Doomscroll with Joshua Citarella

Mike Pepi is the author of “Against Platforms”, a bold critique of the hidden costs of digital life – and a manifesto for a better future. He is also one of my best friends and someone I have been in conversation with for over a decade. In this episode, we discuss our shared history in working to develop a new institutionalist  critique of emerging technologies and platforms. The vast expansion of...

These are confusing times. Familiar divisions between left and right fail to map onto today’s political landscape. The culture war has absorbed all aspects of media. Elon Musk is setting world records in Diablo IV (completing Pit level 150 in 1 minute, 56 seconds!) and soon he promises to speed clear the United States discretionary budget with DoGE (the Department of Government Efficiency). We’re...

My guest is Daniel Keller, an artist whose work and research has inspired me for over a decade. We discuss tech monopolies and their cozy relationship to state power, the artificial intelligence race, the chips war, network states and geopolitical competition between the US and China. These are the defining conflicts of the 21st century.

My guest is Jack Wagner, a writer & director, host of the Otherworld podcast and one of my all time favorite posters. We discuss his experience of creative life on the internet and explore the many esoteric belief systems that have grown out of social media. We see a trend of increasing irrationality in a complex world. At the end we pay homage to one of the greatest memes ever made.

My guest is Caleb Cain or Faraday Speaks as he is known online. In 2019, Caleb Cain posted a video on YouTube called “My Descent into the Alt-Right Pipeline”. In the video, he described his first person experience of online radicalization. It quickly went viral. Soon after, Cain was profiled in The New York Times in a piece titled “The Making of a YouTube Radical”. In 2020, he was featured again b...

My guest is Amber A'Lee Frost, a writer, organizer, co-host of the Chapo Trap House podcast and the author of Dirtbag (2023). We discuss today's dysfunctional left, elite overproduction, online political subcultures and the emergence of “youth” as a counter-cultural and consumer demographic. Is the New Right support for labor real? What does it mean for American workers?

My guest is musician Matty Healy of The 1975. He joins me to discuss internet culture and the strange aesthetics of our time. We explore the inspirations behind his work, including the writing of cultural theorist Mark Fisher. Matty describes the "slow cancellation of the future" by comparing distinct styles of pop music across various decades. Fisher links these cultural moments to larger economi...

Yung Chomsky is the producer of the TrueAnon podcast, creator of the mobile app Phomo, and a natural athlete with 16 years of experience. We discuss his personal journey of learning to lift online while exploring exercise subcultures via forums and message boards. We sort the facts from fictions and discuss the tenuous connections between weight lifting and far right politics. This is the lifting...

My guest is comedian Peter James Fowler. He joins me to discuss his political meme account that he ran at age 11. I’ve spent the last few years interviewing young people who make radical posts online. Peter shares his journey from growing up in evangelical Christianity, to new atheism, and from Trump to Bernie.

My guest is artist and geographer Trevor Paglen. His groundbreaking work links new technological developments to larger political issues that are often secret or unseen. We discuss the emerging paradigm of "psyops capitalism", the history of the CIA's MK Ultra psychological operations and how magic shapes our perception of reality. These technologies culminate to form a new economic order of priva...

My guest is ‪JJ McCullough a YouTuber who was previously a TV political commentator and columnist at the Washington Post. We discuss generational shifts from the political left to right, explore the state of alternative media and debate the origins of right-wing populism. While we disagree on some core issues, we always grant each other the space to fully argue an idea. My analysis and understandi...

My guest is Jreg or Greg Guevara as he is known offline. Jreg is a popular YouTube creator who explores online radical politics. He joins me to discuss our shared fascination with incredibly niche ideologies that only exist online. We explore social atomization as a political project and agree that taking the friend pill is the best advice you can find.

My guest is Catherine Liu, professor of film and media studies at UC Irvine. She is the author of 'Virtue Hoarders: the Case Against the Professional Managerial Class'. We discuss the origin of trauma studies, self branding on social media and the ideology of the professional class. Liu has an unwavering commitment to historical materialism and a fierce critique of elitist academies. She explores...

My guest is Brace Belden, an organizer, an infamous shitposter and co-host of the TrueAnon podcast. I’ve spent the last few years interviewing young people who make radical posts online and later find their way into real world politics. Irony and humor play a huge role in this process. For the first episode, I wanted to talk to one of my favorite posters who has also lived his politics in the real...

https://x.com/adamcurtisbroll/status/1821370178925465602 https://x.com/acpmain/status/1815163137164754960?s=46&t=9Oro7F7thSCgYZqbvnpVjQ https://news.artnet.com/multimedia/the-new-style-of-artist-career-2522541 https://news.gab.com/2024/07/gabs-emergency-request-from-the-fbi/ https://www.wired.com/story/alt-jihad-rising-social-media/ https://youtu.be/PaVjQFMg7L0?si=xqFi-InTXEeDgMfM

Max Read joins me to discuss "the Zynternet", a newly emergent youth subculture online. We explore the For-You-Pagification of social media, the revenge of the normies and the future of online subcultures. Max is one of my favorite writers on Substack. I highly recommend checking out this piece and following his newsletter: https://maxread.substack.com https://maxread.substack.com/p/hawk-tuah-and-...

This week’s guest is a 17 year old Left Communist from the Bay Area. He was a right-wing troll at age 13. We explore niche political subcultures, generational posting styles and the value of electoral politics.

Alex Hochuli is a co-host of the Aufhebunga Bunga podcast and a co-author of "The End of the End of History: Politics in the 21st Century". He joins me to discuss universalisms, organization and the difficult way forward. Follow: https://x.com/bungacast https://x.com/Alex__1789

Links: https://x.com/swannmarcus89/status/1812376707191411179?s=46&t=jW_xfAX0j6Fjiv2ObgRGRg https://youtube.com/@demolitionranch?si=eI6BMpCPzPyyb35a https://x.com/acpmain/status/1815450980915245145?s=46&t=jW_xfAX0j6Fjiv2ObgRGRg https://x.com/acpmain/status/1815163785134436404?s=46&t=jW_xfAX0j6Fjiv2ObgRGRg https://youtu.be/92X6GIvJCPI?si=fYysFY1PyXg9brER https://www.gq.com/story/mogwart...

Otherworld presents Deep Research. This week, we’re covering “Tartaria”. Tartaria is a conspiracy theory that suggests the existence of a vast, advanced civilization that supposedly existed in ancient times but has been intentionally erased from historical records. Proponents of this theory often claim that Tartaria was a highly developed and technologically advanced empire with a global influence...

I sat down with Catherine Liu, author of Virtue Hoarders (2021), professor of Film & Media Studies at UC Irvine, for her new series at Montez Press Radio. Catherine writes, “This series, Workers of the Culture Industry Unite! (LOL) tries to address the problems of artists' work in the age of finance capitalism… At a time when the corporations and institutions that support artists are suffering...

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/

Ruby Thelot is a designer, cyber-ethnographer and artist. He is a professor of Design and Media Theory at NYU. We discuss his new book: A Cyber Archeology of Checkpoints (2024) a poignant tribute to a vanished online community. Get the book: www.irrelevantpress.com/store/pre-sal…s-ruby-thelot Follow: www.instagram.com/being_on_line/?hl=en x.com/being_on_line?lang=en

My guest is a Post-Marxist. We explore political subcultures such as Post-left Anarchy, Unconditional Accelerationism, Anarcho-Primitivism and more.

Towards a Philosophy of Photography by Vilem Flusser (1984) https://dis.art/obama-baroque https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000007785730/facebook-news-feed-zuckerberg.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liLGhXv76dg