Permanently Deleted
Chuds can’t into art. The further you get from consumption-based hobbies and the closer to creative/artistic ones, the cooler people tend to be.
I’m trying to get r/modernart off the ground for that reason. Modernism, 1870s-1940s~ in particular, has a lot for socialists and almost nothing for reactionaries (short of surrealism and futurism). Marxist art criticism is deeply rooted in superstructure and critical theory more broadly so there’s a lot to engage with. Shitting on bourgeois patrons and academics is a central feature of the period so it’s art you can bully people with.
Short of surrealism and futurism
Which is incredibly unfortunate because those two things are my favorite forms of art.
I wish both had better communities. Surrealism fails because it’s just empty metaphors/ironic imagery/distorted perspective, like the modernism equivalent of Rick and Morty with all the same appeal to people whose sense of appreciation is somewhere between “holds up spork” and “I recognise the holds up spork reference!”. Futurism is little big man syndrome for entire agrarian societies. It’s the modern art equivalent of a car magazine with all the same appeal to chuds who equate their masculinity with driving really fast. I’ve started a few surrealist communities, r/fifthworldproblems and r/sixthworldproblems, which I more or less abandoned within a couple years because they’re insect lamps for Nazis. Any other movement is going to require historical perspective or extra dimensions of systems thinking or femininity that they’re incapable of.
Both could be rehabilitated into a left-radical lens but they’ll always come up against that messaging wall. Futurism as train worship and solarpunk, surrealism as Tim Heidecker’s more absurdist take.
For furry communities specifically I imagine the queer-coded-ness is a huge factor too.
I mean obviously trends aren’t ironclad. Sorry about your guy getting got :sadness:
This may just be confirmation bias on my part but it feels like every story I hear about this happening, it’s a musician
I might be wrong but I feel like this has to do with music having an aspect that revolves around crafting an identity, which seems to feed into the sort of egocentric false consciousness that drives certain people towards reaction & fascism… And also because music doesn’t necessarily require any social awareness outside of whatever group/genre the music is associated with.
On this note along with @bazingabrain arts are the place to be but there’s a sweet stop. The closer you get to it mingling with consumption and product the more ghoulish people get. For example anyone trying to turn their art into a major hustle. Which creates a bit of a weird space at times because that means you need to find folks doing this for fun, that have the TIME to be doing it for fun. There are outliers obviously, I’ve met some nice people trying to make money off their artistic endeavors, but arts/craft is more of a correlation than a sure fire if that makes sense
get into plants yo
every landscaper I’ve met has definitely been a CHUD you’re right
but conversely, every farmer’s market houseplant seller I’ve met has been at the very least a typical liberal so…
Right wingers often aren’t into Star Trek I’ve noticed. They also don’t get too deep into board games.
Tabletop rpgs are a mixed bag of either the worst nerd fascists possible or the most chill people you’ll ever meet.
Arts wise, people into sculpture tend to be chill. Also just crafts in general, like baskets or glass blowing or any of that.
Generally speaking, if you’re musically inclined and have the capacity/drive/time to play in a band, you can do a very good job of limiting your exposure to chuds. I play in a doom metal 2 piece with another leftist (don’t think he has an explicit ideology, but he’s anticapitalist, isn’t scared away by me being an out and proud commie, and has good takes on social issues), and we do a real good job of making sure we don’t play with chud artists or just generally interact with anyone right leaning.
You’d have to specifically avoid country music though, since that entire genre is captured by conservatives through some deliberate effort. Folk music is where you’d have to go if that’s the style you’re into
Metal subgenres also require some vigilance, cause theres a lot of ones infested with nazis and chuds.
Okay can we talk about this though. I’m so mad. Like I spent the past week making a playlist full of folksy union songs from pre 1950 and I’m so mad about what country music is now opposed to Pete seeger was putting out. Idk if it counts as like. True country. But I’m still angy. 😾
There’s a good :citations-needed: episode about this very subject. Some time in the 1960s conservative politicians deliberately started courting country musicians. “Country” doesn’t even refer to a specific style of music anymore but rather anything with an accent and a weepy cloying patriotism. Like listen to any country station today and it’s just pop. It’ll even have trap beats sometimes.
There is such a thing as neo-nazi folk, though. I don’t think it’s very common, but it does exist.
I read a story in a music magazine about a somewhat famous neo-nazi who lived not far from me who did weird occult rituals in the woods, and who I believe was a member of the Order of the Nine Angles, an incredibly extreme group. Pretty scary stuff.
I’ll see if I can find the link to the story
Edit: here you are. CW for sexual assault, racism, grave desecration, and occultism.
Knitting, sewing, embroidering, and other fabric arts. May not be considered “geeky” by default but you can certainly make it that way.
Generally anything that’s seen as “for women” will have better less chuddish communities on average in my experience.
