They *want* to be scared. That's why they watch Fox News and live vicariously through its hosts (who get chauffeured to work everyday from the suburbs). They *want* the fantasy of blowing away anyone who looks at them cross-eyed.
They always shout endlessly about their "freedoms" yet their commitment to "democracy" is paper-thin.
Oh boo-hoo, GOPers -- I was trying to descend to my station in Center City, two am, in full drag, and turned the corner to find a houseless guy pissing in front of the station door. He was fucking midstream & no stopping him, and since he was not blocking the door, I chose my dainty steps carefully — & he said "Watch your step, miss" as I passed by.
I mean gross, but good manners -- and absolutely not the end of the world. A gurl will get by.
But then, it's not so much the nation as corrupted politicians and the unhinged part of the GOP base and the politicians who serve them to the exclusion of the majority of the nation.
It is absolutely a fantasy, played by people (men) who would, quite rightly, either run or duck for cover if they were ever in actual physical danger. And deep down they probably know this about themselves, which helps fuel their fury when one of their heroes like Penny is criticized or may be called to account for his actions. Nobody ever cancelled or prosecuted Clint Eastwood. No one ever has to resort to retaining a criminal defense attorney in Call of Duty. Whenever things are brought down to earth and reality, it harshes their buzz because they want to live in a Ready Player One world.
Of course race and class and privilege are very much a part of it, but even in its purest form the Killer Nerd mentality is a huge part of it too.
I teach a class on "Heroic Literature": epic & romance from ancient & medieval world culture. Those stories (Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, Beowulf, etc.) are all about hyper-exceptional males who are entitled to use violence to achieve self-definition. There's not a lot of consensus about what these stories are for in their time & in their respective cultures (myths of origin, how-to guides for masculinity, legends of achievement & sacrifice, flattering rich douchebags of old, whatever).
Their continued reception to this day, however, is hardly for the same reason. The fascination that men in this "Killer Nerd" class you describe (going back into the 1800's, so b4 Internet of course) feel for these stories speak to a longue durée of the "vigilante" fantasy, as far back there has been a (dusky) Other to fear & suppress.
The phrase goes "white with fear" — and that's about rght, innit?
The thing is, putting aside all the killer nerd bloodlust, New York city has 8.4 million people, which is more than the entire countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, Ireland, and a bunch more. 2.4 million people ride the New York city subway every day. That's like moving half the population of Ireland daily. Statistically, given those numbers, the odds of encountering an obnoxious person not named Chatterton Williams are somewhat high. That said, I've been riding the subway for more decades than I'd like to admit and I've never experienced anything requiring violence from passengers. Folks in East Pigtit may have heard stories about Tony Musante and Martin Sheen terrorizing the transit system, but in real life, it seems like there's more actual danger being in a planeload of people asked to wear a mask.
"The boys in the burbs were frightened by the pimps and punks they saw on TV and at the movies and on the cover of the New York Post."
Back when Manhattan crime was at its zenith, I worked nights at WPIX. My shifts swapped between 10-6 and 7-3, and that latter shift had me walking from 42nd Street all the way to Penn Station at 2:30 or 3 in the morning (because the No.7 subway stopped running at midnight). In crime-ridden New York, it's a wonder I survived, right?
The trick I developed was to walk a kind of zig-zag pattern through the blocks, walking only where the hookers plied their trade. Those streets were safe because of the combination of pimps protecting their business assets, and cops cruising for the occasional freebie.
Sounds like a Neal Young line. Maybe from Rust Never Sleeps or Trans.
No wonder the Blues really took off in Mississippi.It sucks. I spent a week in Corinth Mississippi once, installing lighting displays in a home center store. It was summer and stupid hot. The food was good though.Gave me diabetes.
Nice essay.
I don't know, man. Between the Energy drinks, the LED lights, Hi Def porn, news so fake it's becoming news itself and that sing song little girl voice used to voice- over everything, with everybody on Team Rube shadowboxing the apocalypse, wondering if the prosperity all those preachers preach pays out in Bitcoin.It's no wonder shit is out of hand.
I can't believe the aristos think it's smart policy to arm the rabble with assault rifles.
Cultural side note relating to Roy's text. A while back, I re-watched Taxi Driver for the first time in decades. When Travis finally achieves his great catharsis...his shooting is surprisingly inept. There are live rounds flying all over the place, but only a few arrive on target. This is the same cinematic era where Clint and Charlie Bronson deadeye every time, accounting for legions of Righteous Kills. I wonder if that sneaky Scorsese feller was trying to subvert the narrative.
