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Fox News hosts have been engaged in pushing out some prettyspecialconspiracy theories. The newest isthat the Super Bowl somehow has been rigged so that pop megastar Taylor Swift, who is dating Kansas City Chiefstight end Travis Kelce,will have a platform to endorse President Joe Bidens reelection campaign.

Fox host Jesse Waters even went so far as to suggest that the Pentagons psychological operations unit hasturned Swift into an asset. He said Swift could bea front for a covert political agenda.The Pentagon dismissed the accusation with a Swiftian song reference: As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.

RELATED STORY:Fox News loses it over Taylor Swift

But there was at least one unexpected voice of reason in the Murdoch media empire:Fox Sports punditColin Cowherd,who on his show The Herd blasted those people who have a problem with Swift appearing on NFL broadcasts when she attends a game. He cited a New York Times report that found that Swift appeared on camera for only 32 seconds during the 3.5-hour broadcast of Sundays Ravens-Chiefs AFC Championship game17 seconds of which were devoted to an in-house promo for the networks upcoming broadcast of SundaysGrammy Awards.

Theres a lot of really weird, lonely, insecure men out there, Cowherd said. The fact that a pop starthe worlds biggest pop staris dating a star tight end who had one of his greatest games ever, and the network puts them on the air briefly, then it bothers you, what does that say about your life?

He then pointed out all the male celebrities whose presence at past sporting events has been celebratedsuch as Drake, Spike Lee, and Jack Nicholson. But a talented and beautiful woman is on the airone who would never pay attention to lonely menand it bothers them.

He added that there are a lot of men out there who have never had real intimacy with a woman and they are often misogynistic and resent women who didnt give them the time they think they deserve.

Its all quite ironic because some of these same weird, angry, insecure men back in 2016 were idolizing Swift as an Aryan goddess. In May 2016, Vice wrote:

Nazis and members of the "alt right"an Internet subculture that is best described as the venn diagram of hipster culture and white supremacyhave been spreading a conspiracy theory that Swift is a covert Nazi. They claim Swift's songs "red pilled" America into believing a conservative, racist agenda.

"Firstly, Taylor Swift is a pure Aryan goddess, like something out of classical Greek poetry. Athena reborn. That's the most important thing," explains Andre Anglin, the writer of the white supremacist blogthe Daily Stormer. "It is also an established fact that Taylor Swift is secretly a Nazi and is simply waiting for the time when Donald Trump makes it safe for her to come out and announce her Aryan agenda to the world. Probably, she will be betrothed to Trump's son, and they will be crowned American royalty."

Now all of this was nothing more than these neo-Nazi fanboys projecting their white supremacist views onto Swifts image. Swift, of course,had absolutely nothing to do with any white supremacist groups.The 19-year-old Swift revealed in a 2009 Rolling Stone interview that she supported President Barack Obama, saying, Ive never seen this country so happy about a political decision in my entire time of being alive. Im so glad this was my first election.

Vice saidSwifts lawyer, J. Douglas Baldridge, did send a threatening letter to Pinterest after one teenage girl posted memes attributing Adolf Hitler quotes to Swift tospoof memes that falsely attributed inspiring quotes to Marilyn Monroe. Baldridge wrote:

The association of Ms. Swift with Adolf Hitler undisputedly is 'harmful,' 'abusive,' 'ethnically offensive,' 'humiliating to other people,' 'libelous,' and no doubt 'otherwise objectionable.' It is of no import that Ms. Swift may be a public figure or that Pinterest conveniently now argues that the Offending Material is mere satire or parody. Public figures have rights. And, there are certain historical figures, such as Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson and the like, who are universally identified in the case law and popular culture as lightning rods for emotional and negative reaction.

At the time, Swift kept her political views to herself. In a 2012 interview,she told Time,Idont talk about politics because it might influence other people. And I dont think that I know enough yet in life to be telling people who to vote for. She did not make any endorsement in the 2016 presidential election.

In August 2017, The Daily Beast wrote immediately after the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that the time had come for Swift to denounce her neo-Nazi admirers who have claimed her as one of their own. The story concluded: Say it after me, TayTay: I, Taylor Swift, denounce Nazis. And I am not attracted to Eric Trump.

But then in October 2018, Swift obviously felt she knew enough to tell people who to vote for when she endorsed a candidate for the first time: Democrat Phil Bredesen, who was running against Republican Marsha Blackburn for Senate in Tennessee.

