It Could Happen Here - DeSantis' Fashwave Adventure, Part 2

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It is very funny. 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 so irresponsible like no you fuck with them right back you know like it boo the shit put some glowing eyes on joe b Biden and make it looks like he plans to shoot somebody. You know, it's funny. So let's talk about the rise of dark Brandon. And also the other thing that they're kind of deturning and reposting with here is like taking the what is it? Taking the fucking Brandon memes and shit.

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 Brandon. 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. I actually already have that clip inserted of above this conversation, James. So good job. Good job. We're on the same page.

Yeah. Which is disturbing, given the content. So Dark Brandon combines Good job. We're on the same page. Um, yeah. So which is disturbing given the content. So dark Brandon combines two different pro Trump memes while trying to subvert them both pretty successfully. I would say, um, I'm, I'm, I'm going to assuming everyone listening to this is, is familiar with the fuck Joe Biden, let's go Brandon kind of evolution. So I'm just going to skip right past that because the other half of dark Brandon, I think is a little bit more interesting. So dark Brandon began with chronically online leftists 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 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 aesthetic stylings of fascism the result is pretty funny because it's joe biden yeah yeah so again i think i i've read a lot of stuff on this and there's like a two two two like academic reports on on dark brandon uh 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 mistake. Yeah, because you wouldn't want to be stuck in a car with any of them, right? 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 a Trump voters for execution or sitting on a throne of air 15s with yellow laser eyes. I'm going to, I'm going to play one.

I'm going to play one video for us to watch here. Okay. I haven't seen this. All those of you who voted for president Trump, there's no way out. You won't be safe in Joe Biden's America. he's putting on a skull mask but it's also like no more bourgeois malarkey tie me to a missile and fire me into the suburbs i'm ready it is genuinely quite amusing it's funny. It's pretty funny stuff.

I do like the way that Dark Brandon edits work. There's this one smile that Biden does that looks very evil and mischievous. If you edit it in after he says something ridiculous, it's pretty funny. Here we have a meme about

Joe Biden publicly executing Patriot Front members after they got arrested in Idaho. And probably my favorite dark Brandon meme is a picture of Biden with sunglasses and a list of names. Azeuabe, neutralized. Gas prices, neutralized. COVID-19, neutralized. Antifa, fully armed. Roe v. Wade 2, coming soon. Global homo, coming soon. Communism, coming soon. Which is pretty funny. It's good.

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 like an innately humorous premise from the very beginning. 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 me be like it's it's so ironic and absurd that like there's no way to be like look how dangerous the dark bryden meme is like come on come on, guys. So Dark Brandon grew in popularity as Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, also known as the IRA, passed last summer. Some good memes out of that, too. And it also kind of spread after news broke that an American drone strike killed the then leader of Al Qaeda on July 31st, 2022.

So around this time period is when dark Brandon broke containment. So dark Brandon kind of started in March of 2022. And by, by early August, it has now left the, the 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 shit posters. Liberals started to catch on and make Dark Brandon memes of their own, albeit much more cringy boomer versions. 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 two liberal memes here with someone reacting to the news that

there was no civilian casualties in the drone strike that killed the al-Qaeda leader, having Biden shooting laser eyes down from orbit, and then also him eating ice cream in front of an explosion, which is 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. Yes. Yes. No, it's very important for later. Yes. Yeah. Yes. No, it's good that this happened. Yes. The internet has taken notice and now there's a new meme out there known as dark Brandon,

which shows a bad-ass Biden with super villain laser beam eyeballs. The liberalization of dark Brandon was met with sadness from the original memesters that pioneered the overtly ironic dictatorial Brandon who commanded battalions of Antifa. The ongoing liberal co-option of Dark Brandon was thought to signal the death of the meme, although a completely unintended positive side effect of this recuperation seems to be taking hold we'll have more on that later I have four other pretty bad dark Brandon memes here the one with cornrows just fully sent me

it's not good there's two of these are like photoshopped movie posters with Biden's face extremely poorly photoshopped movie posters with Biden's face extremely poorly photoshopped onto Neo's head. Dog shit photoshops. Again, this is not photoshopped, Robert. This is MS

