Batman Moonwalker

Speculation on VHS

Loyal readers will recall the summer of 2021, when we delved into the seedy world of video game speculation. For newcomers, what was alleged to have happened was unscrupulous grading services were colluding with auction houses to drive up prices on vintage video games. So you had carts with millions…
January 4, 202314 Comments
Anime by Decade

Anime Ground Zero

You knew it was coming sooner or later. In another blow to the meme of Based Japan, I regret to inform you that anime did not escape the blast wave of Cultural Ground Zero. H/t to author JD Cowan, whose post last week inspired this one. To give an example…
December 26, 202229 Comments
Christmas Toy

A Gen Y Christmas

A reader writes, Brian, My wife and I re-watched a handful of Christmas movies while wrapping presents for my side of the family last night. One section of our DVD library is just Christmas movies, most of which are now decades old, which I realize now is almost a physical…
December 20, 20222 Comments
A.I. Art 4

Anti-A.I. Astroturf

As I mentioned last time, the upsurge in anti-A.I. art sentiment doesn't seem entirely organic to me. People had been talking about art algorithms like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion for a while. My friend, author David V. Stewart, even did some videos on A.I. book cover design. Sure, these algos…
December 19, 20228 Comments
zombies

Sociological Zombies

If you were around in the mid-to-late-aughts, you were aware of the zombie apocalypse fad. Much like the shambling undead hordes it depicted, the trend was inescapable. As with most pop phenomena, a lot of ink has been spilled on why the zombie horror subgenre became so dominant when it…
December 13, 202215 Comments
Double Agent Poso

Double Agent Poso

"Always have one hand reaching up for the next rung of the ladder, and have one reaching down to help the next guy up." That's a maxim I've lived by since starting my newpub career. But conservative indie authors and readers are starting to notice that the e-celebs packaged as…
November 28, 202212 Comments
NotMadMaxYet

Not Mad Max Yet

If you frequent online dissident circles, you'll soon encounter the idea of the collapse. Though devised by history scholars a century ago, the idea that civilization now faces a great decline is popular with ex-Trump supporters alienated by the MAGA movement's failure. Embracing the collapse, they say, is the final…
November 17, 20223 Comments
Trump DeSantis

Political Theater

Whatever your opinion of the midterm election results, the one conclusion no sane, intelligent person can draw from this public farce is that the system works. With a brain trauma patient going to the senate, the only explanations are that the process is rigged, so the people's will doesn't matter;…
November 15, 20228 Comments
Funko Stock

Funko Bounces Back

People with taste celebrated on Friday, when Funko stock plummeted almost 60 percent. But like the antagonist in the last minutes of an 80s slasher flick, Funko has bounced back. Left for dead by a great many investors late last week, Funko (FNKO 0.59%) stock experienced quite the revival on…
November 8, 20228 Comments
Green Shoots Forest Fire

The Cleansing Fire

Back when the regime started imposing medical tyranny under the aegis of hastening the return to normal, the internet sages prophesied that "normal" would never come back. Like Vietnam or 9/11, our rulers' response to Corona-chan marked a point of no return the culture could never bounce back from. Take…
November 1, 202213 Comments