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JANUARY 16, 2021

All images courtesy of Fake Friends.

IN CIRCLE JERK, theater company Fake Friends, with co-writers Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley, co-star Cat Rodrguez, and dramaturg Ariel Sibert, throws its audience into the deepest, dankest corners of the internet, a phantasmagoria of viral TikToks, Sondheim, The Hills, the Real Housewives, Tony Kushner, and Leo Bersani, tracing the contagion of a thought as white gay supremacists on Gaymen Island devise a scheme of misinformation conspiracy. The show, a loose adaptation of Charles Ludlams The Mysteries of Irma Vep (a play that knowingly defies easy categorization), bounces back and forth between not the virtual landscapes of internet videos or looping GIFs and more concretely physical spaces such as a meme-making laboratory and an immaculate but hollow living room straight out of a YouTube interior designers shallow, cerulean-splashed fever dream. Livestreamed in October using multiple cameras, Circle Jerks concern with the future is both rooted in the way we experience art but also in the way we engage with politics through culture, questioning what our hermetic cultural bubbles might say about us and pushing us to imagine who we could be for better or worse.

Supported by Jeremy O. Harriss theater fund, a component of the award-winning playwrights deal with HBO, Circle Jerk contains what Harris told me was its own theatrical language that [he] could see was scaring people. He continued, Nothing scares white people more than the idea of a white person maybe saying something offensive to the general liberal populace. And therefore, by association, them also being offensive, which means that most white people end up not saying anything. And so, I saw two white people trying to say something loud, proud, and like, angry about what the stain of white supremacy looks like, in their skin, in their bodies and their identities.

Circle Jerks focus on how its numerous characters (all played by Breslin, Foley, and Rodrguez) either seek power or are dragged along by it is mesmerizingly disorienting. The two main characters, Jurgen and Lord Baby Bussy, design a meme from the scraps of an Amazon Alexa and an abandoned Facebook profile in the form of an artificial influencer named Eva Maria as an ideological grenade to be tossed from their base on Gaymen Island, spreading a plot through the web encouraging straight people to effectively self-destruct. Meanwhile, Patrick, under the auspices of being Jurgens new lover, turns a blind eye to the scheming on the island, while his friend Michael tries to convince him of the alt-right inclinations of the new beau. Yet, even in Michaels attempts to intervene in this conspiracy, hes hardly immune to his own ideological weaknesses. In the dizzying plot (a term which finds multifacetedness in this spectacle), the show waggles its eyebrows at conventional narrative, while the show trains its jaundiced eye on gay culture and the white supremacy that so often circulates within it. Circle Jerks hyper-referentiality ensures that every laugh is venomous, every joke tinged with acid, and every winking citation the suggestion that gay culture as we know it is a parasite, both something borne of oppression and a foundation upon which identities can be understood, but also damaging to the possibility of openness, inclusivity, and even interrogation. The more you recognize, in other words, the more youre implicated in the object of the shows critique: namely, gay culture in the hyperconnected, hypermediated age. In late October, I spoke with Breslin, Foley, and Sibert about the politics of memes, gay sex jokes, and if audiences should trust this show.

KYLE TURNER: Sorry to get all Merrily We Roll Along on you, but what came first, the memes, the critique of gay white supremacy, or Ludlams The Mystery of Irma Vep?

MICHAEL BRESLIN: The white gay supremacy idea was the first researched area that we really went into at Ars Nova, back in May 2019. Patrick and I were very fascinated with this article in The New York Times that was about gay men on the right. Then the research was like a kaleidoscope out of that question. Then the Charles Ludlam piece really came in, [thinking], how many actors can we actually get in here? The way we work[ed] before this piece, Ariel, Cat, Patrick, and I had never written down text and brought it into a rehearsal. [Our methodology] was very improvisational. But we were like, we cant just bring actors in and make them improv.

PATRICK FOLEY: improv about white supremacy.

MB: Yeah, exactly. So we said, lets keep it to the three of us, and then the Irma Vep idea came up, and then the memes that have always been at the forefront of our minds.

Memes both describe and articulate politics; they are political in terms of their content, form, and distribution. Was there a particular meme that you immediately knew was riff-worthy or really emblematic of what you were trying to do with the piece?

PF: I think in general, one of our areas of interrogation was this notion that the right had some claim on the funny meme that the right somehow was more adept at using internet language comedically than the left was and a dissatisfaction with that. Obviously, Pepe [the Frog] is major because it is so bizarrely innocuous and also scary. [This isnt a meme], but the Pizzagate scandal was a great distillation of the craziness of how QAnon and meme culture meets with real-life consequences. That was very exciting and inspirational to us as we set about writing our own gay white supremacy conspiracy theories.

ARIEL SIBERT: This [Israeli digital] artist [we spoke with] is making these incredible super cuts of important influential celebrities from Angela Merkel to Mark Zuckerberg, basically speaking very openly and frankly, about surveillance, algorithmic manipulation, and kind of popular opinion control in the mouths of these deep faked personages. Its really interesting, now that the shows come out, [to see] apps that are widely accessible to make these short GIF deep fakes, to do that kind of image substitution. And its funny because one of the other ways that we got into this [project] was a meme called Twinks for Trump.

Ah, yes! I remember.

AS: It was meant to be an active critique, but then it was quickly adopted by some of the young white guys on the alt-right to claim it and to claim it as a gesture of support for Trump. And that kind of instability of queer parody actually becoming the default strategy of these young men at their computers on the alt-right, is partly how you get to the spectrum of Charles Ludlum to gay white supremacy in this play. This idea that what was a queer aesthetic of send-up, satire, subversion, and irony is now the default mode of an internet discourse of plausibly deniable hate speech was the problem that we wanted to explore. That kind of takes you from Pepe the Frog to Twinks for Trump to the aesthetics of queer theater.

The internet has become somewhat of a substitute at least for younger queer people like myself to the shadowy bars where identity construction used to take place. The way that we consume and engage with these images and digital artifacts of gay culture is very different from the pre-internet age. What is the path forward in terms of confronting that active cultural appropriation of (white) gay culture and, to paraphrase Jeremy O. Harris, the stain of white supremacy that infects the landscape of that culture?

MB: Its an interesting question. Theres the referentiality of meme culture in gay male culture in white, gay male culture [which is] not ever just one thing, [but rather] multiple things going on at the same time. Using a GIF of NeNe Leakes as a response in a text message, from one perspective, is racial appropriation, [but] from another perspective, [that] is a gay man who feels oppressed by a patriarchal system expressing an allegiance with femininity. I think the sort of dimensionality of these images is very interesting, because white supremacy masks itself in interesting ways. And at the same time, this question of pleasure and joy you know, we dont want to stiffen and harden ourselves to not be able to laugh.

