Rich brats who know their ideas suck grasping at relevance. Too retarded and void of artistic talent to pull off Artaud so they try to aestheticize a co-opted and diluted 4chan stream of consciousness. They can't even do fascism well because their sponsors are all rich ironic faggy NYC Jews whose prerogatives hinge on the H-word. It's also why we won't stop hearing about BAP and that disgusting greaseball Yarvin -- it's great misdirection! It's also why Dasha is too much of a pussy to go full Mel Gibson with her Catholic bit. Toilet paper aesthetics covering the unearned prerogatives of a class, and the rot and schizoid LARP is too central to the entire scene's psychology for it to ever be a cohesive enough project. Materially and ideologically the Birthright babies want it both ways, but increasingly get greedy and overplay their hands. Gay!
this shit is stupid. they’re not fascist and he’s not communist. they’re all just rich kids entitled to their opinions, but pretending it matters outside their circlejerk is deluded. overreaction to Actors, or not, it’s not like that movie DID anything or DIDN’T, the “downtown scene” is one incestuous orgy, which is why it isn’t a scene, just a high school social club. like this article has 15 likes. to be clear though i’m very invested, why else would i keep up with this stupid shit. and i liked scary of 61st.
Yeah, nowhere do I sense anything "fascist" about these people, they just seem like unbearable narcissistic douchebags. I'm becoming weary of this over-usage of the "F" word. It's started to lose its meaning entirely.
read up on the mission statements of yarvin and thiel, realize they’re bankrolling these losers’ anti-trans / anti-POC ‘art,’ then reconsider your statement. also the yarvin / thiel / ion pod “anti-woke film fest” had a similarly clear mission and even managed to kill the poor black kid they cynically recruited to be the face of it
Give a black man his agency. He came up with the NAME. He was heavily involved and he wanted to be there. He's not some pawn of your white imagination.
why is it always "read up on him" and never "read him"
if you want to understand marx you should... read marx. repeat likewise for literally anyone.
of course it's quite possible you, JimmyPWatts, did mean "read him" in good faith so please don't think I'm impugning you specifically, I'm just puffed at the vibe that a lot of people expect some secondary source to chew their food for them, which is functionally the same "ugh can you give me your homework notes I'm bored" overtrust-via-setback that leads to journalists incorrectly given attention when they write just about any summary of any scientific article, or a book review by an author that the audience hates and wants an opinion on but can't be fucked to read themselves. the age of "I did it so you don't have to" needs to die.
Such a profoundly stupid and trollish comment. When someone says a piece of art is politically and morally bad, they are never talking about the tangible impact it had on the world. A Nazi propaganda film is evil, regardless of how many people have seen it and how many people it has converted to nazism. In your world criticizing art for having evil ideas is virtually impossible.
just finished. this is it – your masterpiece so far, not just a return to form but a stunning advancement of it. you can write all manner of silly shit about fanfic andy warhol if it means you come up with one of these every now and again, as far as i’m concerned. it’s incredible to see that when a genuinely talented person finally enters a complete vacuum of a ‘scene’ – even one talented in a less immediate and flashy form like writing – they can so completely and utterly dominate it. once you’ve finished exposing these embarrassing frauds for what they are, i’m heartened to know you will have no trouble finding subjects far worthier of your mind and time.
one suggestion: if you haven’t already, begin passively recording everything. and keep screenshots of all text exchanges, etc. these adult children are a low and desperate lot of ego-wounded wannabes, but they have access to deep pockets and capable legal teams (mostly per their parents and family connections, which they like to gussy up in post-ironic allusions to “thiel bucks” etc) and once you reach a certain altitude above them they will absolutely not hesitate to do whatever they can to bring you back down to their level (even if it involves tearful pleas to daddy and lying about you in court). i suspect here your family background may prove a useful buffer, but either way, you ought to protect yourself and keep records of the truths you draw upon to land these mortal blows.
I have no idea who most of these people are. Although I do care a little. Why else would I be on this thread?
After 1000 words of this post I had yet to run into anything interesting or funny. There certainly was no actual original observation or thought in those 1000 words. And a priori familiarity with the featured players is no necessity to getting any of these things across in 1000 words. One can read delightful pieces by the likes of Tom Wolf, Hunter Thompson, Matt Taibbi, or Normal Mailer to see this is true.
Now, perhaps the fault is mine. Maybe I should have given him 2000 words, and it would have been worth it. But, really, shouldn't 1000 be enough? What was it that you read on the front end that made you want to bother reading more? I found it turgid, boring, and not even featuring any moments of delight provoked by pure craftmanship.
i’m actually not so concerned with the writing itself (which has its problems but is pretty solid overall), moreso the fact that crumps walked unwittingly into the belly of the beast, kept his composure throughout consecutive mob ambushes, then walked away with head held high and wrote a piece that managed to annihilate every other person who was in that room (by exposing the true face of the most fraudulent ‘scene’ and hollow ‘moment’ in NYC history). these talentless losers were genuinely so jealous of this guy’s modest integrity that they conspired to make an entire damn movie just to bring him down, and once again, with less than 1% of the time or effort crumps flipped their script and ended each and every one of them instead…basically just by being truthful and remotely talented. for that reason alone, this piece is a remarkable work of criticism, and an important document of new york’s cultural nadir.
that said i generally don’t waste time discussing art with someone who didn’t even bother to finish the thing they’re criticizing, i don’t think you should ask that of anybody again
I see. So I have to know or care about what a Crumps is before it will be interesting.