"As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn," Swift wrote on Instagram, addingthat "her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me."

And in the Netflix documentary Miss Americana, there is a revealing scene in which Swiftis shown discussing her decision to endorse Bredesen with her parents. Her father advises her that that she might lose a lot of fans.Thats what happened to country superstarsThe Chicks, then known as the Dixie Chicks, whenin 2003 lead singer Natalie Maines at a London concert said she was ashamed to be from the same state as President George W. Bush on the eve ofthe Iraq War. And Swifts mother said she was really worried about her daughters safetyif she madesuch an endorsement.

But Swift said she felt sad that she didnt speak out during the 2016 election, and told her parents that this time, I need to be on the right side of history.

It really is a big deal for me. She (Blackburn) votes against fair pay for women, she votes against reauthorization of the violence against women act which is just basically protecting us from domestic abuse, and stalking, stalking. She thinks that if youre a gay coupleor even if you look like a gay couple you should be allowed to be kicked out of a restaurant.

Its really basic human rights And I cant see another commercial and see her disguisingthese policies behind the words `Tennessee Christian values. Those arent Tennessee Christian values. I live in Tennessee. I am Christian. Thatsnot what we stand for. I need to do this. Dad, Ineed you to forgive me for doing it because Im doing it.

The scene closes with her father hugging her.

Then in a September 2019 Rolling Stone interview, Swift denounced white supremacists in no uncertain terms. She said:

Theres literally nothing worse than white supremacy. Its repulsive. There should be no place for it. Really, I keep trying to learn as much as I can about politics, and its become something Im now obsessed with, whereas before, I was living in this sort of political ambivalence, because the person I voted for had always won. We were in such an amazing time when Obama was president because foreign nations respected us. We were so excited to have this dignified person in the White House. My first election was voting for him when he made it into office, and then voting to re-elect him. I think a lot of people are like me, where they just didnt really know that this could happen. But Im just focused on the 2020 election. Im really focused on it. Im really focused on how I can help and not hinder.

InOctober 2020, Swift endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Shespoke toV Magazinefor theirThought Leaders Issue and said:

The change we need most is to elect a president who recognizes that people of color deserve to feel safe and represented, that women deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies, and that the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be acknowledged and included. Everyone deserves a government that takes global health risks seriously and puts the lives of its people first. The only way we can begin to make things better is to choose leaders who are willing to face these issues and find ways to work through them.

I will proudly vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this years presidential election. Under their leadership, I believe America has a chance to start the healing process it so desperately needs.

And now the woman who was once the alt-rights Aryan goddess is viewed by some of the same people as being under Satans influence as the conspiracy theories spread that the Super Bowl has been rigged so Swift can have a big stage to endorse Biden. Kandiss Taylor, an ultra-right Georgia Republican politician, wrote on X:

As a former Aryan goddess, you cant fall much farther than into the arms of aPfizer vaccine spokesman.

RELATED STORY:X pauses some Taylor Swift searches as deepfake explicit images spread

Continued here:
The alt-right saw Taylor Swift as an 'Aryan goddess.' She shook them off as 'repulsive' - Daily Kos

Gwenn ha Du et Y Ddraig Goch lors du Festival interceltique de Lorient 2018 by XIIIfromTOKYO, available under a Creative Commons licence 4.0

Luke James

When the current affairs magazine, Le Peuple Breton, published its 60th anniversary edition recently, the front cover, designed to be a cause for celebration, ended up at the centre of a national scandal.

Un peuple vivant (a living nation) read the headline alongside a photo of a young boy holding a Breton flag.

When it was posted on Twitter, it was met with a barrage of abuse of such ferocity that it is now being investigated by the police, and subsequently led to a huge outpouring of support for the magazine.

The racist reactions to the fact the boy on the cover was black emanated not only from the growing number of supporters of Marine Le Pen, but also a far-right fringe of Breton nationalists.

The latter group are easily identifiable because they almost all have the Welsh flag emoji in their username.

Y Ddraig Goch has become a local version of the green frog used by the alt-right movement online, according to a Breton anti-fascist and independence activist who asked not to be named.

Its easily recognisable and has a Celtic link which appeals to their identitarian side they explained.

Racist conspiracy theories

Messages including hardline anti-immigrant sentiment, white supremacism and racist conspiracy theories now appear regularly next to the Welsh flag on the French-language Twittersphere.

