he's DeSantis
is flailing and he's trying to continually move to the
right of Trump. But this lgbt Q thing is just
do you think this is moving voters?
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Are you?
Speaker 8 (32:14):
And to pay Trump as a patron of this group
is you know, as an ad guy, There's one thing
I learned over yours is people aren't stupid. Okay, you
just and I don't know the voter that's going to
see that and go, you know what, Trump, I'm going
You're my guy. And it's just DeSantis is such a dark, dark,
(32:34):
dark character. I've talked a lot about on the show.
How at the end of the day, a candidate Trump,
even though you know, we eviscerate him and there is
a likability if you're a Trump guy about him, he's entertaining,
he's a loungeacked, He's this and that. This guy is
just the dark the Prince darkness. And that is one
of the darkest, most bizarre, twisted, deviant ads I've ever seen.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
Well, he was defending it yesterday. Bipartisan backlash to the video,
by the way, many people calling it homophobic. Governor DeSantis
standing by the ad, calling it fair game.
Speaker 6 (33:08):
I think, you know, identifying Donald Trump as really being
a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream, where
he was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants,
I think that's totally fair game because he's now campaigning
saying the opposite, that he doesn't think that you should
have men competing in women's things like athletics. And so
(33:29):
we've been very clear on it that we believe in
protecting the rights of our girls and the rights of
women athletes to be able to participate with fairness and
with integrity.
Speaker 7 (33:41):
In response to those remarks, Trump campaign spokesperson said, quote,
a desperate dissanctus campaign with a flailing candidate is in
its last throes of relevancy.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
First off, such bad analysis of that video.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, I mean if they're completely out of their debts.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Yeah, yeah, No, No, the point is not that he
is so dark and evil. The point is that this
is incompetent and impenetrable. You could just say that it's okay.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, it's my job to understand this ship and I don't. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Beyond beyond, beyond dissandis being the prince of darkness, as
we've only established. Yeah, why try to.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Make him sound cool.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
This is what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
This is the thing, this is the thing they don't understand, right,
this is why, this is why Dark braindon happened by
complete accident like it was. It was so effective because
there was no way for liberals to concoct this themselves.
They were they were they were only copying the asthetic
stylings of of of like ironic leftists. So yeah, everyone
is just baffled by this sad saying, there's absolutely no
(34:44):
way of understanding what's going on here. There's there's absolutely
no like larger trends that that like may be at play.
But obviously we we we've kind of offered some insight
into what's been going on here, and in the end,
DeSantis's attempt at fash wave has been rejected by conservative
America either through it's just sheer like esoteric strangeness, and
(35:06):
also the kind of the the whittling away at at
at Fashwave's power that the dark branded meme has been
doing for so long. There's just nothing first of all
appealing about this, which makes all that remains just incredibly
just like just like off putting, so like what we
have here from disantas like in the actual video, but
(35:28):
besides the obvious like homophobia, is a sort of like
meme soup, combining some elements of like fashwave and some
like dark mega imagery, with other imagery from from right
wing meme tropes that have also gotten popular the past
few years, like Patrick Bateman, who's who's kind of more
popular in like the Schizzo wave subgenre just still heavily
(35:51):
tied to fash wave, kind of like it glorifies the
set ex the mental illness to push you towards doing
like extremist violence.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yeah, and then I should say the the aesthetics of
like how a specific subculture depicts mental illness, yes.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yes, yeah, And there's there's a bunch of other like
pop culture sigma figures. In this video, there's images of
the real life Chad mistaken in news coverage as a
generic body builder. But this is actually like a very
specific online meme that's like not like it's not niche.
And there's there's also like a very a very specific
(36:29):
uh dysantist Chad Wojack in this video. So and in
the end, like this attempt at kind of reviving a
soft fast wave style or you know, kind of dark
mega style for an attack ad by the Disanta's campaign
was basically wholesale rejected by conservative Americans and with with
(36:51):
no with no other politicians co signing this. The only other,
i mean notable figure who applauded this was Ean Miles Chung.
Uh no, no, no one note thought this was a
good idea. Most dissentis of supporters were off putted. The
only people who really like liked this were like chronically
online fascist zoomers who are either not old enough to
(37:13):
vote or just barely old enough to vote.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Yeah they are teenage Nick Flintz fans.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, like because like they're the only ones who are like,
well understand what's going on. So it like becomes a
cohesive message, because if the average viewer isn't turned off
by like the intense homophobia or the anti Trump angle,
the alienating editing style and online references and other kind
of bizarre attributes like the the the music, the flashing images,
(37:41):
it either left most ordinary viewers confused or just like
turned off. And so in the end, like I think
there is there is a recurring trend here and that
like Dark Mega didn't help the Republicans win the mid terms,
like that that that was a pretty pretty big defeat
(38:02):
for them. All of all of the work they were
doing beforehand to like to like start getting people like
riled up, get making making like attention grabbing authoritarian memes,
all of like the critical rice theory stuff. None of
that panned out in the actual elections. And whatever DeSantis
is doing sure doesn't seem to be helping him beat Trump.
(38:22):
The only person who who is who is winning right
at this is Dark Brandon. Dark Brandon strikes again. He
is the one that actually has made has made sure
that Desantius cannot use this playbook. Dark Brandon is sitting
on a gargoyle over top of whatever city in Florida
(38:43):
DeSantis lives. Dark Brandon is is our watchful protector. He is,
he is, he is our silent guardian.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I'm gonna Garrison was just talking about this image of
Dark Brandon sitting on a throne above. I'm gonna say, Miami.
