Modern Wisdom

#1032 - Joshua Citarella - The Dark Subcultures of Online Politics

December 13, 2025

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  • The political engagement of young people (Gen Z) is qualitatively different from the past due to unprecedented access to information (the entire internet archive) combined with a lack of a post-2008 consensus on the final form of political economy. 
  • Online political subcultures, even those starting with niche, often extreme memetic activity, are now directly shaping real-world political narratives and can manifest in tangible political organization, as seen with figures like Destiny mobilizing more canvassers than a traditional party. 
  • The current media environment forces legacy media to report on internet phenomena, flipping the traditional dynamic where the internet now often sets the counter-narrative to established institutions, driven partly by the incumbent media's loss of status and monopoly on publishing. 
  • The political performance of figures like Trump and Mamdani can briefly break the fourth wall, revealing the underlying 'Kayfabe' or game of politics, often driven by momentary emotional regulation rather than fixed antagonism. 
  • Climate activism tactics like dyeing rivers green are often politically ineffective because they employ extreme, frame-breaking actions (like screaming on TV in *Don't Look Up*) that alienate the public rather than guiding them through incremental cognitive steps. 
  • The contemporary 'left' in elite academic/media circles often alienates potential working-class allies, particularly young men, through casual misandry and purity spirals, mirroring how right-wing groups narrow their focus through exclusionary meme campaigns. 