Maybe the author could have done something-- anything-- in 1000 words to have teed that up for the reader?
Again, I have no opinion on this particular tempest. I'm just speaking to the notion that this is actually good writing. Because it ain't, seems to me.
I had never heard of Crumps before reading this, and I enjoyed it nonetheless. Even though I had only heard of the two or three most famous people mentioned in the piece, it still parallels my own experiences in the NYC "art" scene, though most people I've met here are much more cowardly and would never spectacularly self-immolate in quite the way the hosts of the party described here apparently did.
sorry you're getting dragged for making a loser comment but im not really interested in some random guy making up new meanings to the word "objectively"
maybe you should revisit your own words, "Now, perhaps the fault is mine"
The fact that they tried to get Nick Mullen, a guy who is famous for being really good at bullying people, to bully you on their behalf, and he politely demurred, is honestly as funny as that clip of Alex Jones in court
This is a fantastic piece of writing because Crumps' masochism on the page is truly boundless. Every aside feels like another vector for Crumps' defeat and for building this image of himself a complete mumsy-boy bitch. The extended diatribes that ensure making sure he's buddying up with nobody Bushwick libs; the fact that he knowingly walks into an attempt to be publicly humiliated in order to document his public humiliation; getting shit on by everyone in every interaction he has; his INTERNALLY REHEARSING HIS STATEMENT; the fact that he has this level of investment in a "scene" which is, by all accounts, including his own, the epitome of vapidity; and -- maybe most incredibly -- his invocation of the Ion Pack losers' parents, relative to his own parents. Crumps comes off like someone would genuinely say, "Why, I never!" if you asked to copy his homework. I don't know if Crumps is unafraid to look like a dweeb, if he is intentionally looking like a dweeb, or if he just put his blinders on and trudged forward, but this positioning does incredible things for him. Why is this? Because, fundamentally, there are worse things than being a dweeb.
If you enter a ninth grade social studies classroom, and some glue-eating third-tier choir kid with neon hair is yelling about how Hitler was right, and a little proto-valedictorian bitchboy says, "Please, teacher, allow me time for a retort!," You (in this case, an ostensibly normal person) instinctively recognize that both of these people are complete fucking losers, but that the former is more of a loser. There's being incendiary and there's being a fucking moron. The aspirational Steve Roggenbucks on display here, obviously, want you to not know if they're being incendiary or if they're literally dumb. I do wholly believe that these morons are genuinely intimidated by Crumps' intelligence. Crumps is a giant bitch, but he's definitely a smart guy -- this is a fantastic, engaging, well-developed piece of writing which (I believe) will ultimately serve as the definitive postmortem on the "Dimes Square" moment. And, honestly, if Crumps made any serious attempt at obscuring the fact that he is a gigantic bitch, I wouldn't have enjoyed reading this.
Of course, the real winners here are the two Nicks, who, unlike anyone else in this story, could both plausibly (and rightfully) get a job in television that wouldn't go away after a year. That's why they left, because they don't actually have anything to gain by being there, professionally speaking.
To be fair, inviting a "nobody Bushwick lib" to a party filled with edgelord A-listers solely in order to publicly humiliate him is in and of itself hilariously pathetic... and indeed it sounds like the entire point of the endeavor was a sort of induced trauma bonding for everyone involved. As someone on the outside, though, I find it most comparable to second- or third-tier reality television, of which I'd much rather read some weird literary recap than actually waste my own time watching. Or, to put it another way, you can't make this shit up.
As an aside, your own performative trashiness is extremely 2014, but I guess time doesn't exist on the internet, after all.
The ninth grade social studies classroom analogy is spot on. It's like I'm rooting for the kid I loved to hate, my personal version of the annoying valedictorian, knowing he's right but also hating to side with him.
I read all of them as objects of the article. Crumps, while a talented writer, is also functionally a caricature of a different NYC-based subculture that defines itself in opposition to these people. As was said in another comment by Heathcliff, "this shit is stupid. they’re not fascist and he’s not communist. they’re all just rich kids entitled to their opinions, but pretending it matters outside their circlejerk is deluded. " Crumps clearly understands himself as having some personal and professional stake in this sphere, which is why he keeps returning to cover this scene that actively hates him and uses him (as well-articulated and cogent as that coverage may be). Every aspect of this is completely embarrassing, and Crumps is pathologically unable to firmly place himself on ground "above" these morons despite clearly being much smarter than them. I distance myself from all of this nonsense by not living in New York City.
Calling this scene a "circle jerk" gives the people involved way too much credit with regard to actually getting laid.
Anyway, I moved to New York City myself a decade ago because I hate cars and love the smell of hot trash in the morning, but, like you, I distance myself from all of this nonsense by not living in Manhattan or anywhere near the L train.
These are people taking an active role in accelerating the hyperreal take over of reality. Irony becomes meta-irony which enters a closed circuit constantly and intentionally erasing meaning. What we see with this art is a horrific amalgamation of truth and fiction destined to be the smoking gun of the apocolypse.
