Adventures in cringe


Join me in getting a glimpse of the demented, broken minds of the people who idolize right-wing autocrats.

Here’s Neil Strauss, formerly best known for writing about pick-up artists, and then landed a job writing cover stories for Rolling Stone. I don’t know why. He wrote the November 2017 cover story on Elon Musk, the Architect of Tomorrow.

If we don’t send our civilization into another Dark Ages before Musk or one of his dream’s inheritors pull it off, then Musk will likely be remembered as one of the most seminal figures of this millennium. Kids on all the terraformed planets of the universe will look forward to Musk Day, when they get the day off to commemorate the birth of the Earthling who single-handedly ushered in the era of space colonization.

And then the article just goes on and on in this vein. I couldn’t get far before cramping up with all the cringing.

Matt Binder tells us about Kevin Sorbo’s January 6th Twitter epistles. It’s a classic, here they are in chronological order:

Beautiful descent. I remember watching Hercules with the kids years and years ago…if I knew then what we know now…

Comments

  1. raven says

    If we don’t send our civilization into another Dark Ages before Musk or one of his dream’s inheritors pull it off, then Musk will likely be remembered as one of the most seminal figures of this millennium.

    The first sentence is completely wrong.

    Musk will be remembered by a few people for single handedly wrecking Twitter and losing most of the $40 billion it cost to buy it.

    Value of X has fallen 71% since purchase by Musk and …

    The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com › technology › jan › x-t…

    5 days ago — The social media platform X has lost 71% of its value since it was bought by Elon Musk, according to the mutual fund Fidelity. Fidelity …

  2. wzrd1 says

    I’d have abandoned ship on the Muskrat article at the word terraforming.
    It all falls to the fallacy that anyone who made a lot of money is obviously a genius in everything.

    As for Sorbo, well, let’s see marketing and advertising, took up acting – albeit badly. But, it’s nice to know that he departed the God of Abraham in favor of the God of Trump Tower and has an ANTIFA detector that works over continental ranges. Just another excellent case for continuing our lead paint abatement programs.

  3. raven says

    Musk will also be remembered by all the people around him as a creepy guy who has something, or rather many things, seriously wrong with him.

    Grimes files petition to establish parental relationship after accusing Elon Musk of withholding kids

    Grimes has sued her ex, Elon Musk, in California. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press, left; Susan Walsh / Associated Press, right)

    Grimes has filed a “petition to establish parental relationship” shortly after accusing her ex-boyfriend, Elon Musk, of not allowing her to see one of their children.

    One of his breeding stock, Grimes, is suing Musk for withholding their third child.
    This child was born by surrogate and it is possible that Grimes has never even seen him.

    Musk’s oldest child has disowned him and changed their name at age 18.

    Just about everyone who has ever dealt with Musk personally has ended up regretting it.

  4. birgerjohansson says

    Reginald Selkirk @ 1
    If we could attribute his awful personality to drugs instead of him being a spoiled asshole I might be able to at least not judge him too harshly.
    But I’ll wager he was always this way.

  5. birgerjohansson says

    Wzrd1@ 3
    Remember the cult of Jobs, who admittedly had great business sense but a very abrasive personality.

    BTW was Sorbo in Bells of Innocence, that accidental great comedy? There was a long time since I listened to that episode of God Awful Movies.

  6. birgerjohansson says

    The god Mammon and Priapus, that Roman god with a big schlong are the principal deities of the far right.

  7. jsrtheta says

    When I was a kid, Hercules was Steve Reeves, who would have snapped Sorbo like a twig and used him to pick his teeth.

    Without claiming he knew the mind of god.

  8. wzrd1 says

    birgerjohansson @ 7, no that was Chuck Norris and his son. Had to look it up, as I’ve successfully avoided that film.

    I also remember the cult of Jobs, which finally faltered when he tried alternative, ineffective medicine to treat his cancer – with predictable results.

  9. muttpupdad says

    May he be remembered for buying his fame as he never invented anything, always claiming the work of others as his.

  10. numerobis says

    It might be noted that 2017 is before Musk really started going off the deep end. That was 2018.

  11. says

    I think I see the problem. People are clearly confusing Musk with Zephram Cochrane, inventor of the warp drive. It’s an easy mistake to make if you’re really really deluded. Or just flat out dumb.
    As for Sorbo, all I can say is
    Hercules
    He’s just a great big phony
    Hercules
    Nothing but cheese and baloney
    Fighting for his life
    With a rubber knife
    With the strength of ten
    Little paper men!