They lifted up their shirt to show their new Dark
branded chest tattoo, and wow, that must have been what
was that twelve hours in the chair gear the big,
it was big.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
It was well, the first day was thirteen hours, at
the second he was twelve hours. So good wolds thirteen
twelve at the end.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Yeah, that's good. That's good, very big.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Will you run out of battery or the eyes are
always going to glow? No?
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Actually those are fluorescents, so I have to stand in
the sun for for like ten minutes to charge them
up and a last about.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Like five hours.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Magic hajike love that. Yeah. I have a conspiracy theory here.
I believe that Rondi Santi's fourteen year old nephew grew
Bitchad fourteen eighty eight was extremely online, so online that
his parents took away his phone and he just lost
all contact with the internet circa like early twenty twenty two,
and then run A Santas asked him to make an advert,
(39:49):
and this is what happened.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
So the ad.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
So I tried tracking down who made this advert. I
messaged someone who I suspect of making it, who ignored
my message. To be fair, I I messaged them on
my Julius of Vola sock puppet on Telegram and they
still ignore my message. So I I there. The video
(40:14):
was not created by the Disantis team himself. It was
it was it was. It was embedded in their war
room Twitter feed. It was tracked back to this at
a one time pro Trump account called Proud Elephant, who
has a corresponding Telegram channel. So this guy Proud Elephant is,
(40:35):
from what I can tell, the origin point of this video.
I can't seem to find it in any earlier places.
I've tried getting into contact with him to figure out
what his intentions were for like if if he made
the video or if he found it from somewhere. But
this is why I said I I I clarified that
the Disantis team shared this video on their official campaign account.
(40:56):
They did not make it themselves, which is also pretty
funny because they didn't spend any money on this thing,
and it still like was a massive shot in the face.
Like it's just like huge, huge blowback. They didn't need
to like embed this video made by like whatever weirdo
loner who has like final cut pro on his computer,
Like there's there's really there's really no reason, like they
(41:18):
have an actual ad team and for some reason they
did this instead. Now also as a part of this research,
I joined as many Dysantis Telegram channels as I could.
I scrolled through months of posting. I scrolled through all
like all three of the official Dysantis campaign Twitter accounts.
Nothing else in their propaganda quite compares to this video.
(41:41):
It is such a weird outlier that makes me really wonder,
like who who both who who was operating the the
DeSantis war room to Twitter account that that like hit
publish on this tweet with this with this video embedded,
and like what their relation is to the rest of
like the Dysantis like media strategy, because it's just it's
(42:02):
just it is. It is utterly, utterly baffling.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
I mean, I think some of it can come back to.
In twenty sixteen, kind of about a month so, I
think before the election, the Trump campaign came out with
this really weird, very four Chan inspired sort of like
ad video for the campaign that like a lot of
Democrats you know, made fun of, but it was a
(42:26):
pretty effective ad. And I you know, I wrote about
this some at the time, and I talked with the
guy who'd been doing attack ads and stuff and was like,
I don't know, I think this is a pretty successful
ad because it it feels authentic in a way that
political ads don't. And my guess is that when this
got presented to them, people at the DeSantis campaign were like, well,
this could be that for us, right, this could be
(42:48):
us leaning into something that's it's new, but it's like
real and it's representative of how kids, young people are
talking these days, and that will build the kind of
excitement and the kind of like conversation around our campaign
that can help take us to the next level. And
I think the thing that they missed there was that Trump,
in sort of you know, signposting to that online alt right,
(43:11):
was adopting and kind of making his own a real
movement that was representative of some things that were appealing
to a lot of people. And this is not right,
Like there's been no ground swell of people who are
into this, like these weird like the only ground swell
of a lot of normies getting into fash wave has
(43:33):
been dark branded, like like normy normy Republicans did not
adopt like this kind of shit in and mass And
I think it was a mistake, Like it was a
it was a it was a mistake to think that
like I don't know, like random like goop heads were
(43:54):
going to see their candidate compared to a serial killer
from a famously off putting and be like this is a.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Good call for us.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
This is my guy. Yeah, like no, like not not
everyone is like a seventeen year old suicidal alright, teenager,
Like that's actually not their prime base if you want
to win an election, there aren't.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Many of you kids, Like they don't want teenagers voting.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
At all, which is it's also really weird that DeSantis
has been given multiple opportunities to to pull back the ad,
saying it was it was a mistake. It was not,
it was not officially made by our campaign. It shouldn't
have been shared. But every time they've been given this opportunity,
they doubled down on the ad.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
That's his whole thing though, like never admit fault, always
pushing forward.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, I guess that is that is like a staple
of fascism, but like.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, yeah, man, well.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Anyway, that's good stabbing stuff. I'm well, Garrison, this has
made my week.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
This has been a fucking time to be alive. This
has been far too much of my week has been
putting together these like three thousand, four thousand words.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Well, I'm glad. I'm glad everyone was able to come
away from this as as enlightened, as as god.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Oh yeah, brand, I have entered a state of nosis.
Thank you, thank you for.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
This.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
I've achieved enlightenment.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
All right, Well, long lived dark brandom.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Yeah, I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas as well.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Let's go Brandon, Let's go.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I agree, let's let's talk about Let's go Brandon. I
maintained the only good thing Biden has done so far.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's pretty funny. It's very funny.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
So this is like also the sort of attitude that
is actually necessary to like win the culture war side
of these things. It's not like defending yourself, and it's
not when they do something like put out this meme
like being like, oh my god, this is so dangerous
and like some responsible no funk with him right back,
(00:46):
you know, like boh, put some glowing eyes on Joe
Biden and make it looks like he plans to shoot somebody.
