Let me save you a click - an attractive woman grows up in a far right household, and quickly becomes addicted to the attention she gets by saying outrageous things on social media. She’s now 30 and regrets supporting the absolute worst people around n the world for ten years of her life.
She’s now promoting a book (of course!) and shared on the eve of its release that in 2018, she had flown to Bucharest to meet Andrew Tate. They went out to dinner and then a club, and then she went home with him, but told him she didn’t want to have sex. It is heavily implied that he then raped her. She did not report the alleged rape at the time because “it wouldn’t have been very helpful to ‘the cause’ or my career”.
She then tried being a “trad wife” but that didn’t work out and she got separated from her trad husband, which is a big no no.
She is still an absolute moron with no actual opinions of her own, and it seems highly likely she’ll reinvent herself again as whatever she needs to be, to once again be an influencer and make a lot of money.
I have a soupçon of pity for her because with her upbringing it's not surprising she's like this, but it's drowned out by the ocean of disdain I have for all the harm she's done and the godawful beliefs she clearly still holds.
I do think her story illustrates why MAGA eats its women so quickly, in a way other hyper conservative movements don't (necessarily).
> I do think her story illustrates why MAGA eats its women so quickly, in a way other hyper conservative movements don't (necessarily).
That seems true, but I don't think I understand why. I don't think it would have been obvious to me that European "postfascism" would turn out to be a political scene in which someone like Marine Le Pen or Giorgia Meloni could have long-term success, but that seems to have happened.
MAGA is conservatism without any of the social contract aspects that normally underpin conservative movements. Usually there are at least token efforts to protect and reward women who comply, or at least assist by loudly telling other women to comply, because conservatism is normally driven by a hierarchical approach to the world where those at the top still have obligations to those below them so long as they're sufficiently obedient. But Trump would betray anyone for a nickel, and that's how the whole movement operates.
Women in the MAGA movement do think they are more valuable than other women. It's why they feel so empowered and righteous. But women are never truly valued in any conservative movement. I personally don't see much difference between them. Women are always disposable to these people.
I think your last paragraph gets to the problem with influencers in general--they really have no idea of how to do or be anything but a rich, famous influencer, so they'll keep trying new grifts after the last one gets used up.
Of course everyone can see the appeal of becoming rich. I can see why someone would try their luck as an influencer. I really can't wrap my head around the idea of their audience though.
What even is the appeal in watching people just talk about their own lives and viewpoints? Is it the loneliness epidemic? Does watching this content make them feel para socially connected to something, like they have a friend? Is it boredom? Death of monoculture? I'm so curious why these people have an audience to begin with. There are so many more interesting things to do, even just online than watch people just babble on about their personal lives and thoughts regularly. I get enough of that kind of interaction from talking to my coworkers. I have seen very precious few influencers live interesting enough lives that millions are watching them. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders how many followers are real people vs those phone farms you can pay for to generate engagement with your content.
I think it’s also that the more extreme your content, the more clicks you get. Being a moderate conservative influencer is much less compelling than a gun toting manosphere barbie doll. This creates a downward spiral where you completely lose sight of your actual views and embrace the absolute extremes.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Didn’t even need to read it to tell you that’s what it was going to be about (I’ve been plugged into Lauren Southern lore for longer than I’d like to admit, she’s a classic lolcow at this point).
Southern’s problem is basically that she edgelorded (edgeladied?) herself into the sun for attention via endless stunts and spectacles, but never had any ideas of her own to begin with, and she exhausted her options at more spectacle when everyone on the right got sick of her shit. So, once she saw that her sun was starting to set so to speak, all she could do is fake apologize while getting to relive the greatest hits of her career by performatively falling on her own sword, reframing her story as a victimhood narrative.
She’s awful. She’s contributed to polluting the discourse with xenophobic, sexist brainrot for the last 10 years, she knew that she was only hanging out with absolute snakes, but she fools a new audience every time by playing victim.