Not really, maybe these people involved are themselves contained but they are part of a larger trend on the internet and post modern culture in general. Every piece of art or joke is infused with so many signs that it can signify some specific things or even nothing, even contradictory things, so much so not even the artist knows where their intention begins and ends. Everything means something to the point where everything means nothing. This is a great example of Baudrillard’s idea of implosion happening in real time.
I don’t think this particular web of signs is especially tangled, the fact that the artists can’t work out what they mean when it’s staring them in the face is only credit to the fact that they’re quite thick
Dimes Square seems like people in 1972 thinking they're on their way to the next Woodstock rather than on their way to a decades-long drug-and-austerity-fueled decline. But, sure, I guess doing cocaine at Studio 54 was equally as "epic" as Mai 68.
This is great. Two flavours of pseud going head to head to reveal how completely vapid both are. I'm not being sarcastic, this is a really incredible piece of writing. Sometimes a bad writer writes a great piece that is only great because of the writer's unique faults.
You can pack it in writing wise, making this is probably the reason you exist, cosmically.
it’s hilarious that they pretend your review is solely responsible for her movie getting deplatformed. it is an inherently irredeemable piece of shit (just like its creators and backers), and were it not for your review then it would’ve wilted upon its next exposure to the light beyond the gutter depths of this fake ‘downtown’ ‘scene.’ instead of demanding an apology, they should thank you — your fair and lucid review was the single best thing to ever come from the ‘careers’ of betsey brown, peter vack, curtis everett pawley, kj rothweiler, all of their rich and depraved parent-underwriters, et al.
Why do you think anyone cares about this??? Nobody is paying attention to this New York friendgroup feud bullshit. This is not politics. None of this is art. None of this is cultural critique. Please get a real job. All of you.
Some of the people mentioned in this article have ties to really rich people. Some of those really rich people are trying to shape the culture and bend it towards authoritarianism (or fascism as Crumps would say). So, yeah, this is solid reporting and highly relevant to the public. Nice work Crumps
how many people saw the fucking movie that started this shitshow? A thousand? Maybe marginally more? The most famous thing any of these people have done is guest-star on Succession, a streaming show that nobody in the real world who isn't on Twitter is even aware of. If everything was exactly the same except these people lived in Baton Rouge, nobody would give a shit. It's just navel-gazing bullshit - both to participate in this "scene" and to lob bombs at it.
It's a fucking substack article and critics critique and writers write. If you don't think it's important then don't read it? Should everyone consult you on what you think is important enough before they write a blog post or review of something? Eat my ass, plz.
If it means anything I'm a random construction worker from rural Pennsylvania and I've somehow found myself invested as an observer in all of this. The reach extends farther than typical NYC artworld bullshit.
I’m a fucking roofer getting paid 13/hr up here in Wilkes barre and honestly am considering moving to New York so I can have a glimpse of a completely different culture. I have nothing here anyway, and I’m blowing all my money on drugs and booze sucks
I haven't checked substack in awhile but reading your comment made me realize how similar of a life I lead to others, and you probably only live 20 miles away from me. I've been considering Philadelphia personally, New York seems too expensive.
Same, this micro culture is so entertaining! I keeping asking people in person if they are following the Dimes Square scene and everyone thinks I'm mispronouncing or mistyping Times Square.
Yeah, I'm from Indiana, and I don't know what half of this shit even means, but it's all waaaay more interesting than anything else going on in art or music right now.
Excellent piece. As an urban researcher and "normie lib" LES resident, I have become very interested in this scene's implications for the neighborhood and the city as a whole. In particular, there is an interesting gentrification angle to all of this: the naked embrace of the colonialist undertones of being a gentrifier via the interest in Moldbug and his ilk by the local gentrifier creative class, the intersection of VC, conservative money and real estate to astroturf a micro-neighborhood, and the symbolic implications of a scene of this nature laying roots in a neighborhood so tied to NY's history as a city of immigrants.
You lay out a harrowing depiction. of these people in this piece and why they are terrifying. I shudder to think what will happen culturally if the astroturfing worked and Dimes Square becomes the cultural vanguard they so desperately want to be.
Hi Tamara, thank you for this comment. I'd love to discuss this gentrifying/colonial angle in greater detail, it's something that I've been trying to allude to in these pieces, and is clearly the real force at the center of it all, but describing it with the precision it demands is also somewhat outside my wheelhouse. You can email me at mrcrumplar@gmail.com or mrcrumplar@protonmail.com
I hear that. If it makes you feel any better, Honor Levy published some horseshit in the NYT recently that was both coy to the point of unreadability, and ripped apart in the comments. They can't attract a legit constituency because they can't articulate much less defend what they're trying to show, don't tell.
I view a lot of these folks through the lens of Kohlberg's stages of moral development; they're children. The horrid show described here is the equivalent of a 5 year old's, "You're not coming to my birthday, and everybody else is!" Kids are mean; we help them outgrow it.
That Thiel doles out money to these dullards makes me second guess his influence. Of course he's a billionaire, a monster; he's much more powerful than any of us will ever be. Still, I doubt if he was as dangerous as people think he is, he'd be turning to a gaggle of Brooklyn based posters to cook up new ideological justifications for his many sins. If fascism comes to America, we'll watch on TV like we do everything else. There will still be MasterCard commercials, too, but they probably won't feature gay interracial couples anymore.