Paint at its finest. And then a poster for the dark Brandon rises with the tagline, the malarkey will end. 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 the kind of neutered inflation reduction act on august 7th 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 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 cringy photo of Biden with red laser eyes and a white text that reads, Your malarkey has been going on for long enough, kiddo. Oh my God. Oh my God. god no you know what garrison

we were just celebrating this but i think i am now a fascist it's it's done it 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 position what um anyway so god god damn it 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 um and there being really nothing else for liberals to meme about because this 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 yeah have having this kind of overly outrageous kind of joking meme was like the first bit of like adjunct prop that liberals have have like done since Trump went out of office. And it's also like the first effective edge of prop they've ever done, period. Now, dark Brandon showed one other surprising trait very soon, the ability to influence actual Joe Biden. On September 1st, Biden gave a primetime bombastic speech addressed to the nation and spoke about the threats to American democracy from extremist mega forces. Joe Biden stood outside of Independence Hall in Philadelphia,

lit with high contrast red lights and uniformed Marines on either side. Far-right politicians and influencers reacted with shock and 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 of those on the right and left definitely noticed the frank, like, Brandon-ness of the entire thing, especially with this being less than a month after the White House's own Brandon posting. 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 on dismantling democracy played very well. The whole thing felt very Dark Brandon-esque. And the takeaway many people had is that they had somehow memed Dark Brandon into existence. Do you know who else you don't want to fuck with? It's the products and services that support this vital academic level research into dark Brandon, truly, truly unparalleled work on the part of myself. You're welcome. Here's,

here's fucking ads. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse

to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas,

and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks Thank you. Explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we are back. Let's talk even more about Dark Brandon. I cannot believe I wrote over 3,000 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 past April, Biden launched his new 2024 re-election campaign website,

which not only featured a Dark Brandon error 404 page reading, You're lost, Jack. Let's get you back on the rails. you're 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 Amtrak reference and it's kind of funny because it's like a 404 page so it's like it's it's dark Brandon telling you to get back to the regular website because you're now on like the the part of the website that doesn't exist because like dark Brandon doesn't exist it's not I'm I'm overth'm, I'm doing way too high concept. It's like Baudrillard analysis of this. This, this joke is not that good, but beyond the dark Brandon error 404 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 as follows best worn while vanquishing malarkey protect yourself from malarkey and the sun with this dark cap. Dark Brandon, dark roast. What? Dark Brandon, dark roast. Tea drinkers, welcome. And finally, the worst one.

Malarkey is totes over after we reelect President Biden. This is like the internet equivalent. 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 rabies

You gotta shoot it Like there's no other Ethical way to deal with it To deal with it But it's Yeah it hurts It's like when someone's dad Turns up to the skate park

Yeah This is what's happening here Yeah you've gotta to shoot them otherwise they'll give everyone rabies right that's what you meant james yeah yeah it's time for their life to end yeah 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 like in a way that's like not actually promoting fascism, which effectively this whole thing effectively neutralized Trump's ability to cash in on dark mega and the fashion wave aesthetic, which is just a pretty shocking and like amazing trajectory for Fashwave.

Yeah. 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 Jr. Roy, the podium is yours. I'm going to be fine with your jokes, but I'm not sure about Dark Brandon.

