Failed Brands

Der Movement, Inc.

Laugh at this.

Good to see that a Counter-Currents writer has admitted that the “movement” is composed of “brands,” within which one cannot critique either the “brand” or the “boss.”  That sounds like an almost Sallisian critique; hopefully, this fellow will not get labelled “insane.”

An article by Aquilonius was recently published here at Counter-Currents, ”Is America First Cracking Up?” While I am a regular viewer of Nick Fuentes’ nightly show, America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes, I don’t pay much attention to the broader America First Extended Universe, so I was a bit slow in getting up to speed on the most recent drama going on there.

What?  “Movement drama?”  Gee, that’s a surprise. When is Gaslighting Greg going to get involved?  Handbags at dawn!

The short version of the story is that Ryan Sanchez, aka Culture War Criminal (CWC), had been a part of the America First (AF) movement…

Note that the author of this moronic article characterizes AF as a “movement,” but soon we’ll learn it is a “brand,” you know, just like MacDonald’s or Coca-Cola.  Or maybe it is a "scene." Read on…

…but was recently expelled for criticizing Fuentes and other high-profile AF members. In addition to this, CWC was subjected to an intense online struggle session where Beardson Beardly and Baked Alaska…

“Beardson Beardly and Baked Alaska” – we are supposed to take all these guys seriously, right?

…acted as the grand inquisitors. There is likewise another America First streamer who goes by the name of Red Pill Gaming (RPG)…

Anyone there named "Anime Masturbator?”

…who has also earned Fuentes’ ire by questioning his methods and decisions. He was similarly subjected to a hot grilling by Fuentes on a Killstream episode.

Gee, that must have been tough.  A battle of wits between unarmed opponents.

The controversy stems from the fact that many people consider some of the critiques made by CWC and RPG to be valid. These include questioning why a nominally pro-white operation employs so much black music in their content…

Maybe because the whole Amnat-Gab-FOX News “mainstreaming” Christian scene worships Blacks and other such non-human featherless bipeds as “God’s children.”

…the wisdom of Fuentes participating in a documentary made by Louis Theroux, a notorious liberal hatchet man with a long record of hostility towards pro-whites…

Maybe the Amnats are just civic nationalists and don’t care about Whites in a racial sense.

…the tendency of some AF streamers to do gaming streams rather than more serious political content…

Well then, all of this nonsense is the latest iteration of the “big tent” “youth culture” we are all supposed to support. After all, it gave us the stunning success of the Alt Right, so what can go wrong, amirite?

…and the utility of having a time bomb like Baked Alaska associated with the AF brand.

AF went from being a “movement” to a “brand.”  More about this shortly.

Many people’s perception is that Fuentes and company are lashing out very aggressively at people who are in fact offering legitimate criticisms. Some believe that this is evidence that Fuentes is becoming megalomaniacal. He’s expelling people from his movement for being honest and telling the truth!

I have a somewhat different take on this, but first I have to discuss another matter.

Counter-Currents has its share of detractors. 

Indeed.

Around the net, I have encountered people who say, “How could you write for Counter-Currents? One time Greg Johnson said blah blah blah.” This doesn’t bother me, since I would be getting some kind of grief no matter who I was writing for. If I wrote for American Renaissance, I would be hearing, “Jared Taylor won’t talk about the JQ!” If I wrote for The Daily Stormer, it would be “Weev’s a Jew!” If I wrote for VDare, if would be “race-mixing boomers!” Some people will always find something to complain about.

And the complaining would be legitimate. The difference between them and myself is that I have my own platform; I'm not just leaving comments around the Internet.

It’s true that I could have just started my own blog and then I would not have to deal with any of that. I would only have to answer for the things I said and did. But building an audience from scratch is a lot of work. Why would I do that when I could write for an established brand that already has one?

So, this idiot admits to being a lazy bastard who wants to parasitize off of the work others have done building their own platforms.

But there are some trade-offs when creating content for an established brand. 

As promised, I will now dig deeper into this “brand” thing.  As should be obvious, and as some on the comments thread to this imbecilic article have already noted, AF is not supposed to be a “brand” but a revolutionary movement.  What those commentators won’t say, for fear of being “banned” by Gaslighting Greg, is that the same applies to Counter-Currents and all the other “movement” sites mentioned. In theory, they are all supposed to be part of a political/metapolitical revolutionary movement, aimed at world historical societal change.  They are not supposed to be “brands.” 