But despite adopting our flag as its online symbol, its a movement with contempt for Welsh politics.

Welsh nationalists are generally nave supporters of the woke leftsusceptible to the worst LGBT and Black Lives Matter nonsense, began a recent article by its mouthpiece, Breizh Info.

Calling itself alternative media, the website was found to be among the top 10 sources for Covid disinformation in France and has been accused of whipping anti-refugee protests similar to those which took place in Llanelli.

These increasingly toxic online tendencies are also manifesting themselves in the streets.

One user with a Welsh flag in their handle recently posted a photo of an anti-racist banner turned upside down, apparently taken from a demonstration in Rennes against the French governments controversial new immigration law.

Tear gas

It echoed other recent attacks. In March last year, a group of trade unionists were sprayed with tear gas before being punched and kicked in a brutal attack in the town of Lorient.

It was committed by a far-right gang who had waited for a demonstration against the French governments pension reforms to break-up before striking.

It is part of a rising tide of far-right activity on the Atlantic coast over which the Liberation newspaper raised the alarm with a typically striking front page last week.

Other incidents have ranged from the distribution of neo-Nazi leaflets to an attempted arson of a mosque and another violent and carefully-planned attack on a left-wing music festival in which far-right thugs used metal knuckle dusters, police-style batons and tear gas.

These violent acts and attempts at intimidation are frequent enough to consider that Brittany is a symbolic territory of the growth of the extreme far-right groups, warned the newspapers editorial.

Symbolic because the four Breton departments, of course with local nuances and particularities, have long been considered as resistant to the ideas of the far-right.

At the French parliamentary elections in 2022, Marine Le Pens Rassemblement National didnt make it to the second round in a single Breton constituency despite doubling their number of candidates in run-offs across France.

The strong Breton identity weakens certain arguments from the Rassemblement National about supposed threats to French identity, Professor Arnauld Leclerc of Nantes University told Nation.Cymru.

Collaboration

Historian Christian Bougeard also said the legacy of collaboration during the second world war should not be underestimated.

While they were very few in number and immediately rejected by the population, the memory has acted as a sort of break on the influence of the far-right, he told Libration.

Despite that, the Breton National Party, which owes its name to a collaborationist organisation, are among far-right groups to have emerged in Brittany in recent years.

On Twitter, almost all of the accounts highlighted as similar to the Parti National Breton have a Welsh flag in their username.

Other groups include An Tour-Tan (the Lighthouse), a youth group based in Vannes, and LOriflamme in Rennes, the Breton chapter of a French neo-nazi split from the royalist far-right lAction Franaise (AF).

They try to integrate themselves locally by putting a light Breton varnish on things but it is still usually AF behind everything, added the Breton anti-fascist activist who spoke to Nation.Cymru.

Theres barely anyone in all of these little groups. The most visible are those who benefit from the French far-right.

While some of the groups limit themselves to putting up posters under the cover of darkness, the increasingly extreme actions of others are motivated by desperation, some believe.

Nil Caouissin, a member of the Breton regional assembly for the Union dmocratique bretonne, said: Its always too much but if the far-right is particularly violent in Brittany at the moment, its not because they are strong here. Its because they are relatively weak.

The Libration newspaper preferred to see further proof of the dangers of reactionary offensive underway at national level.

An offensive being carried out in Brittany, online at least, by keyboard warriors wrapped in a Welsh flag.

*************************************************************************************************

Avis aux racistes : Notre drapeau na absolument rien voir avec votre idologie haineuse.

Si vous compreniez la moindre chose sur notre pays, vous sauriez que la solidarit est au cur de notre identit.

Y compris avec les vrais Bretons qui vous ciblez

Warning to racists: Our flag has absolutely nothing to do with your hateful ideology.

If you knew the first thing about our country, you would know that solidarity is at the heart of our identity.

That includes with the real Bretons who you attack.

For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.

See more here:
How the Welsh flag has been hijacked by the far-right in Brittany - Nation.Cymru

Doja Cat has addressed the controversial t-shirt she wore in the fall that featured Sam Hyde a comedian known for his alleged association with far-right political ideology.

The Juicy hitmaker spoke in depth with Ebro Darden for Apple Music in an interview published on Thursday (December 14). While noting shes not political, the California native said that she didnt know Hyde was a controversial figure.

