The Carousel Podcast

Ladies and gentlemen, William Wheelwright. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Guest Sean Monahan, artist-as-analyst and trend forecaster, discusses the impact of normcore, the obsession with ugliness in American culture, the demise of HBO and Twitter, and the fashion style of Gen Z. They also critique a brand video, explore the influence of smartphones and social media on popular culture, and reflect on their upbringing and career experiences.

Josh Lekach toughed the gauntlets of both Los Angeles and Coca Cola to freer existence as a public thought criminal. His podcast WRONG OPINION is now part of Gavin McInnes’ Censored.tv.]He’s known for repeatedly breaking the internet, most recently with this post about a very happy 30ish woman who prefers cooking shakshuka to having children.We talk about Costa Rica (where Josh moved with his family during COVID), propaganda songs, and the Josh Lekach brand (or lack thereof). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Another day another based founder. Matt Loberstein built Rhizal Shoes, a “grounded” and “barefoot” shoe company after getting sick of shilling white label DTC crap and wanting to create something actually beautiful. His shoes are the very definition of Anti-Synthetic Capitalism, the term now memorialized via The New York Times article which referenced WILL, Hestia Cigarettes, and I. We also call the movement “The New Natural.” The brand name Rhizal comes from micorrhizal/rhizome, symbiotic relationship between roots, plants, fungi, and the earth. The “Barefoot” footwear movement revives simpler shoe structures; it believes in enhancing muscles, bones, and balance via more direct contact with the ground. The similar-but-distinct “Grounded” footwear movement ups the ante even further, citing electromagnetic reasons for direct terrestrial contact. Encasing feet in thick rubber is somewhat like a wearing a perennial foot condom we never take off. It separates from earthy natural connections that we’ve only just begun to understand.Beyond all that, however, Rhizals actually just look really good and are super comfortable. See my review of them here. I’m not just saying that. They’re now lead off position in my shoe lineup. Perfect for summer.CLICK HERE TO SHOP RHIZAL WITH THE OFFICIAL DISGRACED PROPAGANDIST 10% DISCOUNTThe Carousel is a reader-supported publication. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

On this week’s Carousel, I’m joined by a close friend of mine: ~poldec-tonteg from Urbit and BlimpDAO. He is the voice and face of the Urbit Foundation, and host of Urbit’s Zero K Podcast.We’re here to talk about rise, fall, and rise of blimps. Why is this relevant? What does it mean? Listen now. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Cancellation insurance…we’ve all thought about it. In the world of Patreon, Substack, and Twitter profit sharing, the so-called Creator Economy has never been bigger, or more essential for thinkers and artists outside the ever-narrowing Overton Window of woke popular culture. My guest today Harry Bergeron is a Twitter anon and entrepreneur working on a “cancellation parachute” called Pluribus. I’ve opened up The Carousel to him to share his thoughts, both on the above pod and in the following short article. YouTube version: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Nabokov, Teddy Roosevelt, Ernst Junger: all amateur entomologists driven by the overwhelming urge to know and categorize the natural world. Insect Brah is the Twitter version. His exotic ontological posts recall the Judge from Blood Meridian, “whatever exists without my knowledge exists without my consent."His day job is chef, where he integrates his fascination with nature into every menu. We talk about working in the service industry, our all time favorite meals, the relationship between God and bugs, and discovering new frogs. Insect Brah’s book This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome entrepreneur Charles Mayfield to The Carousel. His skincare company Farrow uses an unprecedented and borderline forgotten substance as its key ingredient: pig lard. Rubbing ultra high-end pig fat on our faces sounds insane only because we’ve been so utterly alienated from the natural animal products that used to dominate our lives. They’ve since been replaced by synthetic chemicals that are cheap to make, but expensive to our bodies. Mayfield explains that synthetic lotions came to exist in the first place only because humans stopped handling animal guts on a daily basis.But animal organs and fats are making a comeback. The “New Natural” movement has organs showing up in Erewhon smoothies, tortilla chips made with beef tallow instead of seed oils, and in the TikTok feeds of organ-shilling influencers like Paul Saladino.Zero Hedge recently interviewed me about this topic.And I’ll tell you something from personal experience: these products really are better than the synthetic crap. I tried Farrow for the first time, expecting just another face cream, and it’s genuinely like nothing I’ve ever felt before; somehow softer and richer than any lotion I’ve ever put on my [already admittedly soft, supple, perfect] skin.Farrow on TwitterFarrow on Instagram This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Should we love billboards or hate them? In this episode, advertising chads Adam Singer and Chris Gadek (founders of AdQuick) expound on the meaning of Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising and tackle the notoriously impossible task of measuring billboard impact.We talk billboard history, including the one that launched the Sunset Strip:We also chat about the death of creativity in the marketing longhouse, the end of ZIRP marketing, and why data reliance produces over-milked nostalgia cows. Check our my appearance on the AdQuick podcast here:Also watch this episode on YouTube:The Carousel is a reader-supported publication. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe

Paul McNiel is the man behind Wagon Box, a “network state” project in Wyoming. He essentially “bought” a town, and is now retrofitting it as a parallel-economy destination DAO for dissidents and other breeds of opt-outers who want nothing to do with mainstream society. The values of the project are pro-local, anti-corporatist, and anti-elitist: the polar opposite of everything Jackson Hole has become. That being said, he’s well-aware of the prospect of becoming just the type of parachuter he seeks to resist.He and I were both featured prominently in James Pogue's Vanity Fair exploration of the so-called Dissident Fringe.“I drove north toward Montana, where I visited with a man named Paul McNiel, whom I’d first met back during the fervid summer of 2020, at a Fourth of July picnic and anti-government rally headlined “Rage Against the State.” “I think that Livingston has the highest per-capita concentration of contributors to The New Yorker of any city in America,” he’d said when I introduced myself as a writer. McNiel is extraordinarily well read, and friendly with a number of literary types. He is a bit of a prepper, and while he is deeply Christian, he doesn’t consider himself right wing. “I don’t think the division is right-left anymore. It’s us against the machine,” he said, borrowing a phrase from the English writer Paul Kingsnorth—whose writings critiquing the power of tech and money in modern life have become popular among dissident types. He was dismissive of the local armed groups being flooded with new members. “At the end of the day,” he said, “if you’re not willing to shoot federal agents, then you’re not serious about it. They aren’t serious.”McNiel had served in Afghanistan after college, and when he left the military, he’d taken out an almost unbelievable amount of debt, largely on credit cards, so that he could get himself in the position of buying his crown jewel, a trailer park in the small town of Belgrade, Montana, just outside of Bozeman. He now owned trailer parks as far away as Alaska. He had ridden the wave. “I always tell myself: No more deals. I want to stop, and I know I have to. But I can’t.”We discuss how not to become another Jackson Hole, his background as a trailer park magnate, and his experiences as a combat veteran in Afghanistan. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thecarousel.substack.com/subscribe