AS: Michael was reading Claudia Rankine talking about a photo dossier on white supremacy; one of the things she talks about is the obligation to witness and to look. And partly what we wanted to think about is [how/that] weve created this massive moving image thats saturated with images as a way of looking at our own complicity. And I think that is a first step. That kind of staging, confronting and showing the pieces that you use to construct an identity that are appropriative, that are oppressive, that are misconstrued, that are piecemeal, that are stolen, is one way that this play, I think, tries to move forward. The idea that the white gay male supremacy is actually a construction of many different appropriated ideas from the cultures that it actually tries to set itself apart from, borrow, use, occupy, and identify with.

Theres a tactility to the show in terms of the physical sets, but that tactility is also in conversation with the ephemerality and the intangibility of the digital spaces and digital images that circulate within it. How are those aspects not only in conversation with one another, but simultaneous/synchronous?

MB: In the show, we were interested in liveness and the construction of liveness. How can we prove to an audience that the show was actually happening live? Sometimes, of course, it was pre-recorded content to cover a change or something, and even then how to fake the failure of liveness? Patricks face mask, for example, looks strange in the pre-recorded sequence certainly not how we would set it if we were making a feature film.

PF: We spend a fair amount of time trying to stage our own humiliation so it looks accidental and framing our failures so they appear intentional. When we performed the third act onstage, the audience could always see the iPhone projection and our bodies simultaneously, and that dichotomy provided many opportunities for humor and humiliation. When Michael was performing a tragically still death scene to Imogen Heap on screen you could see Cat crouching below him with paper towels to make sure the blood didnt get on his costume and me trying to get her attention so we could pre-set for a wig change.

For the livestream, we had to be more decisive about the visual storytelling. We discovered that, in this medium (a TikTok approximation made by thirtysomethings, streamed on Vimeo) cutting to a behind-the-scenes moment of staged-but-actual failure oftentimes had the effect of taking the air out of the experience, as if the medium itself was Mama Rose in the wings whispering, Sing out Louise! which is also to say, Get on with it. Of course, the whole enterprise is an exercise in staging failure, moving away from the ephemerality of the theater and into the permanence of the internet. There was a more macro deterioration at play as we moved from the Instagram influencer/Petra von Kant visual language of the living room to the Hitchcock/Young Frankenstein surveillance of the basement to the Ghost Hunters/Blair Witch kineticism of the third act, where the cameras become extensions of our bodies, ourselves, to the final and queerest failure (which is to say a failure of queers) when Michael and I poorly perform an adaptation of Rob Marshalls adaptation of Bob Fosses original choreography for the [Chicagos] Hot Honey Rag.

AS: [The phrase queer art of failure has] become a kind of shorthand that aestheticizes what, in [Jack] Halberstams reading, is a suite of tactics and strategies for resistance, refusal, and survival.

In terms of digital landscapes and user design, I often think about how seamlessness is valued as a principle of excellence seamless design, and elegant, economic code. In terms of silicon values, those are equivalent to what might be called virtuosity. And this seamlessness is a way of blending edges, of obscuring the way things fit together, of preventing technological failures that would show the user how things work.

In terms of the spaces [by set designer Stephanie Osin Cohen], the living room and the basement are really genre-specific. I think the living room is a wonderful mixture of the classic living room farce and also Instagram-friendly Museum of Ice Cream monochrome spaces: [theyre] prepared to be photographed, and not exactly to be inhabited. And the basement looks like this livestreamer Matrix-influenced decor on top of Young Frankenstein, Ex Machina, and the Gothic tradition thats completely constructed. But they have this spatiality that I think is really, really immediate to viewers. People understand where Michaels and Patricks and Cats bodies are in space eventually, especially when we get to the end of the play.

Sex, I think, plays a really interesting part in this in this piece. You have some jokes about top/bottom discourse in there, which I think it is quite apt, as far as the examination of relational power within gay and queer communities as well as within broader systems and institutions and power.

MB: Those jokes come from deeply personal places. I think the idea of being a top or a bottom is such a loaded and intense and uncomfortable idea in the gay community. Its not [necessarily] an expression of your personality, [but] there are physical and pleasurable aspects to these identities. The Fake Friends are always talking about that, and its a major reversal when someone goes from being more of a top into being a bottom, or the inverse, in their life narrative. I would say that that element of the show, [of] the question Are you being penetrated or not? is a loaded one.

AS: We spent a lot of time on TikTok during the earlier phases of the show and I think several of us got served this one meme. I cant remember the username. Its a young, young guy saying, You are not a top, you are not a bottom, you are 14. Get to class. And we loved it, because we really were seeing in regards to outside of queer culture and queer community of Gen Z embracing top/bottom discourse, without any pushback to the idea that maybe this is also replicating gender binary and power binary, and also, misogyny and also homophobia. So, for Jurgen to say at the beginning of the play, There is only one gender, and then to be a big fan of top/bottom discourse, I think kind of actually encapsulates that chaos to top/bottom discourse and the way that its just been broadly culturally mapped outside of a situation of talking about anal sex. Broadly culturally-mapped-on passivity and activeness in a way that is just taken to be funny. Therere so many TikTok memes about paying the bill at a restaurant being top/bottom discourse.

The Get to Class meme, and the broader conversation of how Gen Z is implementing and applying top/bottom jokes and discourse, is interesting in terms of it becoming its own framework. Are these jokes confined to an existing framework, or are they dismantling it within these jokes? Is it different from how millennial queer people engage with this discourse? And what about vers-ness in this landscape?

MB: To quote our show, which misquotes Andrea Long Chu: Everyone is vers and everyone feels whatever about it. I feel like peoples sex lives are so much more boring than internet memes about topping and bottoming, but we do love to double-tap for, like, an instant of euphoric identification and, like, half a second of horniness.

PF: Many of our characters find freedom within the binary. This is not to say they adhere (or identify) perfectly, but rather in the hypocrisy and contradiction, the toggling back and forth, the binge and the purge, they most honestly express themselves. I was raised Catholic, as was Michael, so the practice of holding two contradictory truths at once is not new to us. Whats interesting to me in the Get to Class meme, is that the punch line is delivered from the perspective of a teacher, a millennial. I suppose teachers are, in many ways, always the top unless theyre particularly Socratic, in which case theyre a power bottom or vers? In answering this question, I stupidly searched our script for the word top and the additional words that appeared were toppled, utopia, stop, zootopia, dystopia, and Christopher Columbus. Bottom naturally just turns up bottom.