I believe it was John Dolan who said good art can be honest or something genuinely new. To be new is to transgress. If the last 50 years has taught us anything, cultural transgression of any kind is now impossible under capitalism. The last vestments of bourgeois propriety were ripped away a long time ago, all that is solid melts into air, blah blah blah. As far as I can tell, this scene is trying to do Cum Town, but smart somehow. Cum Town is funny because it's like listening to the dumb bullshit you and your friends say to each other on a porch somewhere (more likely, what you would say to your friends, if you had them, or did say to them, at one point, before everyone drifted away). That's not transgressive, it's just a friendship simulator. None of the leftist podcasts are transgressive, either. It's just that sometimes, they're funny.
Finally, when I was in my early twenties, I nursed vague dreams of moving to New York and becoming a writer of some kind. Instead, I had multiple psychotic breaks, and then I tried to kill myself. After a long time in the hospital, I moved in with my parents and worked food service jobs and in call centers. I worked really hard, got a grip on my mental health - I'm happy to say I live on my own and am in a stable relationship. Crumplar is a good, insightful writer. With that in mind, now that I know about this stuff, I can honestly say I wish my suicide attempt had been successful, or that, at the very least, I was still living with my parents, my mind so dulled by anti-psychotics that I was incapable of understanding any of it.
Hey congrats on getting it together personally and finding a stable relationship, that’s a big accomplishment. I suggest using the depressing nature of all sides depicted in this article to jettison any residual attachment to stuff like “moving to New York and becoming a writer” and further the process of finding meaning in what you are achieving day to day.
I moved to NYC because I hate cars, and in the process I destroyed my marriage, which was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. The destruction, that is. I'm sooooooo much happier of a person now.
I'm pretty sure this is just the Gen Z version of 00s MTV. None of us *liked* the cast of Jersey Shore, but that didn't keep people from tuning in anyway, right?
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(I actually didn't watch Jersey Shore myself because I don't watch TV, but my god people did not shut up about it, so it feels like I watched it even if I never did.)
Feel free to ignore these shallow, uncomprehending people who unfortunately can be dangerous bc money if it keeps you on the planet. We'll have plenty more red flags of where the culture is headed; you won't miss anything. I'm really glad you got through the psychosis + meds to a clear mind. I hope you can find rewarding work because you deserve it.
All the "hurdurrrr none of this matters only like 5 people saw Actors" people should have shared that take under the article about Actors, no? I find it hard to believe anyone dropping that sentiment here "doesn't care about any of these rich kids and this stupid scene", if that's you, you're not fooling anyone and we can all see you actually fuck with the rich kids who just got served.
This is really a brilliant piece of writing. I appreciate that your sincerity has allowed you to resist the appealing aspect of this scene despite your proximity to its seductions. I pray that Honor does not fall too deep, she has a good heart and I don’t want to her to become a lost soul like Dasha Nekrasova
Really can't stand this NYC crowd of cool kid podcasting freaks and I enjoyed reading about your horrible experience with them, I thought it was very well written. Still unclear on whether they have actual thoughts/feelings, they seem like aliens to me
They're half-baked, by the sounds of it. Their level of thought is, "Why don't you like me? Why are you being so meeeean?" Unable to grasp or contend with the dangerous, anti-democratic shit they are stirring . . . they feel fizzy when they feel transgressive. But this ain't it. This is just more of the right's "I don't want to and you can't make me!" garbage. Their tribute to anti-wokeness is to be hateful (that's all anti-wokeness ever is). They're not deep. They're 6. They get a kick out of saying stuff they know is wrong and socially discouraged, which is how humane people respond to sadism and other anti-social behavior, and they want credit for non-existent ideas. They're dumb reactionary followers who can't think. Hope this helps, it helped me to get it out of my system.
(Facetious) conspiracy theory: the real reason Peter Thiel is paying to orchestrate this scene is out of a sadistic desire to watch the participants tear each other apart.
Rich brats who know their ideas suck grasping at relevance. Too retarded and void of artistic talent to pull off Artaud so they try to aestheticize a co-opted and diluted 4chan stream of consciousness. They can't even do fascism well because their sponsors are all rich ironic faggy NYC Jews whose prerogatives hinge on the H-word. It's also why we won't stop hearing about BAP and that disgusting greaseball Yarvin -- it's great misdirection! It's also why Dasha is too much of a pussy to go full Mel Gibson with her Catholic bit. Toilet paper aesthetics covering the unearned prerogatives of a class, and the rot and schizoid LARP is too central to the entire scene's psychology for it to ever be a cohesive enough project. Materially and ideologically the Birthright babies want it both ways, but increasingly get greedy and overplay their hands. Gay!
Why are you writing like Trump?
I have no idea what you're saying but it's well written. That being said, I must disavow based on your attack on BAP.
Relevance? Got you talking about them. You seem to know all the characters in this play so well too.
This comment was more satisfying than anything that any of these these people have made combined. At least Spielberg’s movies had heart! Oy vey!
Curious comment spic. I love when our latino brothers chime in.
this shit is stupid. they’re not fascist and he’s not communist. they’re all just rich kids entitled to their opinions, but pretending it matters outside their circlejerk is deluded. overreaction to Actors, or not, it’s not like that movie DID anything or DIDN’T, the “downtown scene” is one incestuous orgy, which is why it isn’t a scene, just a high school social club. like this article has 15 likes. to be clear though i’m very invested, why else would i keep up with this stupid shit. and i liked scary of 61st.