She makes me think about Serena Joy in The Handmaid’s Tale (more the show where her character is more fleshed out). If it played out in our world, Serena would 100% be a tradwife tiktoker doing increasingly stupid stunts for attention instead of writing books and lecturing at universities. Presumably she would not be upset about being prohibited from reading.
It's not just any other woman; it's Lauren Southern. If you followed politics stuff a lot, like I did, you probably know her because she was one of the biggest figures in alt-right media circles.
The Atlantic did a piece on her in 2020, calling her "the alt-rights star racist propagandist"; in the article, she said she had no regrets.
I don't feel sorry for her; she's a big piece of shit.
Couldn’t finish it either. I stopped early, at “healthy community bubble”. That sentence is almost self-defeating on its own, never mind the broader context in which it is presented.
> not believing something is true until it happens to her personally
I was just thinking about this joke Jon Stewart made many years ago on The Daily Show about how a "moderate" conservative is just one who was actually impacted personally by an issue. He was talking about Senator Arlen Spector going against his party on stem cells because he was dying of something that could be treated with stem cells.
It’s a similar situation with moderate liberals; they will call themselves progressive, but always criticise people for fighting for social progress, because “they’re going about it the wrong way”, “they’re pushing too far too fast, “they’ll being too loud and violent” etc.
This is also at least the second time she's pulled a "I left the far right" grift, only to right back at it. There's no reason to give her attention for it again
I knew this would be Lauren Southern before I opened it.
Her new grift is making people feel sorry for her by looking inside the world that made her rich.
It’s honestly so boring. She’s a terrible person. She deserves no sympathy and will be back with her racist sexist takes in no time.
Edit to add: this is the third time she’s had to is sort of article written about her during her career. She simply taps back into the conservative well when people stop speaking about her.
I knew it was Lauren Southern too just reading the comments. She's always been the worst and this has been her thing for years now. She seems to have the awareness of a flea with a galaxy sized ability to delude herself.
so an alt-right racist misogynist, who by her own admission is still a conservative, finally experiences misogynistic violence and decides it's bad? and everyone who was traumatized, hurt, neglected or killed because of right-wing rhetoric she promoted just has to watch her move on and tell her story of 'growth' because she finally got hurt? i've heard this story a million times and i'll never care. i wonder how many rape victims she dismissed before she was raped, and how many battered and abused women did she call whores for leaving before she was in a situation where she needed to? stay offline and out of public life forever, lauren.
Correction: misogyny that happens to her and other rightwing pick-me women is bad. Non-trad women are still a bunch of evil racemixing degenerate feminist hoes who deserve nonstop abuse for destroying western civilization 🙄
I’m sorry that happened to her - no one deserves it. But the appropriate thing to do in her position if she is generally remorseful is to retire from public life, at minimum. Anything less is just self serving flattery.
It’s interesting watching this generation of young, female, right-wing grifters get burned by the people they surrounded themselves by and gradually come to see how toxic it all is. Ashley St Clair is another one that comes to mind. Although Ashley seems to have come further in her journey.
Lauren uses a lot of passive language to describe her past actions. Everything seems to have happened to her, she only did what the people demanded, apparently. 🙄 I just don’t think it’s real growth unless you fully own everything you did, and she has yet to do that. In fact, she outright states that she still holds a lot of conservative views.
It seems like some of these people can only learn about an issue if it directly happens to them. They have no empathy for anyone if they themselves haven’t personally experienced something.
And, whaddaya know, feminism is important, and the kind of men you attract when you denounce it are not good men.
I also find it endlessly fascinating that so-called Christians will get involved in causes like: preventing the rescuing of drowning refugees fleeing from a war zone.
zipiddydooda | a day ago
Let me save you a click - an attractive woman grows up in a far right household, and quickly becomes addicted to the attention she gets by saying outrageous things on social media. She’s now 30 and regrets supporting the absolute worst people around n the world for ten years of her life.
