Choose Your Future, 2021, is part of KW Digital: Open Secret, 16 July - 31 December.

joshuacitarella.com/chooseyourfuture/ 
www.kw-berlin.de/en/open-secret/

In 2021, I commissioned a group of artists and memers to write short wiki-style descriptions of fantastical future scenarios. Writers were instructed to copy/paste existing wikipedia entries and “play mad libs” with the nouns and dates. Drawing on movements from the past, these short stories recombine political history to anticipate long tail ideologies and factions that may soon emerge.

Choose Your Future takes the hyperbolic imaginings of young people, raised on the internet, and puts their words directly into the mouths of content creators. In this way, the project emulates the signal amplification that occurs through social media, as radical takes move from the anonymous fringe into the verified mainstream. Is this the multi-faceted analysis of the Rand Corporation? Or is it a teenage meme poster who thinks it would be cool if these political keywords combined? I’m interested in the point where those spheres overlap.

This project combines the creative efforts of some of the artists, memers and content creators that have most inspired me over the past few years. Texts by: Margo Bergamini, Nick Bird, @ manletpill, David Noel, Abbey Pusz, D.Z. Rowan and Joshua Citarella. Read by: Caroline Busta, Mat Dryhurst, A.M. Gittlitz, Daniel Keller, Anna Khachiyan, Holly Herndon, Lil' Internet, Jack Wagner and Joshua Citarella.
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Open Secret is a six-month long online program exploring the role of the hidden in our apparently “open” society. Information technologies are supposed to increase our access to knowledge, making the world more legible, while undermining ignorance and superstition. But sometimes the feeling prevails that we have entered a new dark age of black boxes, projections, and paranoia. Techno-culture is obsessed with the unseen, the inaccessible, the known-unknown. Open Secret pursues things that are obscured–through artistic commissions, a suite of essays by leading thinkers, and an intensive public program dedicated to critical reappraisal of the digital infrastructures that organize civic life. With new contributions released on a monthly basis, the Open Secret website will bring together art, technology, politics, and new patterns of exchange.

Curators: Nadim Samman, curator digital sphere, in collaboration with Katja Zeidler, head of education & mediation

Choose Your Future, 2021

My guest is Brace Belden, an organizer, an infamous shitposter and co-host of the TrueAnon podcast. I’ve spent the last few years interviewing young people who make radical posts online and later find their way into real world politics. Irony and humor play a huge role in this process. For the first episode, I wanted to talk to one of my favorite posters who has also lived his politics in the real world.

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Doomscroll 01: Brace Belden

My guest is Catherine Liu, professor of film and media studies at UC Irvine. She is the author of 'Virtue Hoarders: the Case Against the Professional Managerial Class'. We discuss the origin of trauma studies, self branding on social media and the ideology of the professional class. Liu has an unwavering commitment to historical materialism and a fierce critique of elitist academies. She explores the intense moralism of our times as it relates to the Freudian super-ego.

Doomscroll 02: Catherine Liu

My guest is musician Matty Healy of The 1975. He joins me to discuss internet culture and the strange aesthetics of our time. We explore the inspirations behind his work, including the writing of cultural theorist Mark Fisher. Matty describes the "slow cancellation of the future" by comparing distinct styles of pop music across various decades. Fisher links these cultural moments to larger economic shifts that are often felt but rarely seen.

Doomscroll 08: Matty Healy

My guest is Amber A'Lee Frost, a writer, organizer, co-host of the Chapo Trap House podcast and the author of Dirtbag (2023). We discuss today's dysfunctional left, elite overproduction, online political subcultures and the emergence of “youth” as a counter-cultural and consumer demographic. Is the New Right support for labor real? What does it mean for American workers?

Doomscroll 09: Amber A'Lee Frost

My guest is Quinn Slobodian, a professor of international history at Boston University. He is the author of "Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism". Neoliberalism is the most misused word in today's political discourse. In this episode we discuss the origins of the ideological movement. What is neoliberalism? When did it begin? How did it transform global politics?

Doomscroll 15: Quinn Slobodian

My guest is Adam Friedland, a stand up comedian and podcaster. He is the host of The Adam Friedland Show. We discuss the influence of alt-media, a farewell to Cumtown (RIP), the ideas & inspiration behind The Adam Friedland Show and his many social media controversies. How did comedians become recast as public intellectuals for the digital age?