AS: Circle Jerk is populated by comic characters, based on genres, types, and comic hierarchies that I think often map onto binaries similar to those implied top and bottom discourse. At the level of character, its a world of tops and bottoms. But at the level of structure in the play, we built a dramaturgy of flipping and reversals and switching of allegiance, affiliation, of sympathies. So thats how you get to a joke like what we have at the end of the play, where Jurgen tells Patrick that Bottoms dont kill, they die moments before Patrick tells Jurgen that hes straight now and shoots him. Maybe the world of the play is more switchy than versatile. [But] I dont want to make any broad claims about how millennials versus Gen Z top, bottom, or make top/bottom memes. One of the things I do notice about Gen Z creators not to fall into the trap of old-fogeyism or cringey millennial observation is that they absolutely understand cultural criticism as a form of entertainment. And often, within that kind of framing a kind of self-undermining is almost assumed. Theres a kind of shrugging acceptance of inevitable hypocrisy as another example, political TikToks starting with Yes, of course, I know its ironic to make this political statement on TikTok, etc. Political sincerity and glib irony are these oscillating, unstable categories.

I think, as I think about most meme discourses, that its impossible to divorce what is freeing, liberatory, resistant, from what is confined, co-opted and co-opting, and repressive/repressed, as creativity and micro-cultures circulate in these vast capitalist networks of affective exchange. And then you add to that the way that citational meme cultures are difficult to politically pin in any position the way they can always collapse into irony and slip away. This is equally true of Gen Z joking about sexuality and the alt-right joking about white supremacy.

In your interview with The Daily Beast, you talk about the scene where you do find a conflict between white gay and liberal identities. You asked, How do you hold someone accountable who has the exact same identity as you, without revealing your own hypocrisies? What does accountability look like in this particular framework or paradigm?

MB: The way that white gay men interact with each other behind closed doors is a minefield; its a very different thing even than whats represented in our play. And I think this question of accountability is [one of] action. And I think in that Michael/Patrick scene in the second act, you see that negotiation of Im trying to tell you what youre doing is wrong. But then 20 minutes later, Michael does the same thing.

PF: The shows taking place online, right? What accountability looks like online is way different than what it looks like in the real world. I think that with everything thats happened this year, we see this woke performance happening digitally, particularly among white people, in a way that I think is very disconcerting and that always, in some way, centers the white person having the conversation or having the awakening, [which] also erases their own culpability. Weve seen all of these canned responses from leaders in various different fields that begin with, I recognize that in my [insert institution here] or [insert this position here], Ive succeeded because of white supremacist practices, but I think rarely do we actually see what seems to be meaningful or probing self-examination. Just using a new vocabulary to re-establish oneself as a thought leader or any kind of leader is just repurposing the same imaging structural issues.

AS: Accountability has to be an ongoing process that acknowledges hypocrisy, as almost inevitable, that acknowledges efforts for justice as a narrative that we tell ourselves that cant possibly take into account the cumulative effect of every single tiny, everyday action. And for this play, it ends like a horror movie, right? Theres a reawakening of the monster in a different form. Its the continual acknowledgment [that] I have blind spots, I have things I cant see and I need this collaboration and all of the people in this room to maybe see more and say more and do more. And this is a process that is not assumed to be finished for any one person in that room.

One of the one of my favorite title cards in the show is 13 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT TRUST WHITE GAY MEN WITH ANYTHING INCLUDING YOUR LIBERAL MEME. Should we trust your show?

PF: Should you trust our show? No. I think its related to accountability, too. Its this hilarious notion that with enough apologies and enough penance, were gonna finally purify ourselves, and thats absolutely not true. And our company is a company of four very deranged, flawed people making deranged, flawed work, that hopefully represents us in some way, shape, or form. So yeah, dont trust us.

AS: Ah, no, no, no, of course not. Are you kidding? We were having this conversation with a group of people about the [use of] avant-garde, with regards to some of the aesthetics Im displaying here. And I love that because I think the discourse produced around the term avant-garde is hilarious and completely unresolvable. Is it purely aesthetic? Or does it have a political responsibility? And if it has a political responsibility, does it betray itself?

Im particularly thinking about maximalism, like the critique of the Dadaists and the Futurists love of chaos, is that it was easily co-opted by the right. And it actually just exacerbated the conditions of inequality and overwhelm that they meant to propose as an alternative life to capitalism that was really easily co-opted. Were never beyond that discussion. And the show and the discourse around the show is a symptom of the way that that discussion just reproduces itself. Its a discourse-making machine. And to an extent, the show is also a discourse-making machine.

That includes a discourse-making machine in it.

AS: Exactly, exactly. And to say that its a snake eating its own tail is accurate and to say that we have a way out would be inaccurate. To say that we think that you reach peak noise and information saturation, and suddenly all identity falls apart and we reach the singularity we know [that] is a probably racist and classist fantasy. And so yeah, dont trust us. Were telling you not to trust us.

As far as aesthetic modes having political responsibility, how do you feel about your shows relationship to camp?

MB: One of my favorite quotes about camp comes from Charles Ludlam; he says the concept of camp has been so prostituted around that it is now worthless. And he said it as someone whose work a lot of critics and people would now classify in some way in relation to camp. I like to say that Susan Sontags essay on camp is an act of camp itself. It aims high and it fails in a way that makes it funny, enraging, [and] so stimulating for me to read. Every time I read it, I have a different response. I do think wigs are political. In many ways in terms of gender, race, class, all that and the wigs in the show, you know, might be read in relation to camp? Those are political.

PF: No comment.

AS: I mean, my love of Susan Sontag is storied in the company. And its a problematic love, where I identify very strongly with a closeted lesbian who longs to disidentify. And one of the objects of parody in the show, I think, is my longing to disidentify and to disappear and withdraw, and yet at the same time to be involved in queer community, and to diagnose, dissect, and describe it. And my feeling about camp, in terms of our company? I would say, Im like the minimalist. I think camp is an object of desire that also for many critics has with it a kind of loathing for this freedom, a kind of loathing for the fact that if you call something camp, camp would respond, I dont know what youre talking about. What do you mean? Its infuriating, and thats what I love about it. Its this longing. I think theres a critical longing for the freedom of camp that wants to chastise it when you even say the word camp. Is this show campy? I dont understand the question, is what I would have to say. I dont understand the question, I have to go brush a wig.

Kyle Turner is a queer freelance writer based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a contributor to Paste Magazine, and his writing on queerness and cinema has been featured in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Playboy, and Slate.

