As often happens, some recent discussions on Twitter provided teachable moments for my lesson in checking the backgrounds of anyone being sold to you online.
It all started when @JoKaiGonZo roasted a cringe video by dress enthusiast Steven Crowder.
The folks in the replies noticed a pattern.
And you can hold me to that.
Elsewhere, another account lamented Newpub authors’ perceived inability to attract the same kind of juice as indie comic book artists, film makers, and musicians.
As I pointed out, it’s a blessing in disguise.
The best current example of what I mean is indie comics sensation Eric July, known on YouTube as YoungRippa59. He launched a crowdfunding campaign for a line of comics billed as a repudiation of the Big 2’s woke fare. As of this writing, he’s raised almost $4 million. That’s a triumph for a self-promoted indie.
But as it turns out, YoungRippa didn’t achieve that level of success on his own, and his efforts aren’t, in strict terms, independent.
July is a contributor to BlazeTV …
… and has been since at least 2018.
The Rippaverse’s smash success looks a lot less anomalous when you consider the $25 million organization with a viewership of 12 million behind it.
Now, this post is not a personal attack on July. He is a skilled craftsman, and the right attitude is to congratulate him on his success.
The purpose of this post is twofold.
First, it’s to dispel the illusion of spontaneous, organic fame and fortune online. If you notice one day that a certain name keeps popping up on your Facebook timeline, your Twitter feed, and your YouTube suggestions, it isn’t from a groundswell of grassroots popularity.
The content you see online is curated and pushed by algorithms for hire to the highest bidder.
Which brings us to this post’s second purpose, which is reminding you to always do at least a cursory background check on anyone being sold to you.
Chances are, you’ll be surprised how pulling one thread reveals its entanglement with many others.
As a quick and pertinent refresher, TheBlaze’s CEO is the former top dog at HuffPo. She’s a Harvard grad, just like frequent BlazeTV guest and Daily Wire faceman Ben Shapiro, who is the biggest brand on Facebook, thanks to the fortune his team spends on ads.
And a secret deal he made with Mark Zuckerberg to get an exemption from FB censorship. But that’s another story.
Remember: The point of all this ad spend isn’t to introduce you to people. It’s to sell you brands.
Which brands get pushed by these media orgs? The ones that advance their key narratives.
Look at July’s bio. He came from the streets but turned his life around from an Obama-supporting Lefty to a Thomas Sowell-quoting Libertarian. That means he is a unicorn to the folks in Con Inc., who exist to countersignal Trumpian nationalism by insisting that Republicans need to keep ignoring their core voters and appeal more to minorities. Because they peddle a blank slate worldview founded on economics, grifterCons assure their audience that making the right arguments from free market principles will carry the day. Preaching the magic of leaving the plantation and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps will convince BLM and Antifa alike to forsake their Cult, take out student loans for STEM degrees, or maybe join the army.
Exposing the operative dynamic behind who the pundit class chooses to promote sheds light on why Con Inc. doesn’t signal boost dissidents. The Washington Generals won’t promote entrepreneurs trying to start a new team to challenge the Globetrotters.
It is true that newpub authors have been courted the least by the Conservative punditry. And it’s to our benefit. Because unlike other artists, we don’t need the pundits’ sponsorship. I’ve run multiple successful crowdfunders, and indie comics creators who raise 3-5 times what my campaigns bring in admit that mine are more profitable since my overhead is so low.
That’s not to flex on anyone. It’s to share the good news with fellow newpub authors that our art form gives us a decisive advantage over other creators.
You can get an A.I.-generated image dirt cheap and tweak it in Photoshop to make an attention-grabbing cover.
Then you can hire an affordable editor who’ll polish your manuscript to pro quality.
For the rest, you can hop on your crowdfunding site of choice to cover remaining costs and earn an advance that beats oldpub’s boilerplate contracts.
All without burning your pinch of incense to Moloch or Mammon.
Which means that we Newpub authors are the real independents.
Taste the fruits of true independence here.
I’ve seen this dynamic play out many times:
Griftercon: Why is there such a dearth of conservative fiction/games/TV out there? Until we have works of our own, we’ll never win the culture war.
Indie Fan: Hey, you know that there are great works by all sorts of conservative authors? Here’s a list, how about plugging one of them?
Griftercon: If they’re so great, how come I haven’t heard of them? And I’m not going to help people beg for money, it’s a conservative principle that you must succeed only on your merit and individual effort! Now, on an unrelated note, I am selling a literal blank book with the title “Reasons to Vote Democrat.” Please buy as many copies of this book as possible so that we can own the libs!
Yes, it’s an old story that’s been told so many times by now, the fact that anyone still buys it is proof of Conservative NPCs.
I got all the proof I needed of conservative NPCs when I saw how they responded to criticisms of bone-headed plays like selling an empty book (or making a crude no-effort fart video, for that matter.) The griftercon fans just alternate between explaining the joke (“you see, it’s saying that there ARE no good arguments to vote democrat. I laughed about it for hours!”) or saying that there is no way to own the libs but to support the current grift. They are incapable of talking about alternatives or discussing the moral and cultural worth of various endeavors.
“Now, on an unrelated note, I am selling a literal blank book with the title “Reasons to Vote Democrat.” Please buy as many copies of this book as possible so that we can own the libs!”
The Daily Wire has at least stepped things up by making their own movies (and hiring an actual talented producer, Dallas Sonnier, to produce them), but I have a sneaking suspicion that they’re trying to create a monopoly by setting themselves up as The Place™ to go if you’re an actor or creative who got canceled by Hollywood (like Gina Carano, Nick Searcy, Samaire Armstrong, Tyler Fischer, etc) in the hopes of keeping such people from seeking out various independent studios or starting their own.
However, I don’t think that it’s going to work long-term, since there are already independent alternatives like LOOR starting up.