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's funny.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So let's talk about the rise of dark Brandon.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
And also the other thing that they're kind of deterning
and reposting with here is like taking the uh what
is it, taking the fucking Brandon memes and let's go
Brandon meme, Let's go Brandon and going being like all right, yeah,
fuck it, call him Brandon, like doesn't hurt us, Like yeah,
we'll be branded.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
But Biden did that himself, when someone asked him about it,
he didn't know what it meant, and he was like, yeah,
let's go Brandon.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I actually I actually already had that clip inserted of
above this conversation jameson good job, good job, We're on
the same page.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, which is just being given the content.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
So Dark Brandon combines two different pro Trump memes while
trying to subvert them, both pretty successfully. I would say,
I'm I'm assuming everyone listening to this is is familiar
with the fuck Joe Biden, Let's go Brandon kind of evolution,
So I'm just gonna skip right past that because the
other half of Dark Brandon, I think is a little
(01:55):
bit more interesting. So Dark Brandon began with chronically online
life theftists doing a satirical riff on Dark Mega, replacing
the figure of Trump with an alter ego of Biden
and having and having this like mirror universe president appear
as some kind of like neoliberal socialist demagogue, because when
(02:15):
you replace the fascist figure with some largely ineffectual liberal
given like militaristic and socialist or anti fascist catchphrases, but
like otherwise leave the rest of the authoritarian ascetic stylings
of fascism. The result is pretty funny because it's Joe Biden. Yeah,
(02:37):
so again, I think I've read a lot of stuff
on this, and there's like a two two to like
academic reports on on Dark Brandon.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Some people believe that Dark Brandon started as like a
right wing meme. They are they are mistaken. They are
misreading irony poisoned leftists as being like like alt right
memesters common common miss tank.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
But also yeah, because you wouldn't want to be stuck
in a car with any of them, right.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
But Dark Brandon evolved into satirically imagining what if Joe
Biden was actually the militant communist dictator many on the
right made him out to be. With all of the
authoritarian impulses of Dark Mega turned on its head and
ironically targeted against Trumpian conservatives, Dark Brandon can be seen
hunting down at Trump voters for execution, or sitting on
(03:34):
a throne of air fifteen's with yellow laser eyes. I'm
gonna play I'm gonna play one video for us to
watch here.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
President, There's no way.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Out Joe Biden's America.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
He's putting on a skullman.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
No more malarkey tie me to a missile and fire
me into the suburbs.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I'm ready, genuinely quite amazing.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny stuff. I do like
the way that like Dark Brandon edits work is there's
there's there's this one smile that Biden does that looks
very like evil and mischievous that if you edit it,
if you like, edit in after he says something ridiculous,
it's pretty funny. So here we have here we have
(04:32):
a meme about Joe Biden publicly executing Patriot Front members
after they got arrested in Idaho. And probably my favorite
Dark branded meme is a picture of Biden with sunglasses
and a list of names. Has shinzu albe neutralized, gas
prices neutralized, COVID nineteen neutralized, Antifa fully armed, Roe v
(04:59):
Wade too coming soon, Global Homo coming soon, Communism coming soon,
which is pretty funny.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
It's good.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
So one of the reasons that Dark Brandon was able
to flourish where Dark Mega stagnated is that the Biden
version is both based on and never lost its sense
of irony, imagining the feeble, bumbling Biden as some like
hard lined, ruthlessly effective tyrant is in it is like
in innately humorous premise from like from the very beginning.
(05:32):
The ironic nature also made a Dark Brandon all but
impervious from attack by conservative commentators on the right, because like,
how can you attack this vibe? Like it's it's so
ironic and absurd that like there's no way to be like, look,
how dangerous the dark brighten memel what like come on?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Guess?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So Dark Brandon grew in popularity as Biden's Inflation Reduction
Act also known as the IRA past last summer.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And memes out of that too, and it.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Also it also kind of spread Afternows broke that an
American drone strike killed the then leader of al Qaeda
on July thirty first, twenty twenty two. So around this
time period is when Dark Brandon broke containment. So Dark
Brandon kind of started in March of twenty twenty two,
and by by early August it has now left the
(06:28):
irony poisoned leftist like Twitter sphere and has now broken
out and is freely swimming around the liberal populace. So
come August, Dark Brandon no longer belonged to leftist ship
posters liberals started to catch on and make Dark Brandon
memes of their own, albeit much more cringey boomer versions,
(06:50):
And although most of these liberals probably didn't really know
what was quite being satirized, that didn't stop them from
trying to emulate this cooler, more edgy version of Biden
with glowing eyes. So here I have a two liberal
memes here with with someone reacting to the news that
there was no civilian casualties in the drone strike at
(07:13):
Kilty al Kainda leader having Biden shooting laser eyes down
from orbit and then also him eating ice cream in
front of an explosion, which is horrible, like a not
very good meme, but the fact that there was bad,
like very very bad, low quality dark branded memes is
actually very important for later.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yes, yeah, yes, no, it's good that this happened.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Yes, the Internet has taken notice. And now there's a
new meme out there known as Dark Brandon, which shows
a badass Biden with super villain laser beme my malls.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
The liberalization of Dark Brandon was met with sadness from
the original memesters that pioneered the overtly ironic dictatory Old Brandon,
who commanded battalions of Antifa. The The ongoing liberal co
option of dark Brandon was thought to signal the death
of the meme, although a completely unintended positive side effect
(08:12):
of this recuperation seems to be taking hold. We'll have
we'll have more on that later. I have I have
a four other pretty bad dark Brandon memes.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Here go on with corn ROAs is fully fully me.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
It's not good. There's there's two of these are like
photoshop movie posters with Biden's face extremely poorly photoshopps on Tomeo's.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Ship, photoshops again this is ms pat Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
