Brian Niemeier's Blog: Kairos - by Brian Niemeier, page 23

Rooster Teeth Bites the Dust

Earlier reports of geek culture cartoon studio Rooster Teeth Productions’ demise turned out to have been premature. But now, the Time-Warner subsidiary’s general manager has issued a statement confirming that the animation company has indeed given up the ghost. Rooster Teeth’s descent into wokeness can be traced as far back as 2020, when they made this announcement: Less than a…

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Audible Bows the Knee to King Brandon

At the beginning of this year, we covered Brandon Sanderson’s dispute with audio book monopolists Audible. The epic fantasy king and neopatronage pioneer announced his intention not to publish the audio versions of his $40 million crowdfunded books through Audible. His stated reason? That the Amazon subsidiary failed to offer industry-standard royalty rates and transparency to small publishers…

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The 1990s: Decade of Despair

“If only Pat Buchanan had beaten Bush for the nomination!” “If only George Lucas had adapted the Zahn Trilogy instead of making the Special Editions!” “If only Sega had won the fifth console generation!” “If only Clear Channel hadn’t taken over top 40 rock radio!” “If only they’d kept it in the bedroom!” “If only they’d come here legally!” If only … Those are some of the refrains…

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SBI BTFO by Brazilian Vidya Curator

Controversy erupted on X over the weekend when professional Woke Cult purity assurance coven Sweet Baby Inc. issued a fatwa against a scrappy Brazilian vidya curator. The curator, Sweet Baby Inc Detected, describes itself simply as “A tracker for games involved with Sweet Baby Inc.” The About page from SBI’s web site states: One might think that a creator services company would…

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Seven Wonders: Now on Audible

William Hastings, author of the highest selling paranormal wrestling novel ever written – and my talented editing client – has some exciting news: From the Audible description: Remember: Wrestling gets a favorable mention in the Bible. And for a limited time, you can hear the supernatural action for free! Listen now! Get first access to my works in progress each month.

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Mammon Mob Comes for Retirees

Around here we’ve devoted a lot of page inches to sounding the alarm on the ticking economic time bomb that is the student debt crisis. We’ve also spent years discussing reasonable, just, and workable solutions. But no matter how often we demonstrate that lending at interest for consumption is immoral, said grave evil compounded by targeting people who’ve been psyoped into thinking it’s the…

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No Howdy Doody Reboot

A recent post on the Pop Cult occasioned a salient and topical discussion in the comments. Author JD Cowan writes: To which commenter Wiffle replies: Enter commenter VMDL598: My comment: To differ somewhat with JD – really Rich Evans – Boomers may not be lining up for a hypothetical Howdy Doody reboot, but they are shelling out their share of the ticket and streaming subscription…

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The Ethic of the Death Cult

Last week we pondered the riddle of the Pop Cult. Today, we have occasion to observe the ethic of the Death Cult, courtesy of the late Aaron Bushnell. Speculation as to Bushnell’s political leanings has been rampant online, but a few key pieces of evidence have emerged. The framing of Bushnell’s final message also gives us some hints. It’s not my place to speak ill of the…

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Fabricating Philip Aylesford

As we’ve discussed before, the original Ghostbusters movie owes no small amount of its iconic status to how low-key based it is. One underappreciated aspect of the film is its subtle takedown of parapsychology. In case you didn’t know, parapsychology is a pseudoscientific field for nerds who feel a deep need to deconstruct ghost stories but lack the intellectual rigor for theology.

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The Riddle of the Pop Cult

Author JD Cowan wrote a post yesterday that shed new light on elements of Cultural Ground Zero and the Pop Cult and showed how they’re interrelated. So it was of course fitting that he prominently featured this now-ubiquitous image by retro artist Rachid Lotf. We’ve been plumbing the riddle of the Pop Cult for years. As always, the answer was staring us right in the face.

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