First of all, Im not a political person at all, Doja began. I feel like when it comes to that sort of thing, I have to back the fuck away. Politics are not something that I wanna sweep into my life. I just want creativity and joy and just sort of the immediate reality of my friends, my family and my music and whatever. You cant know everything and me wearing a t-shirt of somebody who I thought was funny is an attack on people? Its not an attack. It didnt affect the world in a way where we now have to look behind our backs. We dont.

She continued: And I know that. And me saying that right now, Im going to get a lot of responses of, Yes it did! Its going to change everything! I also think that Im way too fucking famous. 100 percent. Im doing what I can slowly but surely to separate myself from this kind of narrative or whatever this world is that I kind of built. And Im fine tuning it and tailoring it to what I want out of it. I feel like it doesnt matter what you say, it doesnt matter what some people know.

Because theres fans that I have that know I dont put any involvement into whatever the fuck that negative shit was. I am more just: funny guy on t-shirt, wore it that day. But I dont need to explain myself. I dont need to prove myself to a bunch of people who are just gonna project no matter what I say, too. Theres people who are incredibly dogmatic. It doesnt matter what the fuck you do, what you say, theyre always going to stand by, That persons evil.

You can watch the full interview below. The shirt convo happens around the 7:30 mark.

The t-shirt in question was featured in a selfie Doja Cat posted to her account in October. After fans got in her comments and dragged her for filth for the post, she deleted it. She then re-uploaded it with the picture of Hyde cropped out, with a new caption: a series of eye-roll emojis.

That didnt stop the internet backlash, though.

While Hydes Million Dollar Extreme comedy troupe purports itself to be transgressive and subversive in its humor, there have been more than a few instances where Hydes humor has fallen on the offensive side. The comedian has been photographed giving a Nazi salute alongside infamous alt-right troll Weev, who also writes antisemitic tirades for The Daily Stormer. In another, Hyde proudly displayed swastikas behind him while performing.

In addition to being associated with 4chan/alt-right-type politics (as this was not the first time), Doja Cat has also been accused of worshiping Satan for the devil-related imagery she has used in both music videos and tattoos. But according to the Scarlet rapper, the narrative is annoying and tacky.

related news

December 11, 2023

I like the idea of: I did it on purpose and its this big ruse to make people react, she said elsewhere in the interview with Darden. But I also like the idea of: I love this piece of visual art, I like this visual for this sound.

So I chose that visual and applied it to the sound and people made up what they [want], which is what you do with art. You interpret it how you want to interpret it. Everybody has a right to interpret how they want.

She continued: But this whole very confident Satanism thing is like Im sorry, when the fuck did I say that I was a Satanist? Or even go marching outside the church? When the fuck did I say that?

Its really tacky and annoying and discredits a lot of the hard work that Ive put in.

More here:
Doja Cat Responds To Backlash Over Alt-Right T-Shirt: 'It's Not An Attack' - HipHopDX

Comic Books

In an unsurprising drawing of battle lines regarding the newly-reinvigorated battle to rid the industry of one of its worst elements, veteran comic book writer Mark Waid has responded to colleague Mark Millars recent declaration of war against cancel pigs by not only dismissing it as a cry for attention, but also disingenuously attempting to write off its supporters as being composed of nothing more than the Alt-Right.

RELATED: Mark Millar Takes A Stand Against Cancel Pigs, Calls On Creators And Fans To Never, Ever Appease Or Encourage Their Cruelties

Offering his thoughts on the comic book industrys latest turning point, as sparked by Millar after some of the industrys loudest voices sought to bully retailer Glenn OLeary over his very real criticisms of their current output, via a December 13th post made to his personal Facebook page, the current writer of DCs Batman/Superman: Worlds Finest Vol. 1, Teen Titans: Worlds Finest Vol. 1, and Shazam! Vol. 5 followed in the condescending footsteps of said bullies and opined, And like a falling star rocketing across the sky, another former comics superstar whose heat is fading chooses to cry for attention by blaming the industry, his peers, and the audience rather than taking stock of his own professional progress, admitting that we are often the authors of our own fate, and finding the courage to reinvent himself and stay relevant.

Its really Not. That. Hard, he continued. My stars not gonna burn forever, either. No ones does, and accepting that fact gracefully is a sign of emotional maturity. But if I ever, ever become That Guy, every single one of you has permission to slap me upside the head and force me to re-read the above paragraph as many times as it takes to sink in.