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Circle Jerk in the Square: An Interview with Michael Breslin, Patrick Foley, and Ariel Sibert - lareviewofbooks

Queensland MP George Christensen is using the alt-right social media network Gab, the go-to social media platform for neo-Nazis, QAnon conspiracy theorists and right-wing extremists.

Mr Christensen, the LNP member for Dawson in far north Queensland, appears to have been a member of Gab since 2016 but only began posting this week, highlighting complaints about Big Tech censorship including the de-platforming of US President Donald Trump.

The spotlight has turned on Gab, a self-proclaimed free speech platform developed in 2016 by young conservative Christian tech entrepreneur Andrew Torba, since mainstream sites including Twitter and Facebook purged tens of thousands of accounts, including Mr Trump's, following last week's attack on the Capitol building.

Users of another right-wing site, Parler, which was effectively shut down last week, were also heading to Gab.

The site, which has featured a cartoon character strikingly similar to Pepe the frog - co-opted by neo-Nazis as a mascot - as its corporate logo, and still sells merchandise featuring "Gabby the frog,'' has claimed it was getting 10,000 new users signing up every hour.

Queensland MP George Christensen. Picture: Matt Taylor

Mr Christensen does not mention his LNP affiliation on his Gab profile and instead calls himself a conservative, with links to his podcast.

"Gab has established itself as a free speech social media platform that adequately moderates unlawful content, and for these reasons I am happy to support it as a Member of Parliament," he told News Corp.

Other Australians using the site include far-Right figure Blair Cottrell. There is an inactive account under the name of the former One Nation Senator Fraser Anning.

QAnon conspiracy theorist Tim Stewart, prominent for his years-long friendship with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, is also on Gab after being booted off Twitter.

Senior politics lecturer at the University of Sydney, Peter Chen, said while there was much talk of "mass migration'' to sites such as Gab, it remained to be seen if the new users would stay around.

Dr Peter Chen, senior lecturer in politics at the University of Sydney. Picture: Supplied

Dr Chen said Gab had fewer than one million accounts and it was not yet clear how many were active.

By comparison, Twitter has more than 340 million accounts and more than 186 million daily active users.

Dr Chen said claims by Gab that it was signing up 10,000 people an hour were "totally unverifiable.''

"The question is how many will stay around,'' he said.

"Gab is far more unashamedly aligned with the far Right - the neo-Nazis, white supremacists.

"There are common threads, at the moment QAnon is the major theme.

"Once Trump fades from the public eye with the loss of his position how long will people be attracted to the Q thing when Trump is out of office?''

Dr Chen said he thought Gab would be less popular in Australia than in the US, where it appealed strongly to those involved in the US militia culture.

Efforts were made in 2018 to shut down Gab after a man posted his thoughts there before murdering 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Mr Torba, who was just 27 when he founded Gab, posted on Friday that the site had "zero tolerance for threats of violence or illegal activity on our platform.

"The soaring demand of our service is not from extremists joining the platform, but rather from everyday people joining who are tired of the Silicon Valley tyrants controlling speech on the internet,'' he wrote.

Originally published as Questions over MP using alt-right social media

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Questions over MP using alt-right social media - Daily Mercury

Remember the alt-right? The sludge of white supremacists, misogynists, neo-Nazis, and various chauvinists leaked out of the putrid corners of the internet in the years leading up to Donald Trumps election. Although their various hatreds, grievances, and conspiracy theories were old, they saw themselves as something new. Their very name placed them in opposition to the status quo. They werent the American right, the coalition that included politicians like then-House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain, as well as the Wall Street Journal editorial board and the intellectuals in the conservative think tanks and magazines. No, they were the blood-and-soil, tiki-torches-and-khakis alternative.

The one new thing about the alt-right, apart from its embrace of internet anonymity as a modern-day successor to the Klan hood, was its leaders. There was Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist proprietor of InfoWars, famous for his concern over gay frogs, and Richard Spencer, a neo-Nazi provocateur known for getting punched. For those who preferred stronger flavors, there was Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and self-described Campus Conservative, and Milo Yiannopoulos, who mixed white nationalism with defenses of pedophilia. The chief impresario was Steve Bannon, who made the website he took over, Breitbart, into a platform for the alt-right.

That was then. By its own definition, the alt-right is no more. Because its no longer an alternative to the right. It is the right.

Most of the Republican party is now more or less where the alt-right was four years ago, at least in embracing conspiracy theoriesstarting with the most consequential conspiracy theory of the last year: that Trump won the 2020 election but it was stolen from him by some combination of Democratic fraudsters, foreign and domestic socialists, and voting-machine companies, backed up by Big Tech. Courts asked to weigh in on these claims repeatedly slapped them down, and the pro-Trump lawyers who filed them increasingly revealed themselves to be unhinged. But about three-quarters of Republicans believe that President-elect Bidens victory was illegitimate. And a majority of the Republicans in Congress supported the baseless claims: Two-thirds of the GOP representatives objected to certifying Electoral College votes last Wednesday, and over a quarter of GOP senators did (and/or said they intended to do) the same thing.

And what of the other big conspiracy theories in recent years? Among Republicans who have heard of QAnon, 41 percent say its somewhat good or very good for the country. Just 26 percent labeled it very bad. A plurality of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believe that the statement the coronavirus outbreak was intentionally planned by powerful people is probably or definitely true. The figure is even higher for self-described conservatives.

Of course, belief in conspiracy theories isnt an isolated metaphysical phenomenon. It brings with it moral and political ramifications. Rare indeed is the conspiracy theorist who believes the world is controlled by a secret, powerful cabalbe it the Jews, the Illuminati, or the lizard peopleand decides to stay on its good side. Embedded in the conspiracy theory itself is the need to fight the conspiracy, often violently. No wonder Republicans are so tolerant of violence. According to one poll, more than two-thirds of Republicans said the storming of the Capitol on January 6 was not a threat to democracy. A plurality (45 percent) approved of the insurrection.

Nor are most conspiracy theories (and for that matter, conspiracy theorists) devoid of other ideological stains: The QAnon conspiracy, after all, is based in part on a warmed-over version of the thousand-year-old anti-Semitic blood libel. Some Republicans spent years defending themselves and their co-partisans against accusations of racism, only to have the regime of theyre not sending us their best, the Muslim ban, good people on both sides, go back where you came from, shithole countries, family separations, kids in cages, and when the looting starts, the shooting starts make racism an integral part of the modern Republican platform. Last week, QAnon apostle and Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert live-tweeted House Speaker Nancy Pelosis location as the U.S. Capitol Police were being overrun; Republican Rep. Mary Miller told a crowd that Hitler was right about one thing (she has since apologized); and Trump himself told those engaged in armed insurrection against the U.S. government, youre very special.

