I haven't listened to the TrueAnon episode in question but between this, the TrueAnon twitter profile having ace/aro in its profile as an apparent joke, and the "be normal" mantra, the pod gives me definite social conservative vibes.
I...think I kind of understand what they're getting at? But I think they have maybe a halfway-decent point mixed with some outright bad assumptions and they're phrasing it in a really derogatory way. Like, I think the main assumption is that gay furries are furries because it's a mentally "safe" way to explore their own homosexuality, and they should be helped to accept their sexuality without the need of that medium, and, like, maybe that's true for SOME gay furries but probably not most of them.
and the "be normal" mantra, the pod gives me definite social conservative vibes.
"Be normal" is actually very good advice for a lot of leftists. Social conservatives and conservatives in general are NOT normal at all- they are in fact extremely weird.
I think this is backwards, furries are usually very open about sexuality not because of the medium, but because it's one of the most welcoming communities for LGBT+ people.
I don't think what OOP is describing is any different to any other closeted person watching porn of any kind.
It’s also archaic. Like, this was probably a lot more common in the 90’s and early aughts, but nowadays LGBT acceptance is in a much better place. It’s not perfect by any stretch, but it’s good enough that most younger gay furries are not using furrydom as a coping mechanism for not coming to terms with their sexuality.
Social conservatives and conservatives in general are NOT normal at all- they are in fact extremely weird.
Yeah so am I, but I don't think that's the problem with them
Like to take one example, being a vegan in the US makes me "not normal." It's a fringe movement that maybe ~1% of the population follows and that puts me at odds with how the entire rest of my society thinks about the ethics of our relationships with animals. It's weird by any meaningful definition, but it's also a part of myself I consider non-negotiable.
Yeah so am I, but I don't think that's the problem with them
Like to take one example, being a vegan in the US makes me "not normal." It's a fringe movement that maybe ~1% of the population follows and that puts me at odds with how the entire rest of my society thinks about the ethics of our relationships with animals. It's weird by any meaningful definition, but it's also a part of myself I consider non-negotiable.
That's not what they mean by "normal" and "not normal." They aren't talking about being vegan. They're talking about your ability to get along with other people and not being extremely off-putting.
I guess the problem with that definition is that "extremely off-putting" varies a lot between people. I don't find vegans off-putting at all, I think that's a perfectly normal thing to choose to be, but there are a lot of people in America who get extremely angry when a person tells them they're vegan. That shouldn't be on the vegan, that should be on the person getting unreasonably angry.
I guess what I'm saying is that I agree in spirit that we shouldn't drag interminably online BS into the real world, but I think the "be normal" mantra is unhelpful and can be easily twisted in an antisocial direction, and I think that as we see in the linked post it can get used to smuggle in widely held conservative reactionary opinions without examining them.
I think "be normal" is basically a way of saying "in order to be a successful leftist, you need to be able to function well in groups and communities, and you need to be able to relate well to the average person." Like, look at this story about Trotsky- this is why Stalin won out over Trotsky, because he was more "normal." You can't imagine Mao or Castro acting towards regular people like Trotsky. Trotsky was weird. Don't act like that.
Be normal 
Don't be like Trotsky 
They're talking about your ability to get along with other people and not being extremely off-putting.
yeah "be normal" in the TA (podcast not subreddit) context means "be prosocial and able to empathize with ordinary working people." they're a gonzo dirtbag podcast so they phrase it in a bit more of a callout/"tough love" kind of way that's mildly problematic, but the substance and intent of it is definitely correct and something terminally online leftists often need to hear.
Yeah, I can absolutely get behind a call for empathy. Empathy is good. We need more of it in the world.
They aren't talking about being vegan
You should see the r/trueanon's takes on veganism
I was talking about the podcast. Obviously a subreddit is going to be full of judgmental weirdos.
Yeah, that's the problem with the slogan I think. "Normal" is such a vague and loaded term whose negation ("weird"/"abnormal") often gets weaponized against disabled and LGBT people. One can take many different meanings from "be normal."
One can take many different meanings from "be normal."
Indeed. For most people, normal is identical to whatever their expectations balance to in any given moment
That's not what they mean by "Be Normal".
It's about being able to connect a bit with everyday life and not being terminally online. Not being a QAnon/BlueAnon type person or painful to be around. Both for personal health, and to not seem crazy when trying to talk to people about important stuff lol.
Anti-furry shit is always bigotry
The actual podcast isn't social conservative lol.
The subreddit can get some occasional overlap with stupidpol or redscare posters though. Kind of an issue. They are called out not infrequently, but stuff can filter through into the general vibe.
I wouldn't call them socially conservative but Brace loves to shit on random subcultures he finds too weird for his tastes. It feels like it's the kind of irony poisoning common on the left that became serious after too long in the dirtbag orbit.
I had to stop listening after a while because I just couldn't shake the feeling that they're the kind of people that would hate me for my eccentricities and the more niche side of my hobbies. Their Twitter is full of that garbage too.
This is despite Brace being one of the best posters on the web.
starting to feel like if a left space isn't predominantly ML with at least a large plurality of queer+trans users it will just inevitably backslide this way
if a left space isn't predominantly.... a large plurality of queer+trans users it will just inevitably backslide this way
Agreed. Our LGBT comrades are on the knife's edge of Western politics, and always have been. There's a reason the Nazis burned our books at the same time they started persecuting Jews in 1933.
[and] isn't predominantly ML
Hey now. No friendly fire. I'll go to the mat for my anarchist comrades any day of the week. They do good work, and we can hash out our differences once we fill the pit up with capitalists. 
