Proof that I'm a bleeding-heart whinging liberal is I look at dysgenic freaks like Cyraxx (is that name self-applied?) and think "this bastard never stood a chance" before snapping out of it and barking "get the kids inside Marge and hand me my shotgun". And this is after having a relative of my own who, despite having been raised with all the benefits accruing to an upper-middle class family, spent his entire teen and adult life downwardly mobilizing himself. First he dove headlong into grand theft auto (not the game) and NYC ghetto life and after failing to spend a decade in prison since he was only 16 at the time he then headed to the boonies to do the redneck trash bit. He dropped a bunch of kids along the way that he doesn't care for but I'll get to that later. He was a massive suck on his family for decades before they finally perished and/or walked away. Last I heard he was running an online mephedrone ring, got busted by the DEA, and ratted out his partners to avoid prison. They should've asked me before partnering up with this unreliable piece of shit. I would've told them he's a rat.
As for his string of kids I received a phone call from him about 10 years ago wherein he begged me to run over to Jersey since one of his brood had been busted for grand larceny. The kid was working at Best Buy and had been walking out with electronic equipment for a few weeks before they wised up, looked at the security cams and saw him thieving. I got the lucky call because I'm the last one in the family who lives around here aside from his mother who he didn't want to tell. I called the kid and told him to cut out the crime since neither he nor his piece of shit dad were any damned good at it. You have to be born to it I said. Anyway, I called a Jersey criminal lawyer and hooked him up but that was as far as I was gonna go. Sometimes you have to draw the line. Should've drawn in 20 years earlier but hey, familia es todo. Or so they say.
Cyraxx actually stole the name from a song written by a friend of his, Eric Scrubbalo, founder of Juggalo-adjacent record label Killer Clown Sounds. Yes, my library is that thorough.
Incredible. I have no doubt as to the vast store of knowledge in the Library at Celaeno. No doubt Alexandria contained a mere shadow of the internet lore nestled within its timeless walls. I only wonder if your vast stacks could benefit from some light pruning. Actually scrub that. I need to borrow all media ever published by Killer Clown Sounds for a new project I'm assembling on the worst music of all space-time. I think I've hit the motherlode.
To tell you the truth I'm not very familiar with the genre. My appreciation for the broad compositional range - highbrow to lowbrow - hasn't quite descended to that level of trash... but the old ears could use a workout so why the heck not!
Having a few “sinkholes” within my own family, the recollections you bring up in the essay are a sad reality for many of us. One thing I’ve always marveled at are the euphemisms for bad behavior utilized by many in the South. If asked how a wayward relative has been doing, one hears, “William Robert was doing great, new job at Tractor Supply and all, but then he stepped in the dope again and lost the job.” They don’t say he starting using hillbilly heroin and beat up his sister on aisle four. No, it must be politely phrased as if he accidentally walked off a sidewalk and slipped on a pile of meth someone errantly left behind. Or, “The Devil got into him” is another good one.
It’s a really delicate dance sorting out where everyone is relative to their family members’ pathologies. Is this guy willing to roast his son for being in jail again; do we avoid mentioning his daughter’s relapse, etc.
I kind of respect that, especially with kin. Your loser brother is still a brother, and family honor wanted to avoid throwing him under the bus, even if he deserves it.
My grandfather on one: “Yer Uncle Thom took to the drink for a while, it was rough going, but then he got right with the Lord.”
The depravity of the situation smoothed over by euphemism rests a father’s mind while subject himself is free to describe his behavior in no uncertain terms (he does).
When I volunteered at a Juvenile Detention center it was easy to tell the kids who just got in with a bad crowd and needed a change in environment and those who would just drag people down.
If we got rid of welfare and reinstated workhouses lot of this madness would get fixed. The screwups would have a strict schedule to stop them from ruining people's lives and force them to work, the guys who screwed up and wanted back in society could earn their way back. For some reason, though, that's now inhumane. Better for them to be screaming drunk at 2am or humiliating themselves online.
Liberal societies conceive of freedom as the absence of restraint, not self-mastery. As such, the common consensus is that people are better off as ranting bums than with someone telling them when to eat and take their pills.