Yeah, nowhere do I sense anything "fascist" about these people, they just seem like unbearable narcissistic douchebags. I'm becoming weary of this over-usage of the "F" word. It's started to lose its meaning entirely.
read up on the mission statements of yarvin and thiel, realize they’re bankrolling these losers’ anti-trans / anti-POC ‘art,’ then reconsider your statement. also the yarvin / thiel / ion pod “anti-woke film fest” had a similarly clear mission and even managed to kill the poor black kid they cynically recruited to be the face of it
Give a black man his agency. He came up with the NAME. He was heavily involved and he wanted to be there. He's not some pawn of your white imagination.
LOL nice try bigot, go earn your thiel stipend somewhere else
"the poor black kid"
you're an adult. you can exert a cumshot of effort by googling "Trevor Bazile" before pressing a button.
Curtis Yarvin is very much so a Fascist with a capital F. you should read up about him
why is it always "read up on him" and never "read him"
if you want to understand marx you should... read marx. repeat likewise for literally anyone.
of course it's quite possible you, JimmyPWatts, did mean "read him" in good faith so please don't think I'm impugning you specifically, I'm just puffed at the vibe that a lot of people expect some secondary source to chew their food for them, which is functionally the same "ugh can you give me your homework notes I'm bored" overtrust-via-setback that leads to journalists incorrectly given attention when they write just about any summary of any scientific article, or a book review by an author that the audience hates and wants an opinion on but can't be fucked to read themselves. the age of "I did it so you don't have to" needs to die.
Such a profoundly stupid and trollish comment. When someone says a piece of art is politically and morally bad, they are never talking about the tangible impact it had on the world. A Nazi propaganda film is evil, regardless of how many people have seen it and how many people it has converted to nazism. In your world criticizing art for having evil ideas is virtually impossible.
just finished. this is it – your masterpiece so far, not just a return to form but a stunning advancement of it. you can write all manner of silly shit about fanfic andy warhol if it means you come up with one of these every now and again, as far as i’m concerned. it’s incredible to see that when a genuinely talented person finally enters a complete vacuum of a ‘scene’ – even one talented in a less immediate and flashy form like writing – they can so completely and utterly dominate it. once you’ve finished exposing these embarrassing frauds for what they are, i’m heartened to know you will have no trouble finding subjects far worthier of your mind and time.
one suggestion: if you haven’t already, begin passively recording everything. and keep screenshots of all text exchanges, etc. these adult children are a low and desperate lot of ego-wounded wannabes, but they have access to deep pockets and capable legal teams (mostly per their parents and family connections, which they like to gussy up in post-ironic allusions to “thiel bucks” etc) and once you reach a certain altitude above them they will absolutely not hesitate to do whatever they can to bring you back down to their level (even if it involves tearful pleas to daddy and lying about you in court). i suspect here your family background may prove a useful buffer, but either way, you ought to protect yourself and keep records of the truths you draw upon to land these mortal blows.
Interesting response. Let me offer another:
I have no idea who most of these people are. Although I do care a little. Why else would I be on this thread?
After 1000 words of this post I had yet to run into anything interesting or funny. There certainly was no actual original observation or thought in those 1000 words. And a priori familiarity with the featured players is no necessity to getting any of these things across in 1000 words. One can read delightful pieces by the likes of Tom Wolf, Hunter Thompson, Matt Taibbi, or Normal Mailer to see this is true.
Now, perhaps the fault is mine. Maybe I should have given him 2000 words, and it would have been worth it. But, really, shouldn't 1000 be enough? What was it that you read on the front end that made you want to bother reading more? I found it turgid, boring, and not even featuring any moments of delight provoked by pure craftmanship.
What do you think it is I missed?
i’m actually not so concerned with the writing itself (which has its problems but is pretty solid overall), moreso the fact that crumps walked unwittingly into the belly of the beast, kept his composure throughout consecutive mob ambushes, then walked away with head held high and wrote a piece that managed to annihilate every other person who was in that room (by exposing the true face of the most fraudulent ‘scene’ and hollow ‘moment’ in NYC history). these talentless losers were genuinely so jealous of this guy’s modest integrity that they conspired to make an entire damn movie just to bring him down, and once again, with less than 1% of the time or effort crumps flipped their script and ended each and every one of them instead…basically just by being truthful and remotely talented. for that reason alone, this piece is a remarkable work of criticism, and an important document of new york’s cultural nadir.
that said i generally don’t waste time discussing art with someone who didn’t even bother to finish the thing they’re criticizing, i don’t think you should ask that of anybody again
I see. So I have to know or care about what a Crumps is before it will be interesting.
Maybe the author could have done something-- anything-- in 1000 words to have teed that up for the reader?
Again, I have no opinion on this particular tempest. I'm just speaking to the notion that this is actually good writing. Because it ain't, seems to me.