Bannon, for his part, having been discarded by Trump in early 2018, was arrested last August aboard a 150-foot yacht belonging to Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui in what turned out to be the perfect metaphor. After a relatively short stint as Trumps senior advisor, he had become obsolete. The president didnt need a theorist of white-grievance politics whispering in his ear; he didnt need the man who gave a platform to the alt-right. Trump had become the embodiment of the alt-right, its leader and avatar, a human Pepe the Frog meme.

Yes, there are still non-racist, non-conspiracy-theorist, normal Republicans left in the party. Some freshman Republican members of Congress, like Reps. Nancy Mace and Peter Meijer, bear no responsibility for the ugliness of the last few years and have reacted with suitable outrage to recent events. But they and Larry Hogan and Mitt Romney and Adam Kinzinger arent the dreaded GOP establishment against which Trump has channeled such hatred and contempt for the last six years. Today, they are the alternative, and Trump and his team are the establishment.

Lisa Murkowski, in almost the same breath as she called for Trump to leave office, considered what she had in common with her fellow Republicans anymore. If the Republican party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me.

Good question. Parties have reinvented themselves before, including the Republican party, in its conservative turn of the 1960s-70s and again over the last few years. But its hard to imagine a new, reasonable, reality-minded Republican party building itself from the wreckage of todays GOP.

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The Alt-Right Is Now the Entire Right - The Bulwark

Two scenes from the Jan. 6, 2021 rioting: A noose hung by pro-Trump insurgents and a man wearing a Camp Auschwitz jacket seen on Reddit. (Noose photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images via JTA)By Laura E. Adkins, Emily Burack

The sweatshirt, spotted amid the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol, seemed designed to provoke fear.

Camp Auschwitz, it read, along with the message Work brings freedom a rough translation of the message that greeted Jewish prisoners at the infamous Nazi concentration camp.

The back of the shirt said Staff.

A photo of the man wearing the sweatshirt was just one of the images of hateful symbols that have circulated from the mob, whose violence led to four deaths and wreaked havoc on Congress. Confederate flags and nooses were among the overt hate signs that the insurrection brought into the Capitol.

Other slogans on flags, clothing or signs were code for a gamut of conspiracy theories and extremist ideologies. Heres what you need to know about them and the far-right movements they represent.

Several members of the mob wore or carried signs invoking the pro-Donald Trump QAnon conspiracy theory, which is laced with anti-Semitism. QAnon, which began in 2017 and has gained millions of adherents, falsely alleges that an elite cabal of pedophiles, run by Democrats, is plotting to harvest the blood of children and take down Trump. Trump has praised the movement and espoused its baseless ideas.

Here are some of the QAnon symbols present in the Capitol last week.

Q represents the purported high-ranking government official who shares inside information with QAnon followers through cryptic posts on fringe websites. QAnon followers often wear T-shirts emblazoned with a huge Q and several of them were part of the Capitol mob.

As Qs supposed predictions have proven false over the years including the election of Joe Biden, which Q predicted would not happen many QAnon followers became disillusioned. Others told them to trust the plan and place their faith in QAnons theories. The phrase has become one of the conspiracy theorys slogans.

Trust the Plan logos were also visible in the Capitol, referring to the plan QAnon followers believe is happening.

Messaging related to saving children is a core tenet of QAnon because it alleges a global pedophile ring. In the photo above, a woman carries a sign saying The children cry out for justice, referencing children who QAnon conspiracists falsely believe have been abducted by Democrats and progressives, including the Jewish billionaire financier George Soros.

Prominent Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis were part of the Capitol mob. A far-right activist known as Baked Alaska livestreamed from inside House Speaker Nancy Pelosis office. Another extremist, Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who leads the far-right Groyper Army, was said to be in the room with him. Fuentes denies this but was outside the Capitol on Wednesday.

The Neo-Nazi group NSC-131 also joined the insurrection, according to reporter Hilary Sargent. NSC stands for Nationalist Social Club and has small regional chapters in the United States and abroad. The 131 division is from New England.

In a video, one participant can be seen brandishing a flag with what some Twitter users identified as a swastika, though it isnt entirely clear.

Other flags on display also were associated with long histories of white supremacy. At least one protester carried a Confederate battle flag into the Capitol building. Meanwhile, nooses a prominent symbol of racist violence were placed outside.

In one instance, after members of the mob started destroying camera equipment from The Associated Press, they made a noose out of the cords, according to BuzzFeed News reporter Paul McLeod:

Flags bearing the phrase when tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty (a version of a quote dubiously attributed to Thomas Jefferson) and the Roman numeral III also were seen.

III is the logo of the Three Percenters, also known as the III% militia, an anti-government militia founded in response to the election of President Obama. The ADL defines the Three Percenters as extremists who are part of the militia movement.

Another symbol favored by militias is a coiled snake above the phrase Dont Tread on Me, known as the Gadsden flag, which symbolizes support for gun rights and individual liberties. The symbol, emblazoned on a flag, has been used as well by the Boogaloo Bois, a loose affiliate of anti-government militias that comes armed to protests. They are known to wear Hawaiian shirts (not as yet seen at the march) or camouflage (which was very much on display).

The Boogaloo movement, which aspires to start a second Civil War, gained prominence last year when its members showed up to anti-lockdown protests and racial justice marches. At least one man wearing a shirt advocating for a civil war was present at the Capitol, though its unclear if he was an adherent of the Boogaloo Bois.

The Oath Keepers, an anti-government group like the Three Percenters, according to the ADL, were in D.C. and at a similar protest in Arizona on Wednesday.

Members of the Proud Boys, the violent far-right group that Trump told to stand back and stand by during a September presidential debate, wear black-and-yellow Fred Perry polo shirts along with red Make America Great Again caps. (Fred Perry, a U.K. brand, has said it would stop selling the shirts because of their association with the group.)

Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, who said he quit the group in 2018, was spotted in the D.C. crowd. The groups current leader, Enrique Tarrio, was ordered to leave the city earlier this week after being arrested on weapons charges.

An earlier version of this article mentioned reports of a Proud Boys protester wearing a 6MWE shirt, which stands for Six Million Wasnt Enough, a reference to the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. However, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was not able to substantiate this claim, as the image circulating on social media appears to be from a Proud Boys protest in December rather than from this week.