And then a poster for the Dark Brandon Rises with
the tagline that the Malarchy will end. Not not very
good memes. So it wasn't just overly online democrats on
social media who were spreading these dark branded memes. Soon enough,
White House staff joined in to celebrate the passing of
(09:07):
the kind of Neutered Inflation Reduction Act. On August seventh,
the White House Digital director shared a high contrast photo
of Biden grinning with red laser eyes pointed towards the
camera that quickly went viral. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut
posted a dark branded meme, which was a drawing with
yellow glowing eyes. Later that same day, and the Senate
(09:29):
Environment and Public Works Committee posted the same picture as well,
and the Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates posted
a whole ass Dark Branded meme, writing dark Brandon is
crushing it with a horribly cringing photo abided with red
laser eyes and white text that reads, your malarkey has
(09:51):
been going on for long enough, kiddo, Like, oh my god,
oh my god.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Now you know what, Garrison, we were just celebrating this,
but I think I am now a fascist. It's done.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
It of the White House Staff Secretary joined in by
responding to a tweet saying lasers shooting out of Joe
Biden's eyes is an official statement of administration policy by
saying that is indeed an official physician what anyway.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
So god damn it.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Many people, myself included, suspected that Dark Branded would suffer
through kind of a regular meme cycle and die off
pretty soon once it hit this like peak popularity, But
somehow Brandon showed a surprising amount of resiliency, partially due
to liberals being a few months behind and they're being
really nothing else for liberals to meme about, because this
(10:44):
was like one of the this time in Biden's presidency
was the first time the Democrats actually felt like they
had something to celebrate, and having this kind of overly
outrageous kind of joking meme was like the first bit
of like agit prop that liberals have like done since
Trump went out of office. And it's also like the
first effect of etchiprop they've ever done period. Now, Dark
(11:06):
Brandon showed one other surprising trait very soon, the ability
to influence actual Joe Biden. On September first, Biden gave
a prime time bombastic speech addressed to the nation and
spoke about the threats to American democracy from extremist mega forces.
Joe Biden stood outside of Independence Haul in Philadelphia, lit
(11:28):
with high contrast red lights and uniformed marines on either side.
Far right politicians and influencers reacted with shakun horror, calling
the speech demagogic, outrageous, and divisive, while liberals and even
some leftists praised the speech for accurately addressing the threat
posed by far right actors in this country. But both
(11:49):
of those on the right end left definitely noticed the
Frank brandonness of the entire thing, especially with this being
less than a month after the White House's own Brandon post.
The red lights, the background marines, and the impassioned and
oddly well delivered appeal to fight for the soul of
the country from the Trumpian mega extremist political faction set
(12:10):
on dismantling democracy played very well. Uh, the whole the
whole thing felt very dark brandon Esque. And the takeaway
many people had is that they had somehow memed Dark
Branded into existence. Do you know who else you don't
want to fuck with? It's the products and services that
(12:33):
support this vital, academic level research into Dark Brand and
truly truly unparalleled work on the part of myself. You're welcome,
Here's here's fucking ads. All right, we are back. Let's
(12:57):
talk even more about Dark Brandon. I cannot believe I
wrote three thousand, over three thousand words on this, all right. So,
like many natural predators, Dark Brandon went through a period
of hibernation, laying dormant through most of the winter, that is,
until a huge resurgence in April of this year. This
(13:19):
past April, Biden launched his new twenty twenty four re
election campaign website, which not only featured a Dark Brandon
error four h four page reading your lost Jack, Let's
get you back on the rails, which is kind of
funny but not really funny because it's doing the whole
like Biden and track reference, And it's kind of funny
(13:40):
because it's like a four oh four page, So it's
like it's Dark Brandon telling you to get back to
the regular website because you're now on like the part
of the website that doesn't exist, because like Dark Brandon
doesn't exist. It's not I'm overthinking this. I'm doing way
too high concept. It's like Beaudryard analysis of this. This
this joke is not that good. But beyond the Dark
(14:02):
Brandon error four h four page, there is also official
Dark Brandon merchandise. Biden's Dark line features dark blue monochrome
images of Biden or Brandon staring forward with red laser
eyes and a mischievous grin. The design comes on baseball hats,
t shirts, mugs, stickers, and tote bags. Product descriptions are
(14:26):
as follows best worn while vanquishing malarkey. Protect yourself from
malarkey and the sun with this dark cap. Dark Brandon
Dark Rose, what dark dark Brandon dark roast tea drinkers welcome,
And finally, the worst one malarkey is tot's over after
(14:47):
we re elect President Biden.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
This is the This is like the Internet equivalent or
the me I don't know what the I feel the
same way I feel in like old Yeller when you're like,
well the dog's got ra you got to shoot it,
Like there's no other ethical way to deal with This
is like, but it's it hurts.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
It's like when someone's dad turns up to the skate park.
This is what's happening here.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Yeah, you've got to shoot him otherwise they'll give everyone rabies, Right,
that's what you meant, James.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, Yeah, it's time for their life to end.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
This is also like fascinating because like the fact that
that Biden, Joe Biden made assume direct control laser eye
dark merch before Trump did is wild. And now Trump
won't really ever be able to like capitalize on this
sort of thing because Biden just beat him to the
punch on this, and and and like in a way
(15:40):
that's like not actually promoting fascism, which effectively this this
whole thing effectively neutralized Trump's ability to cash in on
Dark Mega and the fashwave aesthetic, which is just a
pretty shocking and like amazing trajectory for fash wave.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The latest appearance of Dark The latest appearance of Dark
Brandon was during the White House Correspondence dinner this past April,
when Biden handed off the podium to comedian Roy Wood Junior.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Roy the point of is yours.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I'm gonna be fine with your jokes, but I'm not
sure about Dark Brandon.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
The coolest thing the Libs were so happy to have
a meme.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
A meme.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
They got one, they got one, and they were just
it's one of those things again, like like a little
kid having to shoot his dog. I just I couldn't.
