PicoBlog

If the cult of the dissociative pout is now ascendant among internet hot girls, the ladies of the Red Scare podcast are among its founding members. That said, when Addison Rae starts donning the pout, you can be sure it’s dead already. Mere ironic detachment was once cool but no longer is. Those hoping Red Scare won’t survive the rapidly accelerating vibe shift are likely to be disappointed. Soon enough, all the cool kids will be reassociating. But the ladies did it first.

The essence of the dissociative pout is the appearance of “sullen detachment.” You want to seem like you’re aware we’re living in a fucked up clown world, but like your reserves of moral energy have already been exhausted. Nothing we do in this neoliberal hellscape matters, so what’s there to fuss about? I’m discontented with the status quo but I’m not butthurt about it, because being butthurt is for losers. Moral outrage is out of style. Cool girls are too numb to care.

Or, they were three years ago, anyway — here’s Anna, 1/2 of Red Scare, in 2019:

If, in 2022, you’re still posting pouty pet pics… well, you’re at the tail end of a dying trend. Sorry Chloe Cherry:

Rayne Fisher-Quann — ascendant internet cool girl — sees beneath the surface of the pout, writing that “our posting habits often inadvertently reveal something intimate about our fears, needs, and desires,” and in this case, what’s revealed is moral fatigue. Yet she’s not wholly above the pout herself, nor would she suggest she is. Much of her style — all lowercase letters, irony-steeped shitposting, blurry-on-purpose and dead-behind-the-eyes selfies — flows right from the same source.

But Fisher-Quann is somewhere near the forefront of a vibe shift that’s well underway. It’s a shift away from the sullen detachment of the dissociative pout, and toward… something else, but no one’s sure exactly what. She and her admirers see Red Scare as the epitome of ironic detachment and loathe them accordingly:

This is all good and well, except for the fact that as a take on Red Scare, it went stale a few years ago, because Anna and Dasha are no longer who they once were.

For the sake of transparency: I like Red Scare. I don’t think the ladies are Big Bad Fill-in-the-ists. Beneath the shitposting mean girl exterior I see a sincere humanism. It’s an amorphous humanism that lacks any coherent politics, which is admittedly frustrating. But if your criticism of Anna and Dasha is that their dissociative irony either doesn’t change or actually reinforces power structures… well, you haven’t been listening very closely. Which is fine — it’s just a podcast, maybe it isn’t for you — but then, just say you don’t like it instead of obscuring your contempt with a smokescreen of half-baked critique.

Anna and Dasha don’t think dissociative irony changes power structures. To the extent they encourage detachment from political movements, they do so not of special affinity for individualism, but of a sincere belief that all the alternatives suck. Their dissociative irony is a last resort — the only remaining posture to assume short of outright despair, given their aversion to the status quo and all energetic movements for change. Until a new movement emerges that Anna and Dasha find seriously appealing, they’ll maintain some degree of detachment.

But Red Scare is not nihilistic and does not encourage self-loathing. They do seem somewhat removed from their communities, but if it once made sense to call them individualistic, that’s no longer true. Anna has left individualism behind in favor of family — Dasha in favor of parish. Active involvement in the life of child or church is a surefire path to becoming rooted in community. Political detachment need not imply generalized detachment. The ladies are interested in figuring out how to flourish in the face of decadence, and they’ve both arrived at the conclusion that flourishing requires living not for self but for others — family, fellow parishioners, God.

Absent any promising political candidates, grassroots movements, or even ideas as such, Anna and Dasha are still finding ways to reassociate. Dissociation was only the first step. It was cool a few years ago, because when you’re living in a clown world and every exit seems to promise further descent, the graceful thing to do is take a step back, soak in the absurdity, and enjoy the dark humor of it all. The ladies perfected that posture and rode it to niche internet fame. But it didn’t take long for them to realize that, oh shit, the clown world is here to stay and we’re still young and eternal ironic detachment is no foundation for a good life.

They’re not reassociating with any movement calling for sweeping structural reform, but they are reassociating. And that’s kind of the point. They don’t use the term, but the logical conclusion here is some sort of localism — one that says, look, even if all I see around me is decadence, I can still strive to cultivate stable, loving relationships with my family and friends, with my fellow parishioners, with God. I don’t know how to productively reform the country or even just my city, but I might know how to be a loving mother or devoted worshipper.

Reassociation is the vibe. Not everyone will do it just like the Red Scare ladies. Some will refuse to give up on structural politics and begin a renewed effort at earnest reform. If they learn from past failures and adjust accordingly, then good for them. But Anna and Dasha, for the time being, have made their peace with the status quo — not because they don’t want to change it, but because they’re honest enough to admit that they don’t really know how. Instead of issuing vague calls for change without a promising blueprint for a better structure, the ladies are trying to flourish with their loved ones inside the flawed structures we have.

They aren’t completely free of the dissociative vibe — no one is — but the cat in Anna’s pouty pet pics has been replaced with her son, and when Dasha gets profiled as a cool person who likes cool things, the first “thing” on her list is penance. Repudiate Red Scare as you please, but if what you really repudiate is “ironic detachment” and “nihilistic hyper-contrarian individualist politics,” then pick a different enemy. Otherwise, you’re bickering with a ghost while the ladies are, as usual, living one step ahead.

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