Testicle tanning. Egg slonking. Soy globalists. Cucked hospitals. We explore Tucker Carlson’s recent pseudo-documentary on Fox Nation: The End of Men. In the process we tackle sperm counts, Monsanto, PFAS, and a slew of right wing influencers led by a British man calling himself Raw Egg Nationalist.

Full episode: http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous

When you subscribe for $5 a month you'll get access to the full Manclan mini-series as it comes out (+ all episodes of Trickle Down with Travis View + an extra episode of QAA every week + access to our entire archive of premium QAA episodes)

Manclan is a new podcast series by Annie Kelly and Julian Feeld exploring the digital world of masculinity influencers, esoteric manliness rituals, and alpha men. Covering everything from pick up artists to weightlifters, from New Age health perverts to neo-fascists, it’ll also be touching on the pre-internet history of masculinity and men’s movements.

Guest is Paul Cooper: (http://twitter.com/paulmmcooper)
Cover art by Jess Johnson (http://instagram.com/flesh_dozer) 
Theme music by Nick Sena (http://nicksenamusic.com) 
Editing by Corey Clotz. Additional music by Pontus Berghe.

Manclan Episode 3: Tucker Carlson’s End of Men (Sample)

Our good friend Kate Wagner (@mcmansionhell) is back to tell us about the NEOM city-state in the Saudi Arabian desert, as well as all the soulless architects and designers working on it. 

You can read Kate's article here: https://thebaffler.com/latest/line-in-the-sand-wagner

And support us on Patreon here: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 277: NEOM Moon (w/ special guest Kate Wagner)

This week we talk about the ecological phenomenon known as "whiskey fungus," followed by a hard pivot into the world of higher ed

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 280: Valedictorian Of The Soft Curriculum

"Is artificial intelligence advancing too quickly?" 60 Minutes warns. "BuzzFeed CEO says AI may revolutionize media, fears possible 'dystopian' path," CBS News tells us. "TV and film writers are fighting to save their jobs from AI. They won't be the last," CNN reports.

Over and over, especially in recent months, we hear this line: AI is advancing so fast, growing so sophisticated, and becoming so transformative as to completely reshape the entire economy to say nothing of our shaky media landscape. In some cases, those in the press deem this a good thing; in others, a bad thing but in terms that get the problem all wrong. But virtually all media buy the basic line that something big and transformative isn’t just coming, but is in fact already here.

Obviously, we can't predict the future, but we can comment on the present. Yes, AI platforms can generate low-level marketing copy, pro forma emails, and shitty corporate art. But progress in these capacities does not, as such, portend a radical advancement into actual human intelligence and creativity.

Meanwhile, there’s little to no evidence to support the claim that AI, namely large language models like ChatGPT, actually can perform – or even intervene to save time performing – any type of high-level writing craft, journalism, fiction, screenwriting, and a host of “creative” production.

So why do we keep hearing otherwise? What purpose does this type of religious-like providential thinking serve? And who stands to benefit from the vague sense of a future of AI-written essays, articles, and scripts, no matter how terrible they may be?

In this episode, we explore media's current Inevitability Narrative, namely its credulous warning that ChatGPT is about to do the work of media and entertainment professionals, examining the ways in which this narrative, despite the evidence to the contrary, serves as a constant, implicit threat to workers and a convenient pretext for labor abuses like wage reduction, layoffs, and union-busting. We also review how this media hype works to obscure the very real, banal harms of AI, such as racism, surveillance, over policing and lack of accountability for the powerful.

Our guest is Rutgers professor Dr. Lauren M.E. Goodlad.

Episode 183: AI Hype and the Disciplining of "Creative," Academic, and Journalistic Labor

Will and Hesse discuss the transcendent sequence of Gene Hackman striking gold in Nicolas Roeg’s Eureka (1983).

Subscribe today for access to the full episode and all premium episodes!
www.patreon.com/chapotraphouse

Movie Mindset

Movie Mindset 09 Teaser - Gene Hackman in Eureka

“New Starbucks CEO plans to pull barista shifts in stores every month,” CNN announces. “Uber’s CEO moonlighted as a driver and it changed the way he operates the company,” Fortune insists. “Your DoorDash driver? He’s the company’s co-founder,” the Associated Press smirks.

Month after month or week after week, we seem to hear the same stories about bold corporate executives who’ve decided to roll up their sleeves—metaphorically or otherwise—and join their lowest-level employees as a delivery driver, barista, or retail worker. Their stated goal: to “stay connected” to and “better understand” the company, its customers, and its workers. 