Following its publication, Waids post would be met with a bevy of responses from both supporters and critics, the latter of which he would use as jumping off points to further his argument.

Sharing the video of OLearys now-famous rant against the industrys turn to self-validation over good storytelling, fellow FB user Classic Marvel Era asserted, There are somethings that cant be agreed with but clearly there is a disconnect between the Big 2s editorial, the LCS owners and the readers: and Mark is not wrong to highlight that.

More quality story telling is needed, they detailed. Theres a reason why you, Joe Q, Kurt Buseik, Donny Cates made a mark that still wows the readers to this day.

Dismissing both the fan and OLearys frustrations, Waid proceeded to condescendingly declare, All this complaint about how comics are dying because familiar characters are being written out of character by people who want to self-insert their own political causes or turn them into SJW mouthpiecesbut not one single legitimate example given.

RELATED: Comic Book Pros Mock, Deny Complaints From Veteran Shop Owner Regarding Abysmal State Of The Market: His Business Is Dying Because He Refuses To Change With The Times

Proceeding to present one of the most dishonest reads of the entire situation that perhaps will ever be raised throughout the entire debate, Waid then questioned, Not one. Who? Superman? Batman? Green Lantern? Flash? Wonder Woman? Spider-Man? Captain America? Daredevil? Iron Man? Nightwing? Harley Quinn? Damian Wayne? Seriously, what am I missing here? Have these complainers read a single Marvel or DC comic in the 2020s?

Well they have and so have we, Classic Marvel Era pushed back. Since we focus on Marvel Comics, the Captain America series by Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the bad examples (which seemed like a political manifesto shoved inside a comic unlike the writings of Kirby, Gruenwald and your very own Operation Rebirth) followed by post Hickman X-titles and most recently The Punisher by Jason Aaron.

Furthermore, shrugging an LCS owners opinion by simply questioning if they have read recent comics or not sounds a bit condescending, to put it mildly, they continued. Lets assume youre right but theyre the ones bearing the brunt in the form of loss of sales and possible business closure. Theres your POV, theres Millars POV, therere LCS owners POV and the truth is somewhere in between. Frankly youre too benevolent when it comes to todays comics which is surprising considering the kind of work you have produced for our favorite Marvel characters namely FF and DD.

Proceeding to immediately prove just how dishonest his above dismissal truly was, Waid then admitted, The Captain America series by Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the bad examples (which seemed like a political manifesto shoved inside a comic unlike the writings of Kirby, Gruenwald and your very own Operation Rebirth) followed by post Hickman X-titles and most recently The Punisher by Jason Aaron.

Cap hasnt been written by Coates for some time now, said Waid as he attempted to shift the goal posts. The Punisher book thats being published today isnt reflective of your complaint. Isnt that what you wanted? Why are you arguing so hard for something you already have? As regards the current X-books, I need you to be more specific about your complaints. In what way are they any more SJW then they have been for decades?

Turning to the claim that he was too benevolent when it comes to todays comics, the writer argued, Im not benevolent; I simply acknowledge that not all of these comics are written to my specific taste, any more than the war and romance books were when I was a kid.

Or any more than half the DC and Marvel superhero line when I was a teenager, recalled Waid. And thats perfectly fine. Just because I dont like something doesnt automatically make it bad. Im not trying to minimize the fact that there are real problems in the industry right now. But strawman complaints about comics that simply dont exist arent helping.

Further expanding on his argument in reply to a since-deleted post from user Getsmelifted Amvs, Waid once again turned his nose up at readers and claimed, The overall complaint is that major classic characters are being written out of character, causing their books to fail. Tim Drake, Jon Kent, Iceman, Star-Lord? Those count as major classic characters? Do we really believe that the industry is ailing because of three mini-series and Star-Lord?

However, it would be in response to a separate user, Steven McKee, that Waid would confirm just how disingenuous his arguments truly were.

I love your work Mark but seems anybody who tries to highlight the issues that the industry is facing either gets piled on or in this case his star is fading and looking for attention, replied McKee to Waids original post. Mark [Waid] said he hasnt relied on income from comics for a long time. See rather than this tit for tat that we are seeing throughout the fandom maybe people should actually try get together and try to fix whats wrong. I am by no means an expert only a consumer but all this doesnt seem to be helping matters.

In turn, Waid made a play at fear-mongering and declared, I think a lot of us would just rather see the industry burn down than get together with the alt-right.

