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I agree with you, Roy, that ceding the "frame" e.g. the language that we use to describe reality, isn't a trifle but a huge skid down the slippery slope (which we're halfway down already).

One of the things I've taken note of is Trump and the Right's almost plaintive assertions, like "there is no trans anymore" and "there is no Woke anymore." Like they can sign a few EO's and magick people and ideas out of existence. It's why Kendrick Lamar's halftime performance at the Superbowl annoyed them so much: they knew he was sending messages and signaling in way their antenna couldn't pick up, they just knew it was WOKE (too many Black people) and therefore bad.

As has been noted multiple times, what these people really want is cultural relevancy, and they are trying to acquire it through political means. Deep down they know they will never be cool, so they will always remain aggrieved and dissatisfied, and there will always be a new target they'll take aim at. We need to fight them every step of the way.

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Revenge of the Nerds, writ large.

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As a nerd of long standing I am not sure this is correct. Few of the Repubs think of themselves as nerds. They are far more likely to identify with the crappy frat boys in that movie than with the nerds

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True.

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The fact we the real reality people can quibble over our own use of words and such deserves honorable mention. It's a pun, said the king. Roy may have the name but he'll have to fight me for the title of Mensch King. As stands I often feel like the tallest midget in these matters.

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I have been torn about Lamar. When he first got big I took a listen and was impressed, then I ignored him (like hip hop generally), but under the assumption that he was doing the genre proud.

News of the protracted feud with Drake has driven me further away. Now, that sort of thing is part of hip hop, whether I like it or not. But I don't like vendettas, even in art, and so I made a point of not listening. The feud *must* be ugly and petty, and my mind is polluted enough.

I haven't seen the Superbowl performance. I'm told by credible voices that it's good, important, and bigger than the feud. What is this indifferent white man to do?

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Yeah, I think it's true that Kendrick Lamar's work isn't, and probably shouldn't be, for everyone. I'm certainly not his target audience either. But the giveaway for me was the hostility his performance generated on the Right, how they uniformly described him as untalented and bad. It's perfectly fine to say an artist and his work isn't for you, but Lamar has 20 plus Grammys and a Pulitzer prize. No rational person can say he's bad at what he does, or rather you can only say that if you discount the musical form he works in as worthless, which was what was happening here.

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"Lamar has 20 plus Grammys and a Pulitzer prize"

I DEMAND TO SEE THE VOTING MACHINES

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Literal laugh out loud.

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So, among other things, I've been a working musician since the 70's, and was a subscriber to Keyboard magazine (RIP) since its beginnings as Contemporary Keyboard. They covered every genre that used a keyboard, and were big promoters of synths and samplers. When they started covering rap artists and producers who used kseyboards, they were deluged with angry letters from middle-aged musicians denouncing that noise, cRAP, they called it, with the same language their parents used against the Beatles, word for word. It wasn't about the music.

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The Lamar/Drake "beef" as the kids call it, is a major component of OG rap. As far as this indifferent old white man can tell, this beef is a big deal in fandom, a return of a classic form long ignored in rap and hip-hop. The content of the beef seems irrelevant compared to the quality of the put-downs, and according to fans Lamar scored a KO.

My favorite story to tell when this comes up is a 90's B movie called Hollywood Homicide, starrting Harrison Ford as a Hollywood detective investigating the murder of a famous rapper. The detective is a huge Motown fan, and is thrilled to meet the rapper's aunt, played by Gladys Knight, a Motown star back in the day. At the end of the movie, Ford confesses to Gladys with all the anguish only Ford can muster, "this music, I just don't get it.". Gladys says "honey, you're not supposed to get it".

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But isn't rap most selling to suburban white HS guys these days?

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That may well be one of the reasons right wingers hate it so much.

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"Trying to get cultural relevancy by political means" is exactly right, and those 8 words alone tell you why it's doomed. Practically all of their cultural productions (and I can't think of an exception) start *out* political, like a mirror image of Soviet realism. To them, the function of art is to be propaganda.

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Let's not draw the line at culture, the entire project is that the whole world should be completely different than it is, and the only reason it's not EXACTLY the way they want it is that they're being conspired against. Because it can't possibly be that the things they want are totally impractical and hugely unpopular (and yes, right-wingers aren't the only ones who fall into this delusion.)

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'turn those machines back on!!!'

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This is why their comedy always fails; they're approaching it from a political position and trying to bolt the comedy on. They're not trying to be funny FIRST.

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Also (as I've said here before), they're hostile to self-knowledge and think it's a snowflake's self-indulgence. So while good comedians are concerned with the truth (either about society, or about themselves), right-wing comedians just trot out stereotypes concerning liberals, and then make fun of them. They get laughs from audiences who are happy to have their shallow pre-conceptions affirmed.

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'please laugh.'

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or LAST. they're not trying to be funny at all, except in a mean way, which is never funny.

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Um, cultural dominance, not relevance. Like in the Good Old Days, when people knew their place.

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Andy Griffith at the end of Face in the Crowd: "Ya gotta LOVE me, Clarence!"

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Can't change the culture by being influential, so they'll change it by raw power. Tucker Carlson's rants about "daddy making you behave".

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I looked at the video of the performance a couple of times even a version with subtitles and don't much get the diss business, but hell, I thought the music and performance was dynamite and you could tell it was 8 miles beyond WOKE and back 7 days a week. I think the haters, along with other hates, just hate music and culture they don't understand, like really, really, hate It, and look, they've got millions of idiots who all feel just like them, including Calilgula, who also announced that he despises a lily white performer who was civic minded enough to have donated quite a few millions to many disaster relief funds last year, so their petty, baby, feelings, must be right, and their hatred must be good..

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I don't understand Chinese, I just never made the effort. The things we don't understand, it's not their fault. Some people will never understand this.

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