The coolest thing he's ever done. The Libs were so happy to have a meme. To like have a meme of their own. The first time they had a meme. They got one. They got one and they were just, it's one of those things again, like a little kid having to shoot his dog i just i couldn't you can't take it away from them they were just so happy i have i do have three that i 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 horror, like horrifyingly edited smile with laser eyes. Malarkey detected. He looks like the monster in a fucking light. I don't, 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. And my favorite is, this is a satirical rift on the, this post has been fact-checked by real American patriots Trump meme. Instead of having an image of dark Brandon with laser eyes, it's saying this post was fact-checked by real dark Brandon acolytes. So this is like fun and good, right? Like this is, this is fine,

but there's actually a surprisingly like positive result from this whole Dark Brandon saga. Cause even as far back as August of 2022, 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 Fashwave style via Dark Brandon seemed to seriously damage Fashwave's legibility in right-wing circles. The normie use of Dark Brandon had already appeared to have ceased all of the Dark Mega posting

because there was this influx of minions Facebook-tieron memes which offered very strong levels of vicarious cringe that provided a social disincentive for anyone wanting to post laser eye dark mega memes due to their fear of being associated even just aesthetically associated with the liberal boomer biden memes which now which now like represented this cringe and dead style. The widespread nature of Brandon laser eyes also seemed to seriously dampen the Patrick 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 plaything loses all appeal once the normies like start using it. Like it's a signifier that you're part of the club. And if fucking the DNC is posting these memes, you're not part of the club anymore, right? Like there's no, or it's not a club you want to be in, I guess. So I still maintain that one of the best things Biden has done since taking office is utterly destroying FashRave by complete accident.

I postulated this back in 2022, 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 meme ecosystem has really taken effect. I'm going to quote Ali Breland in Mother Jones, quote, the fashion wave aesthetic 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 edgelords to make fast-wave 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 do you know what else is a bit cringe robert what's that breaks garrison the the fact that we have to have advertising on my on my fash wave biden dark, dark Brandon episode. Garrison, the only, the only purpose of, of studying or learning anything is to provide space for advertisements. That's why we do it all.

That's why all human work exists. Yeah. Actually, do you know, if you subscribe to the new Apple premium, you can have no more Porsche one malarkey because there won't be any ads. So there you go that's right welcome i'm danny thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter nocturnal tales from the shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls

from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples

of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of black literature. Blacklit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories.

Blacklit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers All right, we are back and we are finally, finally going to talk about Ron DeSantis. And his kind of fash wave misfire so this happened about a year after dark brandon had taken control um so there was at least a year like a good a good year's worth of buffer where fash wave was unacceptable and just not really even attempted because of how cringe it is at this point. But that did not stop the DeSantis 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' campaign shared a video on their DeSantis War Room account attacking Trump for previously held positions seemingly in support of LGBTQ people and statements 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. the bathroom of her choice in Trump Tower. This video opens with footage of Trump at the 2016 RNC saying that he would, quote, do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens, unquote. Now, this is pretty gross that the video opens this way because very importantly, this was just a month after the Pulse nightclub attack

in DeSantis' home state of Florida, which killed 49 people. That's why Trump was saying this, is because there was just a massive massacre in the state of Florida. And the fact that DeSantis is opening up this Trump homophobic attack ad by including this little bit is pretty gross. So this video then kind of transitions 15 seconds in, accompanied by a dark synthetic beat to a black and white image of DeSantis 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 are headlines and short clips about DeSantis' extreme anti-LGBTQ policies that he enacted in Florida. I cannot think of anything more horrifying. It really has shut down drag.

think of anything more horrifying it really has shut down drag just produced some of the harshest most draconian laws that literally threaten trans existence congratulations ron sanders mission accomplished you win all right so first off garrison it had been so long since i looked at a bit shoot video. So like weeks. So first off, fuck you for that. I had to watch a lot of bit shoot videos for this episode. I, yeah,

I, I, I know. Yeah. So that's, I mean, absolutely impenetrable for like anyone who is not out of their mind. Yeah. Like it is.

