Thomas J. Palmer 🇺🇸 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

I’ve noticed that when I bring up the concept of humans and “duty”—to family, to community, to nature—men (generally) are like “yeah!” On the other hand, women (generally) get 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘺 defensive. Why is this?

For all the respect I have for Chris Rufo as an activist, I have to push back, because this tweet represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how culture works, how art works, how passion works, and, consequently, why conservative art projects inevitably fail. There may be many problems with the conservative audience and "conservative"-aligned creators, but the biggest problem is still that the money isn't being directed properly. For those in the position to direct all those "billions of dollars, sloshing around inside the mainstream conservative sphere, we need to learn a lot of lessons First, it’s not hard to see how money flows through mainstream conservative institutions like "The Daily Wire" or "Angel Studios"; we can judge them by their fruits. Is all of it bad? Of course not. I have seen a lot of Angel Studios and Daily Wire films, and they were entertaining enough, but they all had a certain ant-smell to them that made them both unartistic and fundamentally misaligned with the kind of work conservatives should be producing in the modern world. The conservative media also felt not a little like... well... slop. This is because these organizations develop content in a very predictable way, leading to predictable output. Undoubtedly, conservatives think like this: "We conservatives are underserved by the evil mainstream media. Therefore, we need a new media company to produce content that appeals to conservatives!" "What are the conservative demographics?" 1. Older Boomers who watch Fox News 2. Evangelical Christians, with tastes curated by highly conscientious and risk-averse wives and mothers 3. Working-class rural people 4. Middle-class millennial men who feel alienated by cultural developments after 2011 So, inevitably, the conservative production companies produce their standard fare: safe retreads of popular genres from three decades ago, bland long-house renditions of bible stories with the edges sanded off, and carbon copies of Hollywood genre films popular in the early 2000s. Unsurprisingly, these products feel like bland over-optimized retreads. But they are in some direct way "What the audience wanted" and "what the talent produced". After all, in terms of "hitting key metrics" and optimizing on return, this is how you do it. This is what a consultant will tell you to do. This is what our modern social media algorithms do as well. This is also exactly how you get slop. No one cares about these conservative pieces of media after they debut because they contain no artistry, no purpose, and no love. To be at least a little artistic, in order not to be slop, and an entertainment product must do two things: 1. It must make people love it, not just like it or be mildly placated by it. 2. It must point people towards higher spiritual aspirations that they don't encounter in their ordinary lives. Obviously, algorithmically optimized content doesn't do either of these two things, and neither does the focus-grouped pandering that you see in conservative media. Ultimately, conservatives have to get over a critical, flawed conception about art, namely that it is a demand-driven consumer product. It is not. Art is designed to lead people, not follow their desires. It's not supposed to give audiences what they already say they want; it's supposed to show them what they should want. It's aspirational. Therefore, not all consumer dollars are equal. The dollars that follow prestigious culture (people with vision, and tastemakers) lead to products that last. Those who chase median consumer demand produce forgettable products. Conservatives lament this because they see this logic robbing them of the mainstream culture in the 70s when programming like MASH and All in the Family were prioritized over more popular shows that did better numbers. But that new, more activist, technically less popular programming is what people needed, and it’s what they remembered going forward. Popular entertainment is no different from art, and art leads. Which is why following either a prestigious tastemaker class or building on an interesting underground pulp movement is always the better long-term strategy than pumping out stuff for the median consumer. Just look at any property now celebrated in mainstream nerd culture, from Tolkien to Lovecraft to Conan the Barbarian. It all started as a money-losing venture. It was an aspirational project to create, a labor of love. And being aspirational, it’s not just about taking risks, not on the craziest shit ever. It’s about giving people better things. Case in point, my classic question: “Why doesn’t the Daily Wire make Shakespeare movies?” They don’t make Shakespeare because it makes less money than slop. But having a few really good Shakespeare productions under your belt is better than money. It gives you prestige and makes you a symbol of something that’s better than Hollywood. Progressives understand this reality; conservatives do not. Leftists spend millions on niche art projects designed to appeal to small minorities or groups of academics because they KNOW that being loved is the most important thing, that creating a product that a few people re-read and organize their lives around is better than having something that millions are just sorta kind of ok with. So sure, with all the millions and billions sloshing around, looking to make good conservative art, you could blame the audience and the creators. Even when talent and demand are evident in numerous examples. But, doing so misses the point that you are fighting the wrong battle. This is a war of belief, and if you aren’t showing people what is worthy of love and aspiration, then you aren’t actually fighting it.