You can't take it away from him. They were just
so happy.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I have I do have three. I selected the only
three Dark branded memes I like here for the very end.
One is just Biden in a beard and eye patch.
It says it's over Jack. One has Biden with a
like a very like horrifyingly edited smile with laser eyes
saying malarkey detected and it looks.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Like the monster in a fucking like I don't know
exactly what from. But like demon teeth, like nightmare teeth,
the leftists are so much better at making these memes
than anyone else.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And my favorite is, this is a satirical rift on
the This post has been fact checked by real American
patriots trump Beam instead having an image of Dark branded
with laser eyes. That's saying this post was fact checked
by real Dark branded acolytes. So this is like fun
and good, right, Like this is this is fine, But
(17:35):
there's actually a surprisingly like positive result from this whole
Dark Brandon sega, because even as far back as August
of twenty twenty two, myself, some research colleagues, and other
journalists that I have like no connection to all started
to kind of observe the same thing. The liberal recuperation
of the fast wave style via Dark Brandon seemed to
(17:56):
seriously damage fast waves legibility in right wing circles. The
normy use of dark Brandon had already appeared to have
ceased all of the dark megaposting, because there was this
influx of like Minion's Facebook Tier branded memes, which offered
very strong levels of vicarious cringe that provided a social
(18:19):
disincentive for anyone wanting to post laser Eye dark Mega
memes due to their fear of being associated, even just
asthetically associated with the liberal boomer Biden memes, which now
represented this cringe and dead style. The widespread nature of
Brandon laser eyes also seemed to seriously dampen the Patrick
(18:40):
batemanification of characters like Homelander from The Boys, who was
at the time becoming one of the far right's favorite
memeable characters. There are few things that these online nazi
weirdos fear more than their special toys being played with
by normies, because almost immediately they're like esoteric play loses
(19:00):
all appeal once the ormies like start using it.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Like it's a signifier that you're part of the club.
And if yeah, fucking the DNC is posting these memes,
you're not part of the club anymore. Nope, Like there's
no or it's not a club you want to be in.
I guess yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
So I still maintain that one of the best things
Biden has done since taking office is utterly destroying fashwave
by complete accident. I postulated this back in twenty twenty two,
and it still pretty much holds true now. And it's
not just my opinion either others have noticed that Brandon's
disturbance in the far right to mean ecosystem has really
(19:37):
taken effect. I'm going to quote Ali Brieland in Mother
Jones quote. The fashwave athetic has already seen its best
days and wasn't as pervasive on the far right Internet
as it used to be. But by associating himself with
a meme style that had partially descended from it, Biden
and his earnest staff and followers have probably made it
impossible for neo nazi edge lords to make fash wave
(20:00):
posts for at least a bit. By enlisting fascist meme offshoots,
the administration unlocked a code. Earnest Democrats like Biden may
have a hard time being cool on the Internet, but
they can kill hip stuff that bad people like that
is extremely powerful. They made fash wave a bit cringe.
(20:21):
Do you know what else is a bit cringe?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Robert?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
That breaks the fact that we have to have advertising
on my on my fash wave Biden Dark Dark Gear
Brandon episode Garrison.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
The only the only purpose of studying or learning anything
is to provide space for advertisements. That's why we do
it all.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
No more, actually do you know, if you subscribe to
the new Apple Premium, you can have no more more
Larki because there won't be any ads. So there you go.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
That's right, all right, we.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Are back and we are finally finally going to talk
about Ron DeSantis and and his his kind of fash
wave misfire. So this happened about a year after Dark
Brandon had taken control, so there was at least a
y like a good a good year's worth of buffer
where fashwave was unacceptable and just not really even attempted
(21:31):
because of how cringe it is at this point. But
that did not stop the Dysantas war Room Twitter account
from trying to do it. And then we will see
what the right's reaction to this was. So, like I
said at the beginning of the beginning of this episode,
on the last day of Pride Month, DeSantis's campaign shared
a video on their Desanta's war Room account attacking Trump
(21:55):
for previously held positions seemingly in support of LGBTQ people
and sayments that he said about, like allowing transgender women
to compete in his Miss Universe pageants and allowing Caitlyn
Jenner to use the bathroom of her choice in Trump Tower.
