okay my housemate is watching the Black Nationalists episode of Weird Weekends and… fucking hell. I mean it’s bad enough that the idea of black nationalism is thrown in with Joe Exotic but Louis comes across as such a thick cunt.
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Edit: thought this was the love life thread, ignore me
WAIT NO: this answer and prompt got removed from my profile!!! Hahahahahaha
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Did anyone watch the Forbidden America show last night? Still thinking about it this morning. Genuinely quite terrifying seeing what is happening with the right wing grift culture.
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Yeah, it was so depressing. It seems to me that there’s people who have totally grown up online, never having to fear for repercussions for their actions, what they say, or the groups they associate with. When this attitude spills over into real life, be it immature naivety or downright hate-speech, there’s still a degree of protection these cunts get to enjoy owing to “free speech”, whatever the hell that means anymore.
The sad thing is you could see how all the contributors were clearly unhappy young people and sought solace online, but have ended up finding community in the very worst parts of the internet. They now rely on it financially so have to double down on it all, which just continues to fan the flames further. Stopping young and vulnerable people aligning themselves with this bullshit is so important but how the hell are you supposed to do that when the internet is basically un-policeable and “free speech” is sadly more often valued above basically decency these days?
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Beardy McBeardface was hilarious
But yeah, fucking bleak programme
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Worrying how much of this seems to be an offshoot of gaming since gaming is absolutely huge for pretty much every teenage boy.
I don’t say this in the sense that gaming is bad/or to blame or overwrought ‘won’t someone think of the children’ nonsense, i bloody love playing games. It just seems unavoidable for kids to be exposed to some of this repellant shite and i have definitely seen the influence creeping in when speaking with the teenagers at school.
Haven’t been able wanted to watch Theroux’s stuff for years because of this.
Which isn’t too say I’m trying to pretend that bad stuff doesn’t exist. Or maybe it is. There’s certainly enough bleak shit that bombards you day to day without (me, personally speaking) wanting to do a deep dive on it.
And I guess that’s one of the reasons people immerse themselves in superficially supportive and welcoming online communities no matter how corrosive they are. He says, whilst on Community Dot Drowned In Sound Dot Com every fucking day, hoping this isn’t too contradictory.
A whole lotta bleak going on.
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This one about rap music in Florida isn’t great.
Seemed to be caught between his atraight faced newer style and the old ‘look at these oddballs’ one. Don’t think he had much to work with really.
i don’t think i saw the full episode but from what i saw i think this was slightly better than his previous stuff on the far right in that covering how the far right do their organising online is sort of interesting.
but i still don’t think documentaries like this do much beyond spread a load of hateful views on peoples behalf. also, i agree with the people from hope not hate who mentioned that he’s covering 1 guy who’s not been big on the scene for years (i’ve not heard anybody talk about baked alaska for like 4ish years, and one guy who before this was pretty much unknown.
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His attempt to get the people to identify as White Nationalists was really futile imo. Maybe any engagement with the far right on their terms is.
wish he would just do funny stuff instead of incredibly bleak stuff all the time
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Yeah think a lot of people have cottoned on that he’s almost a more entertaining interviewee than interviewer
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I didn’t really get the point of it … It seemed to deviate entirely from the common thread (social media) that runs through the series to just be an hour of a guy who likes rap music and is generally interested in people … talking about rap music and how people had gotten to where they were in life. Not a dreadful watch if you like those things also, but not saying or asking much.
surely a Louis Theroux’s weird weekends revival would be golden, there’s just as much weird shit in the world now. maybe he’s too famous, but it would be way better to see him gravitate back to lighter kookier stuff
some people have picked up a vaguely similar thread/style
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Take it to the All Gas No Brakes thread
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Though that was quite a decent episode tonight Obviously didn’t go into too much depth but hopefully it opens people’s eyes a bit.
The James Cordon bit
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I think this series has been… okay. Felt like it was treading water a bit and caught between subjects he did previously with his more “look at this weird stuff” series and his more recent “serious” series. It is all stuff he has covered before at least once.
I would like to see either, a return to weird weekend format with some interesting people or continue with the serious documentaries but in new topics rather than an updated spin on something that he’s done before.