As Kathy Shaidle pointed out some years back, Nurse Ratched was the hero of the movie. All the men in that nuthouse would be stumbling around in an opioid haze and pushing people in front of subway cars were it not for her efforts. That movie did more to romanticize mental illness and dysfunction than any other I can think of.
When I first saw the film I fell in line with that thinking, i.e. pity the poor, helpless patients, and curse the Nasty Nurse. The observation by Ms. Shaidle is thought provoking, and rings of an honest assessment.
This makes me think of a different film, a bit earlier, I also find at this later stage of my life to deserve criticism for over romanticizing a group; Little Big Man. Oh, that crazy, brutal Custer, wutta nut job! Wait... what's that you say? The Sioux often brutalized other tribes?!? Little Big Man may not be a fully honest view? Yep, just ask the Crow and the Arikara.
I am sincerely confused sometimes when you refer to liberal and liberals. Do you mean those who want to use more government to control others or those who want limited government?
A liberal is someone whose political philosophy derives from Enlightenment notions of secularism, egalitarianism, rationalism, individualism, and government as an ideological project toward the end of human liberation, with freedom conceived of as liberation from all constraints, natural and conventional. All governments control others and all governments are necessarily limited; what matters is the degree to which each is done, upon whom its power is directed, and to what purpose.
Do you think that the philosophy derived from the Enlightenment can evolve and produce an objective definition of freedom? For a liberal is one who believes in freedom. And can that definition rely on respect for individual life and property? I do not believe that a lasting society, and one that promotes the common good, can be built without this respect. I am truly trying to discern if we are going in the same direction.
Re: your "cousin," I feel your pain. Several branches of my family tree are like this. My strategy has been to live far away from them, refuse to acknowledge they exist, and insist the tolerable parts of my family do not give them any information about me whatsoever.
Nonetheless their pointless self-destructive drama and low sociopathy have been the cause of most of the worst periods of my life (other than those self-inflicted, anyway).
Best of luck removing him from the premises. Naturally the next stage in his downward spiral will be your fault so I hope you're well armed.
Re: lolcows this whole thing is cancer. I enjoy inexplicably wealthy and famous cows beclowning themselves (e.g. Taylor Lorenz) but it's hard to watch mutants being exploited for lulz. Not because I've any sympathy for the mutants, given family history, but because I think it degrades everyone involved.
Lincoln's eloquence on labor emerges from his heartfelt, grudging resentment of his father who exploited him when he was young, hiring him out for wages he never saw. I wish there had been a moment in the eighties when Reagan, or anyone else, said, "Would you like to keep your jobs or would you like to buy cheap stuff?" Having been born middle class, lived working class, as well as upper middle, I can verify there are grifters, drunks, and psychos throughout, although not so colorful as the ones you describe. Thanks for another great post!
I must have read a dozen or so books on Lincoln thirty years ago, as well as the general civil war stuff, and it’s funny how he’s seen so differently now. It’s kind of eerie how “history” changes in your lifetime. I really loved Wills’s book on the Gettysburg Address as well as that other one by I forget who on the Second Inaugural.
I deal with these trolls living under bridges in ER and office as an orthopaedic surgeon.
Always treat them with kindness and respect as they are my brothers in Christ. But I don't give them controlled substances. We do all controlled substances on line so don't even need to worry about them stealing prescription pads. Damaged souls needing our prayers but not to be manipulated by them.
Amen. I see my fair share in the O.R. and trauma bay. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said “there but for the grace of God.” Definitely need our prayers and compassion, but also some tough love.
In a kinder society, this guy would be a grave digger or rat catcher, and if he proved unable to fulfill even those roles, institutionalized. Instead, we have people that are clearly retarded and antisocial wreaking havoc on the lives of the people around him, with the authorities unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
We all seem to have one. My nephew's dad is a black version. Smarter than your typical lolcow, not quite as degenerate, but just as much a ward of the system. He used to go by The Black Rockstar, posted thousands of "songs" on YouTube, the filthiest, most violent rap lyrics I have ever heard. He was actually a half-decent stay at home dad for a few years until he started drinking vodka from the bottle. My nephew seems stronger and smarter than that, thankfully.
That's why I favor a national bottle bill. Let the bums do the recycling and the street cleaning. Maybe a small bounty for every cigarette butt picked up as well.