All your references are spot to on, but I would add Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle in that American Sniper piece of shit. The power of holding death at 1000 meters in your hands, that’s what killer nerds dream of. Actually going mano a mano against someone who can fight back? Too dangerous, too messy.
"dreamt of being that cop — or maybe just a more cop-like version of themselves"
FUUUCK. Here I was, going to make a snarky comment about "But, Roy, police have rules and laws and..." and it struck me that all those Iron Eagle/Rambo II/Red Dawn are vigilante fantasies as well, just with war instead of crime. Our Brave Heroes can go into wherever and massacre the Bad Guys without some goddamn whiny government telling them how and when and where and fretting over silly quaint notions like "war crimes".
You know, a scene from Red Dawn that's always stuck with me is where one of the Wolverines asks Fearless Leader whether or not they might be just like the enemy, and whassface raises his rifle and yells "WE SURVIVE!!!" or some such. Because that's the point, isn't it? As long as WE come out on top, everything is justified.
What's playing out here is some kind of high-school-level debate about human nature, because despite what these idiots think, humans are, fundamentally, cooperative. We're social animals, like ants or bees or naked mole rats and cooperation and avoidance of conflict is the norm, open conflict is extremely rare and also makes up about 99% of the news, because news is, by definition, what's unusual. As has been noted upthread, more than 8 million New Yorkers go about their business every day, what's not newsworthy is the vast amount of constant cooperation that makes that possible. Nobody's going to make a movie about it, or design a videogame called "make an orderly line to board the bus", but it's the key to our enormous success as a species.
I suppose Reeves is trying to get in on the "meme of Sylvester Stallone's body with Trump's head" genre. Which seems ludicrous to almost everybody, but there are always a few who fall for it and send money.
They *want* to be scared. That's why they watch Fox News and live vicariously through its hosts (who get chauffeured to work everyday from the suburbs). They *want* the fantasy of blowing away anyone who looks at them cross-eyed.
They always shout endlessly about their "freedoms" yet their commitment to "democracy" is paper-thin.
Oh boo-hoo, GOPers -- I was trying to descend to my station in Center City, two am, in full drag, and turned the corner to find a houseless guy pissing in front of the station door. He was fucking midstream & no stopping him, and since he was not blocking the door, I chose my dainty steps carefully — & he said "Watch your step, miss" as I passed by.
I mean gross, but good manners -- and absolutely not the end of the world. A gurl will get by.
The indigenous genocide was based on solving a problem by killing. It's our heritage, in our culture.
Meanwhile, as supplements and to save me the effort of echoing the points made therein and stuff:
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2023/05/human-life-is-cheap-in-usa.html
and
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-know-the-motive-behind-every-mass-shooting
But then, it's not so much the nation as corrupted politicians and the unhinged part of the GOP base and the politicians who serve them to the exclusion of the majority of the nation.
It is absolutely a fantasy, played by people (men) who would, quite rightly, either run or duck for cover if they were ever in actual physical danger. And deep down they probably know this about themselves, which helps fuel their fury when one of their heroes like Penny is criticized or may be called to account for his actions. Nobody ever cancelled or prosecuted Clint Eastwood. No one ever has to resort to retaining a criminal defense attorney in Call of Duty. Whenever things are brought down to earth and reality, it harshes their buzz because they want to live in a Ready Player One world.
Of course race and class and privilege are very much a part of it, but even in its purest form the Killer Nerd mentality is a huge part of it too.
I teach a class on "Heroic Literature": epic & romance from ancient & medieval world culture. Those stories (Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, Beowulf, etc.) are all about hyper-exceptional males who are entitled to use violence to achieve self-definition. There's not a lot of consensus about what these stories are for in their time & in their respective cultures (myths of origin, how-to guides for masculinity, legends of achievement & sacrifice, flattering rich douchebags of old, whatever).
Their continued reception to this day, however, is hardly for the same reason. The fascination that men in this "Killer Nerd" class you describe (going back into the 1800's, so b4 Internet of course) feel for these stories speak to a longue durée of the "vigilante" fantasy, as far back there has been a (dusky) Other to fear & suppress.
The phrase goes "white with fear" — and that's about rght, innit?
The thing is, putting aside all the killer nerd bloodlust, New York city has 8.4 million people, which is more than the entire countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, Ireland, and a bunch more. 2.4 million people ride the New York city subway every day. That's like moving half the population of Ireland daily. Statistically, given those numbers, the odds of encountering an obnoxious person not named Chatterton Williams are somewhat high. That said, I've been riding the subway for more decades than I'd like to admit and I've never experienced anything requiring violence from passengers. Folks in East Pigtit may have heard stories about Tony Musante and Martin Sheen terrorizing the transit system, but in real life, it seems like there's more actual danger being in a planeload of people asked to wear a mask.
"The boys in the burbs were frightened by the pimps and punks they saw on TV and at the movies and on the cover of the New York Post."
Back when Manhattan crime was at its zenith, I worked nights at WPIX. My shifts swapped between 10-6 and 7-3, and that latter shift had me walking from 42nd Street all the way to Penn Station at 2:30 or 3 in the morning (because the No.7 subway stopped running at midnight). In crime-ridden New York, it's a wonder I survived, right?
The trick I developed was to walk a kind of zig-zag pattern through the blocks, walking only where the hookers plied their trade. Those streets were safe because of the combination of pimps protecting their business assets, and cops cruising for the occasional freebie.
Fun fact time! For the year 2020:
Murders
NYC--462
Texas--2064
Population:
NYC--8.7 million
Texas--29.3 million
Sure looks like the hellscape of NYC is about 50% safer than the gun-toting paradise of Texas!
"amped to sweep in and regulate"
Sounds like a Neal Young line. Maybe from Rust Never Sleeps or Trans.
No wonder the Blues really took off in Mississippi.It sucks. I spent a week in Corinth Mississippi once, installing lighting displays in a home center store. It was summer and stupid hot. The food was good though.Gave me diabetes.
Nice essay.
I don't know, man. Between the Energy drinks, the LED lights, Hi Def porn, news so fake it's becoming news itself and that sing song little girl voice used to voice- over everything, with everybody on Team Rube shadowboxing the apocalypse, wondering if the prosperity all those preachers preach pays out in Bitcoin.It's no wonder shit is out of hand.
I can't believe the aristos think it's smart policy to arm the rabble with assault rifles.
Cultural side note relating to Roy's text. A while back, I re-watched Taxi Driver for the first time in decades. When Travis finally achieves his great catharsis...his shooting is surprisingly inept. There are live rounds flying all over the place, but only a few arrive on target. This is the same cinematic era where Clint and Charlie Bronson deadeye every time, accounting for legions of Righteous Kills. I wonder if that sneaky Scorsese feller was trying to subvert the narrative.
Yeah, Tate is the wheezy fat guy who pisses himself and gets sent away with the womenfolk when the fight starts.
All your references are spot to on, but I would add Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle in that American Sniper piece of shit. The power of holding death at 1000 meters in your hands, that’s what killer nerds dream of. Actually going mano a mano against someone who can fight back? Too dangerous, too messy.
"dreamt of being that cop — or maybe just a more cop-like version of themselves"
FUUUCK. Here I was, going to make a snarky comment about "But, Roy, police have rules and laws and..." and it struck me that all those Iron Eagle/Rambo II/Red Dawn are vigilante fantasies as well, just with war instead of crime. Our Brave Heroes can go into wherever and massacre the Bad Guys without some goddamn whiny government telling them how and when and where and fretting over silly quaint notions like "war crimes".
You know, a scene from Red Dawn that's always stuck with me is where one of the Wolverines asks Fearless Leader whether or not they might be just like the enemy, and whassface raises his rifle and yells "WE SURVIVE!!!" or some such. Because that's the point, isn't it? As long as WE come out on top, everything is justified.
What's playing out here is some kind of high-school-level debate about human nature, because despite what these idiots think, humans are, fundamentally, cooperative. We're social animals, like ants or bees or naked mole rats and cooperation and avoidance of conflict is the norm, open conflict is extremely rare and also makes up about 99% of the news, because news is, by definition, what's unusual. As has been noted upthread, more than 8 million New Yorkers go about their business every day, what's not newsworthy is the vast amount of constant cooperation that makes that possible. Nobody's going to make a movie about it, or design a videogame called "make an orderly line to board the bus", but it's the key to our enormous success as a species.
"Killer Nerds" sounds like a video game. Maybe it already is.
I suppose Reeves is trying to get in on the "meme of Sylvester Stallone's body with Trump's head" genre. Which seems ludicrous to almost everybody, but there are always a few who fall for it and send money.