It’s true though. They’re not nazis. They’re incapable of being fired by any fundamentally political or spiritual ideals, no matter how ultimately black and nihilistic, at all. Even if these people were full-throated card-carrying members of the American Nazi party marching through Times Square with a swastika flag throwing out copies of Der Sturmer from a Panzer tank they wouldn’t be nazis. The fact is that they’re just the purest distillation of 20th-21st century media culture yet: they’re so utterly saturated in media that the only choice they’ve made, the only choice available to them, was whether to lean into the goodie or the baddie vibe, and they plumped for “baddie” because it suited their contrarian aesthetic and then, without even leaving a ripple on the surface, they slipped into the role and inhabited it so thoroughly that it is, literally, indistinguishable from who they are.
These people are nothing less, and 100% nothing more, than your childish glee at getting to play the villain in an RPG.
Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed. That word is “Nazi.”
I’m saying this goes further!
Actually I feel kind of irked that this reply seems to just miss the part at the end of the paragraph that says “it is, literally, indistinguishable from who they are”
I didn’t miss it. I just don’t see any need to be elaborate about the word nazi, although I do appreciate what a crushingly insulting description of them you gave
you would never see a scene like this in a Nazi household
ok so this is driving me crazy
am I weird for thinking the circle of candles in the fireplace (in a house that’s allegedly unbearably cold) is weird?
It’s weird, but it’s normal weird. It’s the kind of thing you see in design magazines and pinterest and the spruce. I don’t know if actual rich people do it but it’s definitely fairly normal middlebrow home decor.
(A lot of fireplaces in older US buildings are vestigial, often blocked up, and are inefficient at heating.)
The prose on that The Spruce link makes me hate the concepts of design, aesthetics, and houses.
my husband and I are just trying to repopulate the world
Gee, I wonder what about the time period from 2015 to 2020 would have prompted the transformation from “occasional youtuber who goofily wears fascinators and cute nerdy graphic tees” to “hugo boss chic”. Must have just been her own changing tastes, couldn’t possibly be related to anything else.
The video title “A Pragmatist’s Take on Small Talk” would be much better if it were William James giving advice on navigating the social niceties. Step 1: this hat.
That guy sits like he’s allergic to the back of chairs.
You can’t see it but he has a biscuit balanced on his nose.
