I’m writing this from a train to New York City. Yes, you guessed it correctly: I’m spending my weekend seeing friends, getting lunch with family, and attending the highly publicized boxing bout between Anthpo’s Cheeseball Man persona and the anonymous local supervillain Cornhead Killer.
In all seriousness (if that’s possible when talking about a topic as downright silly as this), the two-sided coin of seriousness and silliness has been on my mind a lot of late. I know that wasn’t evident through essays on the “irony epidemic” or a certain lookalike contest, though.
I’ll have more to say on this soon, as I ended up collecting a lot of great footage and interviews with patrons—one person even told me he drove four hours from Syracuse just to see the fight. For now, here’s some thoughts on the best news of the week.
— NGL
P.S. Last blog, I wrote about the increasing importance of civic life, a certain president’s marketing problem, and why ______ is the best airplane album. If you missed it, check it out here.
I think poetic justice is a dish best served cold. Every second, every minute, man I swear we needed this.
Most headlines of late have skewed quite dour. One day, it’s “How Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Could Destroy One of Civilization’s Best Achievements.” The next day, there’s “It’s Not Normal for the East Coast to be on Fire.”
But one now stands out as a beacon of hope: “THE ONION WINS BID TO BUY INFOWARS, ALEX JONES’S SITE, OUT OF BANKRUPTCY.”
The rise of Jones, arguably the most infamous conspiracy theorist in the world, says a lot about modern culture. Jones started Infowars in 1999 as a syndicated talk radio show. In the years since, he spread his many claims—including that 9/11 was an inside job, and that the government was using chemicals to turn people gay—by first broadcasting on his website, then becoming one of the earliest movers on YouTube and Facebook. The ridiculous world he built, one that was easy to meme to oblivion for only so long, always had a sinister edge to it. “If they can come for me,” Jones has often said, “then they can come for you, too!”
With that, a replicable playbook emerged. First, spout outlandish talking points. Second, claim victimhood and vigorously attack anyone who disagrees. Third, turn that back-and-forth into new content. An optional fourth: drive people to buy your supplements and apocalypse prepper gear—Jones made one hundred and sixty-five million dollars in three years doing exactly that. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
The real-world implications of these actions were always dangerous. Chief among them: Jones’ consistent claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 (which killed twenty first graders and six teachers in Newtown, Connecticut) was a hoax organized by the government...only four months after families lost their loved ones. Those families filed several lengthy lawsuits beginning in 2018, revealing that in the years since the tragic event, conspiracy theorists (influenced by Jones) had done beautiful things like accost one mother as she was participating in a local 5k charity run and urinate on the grave of a father’s seven-year-old “crisis actor” son.
Jones lost those cases in 2022, and he was ordered to liquidate his assets—including the Infowars site, facilities, and supplement business. And finally, this past week, The Onion (supported by the Newtown families) made the winning bid for Jones' company. In a page out of The Colbert Report, they’re turning Infowars into what it is: a joke. Satire aimed at right-wing personalities and educational ads about gun violence prevention from Everytown for Gun Safety will be displayed right on the site banner.
“By the end of the day, it was us or Alex Jones, who could either continue this website unabated, basically unpunished, for what he’s done to these families over the years, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing,” Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion parent company Global Tetrahedron, told The Associated Press.
Growing up, when we would visit extended family on Long Island, we’d sometimes split up the drive from West Hartford and take Exit 10 off of I-84, stopping at the Blue Colony Diner in Newtown. I’ll never forget seeing all of the photos and memorials they kept outside the diner for the kids of Sandy Hook, who weren’t all that much younger than me. While gun violence still rages in this country—and Alex Jones’ negative impact has unfortunately already been felt—I hope those kids can rest a little easier after this small but monumental win.
Poetic justice, put it in a song, alright!*
I think The Onion now really has my attention. I wrote about the satirical media brand in August, when they announced their return to print. Since then, they’ve made moves like the Infowars acquisition and put out some incredible videos as they reinvest in YouTube. Collins has even said in interviews that their early print membership subscription growth could “fill arenas.”
We love to see a Chicago media publication like The Onion winning.
I think real life doesn’t have to be a movie. A couple weeks ago, I mentioned the “atomic essay” exercise I’ve been doing with friends—two hundred and fifty words about a single topic. Here’s the one I wrote from this week…
Over the last couple of years, there’s been a movement to make more cinematic content on YouTube. Though the word “content” itself feels degrading—let’s call these videos cinematic “short films.”
Nevertheless, when our work is compacted and commoditized into something these platforms can sell ads on, the final product is “content,” isn’t it? No matter what we do, we can’t escape the packaging, whether through grabby thumbnail designs, dreamy LUTs, and sweeping nature shots (that don’t necessarily move the story forward yet certainly look really dang pretty).
But I think Colt Kirwan succeeds where others might falter due to the fact that watching his videos makes me feel like a kid again, living vicariously through his low-stakes adventure of the week. If a Colt video was a movie, it’d be The Sandlot.
I’ve never had a particular interest in welding, and yet I still watched all twenty minutes of Colt’s journey to building a go kart from his suitcase. Not only does Colt blend natural vlog-based storytelling with professional Insta360 shots and timely jolts of techno music—you can also just feel the joy emanating through the screen as he takes us through this process from start to finish.
Some creators need a fancy airplane seat and exotic location to hook us into their world. All Colt needs is a garage and some scrap metal.**
I think A Real Pain (2024) succeeds because it doesn't succumb to American expectations of what makes for a good story. On to scripted stuff, as I've read a lot of different perspectives about A Real Pain since seeing it last week. It's that kind of movie: a road trip, a buddy comedy, and a tragic character study wrapped into one. Jesse Eisenberg—who wrote, directed, and stars in the film—clearly put a lot of thought into it; he seems like the kind of guy who puts a lot of thought into a lot of things.
Incredibly light spoilers ahead. Ready? The movie doesn't end on a positive note. Or much of a note, really. Once the cousins return from their weeklong trip to Poland, life just kind of…goes on. Sure, we learn a lot about them, and it feels like they grow just a smidge closer. But much like the real world, it's easy to settle back into the same routines and patterns after time away.
One review noted that the story of America is the story of exceptionalism. We're the good guys, we tell ourselves; whenever we've experienced challenges, we've always taken them head-on and passed with flying colors. In other words, we're used to working hard and tidy conclusions.
ARP rebukes that expectation, because the reality of the Jewish diaspora following World War II is complicated (to say the least). While many families have done well for themselves in the states, that trauma lives on, as we see through Kieran Culkin’s character, Benji. There are no tidy conclusions.
To conclude, the film is getting early Oscar buzz—for good reason! I highly recommend it, and I'm excited to see everything Eisenberg directs next.
I think I'm doing a little too much. But with everything going on, I've kept publishing this for fourteen straight weeks. And while I'm still not completely sold on this format, I'm proud of that streak nonetheless.***
Thanks for reading! Shoot me a reply or DM if anything resonated with you in particular—I respond to them all.
* In retrospect, isn’t it wild that that song was the last time Drake and Kendrick worked together?
** I texted Colt some quick thoughts on this video, and he said he was proud of how the whole project came together—even though it was a 10/10 in YouTube Studio. Sometimes, the best videos are the 10/10s.
*** I welcome and appreciate any and all feedback! I'd like to make this thing as interactive as possible.