You can get access to the full catalog for Doomscroll and more by becoming a paid supporter: www.patreon.com/joshuacitarella
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Doomscroll 17: Adam Friedland

My guest is Adam Friedland. We discuss the ethics of platforming and the art of the talk show interview. For a few reasons, we chose to put this part of the conversation on the private feed only.

This is a subscriber’s only episode. You can get access to the full catalog for Doomscroll and more by becoming a paid supporter. Subscribe now on Patreon or Substack:

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Doomscroll 17.5: Adam Friedland (preview)

My guest is Ezra Klein, an opinion columnist at the New York Times, the host of The Ezra Klein Show. He is a co-author, along with Derek Thompson, of a new book titled Abundance. We discuss his promethean, energy-rich vision for the future, polarization in the attention economy and the end of the neoliberal consensus. We explore our new political era and the rise of superpower competition between the US and China.

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Doomscroll 18: Ezra Klein

Online radicalization is the result of three key factors.

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Josh's Theory of Radicalization

My guest is Andrew Callaghan, a documentary filmmaker and the host of Channel 5. He is the director of This Place Rules (2022) and Dear Kelly (2025), an in-depth portrait of a man he met at a ‘White Lives Matter' rally. We discuss the breakdown of consensus reality and how deplatforming can often lead to greater political extremism. Andrew describes his early origins in the anarchist movement and his participation in a group called Seattle Solidarity. His work explores the decline of the American dream along with the rise of political radicalism online and IRL.

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Doomscroll 19: Andrew Callaghan

My guest is Vivek Chibber, a professor of sociology at New York University. He is the author of Confronting Capitalism, The Class Matrix and Postcolonial Theory & the Specter of Capital. Chibber is the editor of Catalyst Journal and the host of the Confronting Capitalism podcast. 

We discuss the cultural turn, the rise of identity politics and the crisis of academia. Chibber is deeply committed to a material analysis and is unflinching in his critique of class tourism on the political left. He describes the early theoretical foundations for socialism as it relates to liberal philosophical ideals.

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Doomscroll 20: Vivek Chibber

This is a subscriber’s only episode. Professor Chibber and I dive deep into the history of the left and explore its transformation over the course of the 20th century. After the cultural turn, the march through institutions, and our current media environment, we ask — where did things go wrong?

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Doomscroll 20.5: Vivek Chibber

My guest is Anthony Fantano, a music critic and the voice behind The Needle Drop. We discuss the role of politics in art and music, his origins in the anti-war punk scene and the strange state of American counter-culture today.

Music scenes used to serve as a gateway to anti-establishment politics. It was once common to find DIY anarchist zines at the local punk show. Now these political subcultures exist almost entirely online and have dissolved into the newsfeed.

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Doomscroll 21: Anthony Fantano

My guest is Anthony Fantano. We dive deeper into the ethics of criticism, the role of politics in “good art” and the extractive economic model of Spotify. Where did subculture go after platforms took over the internet?

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Doomscroll 21.5: Anthony Fantano

My guest is Jen Pan, formerly a host of The Jacobin Show and a staff writer at the New Republic. She is the author of “Selling Social Justice” — out now from Verso Books. We discuss the DEI industry, the New Deal, American inequality and why the rich love anti-racism. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, The Atlantic, Dissent, and Damage Magazine.

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Doomscroll 22: Jen Pan

This is a subscribers only episode. My guest is Jen Pan, the author of Selling Social Justice (2025). Jen and I breakdown these topics further and speak candidly about our frustration with elite institutions. I also share one of the more ridiculous political horseshoe stories from my social media research…

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Doomscroll 22.5: Jen Pan

My returning guest is Catherine Liu,‬ a professor of film and media studies at UC Irvine. She is the author of "Virtue Hoarders: the Case Against the Professional Managerial Class". We explore the psychological significance of “trauma” and “care” within the liberal discourse today. Liu describes a moral panic among elites where the language of personal therapy attempts to right social and historical wrongs. These topics will be part of her forthcoming book "Traumatized!", to be published by Verso Books early next year.

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Doomscroll 23: Catherine Liu

My returning guest is Catherine Liu. We discuss the crisis of elite academies, the influence of Foucault, a certain Twitter controversy, Thomas Piketty’s concept of the Merchant Right, the transformation of the artworld under neoliberalism and much more.

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Doomscroll 23.5: Catherine Liu

My guest is Hasan Piker‬, a live streamer and political commentator. We discuss the state of the online left and the massive rightward shift of young men toward Donald Trump and the Republican party.

I sat down with Hasan during his suspension from Twitch. He reads a misleading headline published in the New York Post. Later, we discuss the strategic possibilities of a two party system and explore the paths to socialism in the 21st century.

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Doomscroll 24: Hasan Piker

We recap Hasan’s upbringing in Turkey and his early origins at The Young Turks network. Later, he talks me off the ledge as I complain about how much it sucks to be on camera lol. We discuss media strategy, online debate and class consciousness. We both admit to mirin’ Yung Chomsky’s peak physique. (This is not gay.) Finally, Hasan drops some revealing streamer drama that I did not yet know — yikes.

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Doomscroll 24.5: Hasan Piker

My guest is Francis Fukuyama, a scholar and political scientist. He is the author of many books. He is most well known for his 1992 work, "The End of History & the Last Man".

Drawing on Hegel and Marx, Fukuyama explores the concept of teleology — the idea that history is a linear process where human societies progress through sequential socioeconomic forms. As Marx famously wrote, Feudalism was replaced by Capitalism and would ultimately be replaced by Socialism. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama argued that western liberal democracy was the final form of human government. His thesis has been updated and revised many times since and remains a frequent subject of debate today.

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Doomscroll 25: Francis Fukuyama

My guest is Francis Fukuyama. We discuss the research background of Doomscroll and competition between the United States vs China in the 21st century.

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Doomscroll 25.5: Francis Fukuyama

My guest is Aella, a writer, blogger and sex worker. She writes the highly popular blog Knowingless. She is a member of the online community LessWrong.

We discuss the emergence of AI, the sex industry (online and offline), robot gfs and libertarian transhumanism. Aella describes her evangelical religious upbringing and how she learned to navigate the secular world. We explore the overlap of niche online politics and fetishes, the Woke Wars, debate culture and free speech.

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Doomscroll 26: Aella

My guest is Aella. We discuss the psychological and social origins of sexual fetishes, the dark side of internet pornography, and we bring clarity to the online debates around race and IQ. Due to TOS, some of these topics can’t be included on the YouTube episode. Other topics are better kept off of public channels.

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Doomscroll 26.5: Aella

My guest is ‪Tim Heidecker, a comedian, musician and actor. He is a host of Office Hours. You can find him performing live music as 'Tim Heidecker and The Very Good Band'. 

His video work pioneered the style, affect, and genre of new media alt-comedy. We discuss how online irony became today's real world politics. We explore the shift from legacy TV to streaming platforms. How did our media ecosystem shape the politics and culture of today?

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Doomscroll 27: Tim Heidecker

My guest is Tim Heidecker. We discuss his background in music and DIY creative scenes as well as our shared admiration for artist and documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis.

Doomscroll 27.5: Tim Heidecker

My guest is Yancey Strickler, an author and former music critic. He is a co-founder of Metalabel as well as a co-founder and previously the CEO of Kickstarter.

We discuss the new shape of online culture. Dark Forest spaces are gated digital communities, often curated around a specific niche or field of expertise. They represents a retreat from open social media into private spaces, where users may have complex and context-rich conversations.

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Doomscroll 28: Yancey Strickler

My guest is Yancey Strickler. We discuss the theory and practice of content moderation on big platforms. Today, the “terms of service” also necessarily set the parameters of debate and have profound downstream effects on political reality.

Later on, we discuss Yancy’s background as a music critic, his early online record label and his unconventional path to becoming a co-founder of Kickstarter. We breakdown the incentives of platforms to forecast what comes next.

At the end of this episode, we discuss a new project called A-Corps. A-Corps are a lightweight co-operative model for creatives. (TLDR: your band can be an artist co-op.) It’s not software — it’s law. We get into the hard numbers around this and share some war stories about creative life without health insurance.

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Doomscroll 28.5: Yancey Strickler

My guest is Ana Kasparian, a host and executive producer of ‪The Young Turks. We discuss her political journey from progressive to "independent and unaligned". Last year, Kasparian’s commentary took an editorial turn away from left echo-chambers and towards a generalized populism. We pay respect to the political genius and lasting influence of Michael Brooks.

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Doomscroll 29: Ana Kasparian

Artist and internet culture writer.
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Doomscroll with Joshua Citarella

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