Olivia
Online
Counterculture
@counterpod
Arts, culture, and politics with @matthewschmitz and @juliadyost.
Joined June 2025
2 Following
793 Followers
160 Posts
really insightful conversation between 3 sharp friends here about the dissolution and moral deregulation of the Open Society
@matthewschmitz
@juliadyost
Rusty Reno
Talked to Rusty about the rise and fall of Karl Popper’s open society
new @counterpod
https://t.co/IvpWHk1Vcs
The postwar era is ending. What will succeed it?
@juliadyost and I ask R. R. Reno
https://t.co/hCcuHKaHbx
I got to go on my favorite podcast...but unfortunately for a very somber discussion.
Had a good but also terrifying time talking to @GregoryConti19 about AI.
new @counterpod
https://t.co/m7jf5LNUB1
Industry leaders present AI as a revolutionary technology that will cost us our humanity. Princeton professor @GregoryConti19 says we should take them seriously.
https://t.co/QYrJTcCIBa
On the latest @counterpod, @juliadyost and I talk to the inimitable @herandrews:
https://t.co/eycdmxDRGZ
Jim Goad—one of the most significant countercultural figures of the last forty years—has died. A writer and alternative magazine publisher, Goad adopted an exaggerated form of lower-class white masculinity. Despite being from suburban Philadelphia, he identified as a redneck. Through relentless provocation, he showed that white, masculine cultural markers could have a transgressive edge. In doing so he anticipated both millennial hipsterism and the rise of Donald Trump.
Born on the outskirts of Philadelphia in 1961, Goad was a sensitive and literary young man. In time, he found his way into the punk scene, and from there into alternative publishing. Though Goad had a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Temple University, he rejected the values of the university class. Along with his wife, Debbie Rosalie, he founded ANSWER Me!, a magazine that celebrated every offensive thing, from suicide to racism to misogyny.
The most controversial episode in the history of ANSWER Me! came in 1994 when it published a “Rape Issue.” A prosecutor in Bellingham, Washington charged the owners of a newsstand with felony obscenity for selling copies of the magazine. The ACLU rallied to Goad’s side, but he received nothing like the support from the liberal establishment that Andres Serrano or Robert Mapplethorpe did for their blasphemous and obscene imagery. As Goad intuited, something important was changing in American culture. “Transgressive” art that was coded as left-wing was achieving its own kind of respectability. Real transgressive energy was shifting from the left to the right, as an emerging progressive-feminist hegemony came to replace the religious conservatism that had once set the limits of acceptable speech.
In 1997, Goad published his best-known book, The Redneck Manifesto. It was a full-throated defense of “rednecks, hayseeds, bumpkins, crackers, hillbillies, peckerwoods, Bubbas, yokels, lintheads, shit-kickers, and poor white trash.” Goad argued that these people had become the one group in America it was acceptable to treat with contempt. Published by a mainstream press, the book was greeted respectfully—until Goad was arrested for domestic violence (an incident that would seem to vindicate critics of the “Rape Issue”). After serving time in prison, he drifted toward what would come to be known as the alt-right. His fierce belief in free speech and all-purpose political incorrectness took on a more ominous coloring when he stopped publishing an independent zine and began writing columns for Counter-Currents, an avowedly white nationalist magazine.
Despite all this, Goad retained his admirers. The liberal comedian Margaret Cho was a fan of ANSWER Me!. She gave a complete run of it to her friend Quentin Tarantino. Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, was an even more ardent devotee. In 2018, he recommended Goad in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, saying, “My taste is for the extreme.” Patton Oswalt, the now ostentatiously woke comedian, was also praising Goad in interviews as recently as 2014. All of these people honed a transgressive edge influenced by Goad.