Kek, a phrase that has roots in online gaming, has taken on new meaning on the far right. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Kek is the deity of the semi-ironic religion the white nationalist movement has created for itself online. The word is used alongside the meme of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character that has been appropriated as a mascot of white nationalists. The Kek flag, seen above, resembles a Nazi war flag, with a Kek logo replacing the swastika and the color green in place of red.

The shooter who committed the 2019 massacre at a New Zealand mosque appropriated symbols of the Crusades, and theyve become popular with other far-right, ethnonationalist groups. The symbols, such as medieval-style helmets or Templar and crusader crosses, are meant to harken to an era of white, Christian wars against Muslims and Jews.

The Marvel comic anti-hero The Punisher has been adopted in recent years by white nationalists and neo-Nazis, to the dismay of its creator.

The fact that white nationalists and Nazis embrace it is a tragic misunderstanding, Gerry Conway told Inverse. Its a misappropriation of the character and a blatant disregarding of reality.

Anti-circumcision activists, also known as intactivists, support banning all forms of circumcision. Jewish law requires circumcision, and the intactivist movement often features anti-Jewish imagery. An intactivist comic book called Foreskin Man portrays blonde Aryan superheroes fighting Jewish mohels, who perform circumcision. The above image shows a protester in front of the Supreme Court in October, and similar signs and outfits were seen this week in D.C.

Wednesdays demonstration featured protesters carrying anti-circumcision signs reading circumcision is the mark of the beast of satan and outlaw satans circumcision.

Have you seen a symbol or sign of a hate group we should know about? Email us.

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Neo-Nazis, QAnon and Camp Auschwitz: A Guide to the Hate Symbols at the Capitol Riots - Jewish Exponent

There are certainly TV shows and episodes that deserve to be called the bestthats why we made this list. But in 2020, a year defined by anxiety and being stuck inside, the best shows werent always the ones that mattered most. While there is joy in watching something of supreme quality, this year called more for comfort, nostalgia, and nontraditional entertainment. With that said, here are the things that the Ringer staff turned to in 2020 ...

I admit it: I hopped on Ted Lasso very late in the match. When the series first came out in August, earning rave reviews and filling my timeline with sickly-sweet sentiments about a college football coach who got a new job he was ridiculously underqualified for, I balked. There was no way this show could be that good, that funny, that charmingI pretty much thought people were just bored. But then I caved and discovered that, in the immortal words of Ted Lasso (played by Jason Sudeikis) himself, Last one theres a Scotch egg.

Ted Lasso is about a Premier League club owner who, fresh off a divorce in which she gained control of the team, tries to sabotage their chances by bringing in an American football coach who doesnt even know what offsides is. But what its really about is earning respect (the hard way, not the showy way), putting others before yourself, andughlearning to hope. Its just as earnest as advertised, but in the best way possible, and by the time they break out Youll Never Walk Alone in the seasons final episode, you, too, will have started to believe in Ted Lasso. Megan Schuster

I have watched a lot of bad television this year. Some of it was new, some it was old; some of it was acclaimed, some of it was not. It was fine, mostlybeing bored on the couch is a luxury in 2020.

I loved The Great both because it was really and truly quite great, but also because of what an absolute surprise it was. Sure, plenty of those more in the know were fully aware of what to expect from Tony McNamara and Elle Fanning. But in my home, it took a gradual talking into: Its a period dramabut not that kind of period drama; its about Catherine the Greatbut not, like, in a boring way, or in Russian; also bears are there, I think? So, having trudged in from the 1700s St. Petersburg frost for lack of alternatives, what a joy to find a sharp, bizarre, belly-laughing jewel box of a show. It might be the only 2020 surprise that I absolutely loved. Huzzah. Claire McNear

When I was first acclimating myself to Gen Zs favorite timesuck in mid-March, my colleague Alyssa Bereznak directed me to the account of one Tyler Gaca, a.k.a. @ghosthoney, dubbing him the Los Espookys of TikTok. I instantly knew what she meant. Like Los Espookys cocreator and costar Julio Torres, Gaca creates a world of his own, one where a novelty Pokmon donut can be an artistic muse and sunglasses can be traded for miniature owls. Gaca is technically an influencer in that he does social media full time and recently moved to L.A., but his page is a merciful break from the relentless monotony of the online creator aesthetic. Some of his videos are fictional sketches; some are charming vignettes with his husband; some are just takes, like how all golf courses should be public butterfly gardens. All manage to make TikToks 60-second format feel expansive, expressive, and just plain weirdall with a fraction of the time and resources real television can afford. Alison Herman

Not much about 2020 has been satisfyingDan Devine: bastion of the understatementbut the finale of Better Call Sauls phenomenal fifth season certainly qualified. With one look, one withering Wouldnt I? and one unmistakable hand gesture, the last scene of Something Unforgivable fulfilled a promise five years and 50-odd hours in the making, propelling one of televisions best shows into a deeply compelling and terrifyingly uncertain future.

What begins as the sort of small-time-scam spitballing that represents foreplay for Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler turns deathly serious post-coitus, as Kims pillow talk produces a Wed never do it but pivot that calls to mind Benjen Starks received wisdom about that particular transition word. What followsKim pitching a plan to destroy Howard Hamlins life that would net her and Jimmy around $2 millis jarringly matter-of-fact and even-tempered, laying bare just how easy it is to keep sliding down that slippery slope once you begin your descent.

Its not just about the way the electric Rhea Seehorn says Wouldnt I? when Jimmy argues that Kim wouldnt really be OK with going after Howard like this. Its also about the way she follows up that bombshellcompletely relaxed, contentedly exhaling. She doesnt just tell you how far shes already fallen, how comfortable shed be reducing a man to rubble. She shows you. The finger guns are out of their holsters now, the masks off; the journey-beneath-the-journey that Better Call Saul has really been about all along is complete. All thats left is to find out how far down that slope goes, and how many people will get hurt by the time we reach the bottom. Dan Devine

Ive always liked golfing, but 2020 was the year that I became obsessed with golfing. Stuck inside for months, the world sputtering into chaos, suddenly here was this sport that I could play safely outdoors, temporarily protected from reality by a perimeter of pine trees. Contrary to the rest of my life, the laws of nature and cause and effect still seemed to apply on a golf course: Id hit a white ball, and if I didnt shift my hips too much or bend my left arm like a schmuck, itd generally go in the direction that I wanted it to.