But I agree that, in actuality, they are brands, because Der Movement, Inc. (a money-making enterprise) is a giant grift that panders to the stupidity of its followers and has as its primary objective enriching the Quota Queens who preen and prance as its “leaders.”

You have to be a brand ambassador. Every brand is going to have a party line…

Yes, indeed. Don’t criticize Gaslighting Greg. Be hostile to Spencer, Friberg, and Sallis. Gaslight about everything and anything. Be a petty nationalist.  Insult Italians.  Have a liberal attitude toward homosexuality.  Be an esoteric traditionalist.  Sound familiar?

…and you have to work within those parameters. The heads of the brand will also have friends and enemies, and while you don’t have to make all of them your own, you certainly can’t go around trashing their friends or praising their enemies. In short, you have to be a team player.

See above.

On platforms like YouTube or Dlive, everyone is essentially an independent operator. But even there, there are cliques of like-minded content creators who support and promote each other. Getting in with such a clique might help you grow an audience faster, but it will still function as an informal quasi-brand, with all the same advantages and disadvantages.

Advertise your brand!  Bring in dem shekels!  Fundraising!

When I talk about brands, this can be juxtaposed with a “scene.” The Dissident Right is not a brand; it’s a scene encompassing many brands, sub-scenes, and individual actors. Anyone can come along and call themselves “Dissident Right,” and there is no central authority who can refute that claim or expel the claimant.

Now, we start confusing “brands” with “scenes.”  We’ve come a long way from “AF is a movement” from the beginning of this “essay,” eh?

When you look at the drama in the AF scene, it boils down to the simple question: Is AF a brand or is it a scene? Nick Fuentes apparently believes that it is a brand. He believes that it is his brand that he created, and that he gets to decide who is and is not part of that brand.

OK, it’s a “brand.”

It might be helpful to look at Fuentes’ career arc thus far. He began his political streaming career making content for an established brand: the Right Side Broadcasting Network. He was later dropped by them for attending Charlottesville –i.e., for going off brand. After a brief partnership with James Allsup, he spent the next couple years as a solo operation. Sometime around 2019, he decided to turn his solo operation into a brand.

As a brand, America First works differently from all the other brands I have mentioned so far because it is not based on one website, but rather across multiple streaming services. There are certain people who Fuentes blesses as Nick Fuentes-approved content creators, and they become representatives of the AF brand. There are a lot of benefits in doing so. While Fuentes is not paying his creators, his clout is such being on his team guarantees audience interest and, by extension, superchat money.

The key word – MONEY.  Thar’s what it’s all about, my friends.  Der Movement is all about Der Money.

If we are to take the view that AF is for all intents and purposes a brand, which I do, then yes, Fuentes is entirely within his rights to get angry about being criticized by people who are using his brand. Asking whether or not such criticisms are legitimate is beside the point.

But of course. Who cares about the legitimacy of criticism of Der Movement?

“He doesn’t talk about Jews” is one criticism of Jared Taylor. Is it legitimate? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. I could see how one could argue that by not talking about Jews, Taylor is not giving people the full picture. But if you want to write for American Renaissance, you are essentially forfeiting your right to complain about that.

The problem with Amren is the hypocrisy; they historically have quoted Jefferson about not wanting to hide any truths from the world, but they do not allow truths about the JQ there, while at the same time defaming Italians, Romanians, and Hungarians, including promoting Lynn’s lies.

Similarly, John Derbyshire at VDare is in an interracial marriage. One might say that it is bad optics or looks hypocritical for an outlet dedicated to white survival. Is that a valid criticism? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. But do you think Peter Brimelow would tolerate anyone on his own staff complaining about it?

Err...it's not only VDARE and Brimelow. Derbyshire is broadly protected and enabled throughout Der Movement, particularly at Amren, where he is invited to speak at their conferences (after calling Amren conference attendees "latrine flies" by repeating that characterization), promoting his Arctic Alliance nonsense and other destructive memes.  Be honest. The protection of the Quota Queens is not only a local "our brand" thing but a "movement"-wide Old Boys Network of affirmative action-supported Herrenvolk.

Further, looking at the blog where this idiot writes, the “protection” at Counter-Currents seems limited to Johnson and perhaps a few favorites.  When I was part of that “brand,” I certainly was not protected from having my “whiteness” (indirectly) questioned by Andrew Hamilton, and Jef Costello was fair game for essentially being labeled a pseudonymous coward by Jim Goad (I note that Costello hasn’t posted there for a long time, good for him).

And Majority Rights was known for having Guessedworker allowing commentators to subject blog posters to vile abuse.

