There are few things so terrible that a white man can do that the media won't still find a way to romanticize him. Even Ted Bundy and David Koresh got the Hollywood treatment that portrays them as glamorous and sexy. In an environment where even murderous sexual predators get romanticized, I suppose it's no surprise that the standard-issue American dirtbag is getting a media glow-up, reframed as daring rebels because they stand up for the millennia-long tradition of letting men skate by with the bare minimum of effort. And yet, it's still annoying.
"Populist flamethrowers rock media," blares a headline at Axios. The text describes "Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy," as well as Substack writer Bari Weiss and comedian Dave Chappelle as people who "brand themselves 'free thinkers' untethered to political dogma." The piece goes on to quote Saagar Enjeti, a supposedly "anti-establishment" YouTuber: "They explicitly say: 'Screw you.' ... I would say that is the heart of a lot of their appeal." Weiss, in a particularly goofy bit of self-congratulation, describes herself as committed "Wrongthink," even though her newsletter is largely dedicated to conservative nostalgia for the days when one's dumbest prejudices could be expressed without discomfort.
