Red Scare: Aesthetics, Nihilism, and Vibes Over Values

So this started with a Substack note that semi-blew up, and it pushed me to expand on something I’ve been thinking about for a while: rebellion, aesthetics, and how edginess functions as a kind of political currency (or all of those combined do).

I talk about Red Scare. But this isn’t just about them. It’s about the death of irony, the collapse of aesthetics into ideology, and what happens when leftist politics forget how to maintain an edge in favor of an oversimplified and marginalizing ethic.

I talk jouissance (Lacan and stuff), performative rebellion, reactionary grifting, and the slow shift of “edgy” from leftist cultural critique to right-wing nihilism. I touch on why moral posturing turned the liberal left into the new status quo—and why Dasha and Anna’s (Red Scare ladies) vibe shift might be the most revealing political litmus test for our current cultural and political moment.

This episode is about how rebellion gets hollowed out, how irony can curdle into belief, and how our politics are increasingly built not from principles, but from vibes.

Are you ruled by reason…or by desire, rage, and the need for transgression? Is that really a base for a moral framework? Anyway…i’ll have more stuff around this idea. I need to further develop how nihilism is at the heart of the rot….

Stay curious.

Article that I referenced in the episode:

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