But Goad’s most important disciple was Gavin McInnes, cofounder of Vice, the magazine that defined millennial hipsterism’s aesthetic and cultural energy. Referring to his work at Vice, AdBusters described McInnes as “one of hipsterdom’s primary architects.” This is true, but the blueprint he used was drawn up by Goad. In its early years, Vice was ostentatiously politically incorrect, anti-feminist, and anti-anti-racist. As McInnes has said, ANSWER Me! “was the impetus for VICE MEDIA’s early fearless attitude.” Vice embraced white masculinity as a sign of authenticity.
It thereby established the pattern for millennial hipsterism more generally. As Mark Greif, a founding editor of n+1, has noted, “hipster values exalt political reaction, masquerading as rebellion, behind the mask of ‘vice.’” Hipster vice gave people oppositional energy “by going back to the imagination of the trailer park, and of Merle Haggard, as somehow embodying the kind of ritual power which you too can have access to—of a lower-class, a white ‘outlaw’ Other.” Significantly, this power was masculine. The stereotypical markers of hipster culture—shaving implements, work boots, whisky—are male-coded. Greif lamented “male domination of the [hipster] category.” But that was essential to its appeal. If the future was female, hipster fashion looked to the past.
As millennial hipsterism receded, the idea that there could be something transgressive in white and masculine cultural markers assumed new political potency. The 2016 Trump campaign was powered by its embrace of the white working class. It also drew energy from its rejection of feminist conceits. While critics charged Trump with racism and misogyny, his supporters reveled in official obloquy, gleefully accepting Hillary Clinton’s epithet, “deplorables.” When Trump stood for a mugshot in 2023, his outlaw appeal was underlined. His initial rise and later return to office suggested that, in a society devoted to feminism and diversity, whiteness and masculinity possess a countercultural energy.
The first person to recognize this was the troubled, troubling figure of Jim Goad. For more on his influence, see my article in @firstthingsmag:
https://t.co/92NsfdGJLi
![matthewschmitz's tweet photo. Jim Goad—one of the most significant countercultural figures of the last forty years—has died. A writer and alternative magazine publisher, Goad adopted an exaggerated form of lower-class white masculinity. Despite being from suburban Philadelphia, he identified as a redneck. Through relentless provocation, he showed that white, masculine cultural markers could have a transgressive edge. In doing so he anticipated both millennial hipsterism and the rise of Donald Trump.
Born on the outskirts of Philadelphia in 1961, Goad was a sensitive and literary young man. In time, he found his way into the punk scene, and from there into alternative publishing. Though Goad had a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Temple University, he rejected the values of the university class. Along with his wife, Debbie Rosalie, he founded ANSWER Me!, a magazine that celebrated every offensive thing, from suicide to racism to misogyny.
The most controversial episode in the history of ANSWER Me! came in 1994 when it published a “Rape Issue.” A prosecutor in Bellingham, Washington charged the owners of a newsstand with felony obscenity for selling copies of the magazine. The ACLU rallied to Goad’s side, but he received nothing like the support from the liberal establishment that Andres Serrano or Robert Mapplethorpe did for their blasphemous and obscene imagery. As Goad intuited, something important was changing in American culture. “Transgressive” art that was coded as left-wing was achieving its own kind of respectability. Real transgressive energy was shifting from the left to the right, as an emerging progressive-feminist hegemony came to replace the religious conservatism that had once set the limits of acceptable speech.
In 1997, Goad published his best-known book, The Redneck Manifesto. It was a full-throated defense of “rednecks, hayseeds, bumpkins, crackers, hillbillies, peckerwoods, Bubbas, yokels, lintheads, shit-kickers, and poor white trash.” Goad argued that these people had become the one group in America it was acceptable to treat with contempt. Published by a mainstream press, the book was greeted respectfully—until Goad was arrested for domestic violence (an incident that would seem to vindicate critics of the “Rape Issue”). After serving time in prison, he drifted toward what would come to be known as the alt-right. His fierce belief in free speech and all-purpose political incorrectness took on a more ominous coloring when he stopped publishing an independent zine and began writing columns for Counter-Currents, an avowedly white nationalist magazine.