This article opened me up to an entirely new world I did not know that existed. As a 33 year old millennial, who I thought was generally aware of internet sensations and realities (I coach younger hockey players who keep me in the know), I have never heard of “lolcows”
Or even in my wildest dreams imagined there were people making money from trolling degenerates like Cyraxx and Chris Chan.
You sent me on a the weirdest and most unimaginable rabbit hole that I didn’t think possible.
Half of me wants to say thank you; the other half I’m mad that you made me waste my time😂😂😂
The whole odyssey between Marty and Cyraxx, reads to me like a cycle of myths defining the town of Akron- akin to the legendary squabbles of Demi-gods and all occurring in the hinterland of our imagination: Ohio.
As you’ve said before, the internet is a true mythogenic space.
The major issue in homelessness is not the lack of housing. It's the refusal of society to say no. No, you can't camp in this city. No, you can't shit in the streets. No, you can't panhandle aggressively. No, you can't shoot up publicly and leave your used needles lying around. The fact that we are not going to allow you to destroy our city by doing these things is not our problem. It's your problem. You can solve your problem by not doing drugs, getting help for your mental problems, getting a job, and sharing rent with others so inclined until you can afford a place of your own, probably in a lower cost community. This is not going to happen because the people we have elected allow the homeless to wallow in their victimhood rather than accept personal responsibility for their self destructiveness.
What specific steps should be taken by cities to deal with the problem? Cities should use all existing shelters and further provide simple shelter space with surplus military tents with mess and recreational tents, a medical tent and restroom and shower facilities (the way I lived in the army) on leased or purchased unused commercial or industrial sites on the outskirts of the city. As many who want to and are able to work should be hired to help feed others and to maintain the facilities. Individuals could use surplus military squad tents or their own for sleeping. When those facilities were available they should send in crews to clean up existing encampments, without arresting anyone who did not physically resist.
They should require custodial care for those who are so mentally or drug addicted that they cannot care for themselves. We did a huge disservice to the mentally ill when we closed rather than reform our state mental hospitals. We need them back. This approach actually would cost far less and be far more effective than the current housing first attempts to fix the problem. Most of our homeless lack the capacity to live unassisted in modern society but that is not an excuse to destroy our beautiful cities for the rest of us.
Tech: Exactly. California allowed itself to get tied up doing unnecessary environmental impact studies so they never got around to doing the needed burns of built up fuel so LA burned instead. Totally insane.
Where I grew up, in a neighborhood called "Looney Acres," most of the people were this, pre-internet. It was a churning cauldron of depravity, into which I fell to be boiled alive, having no vision for myself to fulfill a potential beyond kicking people's asses, committing petty crimes for lulz, and generally planning on dying by 21, which a number of my friends did accomplish.
It had to be an act of God that raised me out of the crab bucket, because I had no future on my own. And that's what happened. About the week of my 21st birthday, in county lockup, the Bible finally spoke to me - repentance Psalms came alive, became my own. I've never been the same, though, in some very unfortunate sense, I will never fully shake the filth of Looney Acres from my cells, these decades later. Anyway, it has to be the Lord Jesus hunting down these misfits and dysgenic goblins, or they will be the bane of society forever, without end. Like the freak from Ohio you wrote about, these lifestyles have an energy of their own, creating more depravity, sucking people into the sinkholes - undoing humanity, but God. I have a hard time believing the Lord will save these wretches, and often turn away in disgust, until I see a mirror and remember, that was me.
I felt simultaneously smarter, and dumber after reading this.
That’s what the internet does.
I feel simultaneously smarter, and dirtier after reading this.
Summed up my reactions.
Proof that I'm a bleeding-heart whinging liberal is I look at dysgenic freaks like Cyraxx (is that name self-applied?) and think "this bastard never stood a chance" before snapping out of it and barking "get the kids inside Marge and hand me my shotgun". And this is after having a relative of my own who, despite having been raised with all the benefits accruing to an upper-middle class family, spent his entire teen and adult life downwardly mobilizing himself. First he dove headlong into grand theft auto (not the game) and NYC ghetto life and after failing to spend a decade in prison since he was only 16 at the time he then headed to the boonies to do the redneck trash bit. He dropped a bunch of kids along the way that he doesn't care for but I'll get to that later. He was a massive suck on his family for decades before they finally perished and/or walked away. Last I heard he was running an online mephedrone ring, got busted by the DEA, and ratted out his partners to avoid prison. They should've asked me before partnering up with this unreliable piece of shit. I would've told them he's a rat.
