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Hello hello hello, dear friends & dear enemies! Welcome to this evening’s News on News— we’re so excited you’re here, bc we have found ourselves
We love his profile pic! We have no idea who Stribling is, we’re sure it’s no one objectionable bc who would take a leashed bunny to meet someone objectionable?
Hello to the bunny, & welcome welcome welcome to Matt— you know, Matt, we have ourselves been known to relish a graveyard stroll. We must get together sometime to stroll in the graveyard & talk all abt our “ZIZIANS”.
We are thrilled to have you here on Strange New Vegan Death Cult Murders, & even more thrilled by the headline to your Substack news analysis— or, by as much of the headline as Google will indulge us w/: “How the Media Picks the Pronouns…”
We need read no more than that to know: you, Matt, are a comrade. How indeed? How could they be so hard-hearted, for all the world to see?
Our q. for you, Matt: is there a deeper system to their mispronounery that we have missed? Is there semiotic significance of which we are ignorant? We are on tenterhooks to hear your answers, so w/ no further ado, let us turn to your brave exposé, which you have generously shared w/ your 6k Substack subscribers: “How the Media Picks the Pronouns…”
🫣 Oh, Matt! You force us to draw our bingo card—
and draw five little Xs before we even reach your argument! What would your bunny think?
***
You open w/ a banger:
When the BBC finally reported on the Zizians death cult last Friday, the headline mentioned the group was “vegan,” but said nothing about its foundational belief in transgenderism.
We appreciate, Matt, that you were on tenterhooks waiting for this seminal story to make the big leagues: we find ourselves, once again, simpatico.
We also share your laughter at the BBC’s headline: as if “veganism” were headline material!
But when it comes to a “foundational belief in transgenderism”, you’ve lost us. We have no clue what you’re talking abt. Why talk abt a characteristic— a characteristic like blue eyes— as if it were a tenet of faith, like unitarianism, or creationism? Blue eyes do not exist thanks to our faith in blueeyesism, Matt; they will not, like Tinker Bell, pop out of existence if we become eye color infidels. To insist otherwise would be magical thinking— which we typically, in a whimsical mood, would endorse. But your superstitiousness, Matt, has taken us out of our whimsical mood, & has put us in the mood for cold, hard materialism.
We’d hoped you could elaborate on your unique beliefs in the next paragraph— but alas, we find you instead besmearing the Zizster w/ deadnamery & mispronounification (TZWDAM)!
You give us some good news: that the BBC does not besmear TZWDAM; then you give us some bad news: the BBC evades all pronouns for all of Ziz’s friends. This is a trick that we have seen before, & we commend yr close reading, Matt, for bringing another instance of it to our attention 🙏
Next you bring us more good news: the BBC’s official cult expert is… not so sure this friend-group is a cult… & you bring us silly news: that “all” in this friend-group call “themselves ‘Zizians’ to advertise that they are in a cult”! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Next, Matt, you lose us entirely. We are scratching our head, we do not know what you are saying:
Two kinds of organization fit the description of the Zizians as a murderous group of people using a collective name coined from the name of their leader: a terrorist cult, or a criminal gang. The difference is that violent cults display fanaticism.
Indeed, there is crossover between the two underworlds. For example, the median western recruit to the Islamic State has had a history of gang violence. Do the Zizians display fanaticism? is the real question, here, and the choice of a murderous vagrant box truck lifestyle argues yes.
😮💨 Time for our least favorite phrase: Matt, there is much to unpack here.
***
Let’s start on a high note: your phrase “murderous vagrant box truck lifestyle” made us v., v. happy. It made us quite as happy as Provisional Patrick’s phrase, “transgender, homicidal, computer scientist vegans”.
ˈMUR-der-ous | ˈVAY-grənt | BOX | TRUCK | ˈLIFE-style. We titter & salute you, Matt. We wonder if you’ve considered writing jingles. We fed your phrase into Chat, & once again asked that invaluable robot (TIR): what’s the poetic meter?
Chat was as delighted as we were. TIR called your phrase “driving and punchy”, & said it had “five strong beats, which could even evoke a rough kind of pentameter in an aggressive, modern register (AAMR).”
By AAMR, Chat explained that it meant your voice in this phrase, Matt, read as “possibly queer or punk or precariously working-class, or at least aware of how class and danger interact.” It called yours “the register of someone writing in the now— raw, urgent”— one preferring “spit and grit” over… what, dryness & slyness? It called your imagery “zine-punk”, & your meter overall “accentual”, which you happen to share w/ Beowulf!
You, Matt, have made zine punks everywhere proud; alas, now we come to the meat of our compliment sandwich.
***
You write:
Two kinds of organization fit the description of the Zizians as a murderous group of people using a collective name coined from the name of their leader: a terrorist cult, or a criminal gang. The difference is that violent cults display fanaticism.
Indeed, there is crossover between the two underworlds. For example, the median western recruit to the Islamic State has had a history of gang violence. Do the Zizians display fanaticism? is the real question.
Here, Matt, you assert that both terrorist cults & criminal gangs (TCACG) typically name themselves for their leaders.
Is this true? We cannot think of any examples, & sadly, you provide none. But these are small potatoes.
Next you run into a structural problem: you say in paragraph 1 that violent cults (which we assume are equivalent to terrorist cults) display fanaticism, then in paragraph 2 reveal that both of these paragraphs center around the q. of fanaticism— if so, why not structure it like this:
The difference is that violent cults display fanaticism. Do the Zizians display fanaticism? is the real question.
This, Matt, leads you into another difficulty. Fanaticism is the focus of your argument, & you have just asserted that criminal gangs do not display fanaticism. Why, then, include criminal gangs in your argument? Why not say:
The Zizians— in the style of terroristic cults (TCs)— have chosen a collective name coined from the name of their leader. TCs famously demonstrate fanaticism, which leads me to ask the question: Do the Zizians display fanaticism? If so, then I believe that “terroristic cult” may be an apt description.
This will require you to remove your interesting observation that “the median western recruit to the Islamic State (WRTTIS) has had a history of gang violence (AHOGV)”, but such is a writer’s life! We must all kill our darlings. & this might be just as well, since light googling has revealed that your statement is untrue: while some WRTTIS have AHOGV, there is vast diversity among them; they are endearingly hard to pigeon-hole.
Finally, Matt, we’d encourage you to unpack a little more the substance of your stylistically marvelous clincher: that “the choice of a murderous vagrant box truck lifestyle” in & of itself displays fanaticism.
How? One can be a murderer w/out being a fanatic; one can be a moderate vagrant; & one can live in a box truck w/out holding extreme beliefs. What characteristic(s) of the “Zizians”— if not these— belie fanaticism? We are left w/ their veganism, & w/ their transness. If you mean either or both of these, please come out & say it— stand tall! Our pet peeve is writers who dance around the point.
There is our open-face compliment sandwich, Matt; in the Scandinavian tradition.
We apologize, but after re-reading your argument, could find no 2nd piece of bread. We hope it gives you some hygge regardless.
*****
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