From around 2006 to 2008, in my ‘scene kid’ phase, I was listening to a lot of deathcore – a genre combining death metal with metalcore – as a lot of scene kids were. We wanted to hear breakdowns, guttural vocals, and pig squeals (vocals that go “breeeee”). It was part of the cultural zeitgeist.…
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I’ve found it curious that many of the pioneers of Western Buddhism – those who brought Buddhism to the West and helped popularise it – are Jewish. Frank Descher details this phenomenon in his 2017 essay ‘Jewish Converts to Buddhism and the Phenomenon of “Jewish Buddhists” (“JuBus”) in the United States, Germany and Israel’. Rodger Kamenetz,…
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Since I started using Letterboxd (four years ago), an unconscious tendency I developed when watching films is that, throughout the film, I’ll think about what Letterboxd rating I’m going to give it. If the start of the film starts really well and feels unique and perfectly attuned to my sensibilities, then I might think, This…
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Danny Shine, also known as the ‘Social Experimentalist’, runs a YouTube channel where he posts videos of himself out in London with a megaphone, voicing his polemical views. (His more recent content on his channel is recorded monologues on various social, cultural, and philosophical topics.) In public, he’ll interact with passersby or those standing to…
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The Rogansphere – consisting of Joe Rogan and like-minded comedians orbiting around him – faces steady and consistent criticism from YouTubers (whose focus and most popular content is criticising the Rogansphere). Popular critiques of the Rogansphere began with Mike David/Redbar (at redbarradio.net), and he (and fans) uploaded clips of these to YouTube. Today, the most impressive…
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