I had never heard of Crumps before reading this, and I enjoyed it nonetheless. Even though I had only heard of the two or three most famous people mentioned in the piece, it still parallels my own experiences in the NYC "art" scene, though most people I've met here are much more cowardly and would never spectacularly self-immolate in quite the way the hosts of the party described here apparently did.
nobody said that. you’re apparently just terribly shitty at reading
Perhaps. But I doubt it. I am, obviously, a better writer than you, after all.
if only you knew ;)
Also how can you not care about crumpets?!? Tea and cake or death! 🥮
Most hollow moment in NYC history? Are you 4?
name a cultural ‘moment’ less substantive/more embarrassing than this shit
its an 8000 word piece you didnt get out of the intro. you quit during the "last time on"
If you can't get someone interested in your subject in 1000 words, you're an objectively bad writer, seems to me.
sorry you're getting dragged for making a loser comment but im not really interested in some random guy making up new meanings to the word "objectively"
maybe you should revisit your own words, "Now, perhaps the fault is mine"
I'm not surprised when some people are flummoxed by humility.
As for this little thread, I am suffused with comfort that a disinterested observer would get a very accurate sense of the people involved.
No you're just dumb. You'd probably get bored by Shakespeare
are u dumb?
Trenchant.
The fact that they tried to get Nick Mullen, a guy who is famous for being really good at bullying people, to bully you on their behalf, and he politely demurred, is honestly as funny as that clip of Alex Jones in court
Nick Mullen [ noun ] a gentleman and a scholar
Damn crumps ur wild for this one. pure insanity. keep it coming
Everything’s underway
This is a fantastic piece of writing because Crumps' masochism on the page is truly boundless. Every aside feels like another vector for Crumps' defeat and for building this image of himself a complete mumsy-boy bitch. The extended diatribes that ensure making sure he's buddying up with nobody Bushwick libs; the fact that he knowingly walks into an attempt to be publicly humiliated in order to document his public humiliation; getting shit on by everyone in every interaction he has; his INTERNALLY REHEARSING HIS STATEMENT; the fact that he has this level of investment in a "scene" which is, by all accounts, including his own, the epitome of vapidity; and -- maybe most incredibly -- his invocation of the Ion Pack losers' parents, relative to his own parents. Crumps comes off like someone would genuinely say, "Why, I never!" if you asked to copy his homework. I don't know if Crumps is unafraid to look like a dweeb, if he is intentionally looking like a dweeb, or if he just put his blinders on and trudged forward, but this positioning does incredible things for him. Why is this? Because, fundamentally, there are worse things than being a dweeb.
If you enter a ninth grade social studies classroom, and some glue-eating third-tier choir kid with neon hair is yelling about how Hitler was right, and a little proto-valedictorian bitchboy says, "Please, teacher, allow me time for a retort!," You (in this case, an ostensibly normal person) instinctively recognize that both of these people are complete fucking losers, but that the former is more of a loser. There's being incendiary and there's being a fucking moron. The aspirational Steve Roggenbucks on display here, obviously, want you to not know if they're being incendiary or if they're literally dumb. I do wholly believe that these morons are genuinely intimidated by Crumps' intelligence. Crumps is a giant bitch, but he's definitely a smart guy -- this is a fantastic, engaging, well-developed piece of writing which (I believe) will ultimately serve as the definitive postmortem on the "Dimes Square" moment. And, honestly, if Crumps made any serious attempt at obscuring the fact that he is a gigantic bitch, I wouldn't have enjoyed reading this.
Of course, the real winners here are the two Nicks, who, unlike anyone else in this story, could both plausibly (and rightfully) get a job in television that wouldn't go away after a year. That's why they left, because they don't actually have anything to gain by being there, professionally speaking.
To be fair, inviting a "nobody Bushwick lib" to a party filled with edgelord A-listers solely in order to publicly humiliate him is in and of itself hilariously pathetic... and indeed it sounds like the entire point of the endeavor was a sort of induced trauma bonding for everyone involved. As someone on the outside, though, I find it most comparable to second- or third-tier reality television, of which I'd much rather read some weird literary recap than actually waste my own time watching. Or, to put it another way, you can't make this shit up.
As an aside, your own performative trashiness is extremely 2014, but I guess time doesn't exist on the internet, after all.
it's actually extremely 2008 but as we're talking on this article it's also extremely "au currant"
2008 as in right around the time Jersey Shore first premiered? Aaaaaawww Yeah.
The ninth grade social studies classroom analogy is spot on. It's like I'm rooting for the kid I loved to hate, my personal version of the annoying valedictorian, knowing he's right but also hating to side with him.
I read all of them as objects of the article. Crumps, while a talented writer, is also functionally a caricature of a different NYC-based subculture that defines itself in opposition to these people. As was said in another comment by Heathcliff, "this shit is stupid. they’re not fascist and he’s not communist. they’re all just rich kids entitled to their opinions, but pretending it matters outside their circlejerk is deluded. " Crumps clearly understands himself as having some personal and professional stake in this sphere, which is why he keeps returning to cover this scene that actively hates him and uses him (as well-articulated and cogent as that coverage may be). Every aspect of this is completely embarrassing, and Crumps is pathologically unable to firmly place himself on ground "above" these morons despite clearly being much smarter than them. I distance myself from all of this nonsense by not living in New York City.
Calling this scene a "circle jerk" gives the people involved way too much credit with regard to actually getting laid.
Anyway, I moved to New York City myself a decade ago because I hate cars and love the smell of hot trash in the morning, but, like you, I distance myself from all of this nonsense by not living in Manhattan or anywhere near the L train.