So, not everyone has enjoyed the protection from lese majeste than, say, His Holiness John Derbyshire.

I therefore have to side with Fuentes here. Whether CWC or RPG’s criticisms of Fuentes are legitimate or not doesn’t matter. That’s the trade-off when you want to be a content creator for an established brand. Portraying Fuentes as “not being able to handle criticism” is unfair. No one who operates a brand is going to allow the content creators on their own brand to publicly criticize them, legitimately or otherwise. If something comes up that is such a big deal, you don’t make content for that brand.

Note that I’m no longer involved with any of those “brands.”  I suppose I have my own “brand” – the “insane paranoid piece of crap” “brand,” I suppose.

RPG disputes this and claims that rather than being a brand, America First is more like a scene. 

A "scene", not a "movement."  After all, everyone is tacitly admitting that none of this is serious. Apart from making money, that is.

He says AF is more of an idea or a collection of beliefs, and that anyone can call themselves America First with or without Fuentes’ approval. After all, Fuentes didn’t invent the terms “America First” or “groyper,” so who is he to police those who refer to themselves by those labels? In theory, RPG is right, but in practice, if a twentysomething white male starts a YouTube channel and calls himself “America First,” he is probably not marketing his content to Seinfeld enthusiasts. Rather, he is trying to tap into Nick Fuentes’ audience.

Tap into audience = tap into revenue stream.

When it comes to the claim that these AF disputes are being handled poorly and with bad optics, I think Fuentes’ detractors are making a stronger point. The streams of CWC getting chewed out by Beardson Beardly and Baked Alaska (who came off as particularly unhinged), or Nick Fuentes’ shouting match with RPG on the Killstream, are not pleasant to hear.

Beardson and CWC met in person at an anti-vax rally…

Of course.  We have to appeal to the Gab/FOX News yahoos after all….

…in Springfield, Illinois over the weekend, and a heated exchange ensued. Beardson was so aggressive towards CWC that some normie MAGA moms in attendance…

You know, the kind that will scream about vaccines but smile benignly when their children come home from school bloody and beaten after being attacked by feral Negros. We’re all “Children of God” after all.

…actually came out in defense of CWC. This is a sign that these extremely bombastic humiliation rituals are not appealing to normies. Maybe AF feels that it is necessary to make an example of CWC, but there is nevertheless a subset of their target audience who find their methods distasteful.

Some of this may be due to the nature of America First as a brand. If AF was centered on one website, to drop someone from the brand you could just drop the person from the site. 

Like Greggy does.

With AF, however, you become part of the brand by being endorsed by Fuentes, and dropped by being disavowed. Regardless, over-the-top aggression being employed to accomplish this is less than ideal.

As a result of these humiliation sessions, some people have started describing America First as a cult. I would dispute this, but the fact remains that there are people who see these developments as a bad sign. If someone were a newcomer to America, and the first thing they heard was the video of Beardson Beardly and Baked Alaska screaming at CWC for disagreeing with the boss, no one could fault them for thinking that they had just stumbled across a cult.

And now we have moved from “movement” to “brand” to “scene” back to “brand” and now to “cult.”  Well, yes, many “movement” “brands” are indeed personality cults. Counter-Currents is a Gaslighting Greg personality cult.  Not much of a personality, true enough, but there you go.

Comments:

If Nick Fuentes is accomplishing nothing then the rest of us are accomplishing nothing times a million.

Yes, Travis, that's correct, you at Counter-Currents are "accomplishing nothing times a million."

Lord Jim:

I can also think of at least one person—one whom Fuentes never missed an opportunity to bash and who is persona non grata on this website—who got tons more national attention than Fuentes ever did or ever will.

It seems like plain-speaking tough guy Jim Goad is afraid to write the name "Richard Spencer" over there at the Counter-Currents brand. I suppose he doesn't want to get smacked in the head with a pink purse. Understandable.

Note that Fuentes does not invalidate my concept of "movement" affirmative action. America First/Alt Lite/civic nationalist right-wing populism/Trumpism is part of the broad "big tent" Der Movement, but it is peripheral, it is NOT any part of the WN/racialist/race realist core. The extent to which Fuentes would be accepted as a "leader" in that core is best exemplified by Rodney Martin's designation of Fuentes as "Nick the spic."

Tommasi was killed, Calabro was mocked behind his back as "racially mixed" and "omnidominant" - the affirmative action program won't allow non-Nordic Europeans, much less someone part-Hispanic.

Great optics!  How can any of these people, and their websites, talk about anyone else?