I know I would, he continued his rant. Sorry. And I call bullst on anyone who tries to highlight the issues gets piled on. I think its far more accurate to say anyone who wants to blame everything on SJWs gets piled on or anyone who wants to complain that their favorite characters are being written as political mouthpieces but cant provide any examples of this is being piled on.

Eventually, Waid would exit the conversation, leaving the discourse to take on a life of its own within his replies.

However, the next day would see the Marvels Champions Vol. 2 author offer one final (at least for the time being), backpedaling statement regarding his recent take, beginning with the admission that Yep, The mainstream superhero comics industry is having a rough time of it lately. Few people are saying otherwise, and my heart goes out to struggling retailers.

Proceeding to once more misrepresent his opponents arguments, Waid continued, Steps need to be taken, and even the alt-right loudmouths make some good points. But when make better comics! becomes make more comics that are to my own personal taste!, thats a solution I cant get behind.

Badly produced comics sure arent helping, and there are a bunch out there, but neither is pretending that bad superhero comics is some new phenomenon, he concluded. As someone whos been reading them for nearly 60 years, I can promise you that many of the ones you remember with nostalgic fondness because you liked them as a Middle Schooler were just as bad compared to the actual classics of the day. Just because you and your friends dont like something doesnt automatically make it empirically bad.

NEXT: Marvel Comics Executive Tom Brevoort Denies Industry Is Dying, Instead Argues What Is Likely Happening Is That The Market Is Changing

Link:
Marvel and DC Writer Mark Waid Rejects Mark Millar's Call To Root Out Comic Book 'Cancel Pigs', Dishonestly Paints ... - Bounding Into Comics

Soda Jerk Hello Dankness (2022)

Mirroring our every trip to the multiplex, Hello Dankness (2022) begins with a commercial. Before any credit or title pageindeed, before any commentary, manipulation, or outside editthe artist duo known as Soda Jerk present the entirety of PepsiCo, Inc.s deeply batshit 2017 commercial wherein Kendall Jenner solves racism and police brutality with a can of soda. The inclusion makes us giggle in self-defense at the vulturous media-scape we live inone capable of producing such infamous relicswhile simultaneously setting precedent for the plastic, mashed-up Frankensteins monster of a film to follow: nothing is off the editing table. The inclusion of the ad catalogs and recommits to cultural memory the footage itself, as the ad was (obviously) hastily pulled by the corporation as the (obvious) criticisms rolled in. It was called a trivialization of radical intentions and just another tone-deaf act by a corporation to cloak profit-mongering in the garb of art-making and activism. Which is to say: it was an advertisement.

The Pepsi adwherein an army of bougie makers and entrepreneurs lead a protest against something, only to end up confronted by a wall of cops whose defenses are charmed and breached as soon as Jenner offers a can of Pepsialso demands the spectator of Hello Dankness to reason whether the movie has begun or not. Where in the cinematic apparatus are we when the pre-spectacle space and the cinematic one mush together so goopily? Its perhaps not off-base to suggest that most viewers of a film made by artists who are, as their press bio notes, interested in the politics of images, might be media-literate (read: online) enough to recognize the advertisement and chuckle in recognition before it reaches its daffy climax. The inclusion is a perfect throat-clearing in the films quest to unpack, atomize, and re-package cultural thrulines and inadvertently chaoticize the preliminary thesis and ensuing existence of Hello Dankness: all moving images freight art and commerce equally, or can. Why construct a collaged mash-up that plunders recent American popular culture to retell American history when the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad already exists as the perfect intersection of the crisis of image-making in the twenty-first century? What filmic critique exists past the bombed-out dread and looney resignation such a manipulation of image inspires? Because, Hello Dankness suggests that, simply by continuing past its opening ad-quote, we can waste an image just as good as art and commerce can. Hello Dankness, then, is not a question or investigation into whether acts of commerce and art bleed into each other (as always they obviously do), but a sensory experience of what that bleeding feels like in our collective, plastic body.