These are people taking an active role in accelerating the hyperreal take over of reality. Irony becomes meta-irony which enters a closed circuit constantly and intentionally erasing meaning. What we see with this art is a horrific amalgamation of truth and fiction destined to be the smoking gun of the apocolypse.
It's very well contained, there's nothing in here close to pertaining to relevance in like 4 years
Not really, maybe these people involved are themselves contained but they are part of a larger trend on the internet and post modern culture in general. Every piece of art or joke is infused with so many signs that it can signify some specific things or even nothing, even contradictory things, so much so not even the artist knows where their intention begins and ends. Everything means something to the point where everything means nothing. This is a great example of Baudrillard’s idea of implosion happening in real time.
I don’t think this particular web of signs is especially tangled, the fact that the artists can’t work out what they mean when it’s staring them in the face is only credit to the fact that they’re quite thick
none of these people are thick, unfortunately. whatever diet these goofballs are on makes them look like photos from the depression
Dimes Square seems like people in 1972 thinking they're on their way to the next Woodstock rather than on their way to a decades-long drug-and-austerity-fueled decline. But, sure, I guess doing cocaine at Studio 54 was equally as "epic" as Mai 68.
Or four miles of downtown manhattan
This is great. Two flavours of pseud going head to head to reveal how completely vapid both are. I'm not being sarcastic, this is a really incredible piece of writing. Sometimes a bad writer writes a great piece that is only great because of the writer's unique faults.
You can pack it in writing wise, making this is probably the reason you exist, cosmically.
Everything described here exists for the sole purpose of driving up rent.
it’s hilarious that they pretend your review is solely responsible for her movie getting deplatformed. it is an inherently irredeemable piece of shit (just like its creators and backers), and were it not for your review then it would’ve wilted upon its next exposure to the light beyond the gutter depths of this fake ‘downtown’ ‘scene.’ instead of demanding an apology, they should thank you — your fair and lucid review was the single best thing to ever come from the ‘careers’ of betsey brown, peter vack, curtis everett pawley, kj rothweiler, all of their rich and depraved parent-underwriters, et al.
I’m sorry you don’t have a parent underwriter too. It’s wonderful when your parents are proud of, and connected with you.
Dam the comment section lit
Who is Curtis Yarvin is he an eBoy
Nah hes like a b class nick land
Who is nick land is he a eBoy
Who is Henry Kissinger is he an eBoy
YES! I am XD 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮 🇻🇮
Why do you think anyone cares about this??? Nobody is paying attention to this New York friendgroup feud bullshit. This is not politics. None of this is art. None of this is cultural critique. Please get a real job. All of you.
Some of the people mentioned in this article have ties to really rich people. Some of those really rich people are trying to shape the culture and bend it towards authoritarianism (or fascism as Crumps would say). So, yeah, this is solid reporting and highly relevant to the public. Nice work Crumps
how many people saw the fucking movie that started this shitshow? A thousand? Maybe marginally more? The most famous thing any of these people have done is guest-star on Succession, a streaming show that nobody in the real world who isn't on Twitter is even aware of. If everything was exactly the same except these people lived in Baton Rouge, nobody would give a shit. It's just navel-gazing bullshit - both to participate in this "scene" and to lob bombs at it.
It's a fucking substack article and critics critique and writers write. If you don't think it's important then don't read it? Should everyone consult you on what you think is important enough before they write a blog post or review of something? Eat my ass, plz.
yarvin sat next to peter thiel on the couch on nov 8 2016. he's a grade a sicko
If it means anything I'm a random construction worker from rural Pennsylvania and I've somehow found myself invested as an observer in all of this. The reach extends farther than typical NYC artworld bullshit.
I’m a fucking roofer getting paid 13/hr up here in Wilkes barre and honestly am considering moving to New York so I can have a glimpse of a completely different culture. I have nothing here anyway, and I’m blowing all my money on drugs and booze sucks
wilkes barre wow...that's where im from originally. WB used to have a huge hardcore scene and this shit reminds me of that lol
I haven't checked substack in awhile but reading your comment made me realize how similar of a life I lead to others, and you probably only live 20 miles away from me. I've been considering Philadelphia personally, New York seems too expensive.
Philadelphia is probably a better option than Boston.
Same, this micro culture is so entertaining! I keeping asking people in person if they are following the Dimes Square scene and everyone thinks I'm mispronouncing or mistyping Times Square.
Yeah, I'm from Indiana, and I don't know what half of this shit even means, but it's all waaaay more interesting than anything else going on in art or music right now.
I absolutely love when someone who writes an angry comment starts off by saying “who cares about this?” You do, clearly.
Excellent piece. As an urban researcher and "normie lib" LES resident, I have become very interested in this scene's implications for the neighborhood and the city as a whole. In particular, there is an interesting gentrification angle to all of this: the naked embrace of the colonialist undertones of being a gentrifier via the interest in Moldbug and his ilk by the local gentrifier creative class, the intersection of VC, conservative money and real estate to astroturf a micro-neighborhood, and the symbolic implications of a scene of this nature laying roots in a neighborhood so tied to NY's history as a city of immigrants.
You lay out a harrowing depiction. of these people in this piece and why they are terrifying. I shudder to think what will happen culturally if the astroturfing worked and Dimes Square becomes the cultural vanguard they so desperately want to be.