She’s now promoting a book (of course!) and shared on the eve of its release that in 2018, she had flown to Bucharest to meet Andrew Tate. They went out to dinner and then a club, and then she went home with him, but told him she didn’t want to have sex. It is heavily implied that he then raped her. She did not report the alleged rape at the time because “it wouldn’t have been very helpful to ‘the cause’ or my career”.
She then tried being a “trad wife” but that didn’t work out and she got separated from her trad husband, which is a big no no.
She is still an absolute moron with no actual opinions of her own, and it seems highly likely she’ll reinvent herself again as whatever she needs to be, to once again be an influencer and make a lot of money.
fluffstuffmcguff | a day ago
I have a soupçon of pity for her because with her upbringing it's not surprising she's like this, but it's drowned out by the ocean of disdain I have for all the harm she's done and the godawful beliefs she clearly still holds.
I do think her story illustrates why MAGA eats its women so quickly, in a way other hyper conservative movements don't (necessarily).
mmarkDC | a day ago
> I do think her story illustrates why MAGA eats its women so quickly, in a way other hyper conservative movements don't (necessarily).
That seems true, but I don't think I understand why. I don't think it would have been obvious to me that European "postfascism" would turn out to be a political scene in which someone like Marine Le Pen or Giorgia Meloni could have long-term success, but that seems to have happened.
fluffstuffmcguff | a day ago
MAGA is conservatism without any of the social contract aspects that normally underpin conservative movements. Usually there are at least token efforts to protect and reward women who comply, or at least assist by loudly telling other women to comply, because conservatism is normally driven by a hierarchical approach to the world where those at the top still have obligations to those below them so long as they're sufficiently obedient. But Trump would betray anyone for a nickel, and that's how the whole movement operates.
Agitated-Lettuce1878 | 23 hours ago
Thank you for this. You said what I've been feeling so clearly!
Astralglamour | 21 hours ago
Women in the MAGA movement do think they are more valuable than other women. It's why they feel so empowered and righteous. But women are never truly valued in any conservative movement. I personally don't see much difference between them. Women are always disposable to these people.
Key_Gap9168 | 16 hours ago
You mean everyone with that upbringing turned out to be a literal Nazi? She is an outlier, even if she was brought up in a conservative household.
skyewardeyes | a day ago
I think your last paragraph gets to the problem with influencers in general--they really have no idea of how to do or be anything but a rich, famous influencer, so they'll keep trying new grifts after the last one gets used up.
Bad-Gardener1 | a day ago
Of course everyone can see the appeal of becoming rich. I can see why someone would try their luck as an influencer. I really can't wrap my head around the idea of their audience though.
What even is the appeal in watching people just talk about their own lives and viewpoints? Is it the loneliness epidemic? Does watching this content make them feel para socially connected to something, like they have a friend? Is it boredom? Death of monoculture? I'm so curious why these people have an audience to begin with. There are so many more interesting things to do, even just online than watch people just babble on about their personal lives and thoughts regularly. I get enough of that kind of interaction from talking to my coworkers. I have seen very precious few influencers live interesting enough lives that millions are watching them. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders how many followers are real people vs those phone farms you can pay for to generate engagement with your content.
zipiddydooda | a day ago
I think it’s also that the more extreme your content, the more clicks you get. Being a moderate conservative influencer is much less compelling than a gun toting manosphere barbie doll. This creates a downward spiral where you completely lose sight of your actual views and embrace the absolute extremes.
skyewardeyes | a day ago
Oh for sure--extremism is rewarded.
ToTheDeath84 | a day ago
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Didn’t even need to read it to tell you that’s what it was going to be about (I’ve been plugged into Lauren Southern lore for longer than I’d like to admit, she’s a classic lolcow at this point).
Southern’s problem is basically that she edgelorded (edgeladied?) herself into the sun for attention via endless stunts and spectacles, but never had any ideas of her own to begin with, and she exhausted her options at more spectacle when everyone on the right got sick of her shit. So, once she saw that her sun was starting to set so to speak, all she could do is fake apologize while getting to relive the greatest hits of her career by performatively falling on her own sword, reframing her story as a victimhood narrative.