    I forget how the rest of it goes.

  12. gijoel says

    I’m thinking of making a T-shirt that says “I thought Elon was an idiot before it was cool.” I wonder how many would buy it?

    Oh man, Kevin Sorbo has not aged well. He looks like a empty goon skin that’s been painted orange and left out in the rain. And those tweets, Jebus Christ. It’s like he’s realising that storming the capital looks bad and starts furiously inventing conspiracy theories to distance himself from those window licking thugs.

    Also he has a movie coming out. “The film is based on the true story of three Christians who faced execution by firing squad in a third world country.” Which country Kev? Who were the Christians? Will it be as accurate portrayal third world politics as your portrayal of atheists in your other shitty “Christian” movies?

  13. Artor says

    That Twitter thread of Sorbo doing an about-face during the J6 riots is wasted without the input from Lucy Lawless aka Xena:
    “No, Peanut. They are not Patriots. They are your flying monkeys, homegrown terrorists, QAnon actors,” Lawless wrote. “They are the douchebags that go out and do the evil bidding of people like you who like to wind them up like toys and let them do their worst. #KeepingYourFilthyHandsClean #Enabler”
    It’s worth digging up the whole thread if you have a Xitter account.

  14. Snarki, child of Loki says

    (tugs chin thoughtfully)
    Hmm. Maybe those RWNJ’s do have a point, that the J6 insurrection was tots an ANTIFA operation.

    So, clearly, we need to identify the ANTIFA traitors from the photos and videos of the insurrection, and summarily execute them. It’s the right-wing approved way of doing things, amirite?

  15. Kagehi says

    Going to be hard to manage that when the Liar of the House goes back in time and blurs the faces of everyone in every video of them in existence, so we can’t tell which ones to hunt down. lol

    Seriously though, some of the insane crap that comes out of these people’s mouths make me wonder if they have even less comprehension of basic reality than Ken Ham.

  16. robro says

    birgerjohansson @ #7 — “Remember the cult of Jobs, who admittedly had great business sense but a very abrasive personality.”

    At the risk of being called a cultist, some of Jobs abrasiveness may be myth. I knew several people who knew him well and the first time I met them in the summer of 1984 they were talking about how much they loved him. My impression of Jobs was that he was intensely focused, and not very interested in small talk. I was introduced to him three times, each time by the same person, and each time was like the first. He was polite enough to me but not interested in talking to me but rather the person who introduced me. Jobs had business to discuss with my friend.

    His reputation for firing people is curious because I know of a couple people that he “fired” or said he wanted fired, but they were still working for Apple long after he passed.

  17. Trickster Goddess says

    Seen on social media:

    It takes a special kind of stupid to think the left would dress up like the right and raid the Capitol to change the outcome of an election they just won.

  18. gijoel says

    @19 It’s a false flag operation funded by George Soros and the Rothchilds to make our kids trans!!1! /s

  19. wzrd1 says

    The laugh is, Kevin Sorbo got duped with tons of other evangelicals by Epoch Times, a hard far right group affiliated closely with Falun Gong, a decidedly non-Christian faith that’s actually prohibited in China for anti-government views and activities.
    My sister in law got suckered into listening to their drivel on antisocial media, once she learned that they were about as actually Christian as a dog turd, she abandoned ship.

    Saw an entertaining commercial being reported on by CNN, latest commercial for the god-emperor, Trump. God, seeing the perfect world made Trump to save the world (odd, given it was perfect), who is beating back invisible commies and blather, blather, blather, but apparently Trump is Adam, Steve and Jesus all combined into a superharvester or something. Probably can walk on water, once it’s paved over with a few feet of concrete…
    And around 1/3 of the GOP still believes in their god-emperor and that the FBI hordes stormed the capitol, something, something, sooper seekrit plot and for some, probably involves gay or gray space aliens or something.
    It’s a religion, so it doesn’t have to actually make sense.

  20. wzrd1 says

    Oh, for the record, sooper seekrit is code for souper seekrit, don’t want THEM to know…
    You know THEM, they run around in white coats with great big nets.
    Now, excuse me while I go running with scissors.

  21. Hemidactylus says

    Artor @15
    Thanks for that because I was about to go hunt down where Lucy Lawless aka Xena ripped into Sorbitol.

    But we cannot overlook she was a Cylon, a Number Three. Ughh!!! That’s horrific. Not quite “starring in God’s not Dead as a misrepresentation of atheism” level horrific but not great.

    But she was a non-Tammy wife of Ron Swanson so gets a pass.