At some point Mark Zuckerberg mustve noticed all of the golf course geotags, because now I cant scroll through Facebook without seeing this mans face:

I know nothing about him (I dont want to complicate our relationship), but Ive grown to love Rick Shiels. How he moves his hand like an overexcited conductor. The way he slaps the bottom of his irons like theyre a bag of soil at Home Depot. How it often seems like hes having an existential crisis trying to decide whether to keep talking or actually swing the frickin club. The apparently limited resources; most times you cant even see if the shot he just hit was a good one. I cant claim that Rick Shiels has made me better at golfthe chunk I took out of a fairway last week would beg to differbut I do know that Ill stop and watch every time he crosses my feed. Because at least he seems nice, and at least the world seems to make a little bit of sense, if only for three minutes. Andrew Gruttadaro

I can tell you the exact moment when Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. It wasnt once the networks called Pennsylvania a few days after the polls closed. It wasnt when the Supreme Court denied Texas the right to challenge the vote counts in four states last week. It wasnt once California cast its votes for Biden in the Electoral College earlier this week. I knew Trump lost once the comedian James Austin Johnson uploaded his latest impersonation: Trump complaining, in his nasal absurdity, about the requirements for beating a Pokmon game. Johnsons breakout TrumpScooby-Doo bit from a few months ago is great, too, but his Trump-Pokmon bit really synthesizes Trump into a single, succinct, comprehensive artifact for dissemination to later generations and extraterrestrial scavengers. Justin Charity

I find so much joy in reality TVs excessive production tropes. The plush interiors, replete with enough decorative pillows and wine to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool; the interstitial interviews where cast members speak in snappy punch lines; the gongs and bowed cymbals that add a heightened sense of drama to otherwise unremarkable conversations. These techniques can make a conversation about life insurance policies interesting, and nobody knows that better than Boman Martinez-Reid. The 22-year-old TikTokers parodies cram every reality TV trick in under a minute, elevating the climax of each incident to fantastical heights. What begins with a disagreement over what to eat for lunch ends with an exchange so disrespectful that Martinez-Reid quite literally melts into a puddle. Microphones are replaced with bananas, makeup blotters are Rubiks Cubes, and cocktails are garnished with exercise weights and whisks. A true student of the Bravo universe, Martinez-Reid sometimes even drops in a teaser graphic (starring him) at the bottom of the screen midepisode. At a moment when our own understanding of reality keeps being stretched to unbelievable limits, Martinez-Reids TikTok offers a welcome alternate universe, where the stakes of everyday life are far more frivolous and where, above all else, whimsy rules. Alyssa Bereznak

On average, I cry about once or twice a year. Like a sailor lost at sea, I ration out my tears as if they were the last sleeve of saltines left in the cupboard. Its partially an act of self-preservationor, thats what I like to believe.

Either way, in a year full of devastation, loss, and anxiety, one of the rare pieces of entertainment that managed to break me was a cartoon about a vampire and royal piece of anthropomorphic bubblegum. Adventure Time: Distant Lands is a set of HBO Max specials spun off from the hit 2010s series created by Pendleton Ward. Obsidian, the second episode in the series, follows Marceline the Vampire Queen and Princess Bubblegum as they try to save the citizens of the Glass Kingdom and their brittle but beautiful relationship. At the episodes climax, Marceline (voiced by Olivia Olson) serenades Bubblegum with a song called Monster. Over a simple guitar melody, Marceline admits to her partner and, more so to herself, how much her childhood trauma has stunted her ability to give and receive love. In a warm but wounded voice, she sings, We were messed up kids who taught ourselves how to live / And Im still scared that Im not good enough.

During Adventure Times cultural peak, fans passionately shipped Marceline and Princess Bubblegum and were ultimately rewarded when the two characters united at the shows conclusion. Monster is the culmination of that specific moment in time. Instead of Marceline and Bubblegum living happily ever after, the creators of Adventure Time decided to do one betterthey gave their beloved characters a relationship as gorgeously flawed as the lives of the people who spent so much time watching them. Charles Holmes

Its quite difficult to describe Conner OMalleys videos. ... I mean, it honestly feels impossible. You might have seen Conner OMalley earlier this year in Palm Springs, in which he played the brother of the bride, and that mightve been the most normal thing hes been a part of in 2020. This year, OMalley published 15 original videos on his YouTube channelheavy emphasis on the word original. His first video of 2020 was a Hudson Yards interactive video game, brought to you by Lululemon Interactive (Lululemon had no part in making this video) in which he walked around Hudson Yards saying hi to tourists. While that may sound somewhat normal, the video takes a turn when he unlocks Allyship, as the game turns into a 3D animated hard rock music video about [Struggles to find words.] honestly I dont even know.

After two videos about trying to save the stock market with a movie script about Joe Biden and blue Powerade, Conner followed up with his most successful video of the year, titled Smoking 500 Cigarettes for 5G. The video, which has racked up over 1 million views, focuses on Conner walking up and down Kosciuszko Bridge smoking cigarettes, in partnership with T-Mobile and Verizon (neither company agreed to this). He eventually succeeds in his mission, and when he unlocks the power of 5G he finds out that Jeffrey Epstein was killed by the Burlington Coat Factory. As I mentioned from the jump, these videos make zero sensebut thats their beauty. They are somehow timely, yet also not from any time thats ever existed. There is no rhyme or reason to any of them, and each video leaves you scratching your headbut somehow, they spark a sensation that feels unique and necessary in this already absurd year. So with an extremely heavy NSFW warning, I urge you to check out Conner OMalleys YouTube channel. I can guarantee you will regret it. Sean Yoo

Philadelphia is a great city, maybe even the best city, not to mention the birthplace of our nationwhich is why it was only fitting that, nearly 250 years after founding America, we managed to save it. As you might know, Philly was instrumental in reducing Donald Trump to a failed one-term president. And if somehow you hadnt heard on November 7, the day the election was officially called for President-Elect Joe Biden, Philly made sure to let you know. There was music and dancing in the streets and an impromptu pop-up parade. Someone, or several someones, naturally had a giant Eagle ready to deploy on the streets. (Go Birds.) Others celebrated by waving ceremonial loaves of victory bread outside Reading Terminal Market.

And if all of that wasnt enough, there was the well-chronicled Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference disaster by the defeated and discombobulated Trump campaign to provide all of us with some merch, some memes, and more than a few laughs. Even Captain America dunked on them. What a grand timecourtesy of your friends from Philly. If you think we were obnoxious after the Eagles beat the Pats to win the Super Bowl, well never let you forget that time we came riding to democracys rescue. John Gonzalez

Classical music is in many ways the most low-tech category of musical artnearly all the instruments are acoustic; a good chunk of the repertoire predates the steam engine, much less the AirPods Maxbut with nowhere else to turn in the midst of worldwide lockdown, soloists and ensembles embraced Zoom. In a famously, and sometimes forbiddingly, formal art form, concerts were suddenly being streamed from living rooms, where some of the worlds greatest musicians sat among their bookcases and houseplants and played deathlessly beautiful music while their cats wandered around, totally bored. At the online Metropolitan Opera gala, I watched awe-inspiring opera divas sing grand arias from their basements and kitchens; on Instagram, I watched members of the renowned vocal ensemble The Sixteen share recipes and TV recs before singing informal concerts with their families. I watched members of the Philadelphia Orchestra play teleconference octets.