Recognition itself is under scrutiny in Hello Dankness, nominally a collage that re-edits hundreds of pre-existing films, songs, memes, news feeds, and foley from the recent past. It culminates into a credits sequence that feels more like a chapbooks acknowledgements page than sample clearance. The films movements are recognizable to anybody reared on or responding to a Rickroll, its narrative familiar to any whove walked around and watched America after the 2016 election. In a certain way, Hello Dankness is a history of America. Its first post-Pepsi sequence establishes both its language and story, as footage of Tom Hanks in The Burbs (1989), Annette Bening in American Beauty (1999), Mike Myers and Dana Carvey in Waynes World (1992), Ice Cube in Are We Done Yet? (2007) and a soon-to-be revealed cast of thousands share a neighborhoodand cinematic spacein 2016 America. Eyelines and match-cuts are swapped out and spliced in just as often as manipulated digital images are introduced into pre-existing frames. Hanks in The Burbs can look across his lawn at Benings Carolyn Burnham from American Beauty, their suspicious glances removed from their original contexts and remixed in reaction to a Bernie 2016 lawn sign for Hanks and an Im With Her Hillary placard for Bening. Though such a thing may only be theoretical, Soda Jerk suggests, on a purely visual level, Hello Dankness is a miracle of editing. In both image placement (of course Wayne and Garth move their hockey net out of the street to accommodate Carolyn Burnhams SUV) and image re-reading (of course the Waynes World doofuses would be chirpy alt-right teens, exhibiting trolly behavior by their own tuned-outedness, and of course American Beautys icy and beleaguered real estate girlboss would be the totemic Nasty Woman tote toter), the film feels both recognizable and alien. Its an ache in the mouth, a chewed-up something that impacts every utterance that passes through it. As the ensuing new text, Hello Dankness reads flawlessly despite being an act of flaw: an interrupted image (color correction and careful transcodingadvised by Anthology Film Archives own John Klacsmannacting in concert to nudge disparate images together). Less than a pre- or post-modern great soup of being, Hello Dankness is a digital quotation as ephemeral quotidian, a deadly lark that pranks looking as much as it pranks what gets looked at when were not looking: Because a vision softly creeping / Left its seeds while I was sleeping.

Narratively, Hello Dankness re-contains history in a certain way. In its plundered language, it plays out the ongoing farce of American electoral politics and charts the rise and decline of Bernies and Hillarys and Donalds and Joes amid conspiracy theory backlash, pandemic consciousness, and reactionary meme-making. One of its most compelling visual decodings occurs, again, in its credit sequence: by organizing its list of samples Ordered by president, the film presents the fallacy of assuming that history (of images and bodies) unfolds a certain way. Its a deliberate prank on the American social studies textbook, itself a collation of images curated a certain way to curate a certain narrative and an echo of Godards insistence: in order to see one image, you need two. Is the film ultimately an act of radical politics? Its too dubious of the culpability of the image to insist that it is. The film never gestures in irony. It ends with a breath of levity more sympathetic to the removal and recontextualization of human lives rather than digital images of them.

By forgoing memey irony for looney-tune heartinessas well as in its obvious affection for and attention to The BurbsHello Dankness is a fitting re-visitation of Joe Dantes own mash-up monster, The Movie Orgy (1968). Dante, a genre hound and film history font who made affably anti-capitalist films for several major American studios throughout the eighties and nineties, holds as much affection for the moving image as he does contempt for the market forces that corrode it. The best of his films areto invoke a word often misapplied to any hack with a studio contract and half a consciencesubversive dreamscapes, precisely because they hold postmodern despair accountable to material plasticity. What if we moved this way? What if we existed after a Pepsi commercial?

When one shot moves to another, there is, however momentarily, blackness. Certain decodings of film grammar suggest that this space between edits is where time and space continues to pass. As the camera position changes, moving either towards or away from the subject or finding a new one entirely, the spectator doesnt panic, recognizing the half-history, half-memory project of cinema itself. Theres an internal logic to each filmic universe that subconsciously teaches the spectator what these (very) momentary blackouts are: blinks in a unified vision. We dont panic in the iota interims blackness between shots, we fill in the gaps. Soda Jerk echoes and contains elders like Dante and Godard while simultaneously razing the rank and reductive idolization that stagnates both politics and image-making. In their digital slipstream, they suggest that the blink-void between different images isnt just inherent to a specific cultural object, but culture more broadly. The blink-space between shots in one movie is the same as the darkness between another. By not only allowing but chasing slippage, Hello Dankness insists that every image belongs to every other one and that cinema is the process by which, holding tightly to each other, we find the hollowing-out of commerce and the potentialities of art. And in between we fill in the gaps.

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Soda Jerk's Hello Dankness The Brooklyn Rail - Brooklyn Rail