Yeah. Sorry, James. It feels like his 14 year old nephew who goes by like groper chad 1488 on on 4chan 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 2016 um and then it switches to like footage of like news articles about desantis you, you know, doing horrible things to queer people in Florida and like clips of leftists reacting to how bad it is and like clips of Ron DeSantis like walking around or, you know, art of him photoshopped with like sunglasses or sunglasses, super muscular american psycho stuff yeah clips of american psycho clips

from like like i think it was actually from the movie troy um yes it is yeah just to like make him look yeah it's yeah so like it's just sad it's just sad for example so what one little snippet of is is one of these little one of these little like headlines is is intercut between a Chad meme and a clip from American Psycho. And it shows DeSantis in wearing sunglasses, walking around with the headline DeSantis assigns the most extreme slate of anti-trans laws in modern history with this like pulsating music. So, yeah, the whole the whole second half of the video is just like that um the video seems to receive an almost universally negative reaction it's so bad it's like famously dog shit like just instant failure upsetting both trump supporters and gay Republicans and confusing those who are actually sympathetic to DeSantis.

Because due to the bizarre imagery in the video, I'm going to read some of the comments under the DeSantis War Room post. Nick Adams, alpha male, replied, Why is the DeSantis campaign Sharing a video Comparing him to Patrick Bateman Isn't Bateman a serial killer I think I'm sure that the whole

Nick Adams thing is an extended bit It is literally Impossible to tell Masculinity is an extended bit Matthew Weaver says It is disgusting impossible to tell, James. Well, yeah, masculinity is an extended thing. Matthew Weaver says, it is disgusting that this ad is linked, apparently, to the DeSantis campaign. It makes me question my support for DeSantis.

You love to see it? A George Santos staffer said, quote, this ad makes the meatball look gay. Wow. Now, I don't want to go too far here. I think that was pretty funny. But if you ever type out the sentence, this ad makes the meatball look gay, 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 lisa loves liberty replied um what an american first commentator with over 150,000 followers asked, what's the message that the DeSantis team wants people to take away from this ad that associates Ron with flawed criminal individuals? Is it that Ron is a bootlegging psycho killer who commits financial crimes and has an Achilles heel? Because that's what it's saying. God, that's so funny. funny and finally far-right activist

former congressional staffer and aspiring conspiracy theory documentary film producer daniel bostick said quote this is the gayest ad in the history of political advertising so i don't know about that that was roughly the responses to to to DeSantis posting this ad um all of this is is extremely fun um I'm having a good time I like this uh the the the only the only figure that I that I found who was in support of this ad like like the like the only like slightly, even slightly notable person who seems to enjoy this ad

or thought it was a good choice was Ian Miles Chung. Everyone else on the right thought this was a horrible decision. Again, 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 liked the Joe Brandon memes, the dark Brandon memes, Ian Miles Chong is a Malaysian senior citizen

who has become a far right youth influencer through a series of decisions that you don't need this to be explained, but he's one of the people that Elon Musk cares about the most in this world. You can Google a picture of Ian Miles Chong and understand everything you need to from that picture, I think. So Fox News called the DeSantis campaign's use of the ad mystifying and an unforced error. Now, I'm also going to play... God play that's so good i'm also i'm also gonna play a short clip from miami

florida's local cbs affiliate and by the way the video that you're just about to see has over 24 million views i will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens. The video then suddenly veers in a different direction, accompanied by dark images, loud music, mixed images of governor with shirtless muscular men, including actor Brad Pitt. A prominent group that represents LGBTQ conservatives also went on Twitter criticizing the video,

saying Florida governor can't tell the difference between common sense gays and the radical left gays. Label the scientists' positions as dangerous and politically stupid. 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 could never explain this this cafe net no if you if you were to hand this over to a team at msnbc they would die that's the next clip I have. The next clip I have is them handing this over to MSNBC.

This is one of my favorite days at work we've had. 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 is the clip of of MSNBC reacting to this ad. It's going to be pretty good. Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis is defending a controversial and frankly bizarre campaign video that attacks former President Donald Trump's views on LGBTQ rights.

Donnie, Deutsch, Adman, Extraordinaire. What am I looking at there? Adman, Extraordinaire is stumped, okay? What are we doing here? And the answer is, well, first of all, DeSantis is flailing and he's trying to continually move to the right of Trump. But this LGBTQ thing is just, do you think this is moving voters? Are you? And to pay Trump as a patron of this group is, you know, as an ad guy, there's one thing I learned over the years is people aren't stupid. OK, you just and I don't know the voter that's going to see that go, you know, a Trump. I'm going to say this. You're my guy. And it just DeSantis is such a dark, dark, 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 lounge act. He's this. This guy is just dark. The prince of darkness. And that is one of the darkest, bizarre twisted deviant ads i've ever seen 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 i think you know identifying uh 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 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. In response to those remarks, Trump campaign spokesperson said, quote, a desperate, desanctest campaign with a flailing candidate is in its last throes of relevancy. First off, such bad analysis of that video. Yeah, I mean, they're completely out

of their depth here. The point is not that he is so dark and evil. The point is that this is incompetent and impenetrable. You can just say that. It's okay. It's my job to understand this shit, and I don't. So,

beyond Descendants Yeah, it's my job to understand this shit and I don't. Yeah. So beyond DeSantis being the prince of darkness, as we've already established. Yeah, why try to make him sound cool? What are you doing? This is the thing they don't understand, right? This is why Dark Brandon happened by complete accident. It was so effective because there was no way for liberals to concoct this themselves. They were only copying the aesthetic stylings of ironic leftists.

So yeah, everyone is just baffled by this ad. There's absolutely no way of understanding what's going on here. There's absolutely no larger trends that may be at play. But obviously we've kind of offered some insight into what's been going on here. And in the end, DeSantis's attempt at Fashwave has been rejected by conservative America, either through its just sheer like esoteric strangeness and also the kind of the the whittling away at at at Fashwave's power that the Dark Brand meme has been doing for so long. There's just nothing, first of all, appealing about this, which makes all that

remains just incredibly off-putting. So, what we have here from DeSantis in the actual video, besides the obvious homophobia, is a sort of meme soup combining some elements of FashWave and some dark mega imagery with other imagery from right-wing meme tropes that have also gotten popular the past few years. popular in like the schizo wave sub genre which is still heavily tied to fash wave uh kind of like it

glorifies the aesthetics of mental illness to push you towards doing like extremist violence um yeah and then i should say the the aesthetics of like how a specific subculture just depicts mental illness yes yes yeah um and there's there's a

bunch of other like pop culture sigma figures in this video there's images whole bunch of other pop culture Sigma figures in this video. There's images of the real life Chad, mistaken in news coverage as a generic bodybuilder. But this is actually a very specific online meme. It's not niche. And there's also a very specific DeSantis Chad Wojak in this video. There's also a very specific DeSantis Chad Wojak in this video. So, and in the end, this attempt at kind of reviving a soft Fashwave style or kind of dark mega style for an attack ad by the DeSantis campaign

was basically wholesale rejected by conservative Americans. And with no other politicians co-signing this, the only other notable figure who applauded this was Ian Miles Chung. No one else of note thought this was a good idea.

Most dissenters and supporters were off-putted. The only people who really liked this were chronically online fascist Zoomers who are either not old enough to vote or either not old enough to vote

or just barely old enough to vote. Yeah, they are teenage Nick Fuentes fans. Yeah, because they're the only ones who will understand what's going on so it becomes a cohesive message. Because if the average viewer isn't turned off by the intense homophobia or the anti-Trump angle, the alienating editing style and online references and other and other kind of bizarre attributes

like the the the music the flashing images it either left most ordinary viewers confused or just like turned off um and uh so in the end like i think there is a recurring trend here and that Dark Mega didn't help the Republicans win the midterms. That was a pretty big defeat for them. All of the work they were doing beforehand to start getting people riled up, making attention-grabbing authoritarian memes, all of the critical race 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. The only person who is winning at this is Dark Brandon.

