#1032 - Joshua Citarella - The Dark Subcultures of Online Politics

Modern Wisdom

Chris Williamson

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2025

⏱️ 114 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Joshua Citarella is an artist, writer, and cultural researcher focused on internet subcultures and online politics. We’ve all doom-scrolled our fair share of online politics, some of it funny, some unsettling, and some surprisingly insightful. But which internet subcultures are actually shaping political ideas, how serious are they, and do they truly influence real-world policy? Expect to learn what’s happening with young people and politics at the moment and why it’s qualitatively different than the past, the weirdest subcultures on the internet that move politics, how online redicalisation actually happens, how internet subcultures actively produce or accelerates political beliefs and identity formation, why Joshua thinks “conservatism is the new punk rock” and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get a free bottle of D3K2, a Welcome Kit, Travel Packs, plus bonus gifts (US only) when you first subscribe at https://ag1.info/modernwisdom New pricing since recording: Function is now just $365, plus get $25 off at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I really love what you do. I think it's very interesting, very unique.
0:03.0	That's incredible high praise from the greatest cinematic podcast that I think exists.
0:09.0	I mean, there's only so many people in the game that produce really beautiful video footage,
0:15.0	and I think you seem to be in maybe the top spot there, so it's a great honor.
0:20.0	Thank you. Some may accuse me of all style and no
0:22.1	substance. I'll take whatever I can get. How do you describe what you do? You meet somebody at a
0:30.0	cocktail party and they say, what is it that you're interested in? What do you say? I suppose I first
0:36.6	try to avoid the cocktail party, if at all
0:38.5	possible, but I used to say artists, because that was what I did. I would show work in galleries
0:44.2	and museums. Now I say artist and internet culture writer. I'm a podcaster, though. Most people
0:49.8	know me for podcasting. So about a year ago, maybe a little over a year ago, I launched
0:54.5	Doom Scroll. We're now in episode 36, 35, something like that. And so it's a real transformation
1:01.6	in that I used to publish to an audience of like 10,000 dedicated intellectuals, and now it's like
1:07.4	100,000 weekly viewers, and it's just a very, very different games.
1:11.5	And what is it that you're interested in? What is it you focus on?
1:15.5	I mean, I guess it goes back to 2018. I wrote this book. It was a self-published book, really a long
1:22.4	form essay called Politogram on the Post Left that was looking at the memetic activity of teenagers,
1:28.6	12 to 17 at that time. Mostly people on what we would then call the post-left. That means a little
1:35.8	bit of something different now, which you might associate with like post-liberal, new rights,
1:41.2	what have you, previously Bernie supporters, now people who've gone through
1:45.1	that like Bernie to Trump pipeline. That's generally what we call post-left. At that time, it meant
1:51.3	eco-anarchy, green anarchy, anarcho-primitivism, people who would reject industrial society
	...

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