This video opens with footage of Trump at the twenty
sixteen RNC saying that he would quote do everything in
(22:17):
my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens unquote. Now this
is pretty gross that the video opens this way because
very importantly this this was just a month after the
Pulse nightclub attack in DeSantis's home state of Florida, which
killed forty nine people. That's why Trump was saying this
is because there was just a massive massacre in the
(22:38):
state of Florida. And the fact that Dysantis is opening
up this Trump like homophobic attack ad by including this
little bit is pretty is pretty gross. So this video
then kind of transitions fifteen seconds in, accompanied by a
dark synthetic beat to a black and white image of
(22:59):
Dysantis standing in front of an American flag with red
glowing eyes shooting out little laser lightning things, before a
wave of pulsating images of Spartans and the Muscular Chad
and clips of American Psycho, the Wolf of Wall Street,
and Peaky Blinders. Overlaid on top of these flashing images
(23:19):
are headlines and short clips about DeSantis's extreme anti LGBTQ
policies that he enacted in Florida. I cannot think of
anything more plorified.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
It really has shut down.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
FRAG just produced some of the harshest, most draconian laws
that literally threaten trans existence.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Congratulations, Ron Sander's mission a complic You win, all right.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
So first off, Garrison, it had been so long since
I looked at a bit shoot video so.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Weeks.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
So first off, fuck you for that.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
I had to watch a lot of bit chut videos
for this episode.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
I yeah, I know. Yeah, So that's I mean, absolutely
impenetrable for like anyone who is not out of their mind.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah, like it is.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
It's this Yeah, sorry, James.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
It feels like his fourteen year old nephew who goes
by like groyper Chad fourteen eighty eight unfortune.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I'll describe what's happening as, like, you know, first you get,
obviously the beginning, which I think is clear just from
the audio, these clips of like Trump saying stuff that's
not it's pro gay, you know, from back in twenty sixteen,
and then it switches to like footage of like news
articles about DeSantis, you know, doing horrible things to queer
people in Florida, and like clips of pete leftists reacting
(24:40):
to how bad it is and like clips of Ron
de Santis like walking around or you know art of
him photoshopped with like sunglasses or super.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Muscular American Psycho stuff.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, clips of American Psycho, clips from like like I
think it was actually from the movie Troy, Yes it is, yeah,
just to like make him look yeah it's yes, it's
just sad. It's just sad.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
For example, So what one little snippet of is is
uh one of these little one of these little like
headlines is intercut between a Chad meme and a clip
from American Psycho, and it shows dysantas in wearing sunglasses
walking around with the headline Dysantis signs the most extreme
(25:27):
slate of anti trans laws and modern history with this
like pulsating music. So yeah, the whole, the whole second
half of the video is just like that. The video
seems to receive an almost universally negative reaction.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah, it's so bad.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
It's famously dog shit like just instant failure, upsetting both
Trump supporters and gay Republicans and confusing those who are
actually sympathetic to Dysantis.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Uh, because due to the bizarre imagery in the video.
I'm going to read some of the comments under the
Dessantas war room post. Nick Adams Alpha male replied, why
is the Deus campaign sharing a video comparing him to
Patrick Bateman? Isn't Bateman a serial killer?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I think I'm sure that the whole Nick Adams thing
is an extended bit, like it.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Is literally impossible to tell Jesse.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Well, yeah, masculinity is an extended Matthew Weaver says it
is disgusting that this ad is linked, apparently to the
Dasanta's campaign.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
It makes me question my support for DeSantis.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
You love to see it.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
A George Santos staffer said, quote, this ad makes the
meatball look a gay.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Now, I don't wanna sy I.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Think it's I think it's funny.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I think that's pretty funny.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
But if you if you ever type out the sentence,
this ad makes the meatball look gay. You can't. You
can't be in America anymore. You have to go somewhere else,
Like that's banishment, right, like they used to do in
the old times, Like here's a backpack, off, you go off,
you go can't. You're not allowed here anymore.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Lisa Loves Liberty replied what An American First commentator with
over one hundred and fifty thousand followers, asked, what's the
message that the Dessentists team wants people to take away
from this ad that associates Ron with flawed criminal individuals?
Is it that rad is a bootlegging, psycho killer who
(27:44):
commits financial crimes and has an achilles heel? Because that's
what it's saying.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
God, that's so funny.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
And finally, far right activist, former congressional staffer and aspiring
conspiracy theory documentary film producer Annual Bostik said, quote, this
is the gayest ad in the history of political advertising.
So that was that was roughly the response is to
to to dessand it's posting this ad.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
All of this is extremely fun. I'm having a good
time like this.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
The The only the only figure that I that I
found who was in support of this ad like like,
the only like slightly even slightly noble person who seems
to enjoy this ad or thought it was a good
choice was Ian Miles chungk. Everyone else on the right
was a horrible decisie.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Again, if if you're not as if you're not a
terminally online leftist like us if you're one of like
the nice sweet liberals who who liked the Joe Brandon memes,
the Dark brand and memes. Ian Miles Chong is a
Malaysian senior citizen, a fire right youth influencer through a
series of decisions that you don't need this to be explained,
(29:09):
but he's one of the people that Elon Musk cares
about the most in this world.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
You can google a picture of Ian Maleschung and understand
everything you need to from that picture.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
I think so.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Fox News called the Dissentist campaign's use of the ad
mystifying and an unforced error. Now I'm also gonna doe
that's so good. I'm I'm also gonna play a short
clip from Miami, Florida's local CBS affiliate.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
By the way, the video that you're just about to
see has over twenty four million views. I will do
everything in my house to pretend our lg GQ citizens.
The video then suddenly veers in a different direction, accompanied
by dark images, loud music, mixed images of governor with
(30:03):
shirtless muscular men, including actor Brad Pitt. A prominent group
that represents LGBTQ conservatives also, when on Twitter criticizing the video,
saying Florida governor can't tell the difference between common sense
gaze and the radical left Gaze labeled the scientist positions
as dangerous and politically stupid.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
So I think that clip's also just a good reminder
of the level of specialized political analysis that you're getting
by listening to this show versus what you get on
local news. Yeah, because this local news can never explain
this nones No.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
If you if you were to hand this over to
a team at MSNBC, they would die, they would be.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
That's the next cliff I have. The next clip I
have is them handing this over to MSNBC.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
This is one of my favorite days at work we've had.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
First of all, the DeSantis campaign sent out a tweet
later that night saying, quote, opposing the federal recognition of
Pride Month isn't homophobic. We wouldn't support a month to
celebrate straight people for sexual orientation. It's unnecessary, divisive and pandering.