She’s awful. She’s contributed to polluting the discourse with xenophobic, sexist brainrot for the last 10 years, she knew that she was only hanging out with absolute snakes, but she fools a new audience every time by playing victim.
Outrageous-Potato525 | 10 hours ago
She makes me think about Serena Joy in The Handmaid’s Tale (more the show where her character is more fleshed out). If it played out in our world, Serena would 100% be a tradwife tiktoker doing increasingly stupid stunts for attention instead of writing books and lecturing at universities. Presumably she would not be upset about being prohibited from reading.
beast_of_no_nation | 22 hours ago
Great summary. A familiar case of a grifter pivoting their grift.
Key_Gap9168 | 17 hours ago
It's not just any other woman; it's Lauren Southern. If you followed politics stuff a lot, like I did, you probably know her because she was one of the biggest figures in alt-right media circles.
The Atlantic did a piece on her in 2020, calling her "the alt-rights star racist propagandist"; in the article, she said she had no regrets.
I don't feel sorry for her; she's a big piece of shit.
Feisty-Donkey | a day ago
Excellent, thank you
vicscotutah | a day ago
You’re doing the lord’s work
loliduhh | 11 hours ago
How generous of a review from someone who has not, and does not intend to read this.
Educational_Car_615 | a day ago
A very conservative experience for her, in not believing something is true until it happens to her personally. So solipsistic.
She's done so much damage. I hope she stays offline forever.
birdtripping | a day ago
“I assumed other women were just making it up when they talked about all these toxic men because at the time I had never encountered them.”
Uggggh. I couldn't finish the article. Not because it was a long read, but a gross and self-serving one.
NoPoet3982 | 15 hours ago
"I'm not like other girls."
think_long | 14 hours ago
Couldn’t finish it either. I stopped early, at “healthy community bubble”. That sentence is almost self-defeating on its own, never mind the broader context in which it is presented.
CactusBoyScout | 20 hours ago
> not believing something is true until it happens to her personally
I was just thinking about this joke Jon Stewart made many years ago on The Daily Show about how a "moderate" conservative is just one who was actually impacted personally by an issue. He was talking about Senator Arlen Spector going against his party on stem cells because he was dying of something that could be treated with stem cells.
LovecraftianCatto | 56 minutes ago
It’s a similar situation with moderate liberals; they will call themselves progressive, but always criticise people for fighting for social progress, because “they’re going about it the wrong way”, “they’re pushing too far too fast, “they’ll being too loud and violent” etc.
copyrighther | a day ago
Conservative women are the ultimate pick-me’s. Working so hard for men who despise them.
bussound | a day ago
A longer leash is still a leash.
Astralglamour | 21 hours ago
They beg for the leash because they think it means a man cares for them and that's what they believe establishes their value over other women.
zoltree | a day ago
Oh barf. Lauren Southern. Let’s never hear from her again. Watch her come back as a high-ticket sales closing “wellness guru”.
ankhmadank | a day ago
This is also at least the second time she's pulled a "I left the far right" grift, only to right back at it. There's no reason to give her attention for it again
zoltree | a day ago
Why does anyone even publish her articles ugh. Everyone should save themselves a click.
jonesday5 | a day ago
I knew this would be Lauren Southern before I opened it.
Her new grift is making people feel sorry for her by looking inside the world that made her rich.
It’s honestly so boring. She’s a terrible person. She deserves no sympathy and will be back with her racist sexist takes in no time.
Edit to add: this is the third time she’s had to is sort of article written about her during her career. She simply taps back into the conservative well when people stop speaking about her.
WoodyAlanDershodick | a day ago
I knew it was Lauren Southern too just reading the comments. She's always been the worst and this has been her thing for years now. She seems to have the awareness of a flea with a galaxy sized ability to delude herself.
lesbian__overlord | a day ago
so an alt-right racist misogynist, who by her own admission is still a conservative, finally experiences misogynistic violence and decides it's bad? and everyone who was traumatized, hurt, neglected or killed because of right-wing rhetoric she promoted just has to watch her move on and tell her story of 'growth' because she finally got hurt? i've heard this story a million times and i'll never care. i wonder how many rape victims she dismissed before she was raped, and how many battered and abused women did she call whores for leaving before she was in a situation where she needed to? stay offline and out of public life forever, lauren.
