Don't Stop Dancing!

If you're in the middle of this with a bunch of your friends, you're sober and able to keep going, do you dare walk off the floor and ask them to drive you home?

Several things are combining for me into one, helping to explain some of the things we're seeing. Here they are, in no particular order.

VodkaPundit has this take on the news media and its nearly monolithic messaging.

Did you notice that something that had never been an issue before, gas stoves, suddenly popped up everywhere all at once? That’s how it works. One message is repeated, amplified, repeated again, and reamplified, across every available medium.

Whatever the Current Message is, your favorite TV show will include it in a plotline. The network that airs it bombards you with similar messaging in its promotional spots. The search engine you use — and it doesn’t matter which one — promotes pages selling the same pablum and squelches dissenting views. Social media algorithms void your shares and silence your comments. TikTok, social malware unleashed by the CCP, fuels division and discontent by serving up the most dopamine-friendly content...

Each of us has a voice. But what does it matter when all our voices are shouted down in the cross-media din? Or as PJ Media’s own Richard Fernandez tweeted today, shortly after I’d turned in this column:

In totalitarianisms, the credibility of the media is actually unimportant. Their actual function is to suppress information, reduce the bandwidth and semantically impoverish speech. In such a system, you never know the truth but you know with precision the offical party line.

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) March 1, 2023

Hold that thought and let's move on to Ben Shapiro's excellent take on why even the NASCAR and NHL execs have gone woke:

Now here's a bit from a person whose friend's son has decided he's now a woman.

After a very long hiatus, I caught up with an old friend. Of course, I asked how her children are doing. That’s how I learned for the first time that her son has announced that he’s actually a woman and is now on hormones. Here’s what I can tell you about this young man without breaching his privacy: He’s truly brilliant, has a charismatic personality, is a hugely loving and lovable person, and is homosexual, something that came as a surprise to absolutely nobody.

This young man went off to a large urban college. When COVID hit and the lockdowns started, he was still beginning to find himself. Because the college is in a blue state, he went from the social whirl that suited him, to COVID isolation. Unsurprisingly, he became depressed. The diagnosis was inevitable (and I don’t know whether it came from him or some quack therapist): He was depressed because he’s not really a gay man; he’s actually a woman.

Because this man is talented, charming, and charismatic, he has a thriving social media channel. I won’t tell you what it is, but I went there to see what he’s become. I was horrified.

First, he’s emaciated, so he’s not eating right. Second, he went from speaking like a healthy young man to presenting with a breathy, die-away voice. Third, his behavior is a grotesque parody of femininity, as he constantly flips his hair, fusses with his earrings, and flashes his polished nails. 

The sparkling boy I once knew has nothing about him that says “This is a woman.” Instead, he presents as some nightmare caricature of past Hollywood vamps, everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Betty Boop to Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. He doesn’t appear happy and fulfilled; he appears desperate and devoid of self.

Now, just a bit from my own blog post.

The reason (various VIPs in media) went bananas (over Scott Adams recommending that white people get and stay away from black-majority areas) is not because we were furious, it's because they all needed to prove their cultural bona fides to their friends. All the people they socialize with expect them to be scandalized and so they are scandalized. Meanwhile, here on planet Earth, Scott is actually well behind the curve.

I've got close friends who are dyed-in-the-wool progressives who came to Scott's conclusion a long time ago. They won't speak it out loud, but in private conversations, they all say it. It's not like they used to shop in Compton, but now there's an effort being made to avoid Compton-adjacent sorts of places.

How is it that the Elites can stay on message even while many of them know it's all nonsense and behave as if it's nonsense in their real lives?

Well, who wants to be the one who ruined that great party for all of their friends? You'd never be allowed to forget it. You might even pick up a nickname from the event. Perhaps it would be "Early Night Sean" or "Denise the Dud."

Now imagine how much worse it would be if you disagree with the People of Love™ and sided with the People of Hate™ on any topic at all. That's how we ended up with Scott Adams and JK Rowling.

The insanity now has sufficient cultural momentum that publicly disagreeing with any part of the Current Things will get you crushed if you're in the news media, entertainment or academia. Out here in the boondocks, we have more leeway, but for the ones at the popular kids' party, they'd better keep dancing.

Bonus Tidbit

Here, the execs at Hershey's, who probably haven't hung out in rental, watching football with friends in years, are letting us know just what their friends think.

.@Hersheys is putting the face of a trans-"woman" on chocolate bar wrappers with "HerShe" highlighted in honor of international women's day.
Hershey's is erasing women. pic.twitter.com/JzRkAtwTdO

— Leftism (@LeftismForU) March 1, 2023