Kayfabe is a really important concept, especially in the modern environment where it’s become an actual part of political discourse. I honestly think we all need to familiarize ourselves with the concept of kayfabe, of performing the character as if it were real in a live environment, because so much of right-wing punditry is doing exactly this.
One of the problems with political discourse is that these people say wild-ass shit and then we spend time trying to run down why it’s wrong and what the hell would even compel someone to say that.
And the answer is kayfabe. These people are not engaging in discourse. They’re playing characters in a fictional environment. Donald Trump is doing professional wrestling on the world stage. He is a playing a character in the fictional environment that Fox News has been writing for decades.
Get these people into court and they’ll even admit that it’s all fiction and “No one would seriously believe it”; Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones have both used that defense. It’s all kayfabe. They go out there, they put on their masks, and they play Legend of the Shining Knight: Battle Against the Migrant Orcs for a crowd’s entertainment.
With real-world consequences.
Unfortunately, I have a hard time talking about this because I can never fucking remember how to pronounce it and it always comes out as “key fob”. We need to talk more about Tucker Carlson or Stephen Crowder’s key fobs. Nobody’s talking about their key fobs.
But at a certain point, we need to start reckoning with the fact that these are not good faith actors trying to do what is best for America, and we will never reach them by appealing to them in that way. They are fundamentally unserious people LARPing a white supremacist fantasy novel.
And unfortunately, most of the people in the crowd genuinely are stupid enough to believe that everything they see is real. And so long as they get to see the other fantasy heel sports team lose, they’ll be happy with what happens in the arena. It’s not even bread and circuses anymore, it’s just about pointing and laughing at the people suffering.
You know your drunk art post about love and personhood from 2019? Every night at bedtime my late cat would lie on my chest, and her little heartbeat would be right on top of mine, and I'd think about that piece of art you made, and have a similar sort of image in my head. Anyway, yesterday I finally put the image to paper, and idk where this is going, just that that piece of art you created means a lot to me. Have a cool day ✌️
remembering my grandmother today and thinking about how when i came out as trans to her (in her mid-80’s) her response was “okay. am i supposed to be surprised?” and then while i was laughing my ass off she filled me in on the fact that she’d suspected for years, and apparently had shared an apartment with two “girls like you” back in the 70’s. RIP to a real one, love that lady <3
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