And no, it wasnt the same as going to a concert hall. But 2020 was such a grand tragic opera on its own that the low-key, thoughtful, welcoming spirit of these shows was, if anything, a better consolation for this moment. I hope the moments are better next year, but Ill never forget how these musicians responded to this one. Brian Phillips

Throughout this tumultuous year, the YouTube videos of HunniBee ASMR have symbolically held my hand (ears?). Ive let the world fade into white noise while I sit transfixed as she demolishes an entire family order of KFC fried chicken, ruins her teeth chowing down on desserts made to look like household items, and slurps her way through noodles of almost every variety. HunniBee ASMRs videos have no plot, no characters save one, and certainly no greater meaning beyond the sensory enjoyment of a random Canadian woman eating colorful foods while micd up. I cant get enough. Theres something so soothing and familiar about her presence, almost as if shes saying, Yeah, youre going to watch and listen to me eat food for 30 minutes, but no judgment! I do this for your enjoyment, and I truly hope it brings you happiness. Amelia Wedemeyer

No moment on inauguration day in 2017 summed up how stupid the next four years would be more than alt-right provocateur Richard Spencer getting rocked in his jaw as he explained the meaning of the frog pin adorning his lapel. But anyone who spent much time online in the run-up to the 2016 election didnt need an introduction to Spencers amphibian mascot: It was Pepe, a seemingly innocuous cartoon adopted first by 4chan users and later by the alt-right as a means of trolling.

Feels Good Man starts with the story of Pepes more innocent beginnings. Matt Furie, a talented cartoonist and seemingly decent human, created the character in the mid-2000s as part of his comic Boys Club. (The title of the documentary gets its name from a strip in which Pepe pulls his pants all the way down to pee and declares that it feels good, man.) But just as soon as Furie drew Pepe, people started appropriating the frogs image. Eventually, he became a rallying cry for Trump supporters. Before long, Pepe would be listed by the Anti-Defamation League as a hate symbol.

Directed by Arthur Jones, a friend of Furies, Feels Good Man is many thingsan exploration of incel culture, a tale of someone trying to reclaim their creation, an excuse to laugh at Alex Jones. But watching the doc as we approach the inauguration of a new president, it feels like a bookend to a moment that began with Spencer getting punched. Pepe didnt deserve what happened to him, but society certainly deserved such a ridiculous symbol for such a cartoonishly stupid period of history. Justin Sayles

Celebrity Twitter, like regular Twitter, ranges from boring to sanctimonious, to offensive, to deranged, to schticky, to occasionally clever. But theres no single account that better captures a movie stars on-screen persona than James Caans. Every one of his tweets has a pure enough dose of his tough-guy charm that when Im down, I scroll through his timeline as a pick-me-up.

His formula is pretty simple: Theres usually a shot from one of his films, an image of a movie poster, or a photo of him on set, and then a snappy caption. And best of all, theres always a three-word farewell message: End of Tweet.

Is Caan actually the author of the account? Even if hes not, I dont care. No TV show, movie, or viral video has made me laugh more in 2020. End of blurb. Alan Siegel

In the spring of 2020, my fellow Tea Time hosts and I were faced with a professional conundrum: We had a pop culture news podcast and no pop culture news to report. Other than the occasional Ben-Ana paparazzi photo, nothing was happening. We were forced to get creative, by which I mean we shamelessly mashed together two Ringer podcastsThe Rewatchables and Binge Modeand created a new segment for Tea Time called Cringe Mode. We pledged to rewatch and revisit the cringey, embarrassing movies we loved growing upstarting, of course, with the Twilight saga. All throughout May, I reread every installment of Stephanie Meyers enthralling, perfectly terrible series. The books were, if still hilarious, actually better than I remembered; the movies were so, so much worse.

As it turns out, we timed our deep dive perfectly. For some reason, the rest of the internets bored millennials also decided en masse to revisit their long-lost obsession with Twilight this year. Part of it was thanks to TikTokTwilight provided a sort of meme treasure trove that was instantly familiar to much of TikToks core demographic. But it was also, at least in my case, a comforting exercise in escapism. Like many newly remote-working millennials, I moved back home temporarily, settled into my childhood bedroom, and fell back into the stories I couldnt get enough of as a preteenfor better and for worse.

Heres all Im saying: If Edward Cullen could get through the Spanish Flu of 1918, we can get through this. Kate Halliwell

Last fall, a friend of mine who plays rugby instructed me to learn about the sport before the World Cup so that shed have someone to talk about it with. By way of assistance, she sent me a YouTube clip from a Welsh guy who was doing preview videos before the tournament. In the 15 months since, Ive watched every video posted on the Squidge Rugby channel and gone from wondering why they never throw the ball forward to knowing the difference between a hooker and an inside centre. Ive also developed a fierce emotional attachment to Japan winger Kotaro Matsushima and his pineapple-like hairdo.

Channels like Squidge and the Lanterne Rouge cycling channel sit in what I consider the ideal tone of sports analysts: Listening to a friend who knows slightly more than you do. Funny and accessible enough to attract and teach casual fans of the sport, but detailed enough to retain the diehards. Full of expert knowledge and insight but with an outsiders irreverence. Michael Baumann

Running out of TV has been a constant concernor, at least, a popular topic for reported thinkpiecesduring a year when Hollywood production delays coincided with pandemic-driven increases in time spent streaming. But while networks may have had to scramble to keep new content coming, I found the slight slowdown in the pace of peak TV to be a relief. For the first time in a while, my wife and I felt like we could keep up with new releases during our socially distanced downtime and still have a little time left over to cross off some preexisting series from our decades-spanning TV to-do list. We watched all of The Shield, Halt and Catch Fire, Sex and the City, and Stath Lets Flats. We started (and continue to work our way through) Patriot, Yellowstone, Red Oaks, Money Heist, and Wings. We finally finished The Durrells in Corfu. This year brought many new sources of stress, but even for people who had more time at home, running out of TV wasnt one of them. In fact, 2020 made me realize how long my media backlog could keep me entertained. Not that Im trying to give 2021 any ideas. Ben Lindbergh

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The Things We (Actually) Loved Watching in 2020 - The Ringer