Despite all this, Goad retained his admirers. The liberal comedian Margaret Cho was a fan of ANSWER Me!. She gave a complete run of it to her friend Quentin Tarantino. Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, was an even more ardent devotee. In 2018, he recommended Goad in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, saying, “My taste is for the extreme.” Patton Oswalt, the now ostentatiously woke comedian, was also praising Goad in interviews as recently as 2014. All of these people honed a transgressive edge influenced by Goad.
But Goad’s most important disciple was Gavin McInnes, cofounder of Vice, the magazine that defined millennial hipsterism’s aesthetic and cultural energy. Referring to his work at Vice, AdBusters described McInnes as “one of hipsterdom’s primary architects.” This is true, but the blueprint he used was drawn up by Goad. In its early years, Vice was ostentatiously politically incorrect, anti-feminist, and anti-anti-racist. As McInnes has said, ANSWER Me! “was the impetus for VICE MEDIA’s early fearless attitude.” Vice embraced white masculinity as a sign of authenticity.
It thereby established the pattern for millennial hipsterism more generally. As Mark Greif, a founding editor of n+1, has noted, “hipster values exalt political reaction, masquerading as rebellion, behind the mask of ‘vice.’” Hipster vice gave people oppositional energy “by going back to the imagination of the trailer park, and of Merle Haggard, as somehow embodying the kind of ritual power which you too can have access to—of a lower-class, a white ‘outlaw’ Other.” Significantly, this power was masculine. The stereotypical markers of hipster culture—shaving implements, work boots, whisky—are male-coded. Greif lamented “male domination of the [hipster] category.” But that was essential to its appeal. If the future was female, hipster fashion looked to the past.
As millennial hipsterism receded, the idea that there could be something transgressive in white and masculine cultural markers assumed new political potency. The 2016 Trump campaign was powered by its embrace of the white working class. It also drew energy from its rejection of feminist conceits. While critics charged Trump with racism and misogyny, his supporters reveled in official obloquy, gleefully accepting Hillary Clinton’s epithet, “deplorables.” When Trump stood for a mugshot in 2023, his outlaw appeal was underlined. His initial rise and later return to office suggested that, in a society devoted to feminism and diversity, whiteness and masculinity possess a countercultural energy.
The first person to recognize this was the troubled, troubling figure of Jim Goad. For more on his influence, see my article in @firstthingsmag:
https://t.co/92NsfdGJLi](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HNsE8SvXgAAXaRr.png)
Remarkably, Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ seems to have been written and cast in response to the Classics discourse of the dissident right.
new @counterpod
https://t.co/NHedDFgdTI
“The Odyssey” has been widely condemned as woke. But politics aside, does it actually work as an action movie and epic film? @juliadyost and I have our doubts.
https://t.co/ls5t1miGwm
Left: @NYMag’s new story on “The Young Catholic Elite Poised to Take Over MAGA”
Right: my May @firstthingsmag essay on “Our Strange Catholic Moment”
JD Vance blames social division on secularism and calls for a return to the “Christian foundation” of America.
My interview with the vice president:
https://t.co/Iupg35rPRC
Last June, we launched @counterpod with the slogan, “How the right is remaking America.” One year later, it’s time to ask whether the vibe shift is over.
https://t.co/1VkVjEl5nZ
Trump rode a vibe shift back to the White House in 2025. Eighteen months later, the vibe has shifted back again.
New @counterpod on how Trump lost his cool
https://t.co/JIaz16md0n
As traditional religion declines, belief in UFOs is on the rise. You can see it in Steven Spielberg’s new movie, Trump’s release of UFO files, and the dismissal of a Catholic exorcist.
https://t.co/vlgaDPh6Xa
“I do have a bit of a secret subliminal message in the show … that heterosexuality is the real horror.”
—Haley Z. Boston, creator of “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen”
Scary date movies for the generation that’s scared to date.
new @counterpod
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