While these attempts to foster and express empathy may appear noble on the surface, they’re anything but. In reality, the CEO-as-worker stunt is an entirely self-serving project, creating a pretext for worker surveillance and a distraction from labor abuses like poverty wages and union-busting, all the while seeking to convince the public that corporate executives are honest, hardworking folks, Just Like You. 

Today, we will be dissecting the past and present of Undercover Boss-style corporate maneuvers, looking at the ways in which the C-suiter-in-the-trenches routine advances the squishy concept of “empathy” in order to obscure and undermine the material needs and demands of labor. 

Our guest is Ligia Guallpa, Executive Director of the Worker's Justice Project, a community-based, workers’ rights organization in New York City.

Episode 187: Undercover Boss, Uber-Driving CEOs, and the "Empathetic Executive" Schtick

"Realities have forced us to remain on diplomatic terms with several dictators," the Pampa Daily News stated in 1958. "U.S. ambassador to the U.N Samantha Power has been forced to look the other way as Saudi Arabia does as it pleases in Yemen," Politico told us in 2016. Biden is being forced to accept the flaws of America's friends," claimed The New York Times  earlier this year, 2023.

For decades, we've heard the same excuse regarding US foreign policy: 'Our leaders might not agree with the world’s dictatorial, reactionary governments, but they’re forced –– by some unknown geopolitical dark matter of realpolitik –– to support them for some broader, more noble goal.'

Strengthening ties with the governments of Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt, Israel, The Philippines, and other countries under right-wing, human-rights-abusing governance might be a bit unpleasant, but it’s the pragmatic thing to do and, therefore, the morally acceptable thing to do.

But countries that are not the United States or its allies are never said to be "forced" into carrying out human rights abuses or supporting those that do. They back bombings, ethnic cleansings, the oppression of women for the sport, because they are existentially evil. No outside mysterious entity ever "forces" them to have to make compromises on the altar of "reality."

But there is nothing, of course, "forcing" these decisions on our own Western leaders, and in nearly every case, they're simply extensions of preexisting geopolitical relationships, imperialist policies, and arbitrary might-makes-right governance.

On this episode, we discuss the media narrative that the U.S. is "forced" to maintain long-beneficial alliances with right-wing regimes, looking at how this suggestion falsely presents the U.S. as an unwilling, but ultimately helpless, participant in repression of human rights around the world.

Our guest is author and NYU professor James Peck.

Ep 190: Why Media Insists the US is "Forced" to Commit Human Rights Abuses

Did U.S. forces fight and kill a redheaded giant in the Afghan province of Kandahar? Is it possible to connect the dots about the United States’ role in Afghanistan — and the Middle East — without resorting to stories about giants? We answer these questions with Brendan James and Noah Kulwin of the Blowback podcast.

Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to ongoing series like Manclan, Trickle Down and The Spectral Voyager: www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous

Blowback: https://blowback.show
Noah Kulwin: https://twitter.com/nkulw
Brendan James: https://twitter.com/deep_beige

Music by Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Klotz.

http://qanonanonymous.com

Episode 250: The Giant of Kandahar feat Noah Kulwin & Brendan James (Blowback Podcast)

We're joined again by political satirist Tom Walker to discuss: A chemical spill on a bullet train, a wine catastrophe at a dinner party, and one man's penis. Plus: A little bit of Headline News.
***
Find Tom at https://www.tomwalkerisgood.com/

EPISODE 317: The Opposite Of Phimosis (with Tom Walker)

Bonus Episodes

Abby & Robbie continue the discussion from last week's episode 'Digital God' about Israel's brazen assassination campaign, including assassinating pregnant Palestinian women holding white flags in broad daylight.

If you liked this episode please consider subscribing to the Media Roots Radio patreon. www.patreon.com/mediarootsradio

Media Roots Radio 2023

Israel’s Assassination Factory & Redefining Genocide

For the 57th anniversary of the JFK assassination, we're unlocking the first installment of our George H.W. Bush series.

The first part of our in-depth look into the life and career of George H.W. Bush. Covering the many generations of Bush family history in the United States, his father’s business dealings with Nazi Germany, H.W.’s military career and education at Yale, and the intricate web of intelligence, finance, and industrial interests surrounding him that all point to one day: November 22, 1963.

Chapo Trap House

471 - Poppy, Part 1 (11/12/20)

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Episode 187: Undercover Boss, Uber-Driving CEOs, and the "Empathetic Executive" Schtick

Citations Needed Podcast

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