the core of tech bro fascism is a bunch of dudes who simultaneously hate artists and the creative process more than anything and lack the ability to interpret reality outside of what they've been taught by movies and TV - ThreadSky

iwriteok.bsky.social • 51 days ago

the core of tech bro fascism is a bunch of dudes who simultaneously hate artists and the creative process more than anything and lack the ability to interpret reality outside of what they've been taught by movies and TV

Reposted from Pavel🐀

While there is a lot to say about this image, the thing that stands out to me the most - what IMO makes genAI a specifically right wing phenomenon - is the craving for approval. It is not enough to be able to generate robot lingerie warrior lady. They NEED to also be praised for doing it.

Comments

minerva1.bsky.social•51 days ago

The personality flaws that drive their contempt for art are the same flaws that make them unlikeable people.

onlyplaywizards.com•51 days ago

As @josephlaycock.bsky.social with Eric Harrelson points out & elaborates in The Exorcist Effect, a lot of religious folks have done the same thing with horror films; adopting motifs. At the same time they too struggle with imagination & what it reveals.

Sad state of affairs.

macchua.bsky.social•51 days ago

I’d also add that they frequently seem to misunderstand the basic messages or themes in the books and movies they claim to love

dissidentlove.bsky.social•51 days ago

Fuckin' LOVE the torment nexus, bro. Sick year over year returns.

maximumeffort433.bsky.social•51 days ago

Only bad people go to the torment nexus, you can tell they're bad because they were punished to the torment nexus; President Evilbot explained all this in his dissertation to the Union of Murderdroids.

tau-cetaceans.bsky.social•51 days ago

it will never not be wild to me that Bezos bailed out Netflix adaptation of The Expanse... or Musk names his landing pad ships after Culture ships (to say nothing of Neuralink trying to do neural lace)... like... my tech bro oligarch dudes... you got that these novels weren't pro-capitalism, right?

maximumeffort433.bsky.social•51 days ago

There's some evidence to suggest that conservatives struggle to understand satire and sarcasm, back in the 2000s a lot of Republicans loved Stephen Colbert because they thought he was serious.

If this translates to other symbolic/thematic language, too, it could explain quite a lot.

iamdiogenesdog.bsky.social•51 days ago

I was definitely in the target age demo when it came to Colbert on the Daily Show & the Report. How you couldn’t tell that he was trolling conservatives at a painful level is beyond me.

He made a parody version of the O’Reilly Factor & even went on Bill’s show to shit talk him to his face.

maximumeffort433.bsky.social•51 days ago

Underlying psychological traits could explain why political satire tends to be liberal:

"[P]olitical conservatives tend to score lower on a measure of need for cognition, which is related to their lack of appreciation for irony and exaggeration."

https://www.psypost.org/underlying-psychological-traits-could-explain-why-political-satire-tends-to-be-liberal/

maximumeffort433.bsky.social•51 days ago

April, 2009: Conservatives Think Colbert Is Serious

"[C]onservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious..."

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/04/conservatives-think-colbert-serious/

rowyourbot.bsky.social•51 days ago

A lot of them don’t understand irony very well but I can’t tell if this is because of the cultures they are more commonly from (evangelicals, rural) or because they are conservative.

kimmylea.bsky.social•51 days ago

He doesn't say "Not!" at the end. How are you supposed to know he doesn't mean what he says if he doesn't say "Not!" at the end and then laugh at you for being gullible

saltpork.bsky.social•51 days ago

If you listened to 'I am America and so can you' and didn't see it as satire, something is very wrong with your ability to understand people or humor.

I'm diagnosed on the spectrum and even I completely got that he was making fun of conservatism in thinly veiled ways.

davemostoller.bsky.social•51 days ago

While also completely misunderstanding those movies and shows

suburban-vampire.bsky.social•51 days ago

Homelander is the hero in The Boys right?

davemostoller.bsky.social•51 days ago

Perfect example

kenalleman.bsky.social•51 days ago

And they comprehend those movies and TV shows at a third grade level. Grown men who wonder why Luke Skywalker doesn't just kill everyone with his lightsaber and save the day.

titaniabird.neocities.org•51 days ago

I wonder how much of it is their jealousy at not being able to create (which we see a lot with right-wing grifters) and how much of it is just not liking anything fun (see Trump’s desolation of the White House gardens).

thebersy.bsky.social•51 days ago

When you start any-kind of art you will suck at it and if you want to get good you need to practice.
They envy artists, but only see the end result and never see the process, because all they live for is instant gratification.
I don't think they have the patience, humility, or diligence to make art.

mostlyharmless.bsky.social•51 days ago

They actually *scoff* at the notion of struggling to produce art. That's why their calls to "democratize art" ring so hollow. They fail to understand that art isn't just a pretty picture; the picture is an expression of whatever the artist had to get out of their system. It's a human experience.