It's very very cool. So here is here is here's
(31:30):
the cliff of of m s NBC reacting to this ad. Uh,
it's it's it's it's gonna be. It's gonna be, it's
gonna be, it's gonna be pretty good.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis is defending a controversial and frankly bizarre
campaign video that attacks for President Donald Trump's views on
l g b t Q rights. Donny Deutsch a man,
extraordinaiy What am I? What am I looking at there?
Speaker 8 (31:56):
And extra stopped?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Okay for a while, what I'm doing here?
Speaker 8 (32:01):
And the answer is, well, first of all, he's DeSantis
is flailing and he's trying to continually move to the
right of Trump. But this lgbt Q thing is just
do you think this is moving voters?
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Are you?
Speaker 8 (32:14):
And to pay Trump as a patron of this group
is you know, as an ad guy, There's one thing
I learned over yours is people aren't stupid. Okay, you
just and I don't know the voter that's going to
see that and go, you know what, Trump, I'm going
You're my guy. And it's just DeSantis is such a dark, dark,
(32:34):
dark character. I've talked a lot about on the show.
How at the end of the day, a candidate Trump,
even though you know, we eviscerate him and there is
a likability if you're a Trump guy about him, he's entertaining,
he's a loungeacked, He's this and that. This guy is
just the dark the Prince darkness. And that is one
of the darkest, most bizarre, twisted, deviant ads I've ever seen.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
Well, he was defending it yesterday. Bipartisan backlash to the video,
by the way, many people calling it homophobic. Governor DeSantis
standing by the ad, calling it fair game.
Speaker 6 (33:08):
I think, you know, identifying Donald Trump as really being
a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream, where
he was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants,
I think that's totally fair game because he's now campaigning
saying the opposite, that he doesn't think that you should
have men competing in women's things like athletics. And so
(33:29):
we've been very clear on it that we believe in
protecting the rights of our girls and the rights of
women athletes to be able to participate with fairness and
with integrity.
Speaker 7 (33:41):
In response to those remarks, Trump campaign spokesperson said, quote,
a desperate dissanctus campaign with a flailing candidate is in
its last throes of relevancy.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
First off, such bad analysis of that video.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah, I mean if they're completely out of their debts.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Yeah, yeah, No, No, the point is not that he
is so dark and evil. The point is that this
is incompetent and impenetrable. You could just say that it's okay.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, it's my job to understand this ship and I don't. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Beyond beyond, beyond dissandis being the prince of darkness, as
we've only established. Yeah, why try to.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Make him sound cool.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
This is what he's doing.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
This is the thing, this is the thing they don't understand, right,
this is why, this is why Dark braindon happened by
complete accident like it was. It was so effective because
there was no way for liberals to concoct this themselves.
They were they were they were only copying the asthetic
stylings of of of like ironic leftists. So yeah, everyone
is just baffled by this sad saying, there's absolutely no
(34:44):
way of understanding what's going on here. There's there's absolutely
no like larger trends that that like may be at play.
But obviously we we we've kind of offered some insight
into what's been going on here, and in the end,
DeSantis's attempt at fash wave has been rejected by conservative
America either through it's just sheer like esoteric strangeness, and
(35:06):
also the kind of the the whittling away at at
at Fashwave's power that the dark branded meme has been
doing for so long. There's just nothing first of all
appealing about this, which makes all that remains just incredibly
just like just like off putting, so like what we
have here from disantas like in the actual video, but
(35:28):
besides the obvious like homophobia, is a sort of like
meme soup, combining some elements of like fashwave and some
like dark mega imagery, with other imagery from from right
wing meme tropes that have also gotten popular the past
few years, like Patrick Bateman, who's who's kind of more
popular in like the Schizzo wave subgenre just still heavily
(35:51):
tied to fash wave, kind of like it glorifies the
set ex the mental illness to push you towards doing
like extremist violence.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yeah, and then I should say the the aesthetics of
like how a specific subculture depicts mental illness, yes.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Yes, yeah, And there's there's a bunch of other like
pop culture sigma figures. In this video, there's images of
the real life Chad mistaken in news coverage as a
generic body builder. But this is actually like a very
specific online meme that's like not like it's not niche.
And there's there's also like a very a very specific
(36:29):
uh dysantist Chad Wojack in this video. So and in
the end, like this attempt at kind of reviving a
soft fast wave style or you know, kind of dark
mega style for an attack ad by the Disanta's campaign
was basically wholesale rejected by conservative Americans and with with
(36:51):
no with no other politicians co signing this. The only other,
i mean notable figure who applauded this was Ean Miles Chung.
Uh no, no, no one note thought this was a
good idea. Most dissentis of supporters were off putted. The
only people who really like liked this were like chronically
online fascist zoomers who are either not old enough to
(37:13):
vote or just barely old enough to vote.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Yeah they are teenage Nick Flintz fans.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, like because like they're the only ones who are like,
well understand what's going on. So it like becomes a
cohesive message, because if the average viewer isn't turned off
by like the intense homophobia or the anti Trump angle,
the alienating editing style and online references and other kind
of bizarre attributes like the the the music, the flashing images,
(37:41):
it either left most ordinary viewers confused or just like
turned off. And so in the end, like I think
there is there is a recurring trend here and that
like Dark Mega didn't help the Republicans win the mid terms,
like that that that was a pretty pretty big defeat
(38:02):
for them. All of all of the work they were
doing beforehand to like to like start getting people like
riled up, get making making like attention grabbing authoritarian memes,
all of like the critical rice theory stuff. None of
that panned out in the actual elections. And whatever DeSantis
is doing sure doesn't seem to be helping him beat Trump.
(38:22):
The only person who who is who is winning right
at this is Dark Brandon. Dark Brandon strikes again. He
is the one that actually has made has made sure
that Desantius cannot use this playbook. Dark Brandon is sitting
on a gargoyle over top of whatever city in Florida
(38:43):
DeSantis lives. Dark Brandon is is our watchful protector. He is,
he is, he is our silent guardian.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I'm gonna Garrison was just talking about this image of
Dark Brandon sitting on a throne above. I'm gonna say, Miami.
They lifted up their shirt to show their new Dark
branded chest tattoo, and wow, that must have been what
was that twelve hours in the chair gear the big,
it was big.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
It was well, the first day was thirteen hours, at
the second he was twelve hours. So good wolds thirteen
twelve at the end.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Yeah, that's good. That's good, very big.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Will you run out of battery or the eyes are
always going to glow? No?
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Actually those are fluorescents, so I have to stand in
the sun for for like ten minutes to charge them
up and a last about.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Like five hours.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Magic hajike love that. Yeah. I have a conspiracy theory here.
I believe that Rondi Santi's fourteen year old nephew grew
Bitchad fourteen eighty eight was extremely online, so online that
his parents took away his phone and he just lost
all contact with the internet circa like early twenty twenty two,
and then run A Santas asked him to make an advert,
(39:49):
and this is what happened.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
So the ad.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
So I tried tracking down who made this advert. I
messaged someone who I suspect of making it, who ignored
my message. To be fair, I I messaged them on
my Julius of Vola sock puppet on Telegram and they
still ignore my message. So I I there. The video
(40:14):
was not created by the Disantis team himself. It was
it was it was. It was embedded in their war
room Twitter feed. It was tracked back to this at
a one time pro Trump account called Proud Elephant, who
has a corresponding Telegram channel. So this guy Proud Elephant is,
(40:35):
from what I can tell, the origin point of this video.
I can't seem to find it in any earlier places.
I've tried getting into contact with him to figure out
what his intentions were for like if if he made
the video or if he found it from somewhere. But
this is why I said I I I clarified that
the Disantis team shared this video on their official campaign account.
(40:56):
They did not make it themselves, which is also pretty
funny because they didn't spend any money on this thing,
and it still like was a massive shot in the face.
Like it's just like huge, huge blowback. They didn't need
to like embed this video made by like whatever weirdo
loner who has like final cut pro on his computer,
Like there's there's really there's really no reason, like they
(41:18):
have an actual ad team and for some reason they
did this instead. Now also as a part of this research,
I joined as many Dysantis Telegram channels as I could.
I scrolled through months of posting. I scrolled through all
like all three of the official Dysantis campaign Twitter accounts.
Nothing else in their propaganda quite compares to this video.
(41:41):
It is such a weird outlier that makes me really wonder,
like who who both who who was operating the the
DeSantis war room to Twitter account that that like hit
publish on this tweet with this with this video embedded,
and like what their relation is to the rest of
like the Dysantis like media strategy, because it's just it's
(42:02):
just it is. It is utterly, utterly baffling.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
I mean, I think some of it can come back to.
In twenty sixteen, kind of about a month so, I
think before the election, the Trump campaign came out with
this really weird, very four Chan inspired sort of like
ad video for the campaign that like a lot of
Democrats you know, made fun of, but it was a
(42:26):
pretty effective ad. And I you know, I wrote about
this some at the time, and I talked with the
guy who'd been doing attack ads and stuff and was like,
I don't know, I think this is a pretty successful
ad because it it feels authentic in a way that
political ads don't. And my guess is that when this
got presented to them, people at the DeSantis campaign were like, well,
this could be that for us, right, this could be
(42:48):
us leaning into something that's it's new, but it's like
real and it's representative of how kids, young people are
talking these days, and that will build the kind of
excitement and the kind of like conversation around our campaign
that can help take us to the next level. And
I think the thing that they missed there was that Trump,
in sort of you know, signposting to that online alt right,
(43:11):
was adopting and kind of making his own a real
movement that was representative of some things that were appealing
to a lot of people. And this is not right,
Like there's been no ground swell of people who are
into this, like these weird like the only ground swell
of a lot of normies getting into fash wave has
(43:33):
been dark branded, like like normy normy Republicans did not
adopt like this kind of shit in and mass And
I think it was a mistake, Like it was a
it was a it was a mistake to think that
like I don't know, like random like goop heads were
(43:54):
going to see their candidate compared to a serial killer
from a famously off putting and be like this is a.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Good call for us.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
This is my guy. Yeah, like no, like not not
everyone is like a seventeen year old suicidal alright, teenager,
Like that's actually not their prime base if you want
to win an election, there aren't.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Many of you kids, Like they don't want teenagers voting.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
At all, which is it's also really weird that DeSantis
has been given multiple opportunities to to pull back the ad,
saying it was it was a mistake. It was not,
it was not officially made by our campaign. It shouldn't
have been shared. But every time they've been given this opportunity,
they doubled down on the ad.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
That's his whole thing though, like never admit fault, always
pushing forward.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, I guess that is that is like a staple
of fascism, but like.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah, yeah, man, well.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Anyway, that's good stabbing stuff. I'm well, Garrison, this has
made my week.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
This has been a fucking time to be alive. This
has been far too much of my week has been
putting together these like three thousand, four thousand words.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Well, I'm glad. I'm glad everyone was able to come
away from this as as enlightened, as as god.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Oh yeah, brand, I have entered a state of nosis.
Thank you, thank you for.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
This.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
I've achieved enlightenment.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
All right, Well, long lived dark brandom.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Host
Robert Evans
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