As for his string of kids I received a phone call from him about 10 years ago wherein he begged me to run over to Jersey since one of his brood had been busted for grand larceny. The kid was working at Best Buy and had been walking out with electronic equipment for a few weeks before they wised up, looked at the security cams and saw him thieving. I got the lucky call because I'm the last one in the family who lives around here aside from his mother who he didn't want to tell. I called the kid and told him to cut out the crime since neither he nor his piece of shit dad were any damned good at it. You have to be born to it I said. Anyway, I called a Jersey criminal lawyer and hooked him up but that was as far as I was gonna go. Sometimes you have to draw the line. Should've drawn in 20 years earlier but hey, familia es todo. Or so they say.
Cyraxx actually stole the name from a song written by a friend of his, Eric Scrubbalo, founder of Juggalo-adjacent record label Killer Clown Sounds. Yes, my library is that thorough.
Incredible. I have no doubt as to the vast store of knowledge in the Library at Celaeno. No doubt Alexandria contained a mere shadow of the internet lore nestled within its timeless walls. I only wonder if your vast stacks could benefit from some light pruning. Actually scrub that. I need to borrow all media ever published by Killer Clown Sounds for a new project I'm assembling on the worst music of all space-time. I think I've hit the motherlode.
I actually found his channel. It’s been dormant for 12 years and has around 120 subscribers. He’s still more successful and respected than Cyraxx.
https://youtube.com/@eriktheskrubbalo?si=-etCr_DD9omAiyOA
What’s not to like about Juggalo tribute music?
To tell you the truth I'm not very familiar with the genre. My appreciation for the broad compositional range - highbrow to lowbrow - hasn't quite descended to that level of trash... but the old ears could use a workout so why the heck not!
Having a few “sinkholes” within my own family, the recollections you bring up in the essay are a sad reality for many of us. One thing I’ve always marveled at are the euphemisms for bad behavior utilized by many in the South. If asked how a wayward relative has been doing, one hears, “William Robert was doing great, new job at Tractor Supply and all, but then he stepped in the dope again and lost the job.” They don’t say he starting using hillbilly heroin and beat up his sister on aisle four. No, it must be politely phrased as if he accidentally walked off a sidewalk and slipped on a pile of meth someone errantly left behind. Or, “The Devil got into him” is another good one.
It’s a really delicate dance sorting out where everyone is relative to their family members’ pathologies. Is this guy willing to roast his son for being in jail again; do we avoid mentioning his daughter’s relapse, etc.
I kind of respect that, especially with kin. Your loser brother is still a brother, and family honor wanted to avoid throwing him under the bus, even if he deserves it.
My grandfather on one: “Yer Uncle Thom took to the drink for a while, it was rough going, but then he got right with the Lord.”
The depravity of the situation smoothed over by euphemism rests a father’s mind while subject himself is free to describe his behavior in no uncertain terms (he does).
When I volunteered at a Juvenile Detention center it was easy to tell the kids who just got in with a bad crowd and needed a change in environment and those who would just drag people down.
If we got rid of welfare and reinstated workhouses lot of this madness would get fixed. The screwups would have a strict schedule to stop them from ruining people's lives and force them to work, the guys who screwed up and wanted back in society could earn their way back. For some reason, though, that's now inhumane. Better for them to be screaming drunk at 2am or humiliating themselves online.
Liberal societies conceive of freedom as the absence of restraint, not self-mastery. As such, the common consensus is that people are better off as ranting bums than with someone telling them when to eat and take their pills.
"Paging Nurse Ratched... Stat...."
As Kathy Shaidle pointed out some years back, Nurse Ratched was the hero of the movie. All the men in that nuthouse would be stumbling around in an opioid haze and pushing people in front of subway cars were it not for her efforts. That movie did more to romanticize mental illness and dysfunction than any other I can think of.
When I first saw the film I fell in line with that thinking, i.e. pity the poor, helpless patients, and curse the Nasty Nurse. The observation by Ms. Shaidle is thought provoking, and rings of an honest assessment.