MealIcy4946 | a day ago
questioning her sincerity is valid, but maybe consider context
jaybird-jazzhands | a day ago
That she’s selling a book?
lesbian__overlord | a day ago
i'll consider context when she considers there isn't a problem with multiculturalism
carolina822 | a day ago
I considered it. Still don’t care. 🤷
parkernorwood | a day ago
How so?
blissfully_happy | a day ago
>…before adding that she also thinks “there is still a valid conversation” to be had about multiculturalism.
Sooo, she hasn’t actually changed, got it.
copyrighther | a day ago
Misogyny is bad but racism is not 🤔
carolina822 | a day ago
More like stuff that happens to her is bad. Stuff that happens to other people isn’t.
copyrighther | 8 hours ago
That goes without saying when speaking about conservatives:
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
FreeCashFlow | 7 hours ago
Conservatism in a nutshell.
GamersReisUp | 12 hours ago
Correction: misogyny that happens to her and other rightwing pick-me women is bad. Non-trad women are still a bunch of evil racemixing degenerate feminist hoes who deserve nonstop abuse for destroying western civilization 🙄
recumbent_mike | a day ago
That's what we call intersectionalism
InvisibleEar | a day ago
"I was abused by white men but I'm still more suspicious of Muslim men"
CZall23 | 6 hours ago
God, I hate contrarians.
petertompolicy | a day ago
She actually did this schtick before.
There was a Vice interview with her about it.
She's still racist.
AndMyHelcaraxe | 21 hours ago
> She actually did this schtick before.
Yes!! I feel like I’m having déjà vu
xbhaskarx | a day ago
Lauren Southern, isn’t she pretty much a Nazi?
zipiddydooda | a day ago
https://archive.ph/VxcLh
brand-new-info-8984 | a day ago
I’m sorry that happened to her - no one deserves it. But the appropriate thing to do in her position if she is generally remorseful is to retire from public life, at minimum. Anything less is just self serving flattery.
No_Register_5500 | a day ago
what specifically did she help build?
ChickenCasagrande | a day ago
Did you read the article?
alex2374 | a day ago
There's nothing about these people worth reading a whole article about.
LadybugGirltheFirst | a day ago
She wrote this while the leopards were gnawing on her face.
HipsterSlimeMold | a day ago
Womp womp
parkernorwood | 23 hours ago
[Making an eye-rolling jerkoff movement so vigorous it registers on the Richter scale]
meezajangles | a day ago
Of course it’s Lauren southern; a reminder she tried to physically block refugees from coming ashore while at sea and is banned from Britain for it
hamletgoessafari | 20 hours ago
Now where did I put that tiny violin
rosehymnofthemissing | 20 hours ago
So the consequences of your own actions, is it?
tres-vip | a day ago
True leopards ate my face moment
uselessinfogoldmine | 11 hours ago
It’s interesting watching this generation of young, female, right-wing grifters get burned by the people they surrounded themselves by and gradually come to see how toxic it all is. Ashley St Clair is another one that comes to mind. Although Ashley seems to have come further in her journey.
Lauren uses a lot of passive language to describe her past actions. Everything seems to have happened to her, she only did what the people demanded, apparently. 🙄 I just don’t think it’s real growth unless you fully own everything you did, and she has yet to do that. In fact, she outright states that she still holds a lot of conservative views.
It seems like some of these people can only learn about an issue if it directly happens to them. They have no empathy for anyone if they themselves haven’t personally experienced something.
And, whaddaya know, feminism is important, and the kind of men you attract when you denounce it are not good men.
I also find it endlessly fascinating that so-called Christians will get involved in causes like: preventing the rescuing of drowning refugees fleeing from a war zone.
Feisty-Donkey | a day ago
Good.