Dark Brandon strikes again. He is the one that actually has made sure that DeSantis cannot use this playbook dark brandon is is is sitting on a gargoyle over top of whatever city in florida desantis lives dark brandon is is our watchful protector he is he is he is our silent guardian um i'm just gonna as g Garrison was just talking about this image of Dark Brandon sitting on a throne above, I'm going to say Miami,

they lifted up their shirt to show their new Dark Brandon chest tattoo. And wow, that must have been, what was that? 12 hours in the chair, Garrison? It's big, it's big. It was, well, the first day was 13 hours. The second day was 12 hours. How did they get the LEDs in there?

13, 12 at the end, yeah. That's good. That's good. Very Bates. Will you run out of battery or are the eyes always going to glow? No, actually, those are fluorescents. So I have to stand in the sun for like 10 minutes to charge them up, and it lasts about like five hours.

Magic. Magic. Love that for you. I have a conspiracy theory here. I believe that Ron DeSantis' 14-year-old nephew, Groyper Chad, 1488, was extremely online, so online that his parents took away his phone. And he just lost all contact with the internet circa early 2022.

And then Ron DeSantis asked him to make an advert, and this is what happened. 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 messaged them on my Julius Evola sock puppet on Telegram and they still ignored my message. So the video was not created by the DeSantis team themselves.

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 Ele proud elephant is 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 or if he found it from somewhere but this is why i said i clarified that the DeSantis team shared this video on their official campaign account. 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.

It's just like huge, huge blowback. They didn't need to like embed this video made by like whatever weirdoo loner who has Final Cut Pro on his computer. There's really no reason. They 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 DeSantis Telegram channels as I could. I scrolled through months of posting. I scrolled through all three posting. I scrolled through all

three of the official DeSantis campaign Twitter accounts. Nothing else in their propaganda quite compares to this video. It is such a weird outlier that makes me really wonder who was operating the

DeSantis War Room Twitter account that hit publish on this tweet with this video embedded? And what their relation is to the rest of the DeSantis media strategy? Because it's just – it is utterly, utterly baffling. I mean I think some of it can come back to in 2016, kind of about a month or so, I think before the election, the Trump campaign came out with this really weird, very 4chan inspired sort of like ad video for the campaign that like a lot of Democrats, you know, made fun of, but it was a pretty effective ad. And I, you know, I wrote about this some at the time and I talked with a 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 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 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. sort of signposting to that online alt-right, 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 groundswell of people who are into these weird, like the only groundswell of a lot of normies getting into Fashwave has been dark Brandon like Joe Biden like like normie normie Republicans did

not adopt like this kind of shit in a in 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 GOP heads were going to see their candidate

compared to a serial killer from a famously off-putting movie and be like, this is a good call for us. This is my guy. Yeah. Not everyone is a 17-year-old

suicidal alt-right teenager. That's actually not their prime base if you want to win an election. Like not everyone is like a 17-year-old suicidal alt-right teenager. Yes. That's actually not their prime base if you want to win an election. There aren't many of you kids. Like they don't want teenagers voting at all. It's also really weird that DeSantis has been given multiple opportunities to pull back the ad saying it was a mistake. 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 saying it was a mistake, 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 That's his whole thing though, like never admit fault, always push forward Yeah, I guess that is like a staple of fascism, but like yeah Man Anyway, that's good Disturbing stuff

Well Garrison, this has made my week this has been what 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 yep well I'm glad I'm glad everyone was able to come away from this as as enlightened

as as God oh yeah I uh I have I have entered a state of gnosis was able to come away from this as enlightened as... God. Oh, yeah. I have entered a state of gnosis. Thank you. Thank you for this. I've achieved enlightenment.

All right. Well, long live Dark Brandon. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.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 coolzonemedia.com. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow Broth. Thanks for listening. by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America.

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