This makes me think of a different film, a bit earlier, I also find at this later stage of my life to deserve criticism for over romanticizing a group; Little Big Man. Oh, that crazy, brutal Custer, wutta nut job! Wait... what's that you say? The Sioux often brutalized other tribes?!? Little Big Man may not be a fully honest view? Yep, just ask the Crow and the Arikara.
Sigh. At nearly 70 y.o. I have so much to learn.
I am sincerely confused sometimes when you refer to liberal and liberals. Do you mean those who want to use more government to control others or those who want limited government?
A liberal is someone whose political philosophy derives from Enlightenment notions of secularism, egalitarianism, rationalism, individualism, and government as an ideological project toward the end of human liberation, with freedom conceived of as liberation from all constraints, natural and conventional. All governments control others and all governments are necessarily limited; what matters is the degree to which each is done, upon whom its power is directed, and to what purpose.
Do you think that the philosophy derived from the Enlightenment can evolve and produce an objective definition of freedom? For a liberal is one who believes in freedom. And can that definition rely on respect for individual life and property? I do not believe that a lasting society, and one that promotes the common good, can be built without this respect. I am truly trying to discern if we are going in the same direction.
Re: your "cousin," I feel your pain. Several branches of my family tree are like this. My strategy has been to live far away from them, refuse to acknowledge they exist, and insist the tolerable parts of my family do not give them any information about me whatsoever.
Nonetheless their pointless self-destructive drama and low sociopathy have been the cause of most of the worst periods of my life (other than those self-inflicted, anyway).
Best of luck removing him from the premises. Naturally the next stage in his downward spiral will be your fault so I hope you're well armed.
Re: lolcows this whole thing is cancer. I enjoy inexplicably wealthy and famous cows beclowning themselves (e.g. Taylor Lorenz) but it's hard to watch mutants being exploited for lulz. Not because I've any sympathy for the mutants, given family history, but because I think it degrades everyone involved.
A Taylor Lorenz/ Cyraxx crossover is something the world needs.
Lincoln's eloquence on labor emerges from his heartfelt, grudging resentment of his father who exploited him when he was young, hiring him out for wages he never saw. I wish there had been a moment in the eighties when Reagan, or anyone else, said, "Would you like to keep your jobs or would you like to buy cheap stuff?" Having been born middle class, lived working class, as well as upper middle, I can verify there are grifters, drunks, and psychos throughout, although not so colorful as the ones you describe. Thanks for another great post!
Politicians in democratic societies never present policies as matters of trade-offs. It’s always, “everything will stay the same and also get better!”
At his best, Lincoln was a powerful advocate for average Americans.
I must have read a dozen or so books on Lincoln thirty years ago, as well as the general civil war stuff, and it’s funny how he’s seen so differently now. It’s kind of eerie how “history” changes in your lifetime. I really loved Wills’s book on the Gettysburg Address as well as that other one by I forget who on the Second Inaugural.
I deal with these trolls living under bridges in ER and office as an orthopaedic surgeon.
Always treat them with kindness and respect as they are my brothers in Christ. But I don't give them controlled substances. We do all controlled substances on line so don't even need to worry about them stealing prescription pads. Damaged souls needing our prayers but not to be manipulated by them.
Amen. I see my fair share in the O.R. and trauma bay. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said “there but for the grace of God.” Definitely need our prayers and compassion, but also some tough love.
Still think I have the best job in the world.
Feel sorry for people who don't feel like they are improving lives.
Decrease pain, increase function is a motto of a friend of mine in ortho.
Also, save energy in ortho by not having to think.
In a kinder society, this guy would be a grave digger or rat catcher, and if he proved unable to fulfill even those roles, institutionalized. Instead, we have people that are clearly retarded and antisocial wreaking havoc on the lives of the people around him, with the authorities unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
It seems the Gadarene Swine did not drown.
We all seem to have one. My nephew's dad is a black version. Smarter than your typical lolcow, not quite as degenerate, but just as much a ward of the system. He used to go by The Black Rockstar, posted thousands of "songs" on YouTube, the filthiest, most violent rap lyrics I have ever heard. He was actually a half-decent stay at home dad for a few years until he started drinking vodka from the bottle. My nephew seems stronger and smarter than that, thankfully.