Segments

Guest’s Identity and Work
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(00:00:27)
  • Key Takeaway: Joshua Citarella identifies as an artist and internet culture writer whose work focuses on tracking memetic activity in young political subcultures.
  • Summary: Joshua Citarella describes his current work as an artist and internet culture writer, noting a recent shift in audience size following the launch of his podcast, Doom Scroll. His foundational research began in 2018 with a self-published essay, Politogram the Post-Left, analyzing the memetic activity of teenagers aged 12 to 17 in the post-left space. This early work documented narratives and memes that are now scaling to audiences in the hundreds of thousands or millions.
Predicting Trend Longevity
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(00:03:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The longevity of an online political trend is predicted by whether it addresses an underlying, persistent societal problem, such as long-term downward economic mobility.
  • Summary: Predicting which online trends will scale depends on identifying underlying problems that will not easily disappear, like the 40-year trend of downward mobility in the US. Gen Z’s political leanings are qualitatively different because they face a grim future without the upward mobility enjoyed by previous generations, making rejection of the status quo understandable. This context explains the appeal of radical politics among young people who see no clear path forward.
Current Political Realignment
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(00:05:37)
  • Key Takeaway: The dominant political trend across advanced nations is the rise of right-wing populism, which is capturing constituencies that previously aligned with labor interests.
  • Summary: The current era marks a decisive break from the neoliberal consensus that spanned from 1980 to roughly 2024, leading to a period of political renegotiation. Right-wing populism is clearly rising across the developed world, absorbing voters who historically supported labor parties, often pushing anti-immigration politics as a pushback to austerity. This shift surprises many who expected a renewed push for social democracy rather than a new international nationalism.
Deep Dive into Niche Subcultures
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(00:07:47)
  • Key Takeaway: Following political journeys from mainstream memetic activity down to niche Discord servers revealed distribution of materials including instructional manuals for improvised explosive devices.
  • Summary: Citarella tracked individuals from posting general lefty memes to gathering in small, exclusive Discord servers distributing eco-terrorist writings alongside bomb-making instructions. This deep ethnographic work cataloged the extremely wide Overton window among politically engaged teenagers, spanning from Trump/Sanders support to primitivism and transhumanism. These teenagers demonstrated foresight in recognizing technological and economic transformations that legacy media failed to see.
Novelty of Early Political Engagement
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(00:10:51)
  • Key Takeaway: The early and serious political engagement of tweens is novel, driven by three factors: universal internet access, the collapse of the post-1989 liberal democracy consensus, and the tendency of youth to exaggerate/shitpost.
  • Summary: The accessibility of the entire historical archive via the internet provides young people with information far beyond what was available in public libraries. This generation lacks the historical grounding of believing liberal democracy is the final form of government, as Fukuyama argued post-1989, leading to a search for political answers. This environment, combined with the tendency for teenagers to hyperbolically test boundaries, creates an intense, competitive media ecosystem generating myriad political ideologies.
Meme Definition and Worldview Formation
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(00:37:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Memes, in the broad Dawkins sense, are the transmittable units of narrative that humans use to piece together their ideological worldviews, often by excluding complex data points for digestibility.
  • Summary: The term ‘meme’ must be understood in the Dawkins sense as any transmittable unit of information or narrative pattern, not just square JPEGs. Political worldviews are constructed as an amalgamation of these small narrative tidbits, whether learned from professors or family. This process often involves excluding certain quantitative data points to create a coherent, digestible story, which is how abstract patterns connect with reality.
Irony Poisoning and Political Testing
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(00:40:16)
  • Key Takeaway: Irony poisoning describes the process where individuals post jokingly extreme content to provoke reactions, eventually leading them to genuinely adopt those beliefs.
  • Summary: Irony poisoning occurs when someone posts something as a joke to antagonize opponents, but over time, they work their way up to genuinely believing the content. Irony serves as a mechanism to test the boundaries of the Overton window in a constrained media environment, similar to how comedy functions as a safe space for transgression. This ability to entertain non-overlapping conversations in public versus private channels spurs political transformation.
Left-Wing Extremism and Eco-Nihilism
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(00:53:22)
  • Key Takeaway: The darkest extreme on the left often manifests as eco-extremism, leading to antinatalist politics that prioritize the planet over human beings, echoing neo-Malthusian arguments.
  • Summary: The most extreme left-wing trajectory involves concluding that reform is impossible, leading to a desire to undo organized society since the Industrial Revolution. This manifests as eco-extremism, promoting antinatalism and the supremacy of nature over humanity, similar to Malthus’s 18th-century fears of overpopulation leading to starvation. Environmental concerns on the right are now rising, particularly when climate change intersects with immigration concerns.
Anti-Establishmentarianism as Unifying Force
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(00:57:56)
  • Key Takeaway: Voters are increasingly open to counter-narratives from both the far-left and far-right, provided they are genuinely antagonistic to the established neoliberal consensus.
  • Summary: Young voters are genuinely sympathetic to explanations from either the right or left as long as they oppose the establishment center, exemplified by crossover audiences on shows like Breaking Points. This anti-establishmentarianism is a powerful force, leading to surprising electoral results where voters support candidates from opposing sides of the spectrum (e.g., Trump and Mandani). The key incentive for these voters is the promise to change the status quo that has overseen decades of downward mobility.
Political Meme Power and Legitimacy
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(01:03:52)
  • Key Takeaway: The power of political figures, like Trump being called the ‘meme president,’ to utilize internet elite speak legitimizes and galvanizes online political communities.
  • Summary: Targeted meme campaigns, such as the ‘baking kit’ zip file used for Andrew Yang, demonstrate organized efforts to flood the internet with specific political messaging. The involvement of a seat of power in such activities lends significant credibility to these previously casual online efforts. This dynamic suggests that high-level political figures can actively shape belief formation through internet aesthetics.
Vagal Authority in Political Meetings
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(01:07:21)
  • Key Takeaway: Vagal authority describes how one person’s nervous system regulation dictates the emotional state of an entire interaction, as potentially observed in the disarming meeting between Mamdani and Trump.
  • Summary: Vagal authority dictates that in any interaction, one person’s nervous system can impose its state (calmness or anger) onto others present. The unexpected calm during the Mamdani-Trump meeting suggested a temporary break from political pantomime, possibly due to one party’s superior emotional regulation influencing the room. This concept highlights the non-verbal, physiological undercurrents of political engagement.
Young People, Ideology, and Ineffectiveness
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(01:09:07)
  • Key Takeaway: Young people can be highly ideological but politically ineffective when their activism relies on shaming tactics learned in elite academic settings that fail outside those controlled environments.
  • Summary: Activist performance art stunts, like Greta Thunberg dyeing the Venice canals green, are often counterproductive because they shock rather than persuade, causing people to dig in their heels. Political movements that demand taking things away (e.g., ’no airplanes, no hamburgers’) cause people struggling economically to voluntarily exit those organizations. Effective belief change requires moving people cognitively one step at a time, not jumping from zero to ten.
Hyper-Masculinity and Political Pivots
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(01:24:57)
  • Key Takeaway: The right-wing pipeline often frames left-wing beliefs as a personal failure, leading young men to experiment with hyper-masculine self-improvement (gym, supplements) only to find their core political orientation unchanged.
  • Summary: The guest experimented with hyper-masculine self-improvement rituals, including sunning his testicles and mewing, but his political stance remained largely consistent. The narrative that physical discipline leads to political realization is compelling because it offers agency, contrasting with systemic explanations for hardship. However, the guest’s ultimate focus shifted toward arguing that social democratic policies, like a National Health Service, are economically more competitive than neoliberal models.
Health Struggles and Empathy Reframing
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(01:32:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Chronic illness, like Lyme disease, forces an appreciation for good days and significantly increases empathy by revealing the hidden struggles others face, while also highlighting the barbaric nature of medical bankruptcy.
  • Summary: Experiencing health struggles provides a ‘dirty window’ view of the world, fostering empathy for those in unfortunate circumstances, especially regarding the US system where medical issues are a leading cause of bankruptcy. This struggle can lead to two opposing views: recognizing widespread hidden suffering or becoming ruthlessly self-focused because one endures high pain while still performing at a high level. Ultimately, the experience taught the speaker to value small daily pleasures rather than holding happiness hostage to major achievements.
Identifying Unresolved Questions in Culture
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(01:46:45)
  • Key Takeaway: Expertise in cultural analysis involves being adept at identifying the ‘divots’ or intersections of different phenomena—like the horseshoe effect between Trump and Mamdani—rather than solely proselytizing a single answer.
  • Summary: The ability to draw connections between seemingly disparate conversations (e.g., political figures, signaling theory, body positivity) reveals important, often obvious, underlying questions. The purity spiral common in political groups is inherently self-defeating as it constantly reduces the coalition size. Allowing open discussion on uncomfortable topics, such as the economic challenges facing young men, is necessary to build the broad coalitions required for systemic change.