Hi Tamara, thank you for this comment. I'd love to discuss this gentrifying/colonial angle in greater detail, it's something that I've been trying to allude to in these pieces, and is clearly the real force at the center of it all, but describing it with the precision it demands is also somewhat outside my wheelhouse. You can email me at mrcrumplar@gmail.com or mrcrumplar@protonmail.com
I hear that. If it makes you feel any better, Honor Levy published some horseshit in the NYT recently that was both coy to the point of unreadability, and ripped apart in the comments. They can't attract a legit constituency because they can't articulate much less defend what they're trying to show, don't tell.
I view a lot of these folks through the lens of Kohlberg's stages of moral development; they're children. The horrid show described here is the equivalent of a 5 year old's, "You're not coming to my birthday, and everybody else is!" Kids are mean; we help them outgrow it.
That Thiel doles out money to these dullards makes me second guess his influence. Of course he's a billionaire, a monster; he's much more powerful than any of us will ever be. Still, I doubt if he was as dangerous as people think he is, he'd be turning to a gaggle of Brooklyn based posters to cook up new ideological justifications for his many sins. If fascism comes to America, we'll watch on TV like we do everything else. There will still be MasterCard commercials, too, but they probably won't feature gay interracial couples anymore.
I believe it was John Dolan who said good art can be honest or something genuinely new. To be new is to transgress. If the last 50 years has taught us anything, cultural transgression of any kind is now impossible under capitalism. The last vestments of bourgeois propriety were ripped away a long time ago, all that is solid melts into air, blah blah blah. As far as I can tell, this scene is trying to do Cum Town, but smart somehow. Cum Town is funny because it's like listening to the dumb bullshit you and your friends say to each other on a porch somewhere (more likely, what you would say to your friends, if you had them, or did say to them, at one point, before everyone drifted away). That's not transgressive, it's just a friendship simulator. None of the leftist podcasts are transgressive, either. It's just that sometimes, they're funny.
Finally, when I was in my early twenties, I nursed vague dreams of moving to New York and becoming a writer of some kind. Instead, I had multiple psychotic breaks, and then I tried to kill myself. After a long time in the hospital, I moved in with my parents and worked food service jobs and in call centers. I worked really hard, got a grip on my mental health - I'm happy to say I live on my own and am in a stable relationship. Crumplar is a good, insightful writer. With that in mind, now that I know about this stuff, I can honestly say I wish my suicide attempt had been successful, or that, at the very least, I was still living with my parents, my mind so dulled by anti-psychotics that I was incapable of understanding any of it.
Hey congrats on getting it together personally and finding a stable relationship, that’s a big accomplishment. I suggest using the depressing nature of all sides depicted in this article to jettison any residual attachment to stuff like “moving to New York and becoming a writer” and further the process of finding meaning in what you are achieving day to day.
I moved to NYC because I hate cars, and in the process I destroyed my marriage, which was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. The destruction, that is. I'm sooooooo much happier of a person now.
I'm pretty sure this is just the Gen Z version of 00s MTV. None of us *liked* the cast of Jersey Shore, but that didn't keep people from tuning in anyway, right?
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(I actually didn't watch Jersey Shore myself because I don't watch TV, but my god people did not shut up about it, so it feels like I watched it even if I never did.)
Feel free to ignore these shallow, uncomprehending people who unfortunately can be dangerous bc money if it keeps you on the planet. We'll have plenty more red flags of where the culture is headed; you won't miss anything. I'm really glad you got through the psychosis + meds to a clear mind. I hope you can find rewarding work because you deserve it.
All the "hurdurrrr none of this matters only like 5 people saw Actors" people should have shared that take under the article about Actors, no? I find it hard to believe anyone dropping that sentiment here "doesn't care about any of these rich kids and this stupid scene", if that's you, you're not fooling anyone and we can all see you actually fuck with the rich kids who just got served.
This is really a brilliant piece of writing. I appreciate that your sincerity has allowed you to resist the appealing aspect of this scene despite your proximity to its seductions. I pray that Honor does not fall too deep, she has a good heart and I don’t want to her to become a lost soul like Dasha Nekrasova
Honor Levy is a filthy apostate who needs to return to the warm embrace of Mosaic law, and not whatever tradcath horseshit she got into
all I hear is larp
Really can't stand this NYC crowd of cool kid podcasting freaks and I enjoyed reading about your horrible experience with them, I thought it was very well written. Still unclear on whether they have actual thoughts/feelings, they seem like aliens to me
They're half-baked, by the sounds of it. Their level of thought is, "Why don't you like me? Why are you being so meeeean?" Unable to grasp or contend with the dangerous, anti-democratic shit they are stirring . . . they feel fizzy when they feel transgressive. But this ain't it. This is just more of the right's "I don't want to and you can't make me!" garbage. Their tribute to anti-wokeness is to be hateful (that's all anti-wokeness ever is). They're not deep. They're 6. They get a kick out of saying stuff they know is wrong and socially discouraged, which is how humane people respond to sadism and other anti-social behavior, and they want credit for non-existent ideas. They're dumb reactionary followers who can't think. Hope this helps, it helped me to get it out of my system.
(Facetious) conspiracy theory: the real reason Peter Thiel is paying to orchestrate this scene is out of a sadistic desire to watch the participants tear each other apart.