That's why I favor a national bottle bill. Let the bums do the recycling and the street cleaning. Maybe a small bounty for every cigarette butt picked up as well.
Celaeno.
You are my favourite sub stacker writer by far.
With that being said.
This article opened me up to an entirely new world I did not know that existed. As a 33 year old millennial, who I thought was generally aware of internet sensations and realities (I coach younger hockey players who keep me in the know), I have never heard of “lolcows”
Or even in my wildest dreams imagined there were people making money from trolling degenerates like Cyraxx and Chris Chan.
You sent me on a the weirdest and most unimaginable rabbit hole that I didn’t think possible.
Half of me wants to say thank you; the other half I’m mad that you made me waste my time😂😂😂
Keep up the great articles, man !
I always tell my students, “I know more than you think and less than you think.”
The whole odyssey between Marty and Cyraxx, reads to me like a cycle of myths defining the town of Akron- akin to the legendary squabbles of Demi-gods and all occurring in the hinterland of our imagination: Ohio.
As you’ve said before, the internet is a true mythogenic space.
Cyraxx is like the male version of the harpies from the Argonautica.
I come here for Theseus, et al and sigh, get Gollum and Cyraxx.
Sigh again. Guess sometimes just gotta take the good with the sad.
The major issue in homelessness is not the lack of housing. It's the refusal of society to say no. No, you can't camp in this city. No, you can't shit in the streets. No, you can't panhandle aggressively. No, you can't shoot up publicly and leave your used needles lying around. The fact that we are not going to allow you to destroy our city by doing these things is not our problem. It's your problem. You can solve your problem by not doing drugs, getting help for your mental problems, getting a job, and sharing rent with others so inclined until you can afford a place of your own, probably in a lower cost community. This is not going to happen because the people we have elected allow the homeless to wallow in their victimhood rather than accept personal responsibility for their self destructiveness.
What specific steps should be taken by cities to deal with the problem? Cities should use all existing shelters and further provide simple shelter space with surplus military tents with mess and recreational tents, a medical tent and restroom and shower facilities (the way I lived in the army) on leased or purchased unused commercial or industrial sites on the outskirts of the city. As many who want to and are able to work should be hired to help feed others and to maintain the facilities. Individuals could use surplus military squad tents or their own for sleeping. When those facilities were available they should send in crews to clean up existing encampments, without arresting anyone who did not physically resist.
They should require custodial care for those who are so mentally or drug addicted that they cannot care for themselves. We did a huge disservice to the mentally ill when we closed rather than reform our state mental hospitals. We need them back. This approach actually would cost far less and be far more effective than the current housing first attempts to fix the problem. Most of our homeless lack the capacity to live unassisted in modern society but that is not an excuse to destroy our beautiful cities for the rest of us.
America is dying of a refusal to say no and mean it.
Tech: Exactly. California allowed itself to get tied up doing unnecessary environmental impact studies so they never got around to doing the needed burns of built up fuel so LA burned instead. Totally insane.
Where I grew up, in a neighborhood called "Looney Acres," most of the people were this, pre-internet. It was a churning cauldron of depravity, into which I fell to be boiled alive, having no vision for myself to fulfill a potential beyond kicking people's asses, committing petty crimes for lulz, and generally planning on dying by 21, which a number of my friends did accomplish.
It had to be an act of God that raised me out of the crab bucket, because I had no future on my own. And that's what happened. About the week of my 21st birthday, in county lockup, the Bible finally spoke to me - repentance Psalms came alive, became my own. I've never been the same, though, in some very unfortunate sense, I will never fully shake the filth of Looney Acres from my cells, these decades later. Anyway, it has to be the Lord Jesus hunting down these misfits and dysgenic goblins, or they will be the bane of society forever, without end. Like the freak from Ohio you wrote about, these lifestyles have an energy of their own, creating more depravity, sucking people into the sinkholes - undoing humanity, but God. I have a hard time believing the Lord will save these wretches, and often turn away in disgust, until I see a mirror and remember, that was me.
My little girls know who Gollum is. Unprompted, they attribute his problems to not having Jesus “in his heart.” Also unprompted, they pray for him.