I would say that a left space doesn't need to specifically be ML or whatever, but it does need to be able to function without endless meaningless arguments about China and the USSR. If more than even 1% of a left space is dedicated to relitigating socialist movements from a century ago, then the plot has been lost. Or if people are quoting Adrian Zenz, or throwing around the word tankie, or bringing up Tiananmen square over and over.
There's probably good discussion about those topics that can be productive, but none of it is very relevant to leftist movements in the west among English speaking people. If a leftist space can't get over that, then it's gonna fall apart
I would say that a left space doesn't need to specifically be ML or whatever, but it does need to be able to function without endless meaningless arguments about China and the USSR.
Your real world experience obviously may vary, but I've yet to meet an anarchist in person who gives much of a shit about that. They're too busy giving people food, and making cops' days a little bit harder.
My experience lines up with yours. No one in real life cares.
I don't generally throw around the word dialectic but "be normal" seems like one, and this same thing comes up again and again in mass-based politics. The end goal is to build a world that is - among a lot of other things - inclusive of people with all sorts of non-hegemonic sexual & gender identities. The people who most desire that world are specifically those people who are shut out of the current one. However, getting to the better world requires getting normies on board (questionable premise?). And many normies will be put off by things too far from their worldview. This is changeable (here's where the democrats lose the plot, they don't believe this)! But the process of change can only be started by meeting normies where they are & presenting yourself as near where they are, hence "be normal". But being normal requires a movement to be outwardly less inclusive of the people that are its most dedicated supporters. So it's a contradiction, but as we know here contradictions don't just make things disappear in a puff of logic. Things lurch forward unevenly in a way that is propelled by the contradiction. Running too far ahead or trailing too far behind the people, etc. People take you more seriously if you are conventionally attractive, successful, competent, articulate, calm, well-liked by others, and so on. Achieving these requires conforming to hegemonic norms while ultimately desiring to replace them. So it goes when you Live in a Society.
I feel like anti-furry stuff specifically in this post is pretty passe. Like maybe don't show up in your fursuit to the rally (or do? idk I'm not the ultimate authority) but it isn't the mid-2010s anymore, furry stuff is moderately mainstream at least in large coastal cities.
the subreddit dedicated to the podcast that focuses on weird conspiracy theories is full of redscare fans??? 
The first paragraph seems to be suggesting this is coming from gay furries not being able to “get over it,” and the second seems to say it’s an effect of homophobia so it’s like they’re trying to eat their cake and have it too. Also the use of “sexual deviance” is giving serious 
vibes.
I don't listen to Trueanon often but Brace has never struck me as someone with particularly well thought out principles. This leads him to contradictions, and leads his show to attracting an audience with a lot of internal contradictions, like this user with this really unnecessary pathologization of furries, and that whole post with its openly reactionary bullshit (being anti-furry is ALWAYS a precursor to being anti-lgbt), but also the fact that the subreddit downvoted it into oblivion.
This isn't shocking at all. TrueAnon has always just been Leftist Themed Joe Rogan. Of course their podcast encourages shit like this.
i don't wanna be the person to defend a podcast but i definitely gotta disagree with that comparison. a leftist themed joe rogan lol.
As a life-long conservative, TrueAnon is my favorite conservative podcast, and Brace Belden is my favorite conservative influencer.
The legacy of the 2015-era socialist podcasters will be the Roganization leftist media. Hope it was worth it just to dunk on Johnathan Chait with the r-slur or give the deeply materialist, dialectic commentary of Trump being gay. Still wondering where these noble normies that amassed around our normal podcasters are. Seems like after a decade of normalizing the left for normal sensibilities there should be something to show for it besides the personal wealth of the hosts. Maybe subscriber count is its own victory. Hey I went to a party of lefists and they knew what a podcast was, I guess we won in the end.
Early Chapo Trap House had the beneficial innovation of targeting fascist insecurities by focusing on how off-putting and pathetic they are but yeah I think the "dirtbag left" has outlived its usefulness by several years
Ok but like lets be real, furry stuff is genuinely offputting and how comfortable most online furries are with talking about their kinks with no filter is disconcerting to most somewhat normie people.
Once accidentally gatecrashed a furry convention with irls and all the fully suited up people were chill af though, so maybe this is just an online-offline division
On Mastodon, I have tons of furries in my feed because of alt-tech and retrotech interest overlap, and they are all good about content warnings.
I think this is a case of selection bias in action. If you don't spend time in furry-dedicated spaces then by definition the furries you're gonna notice are the ones who are really loud about it. I do everything I can to decouple my furry identity from my non-furry identity (outside of mentioning the fact that I am one and that I have a particular fondness for bugs) as a matter of infosec because I'm well aware of the capacity of fascists and fash-adjacents to make my life unpleasant over it.
I spend a ton of time in in regular LGBTQIA spaces online especially in gaming communities because those are the only places that are chill. The furry crowd are definitely the most hypersexual bunch in the online space, that's for sure. I wouldn't say it's offputting, though, because to me an anthropomorphic sex fantasy is about as tame as it gets insofar as kinks go. They are just really forward with it, though, the moment they feel like they are in a space that allows them to be so even if it pushes boundaries of good taste in that space.
Prefacing this saying it could be entirely selective bias on my end. I'm often hanging out in furry hotspots because being autistic and having autistic interests means there's a good chance you'll be around them, and they're chill... and that might play a part in this perception? Being bad at reading a room and oversharing are things at lot of us struggle with.
It’s absolutely a thing both on the show and amplified in the subreddit. The hosts don’t really get into detailed discussions of sexuality but are clearly uncomfortable talking around their opinions whenever stuff like poly relationships come up which is pretty often given their coverage of the FTX scene. The subreddit feels like its full of people that have pretty okay opinions on paper but would get awkward if they went to a hang out and someone there had oddly colored hair.
Yeah I wonder why
huge fucking /s
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