mollygos.com•51 days ago

they are also not good at interpreting movies or TV :(

the-cheshire-cat.bsky.social•51 days ago

It feels like a new variation on the old "they don't want to write, they want to have written" thing where a lot of people want the attention and accolades of being a famous artist without doing any of the actual work in creating the art

dailygrumbles.bsky.social•51 days ago

You left out they were never invited to a Fight Club

donryu.bsky.social•51 days ago

And oddly tv specificalky from 1996-2004

arina-artemis.bsky.social•51 days ago

This kinda reminds me of a thing from Contrepeneurs where Mikkelsen twins take pride in their method that requires you don't write a book, make a cover or voice it (but get profits from it), but simultaneously act like it's as respectable as making an actual book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw

cathoderituals.bsky.social•51 days ago

Someone gave D&D rules lawyers power and it was a huge mistake

andy-matter73.bsky.social•51 days ago

They’re fucking OBSESSED with movies, it’s embarrassing how many Alex Jones conspiracies are just sci-fi movie plots he likes. Bros be fixated on The Matrix and wonder why they’re always unhappy trying to fit into a rigidly defined gender expression while also policing everyone else’s.

owen-symes.bsky.social•51 days ago

On the topic of TV, I really hope you guys get a chance to do a BtB on Jack Webb some day. He's the father of the TV police prodecural (surely a major component of boomer brain rot). Check out Claudia Calhoun's excellent book on the subject ("Only the Names Have Been Changed").

maria-mogue.bsky.social•51 days ago

And by “movies” it probably means hard-core abusive porn

bullmooseparty-bmp.bsky.social•51 days ago

Deep down they are insecure and want to emulate what they feel is cool. They like movies so the imitate it. They want to be seen as cool, so they imitate frat bros. They are powerful men who hate their identity and would rather be anyone else but themselves.

mismism.bsky.social•51 days ago

The tech industry attracts those with a fundamentally different way of thinking. Problems must be identified, reduced, solved, solutions formalized, automated, monetized. Anything that is antithetical to this efficiency, be it the side effects of this process or creativity itself, is their enemy.

epistrophee.bsky.social•51 days ago

I genuinely think this world view stems from emotional developmental disabilities. They haven't developed the capacity for empathy beyond that of a very young toddler. Base, instinctual empathy is the nursemaid of imagination, not the other way around.

worldahead.bsky.social•51 days ago

Their complete lack of intellectual ability shows itself when they think a guy prompting a computer "[name of preexisting character] but make her boobs bigger" had more of a hand in the creative process than **Steven Spielberg with Jurassic Park**

lackofsense.bsky.social•50 days ago

The big example of this for me is whenever something gets a shitty adaptation because a bunch of uncreative suits had to put their stamp on it one way or another. Either out of mindless profit or idiotic arrogance.

berserkerpiglet.bsky.social•51 days ago

THREAD: I can see this take but I think there’s a lot of preconceived “they must hate it because we know tech bros are bad at art and we like art so therefore…” there.

I’m surrounded by tech bros daily. They don’t hate art. They think art is _easy_. And they CAN’T see the difference between what…

berserkerpiglet.bsky.social•51 days ago

They’ve made and what artists make and it hurts their pride, in the same way it would hurt the pride of an artist, to hear that the product of their effort sucks. The difference is tho, that an artist goes back and self flagellates when that happens, they suffer for their art. A tech bro thinks…

berserkerpiglet.bsky.social•51 days ago

Everyone else is too dumb to get how easy they find art and THAT’S why you’re insulting their effort. You can see it in their response when an artist calls out how meaningless AI art is. They’d say “but you don’t know how many hours I had to train it to get it to make an action figure of you”

berserkerpiglet.bsky.social•51 days ago

That doesn’t mean tech bros art has meaning. I think it’s arguable to the same sort of people mindlessly copying Warhol without getting why what he did required talent. But what’s missing is that an electronica musician CAN make art, it just requires mental exertion and a recognition that it’s hard.

berserkerpiglet.bsky.social•51 days ago

Tech music is music when you SWEAT for it. Tech is binary tho (or at least it mostly is). It works or it doesn’t. It makes an action figure of you or it doesn’t. There isn’t art to it (mostly, there are artistic coders who design something eloquently but they arent tech bros, they’re Wozniak and

berserkerpiglet.bsky.social•51 days ago

Carmack). They made it make a picture, they solved the coding bit. it was “easy” because they took code that worked for X and made it do Y. “Why don’t you appreciate that?” they say. The tech bro fundamentally doesn’t GET that “solving” art is literally the first and EASIEST of a series of steps.

wonderfulstarfish.bsky.social•51 days ago

The more I look at that image the more I realize it's another Motte and Bailey defense.

"Well, maybe we're not *artists* but you must conceed we are directors."

As if typing "redhead cyborg underwear sword" into a text field was anything like directing a feature film.

vvillyd.bsky.social•51 days ago

They hate artists and the creative process because they so desperately want to be an artist but aren't good enough to be one. Look at how many tried to get into TV/movies and failed. Artistic skill is one of the few things they can't actually buy with money, and that fact alone angers them so much.

rycluse.net•51 days ago

The NFT phenomenon really laid this bare for me. A bunch of people who spent their lives sneering at art suddenly latch on because they now see it as another horizon to conquer

learn2loveart.bsky.social•49 days ago

And video games

melissaf.bsky.social•51 days ago

Sounds like they’re not able to think critically…
….
…like….sheep?

cadmium-enjoyer.bsky.social•51 days ago

They have a desperate need for strongman leadership. A desperate desire to follow. They bleat about independence and freedom while throwing away both.

technobotanica.bsky.social•51 days ago

“The only human contributor” is driving me mad

alice-art.bsky.social•51 days ago

There's been some discourse from them about getting rid of IP law (for the purpose of feeding the slop machine, of course) without them seemingly having the awareness to realize IP law protecting them is likely the main reason why they're wealthy to begin with and they would be worse off w/o it.

mmejoan.bsky.social•51 days ago

😬

minawoods.bsky.social•50 days ago

You see it with the Musk paying some goon to grind his PoE character. These guys have to be the best, have to be liked.

And like to quote the greatest work of all time, Portal 2 "That would be funny, if it weren't so sad."

mxmaxwellmusic.bsky.social•51 days ago

They want the content without the thought involved. They desire soulless drek because creating anything takes too much effort, and they've never been able to make anything good, so they figure there's less sunk cost if you outsource to a hallucinating machine.

bwreed.bsky.social•51 days ago

I think that's part of it. Other part is they watched the kids who majored in arts having fun and quietly said to themselves, 'Don't worry, your skills are so much more valuable, you will out-earn these hipsters 10,000X!'

And then that happened and they're still miserable as fuck.

camgottaplan.bsky.social•50 days ago

I don't know, I feel if they were more Film/TV literate they'd have learned lessons that would make them less punchable. They appreciate the idea broad strokes of Film/TV, they appreciate the loud noises they hear on a second screen, they appreciate the sparkle, but none of the substance.

camgottaplan.bsky.social•50 days ago

GenAI, to me, is also the perfect example of people who care more about the trailer than the film. They like the snippet, they'll share and debate how cool it looks, but they don't want to sit through the film and understand it.

senorsean.bsky.social•51 days ago

work in tech, can confirm

errantmedieval.bsky.social•51 days ago

For the love of god guys, please, just try like one humanities class

1stargachaclub.bsky.social•51 days ago

Part of me wonders how much the removal of the human factor plays into it to them. Artists have thoughts and feelings on their work and can disagree with your interpretations of it (see: how much proto-fashy types love rage against the machine since they cant decode the lyrics)

butterdragon.bsky.social•51 days ago

I think the that ai and fascists both deal often in simple, base and direct images, symbols and signifiers helps the bond. neither handles depth or complexity well

1stargachaclub.bsky.social•51 days ago

There is no depth to an AI generated image
It says whatever they want it to say, it'll never tell them they're wrong

It's something that looks like art but they dont have to worry about it challenging their worldview

saltpork.bsky.social•51 days ago

Discovering and connecting with art is part of what got me out of tech bro shit in my IT career early on.

It took a few years but I figured out that those at the top of the tech world aren't smart or even special. They're often ruthless and kinda awful and have almost zero empathy.

iplayguitarbad.bsky.social•51 days ago

They equate sitting there just rehashing into the computer things they've seen, and confuse that with creativity LOL. The biggest losers imaginable, they can't even just enjoy what they've "created".

dagnymol.bsky.social•51 days ago

If you watch a fictional movie and just see it as "a bunch of stuff that happened" obviously you aren't really respecting the work that went into it.

dagnymol.bsky.social•51 days ago

Obviously on some level they understand that acting exists, special effects exist, but the idea of specifically crafting a narrative seems lost on a lot of people these days, not just tech bros.

mblack.us•51 days ago

I honestly don’t think they’re even that good at interpreting what they see on tv or in the movies. Surface level engagement most of the time or wild, unhinged theories that venture completely off text.

skutchdraws.bsky.social•51 days ago

They think that anything that could potentially influence them has power over their lives and resent that power while at the same time coveting it. Much of that influence is downstream of them lacking the critical thinking skills needed to form their own opinions.

somebean.bsky.social•51 days ago

Least we forget, elon threw a tantrum and whined about how "crediting artists is destroying the medium" after he got scolded for not crediting the artist of fanart he posted.

I think this was back in like 2019.

reece-scoggin.bsky.social•51 days ago

I’ve worked in tech and all the bros I worked with had varying levels of emotional problems leading them down the rabbit holes of biohacking and fascism. The only sane ones had creative hobbies.

suburban-vampire.bsky.social•51 days ago

But only the most surface level understanding of everything.

In their world, Jordan Belfort is "the good guy" in Wolf of Wall St

mumon.bsky.social•51 days ago

You can learn a lot from movies and TV... just likely not what they have watched, LOL.

Jean-Luc Godard was a god. Marxist too, but w/o him, there'd be no Tarantino, Scorcese, Cupola, ...

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply