I wrote, in June 2025.
I can't believe I need to take this guy seriously enough to worry about him, but The New Yorker wants me to feel that I do. ... I see I've written about Yarvin before. Did I take him seriously or was he even funnier last time?... The one old post... is about a NYT interview with him. So his visibility to me has solely been a consequence of elite liberal media telling me to worry about him.... It was liberal media asserting that he's important to conservatives. Is he?!
This morning, I'm seeing that "crazy article" won an award: "The New Yorker’s Ava Kofman Wins a 2026 National Magazine Award/The prize, for a Profile of the far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin...."
To report the winning Profile, Kofman delved deeply into the writings of Yarvin, who popularized the concept of being “red-pilled”—a riff on a scene in “The Matrix”—and turned it into a rallying cry among conservatives. A former tech designer, Yarvin has advocated for “the liquidation of democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law,” and called for the establishment of an American monarchy, arguing in 2011 that Donald Trump is “biologically suited” to reign as king....
I still can't believe I need to take this guy seriously enough to worry about him, so please nudge me if I'm languishing in blissful complacency.
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SPLC
What would conservatives do without the NYT telling us about all these influential conservative thought leaders we've never listened to or heard of before?
The found the one GOP leaning pro-Kings guy! Nice work NYT!
The "red pill" analogy is both from a super mainstream film and logically decomposable. It takes little brainpower to map it out: red = accept the "adult" danger routinely symbolized by stop signals and redness = Republican color = adopt right wing views. Kindergarten metaphors.
While this unknown Yarvin may have used the analogy early, it was too obvious for specific attribution to a single source.
The Matrix was a massive pop culture hit and grabbed attention that young adults of 2026 likely cannot imagine. This was 1999 and smartphones happened in 2007. Young males dressed as Keaneu Reeves in black trenchcoats for fashion and Halloween. Also see the Columbine shooters.
The Simpsons tagged Trump as President in the year 2000; any serious mention of him in 2011 is just random luck. Trump wasn't taken seriously until late into election night 2016.
To report the winning Profile, Kofman delved deeply into the writings of Yarvin, who popularized the concept of being “red-pilled”
NOT. EVEN. CLOSE.
Consider the (brain-dead) source, Ann.
This was the guy who wrote under the nom de plume "Mencius Moldbug". I followed his output for some time before he was doxxed.
He is a talented, intelligent, insightful writer, but too extremist for my taste, which is saying something.
I am far to the right by today's standards, but a small-R republican to the marrow of my bones. The notion of monarchy or any other kind of autocracy is repellent to me. I will never bow before any man but Jesus Christ.
Never heard of the guy. Is he any relation to Jason Kessler?
Does MSM admit existence of right that is not far right?
"...I still can't believe I need to take this guy seriously enough to worry about him, so please nudge me if I'm languishing in blissful complacency....."
I guess that depends. Are you talking about Yarvin, or Kofman? My advice is, neither should be taken too seriously.
No
Besides, didn't I read somewhere that the creators of The Matrix are a couple of trannie brothers that are ultra-flaming leftists, who are enraged that their cinema symbology of 'red-pilling' has been captured by the right as a perfect metaphor, made more perfect because it is so completely unintended?
I wouldn't worry about Curtis. He is working on his own brand of performance art as someone who would have been a revolutionary if he hadn't already seen what a failure the revolution was for the communists who make it manifest.
That said, he may do something in his older years that has a real effect on the world. Until then, it's a living.
"Have you read Burnham's The Machiavellians?" (twenty minutes ensues)
Yarvin actually was an early adopter of the "red-pilled metaphor" (2007). He didn't originate its application to politics, though, and wasn't responsible for its widespread use.
I doubt there are many monarchists or Yarvinites out there. There is widespread discontent with the status quo. That likely led some young men to check out his book. Nothing really came of it. Was anyone still talking about him in 2025? Warmed-over Nietzscheanism remains, but Moldbug Yarvin's moment had come and gone.
Here’s a nudge. Stop relaying on the elite media to tell you what to think and what to be concerned with.
Perhaps you’d be better to concern yourself with the Democrat in Texas who got the most votes in a Dem primary for US Representative who wants to round up all the “zionists” (and ICE officers) and put them in a concentration camp where she can castrate the “Zionist” men.
the creators of The Matrix are a couple of trannie brothers that are ultra-flaming leftists, who are enraged that their cinema symbology of 'red-pilling' has been captured by the right as a perfect metaphor, made more perfect because it is so completely unintended?
This sort of thing is deliciously satisfying when it happens. Cf. "Amelia" in the UK.
Someone too crazy for michelle goldberg
As we found out last night in KY-4, the class of internet bullshitters Yarvin came from remains politically impotent.
The Matrix guys are left, and hard left Marvel's "The Punisher" skull emblem was taken over by the right. Marvel nominally hates it, but they likely made $$$$$$$$$$ from licensing too.
So the Industry gave Ava a participation trophy.
Teh Threat has many names.
Yarvin, 4Chan, and . . . what was the name that used to be thrown around all the time? The insider/leaker that some people thought was Trump?
I think I'll know it if I see it.
The handwaving over the punisher logo has always been hilarious. The retconning him as being against "institutional crime" is quite amusing. His origin was from The Executioner, and he was originally fighting and killing mafia. Purely a product of the high crime 70s. Obviously such a good product he naturally became Marvel's dark answer to DC's Batman in alot of ways. Too much wrongthink though for the modern comic leftist.
Never heard of him
I still can't believe I need to take this guy seriously enough to worry about him, so please nudge me if I'm languishing in blissful complacency.
You were right the first time and are still correct now. Why would you even begin to imagine that outfits like the New York Times, The New Yorker, or the Washington Post would know a conservative thought leader if he (or she) jumped up and squirted mustard in their ears? (You are familiar with “Guys and Dolls,” right?). If you want someone right of center who gets what’s happening try Sasha Stone or Salena Zito. Or my favorite, Victor Davis Hansen.
While you’re at it, you might try answering Nancy’s question at 1:40.
The Democrat Media Complex elevates fringe figures as a way of tarring the entire right through implication. Remember the Westboro Baptist Church? QAnon? Groypers? None of these people are remotely mainstream on the right, but the MSM loves talking about.
Meanwhile, actual communists and murderers get fawning profiles in GQ.
Narr: QAnon?
Meh yarvin is an interesting academic exercise but it has no practical implication
Yarvin is just another con-man grifter. The Rightwing attracts a lot of them. He was better known as Mencius Moldbug. I read some of his stuff and he was talking in circles and striking libertarian neo-reactionary poses. He wants a monarchy. "nuff said.
That the NYT or the New Yorker would present him as some sort of edgy, dark lord of the Right, isn't shocking. These are the sorts of people who think Rod Dreher and Jonah Goldberg are super-conservative.
Yes! QAnon.
Thanks, Aught Severn. And I see Lawrence Person also mentioned him. Her. Them. It.
I wonder what happened to QAnon.
BTW, Rod Dreher's new thing? We're in Weimar America and Tucker Carlson might be the new Hitler. Or maybe Nick Fuentes. No more Primitive Root weiner columns though. Guess Rod got that out of his system.
The MSM Loves to latch onto obscure or weird Rightwing movements and people, and then scare liberals/leftists with the new boogey-man. And of course give R Politicans a chance to Disavow.
Yeah hes lost the plot, but Rod waa a crunchy con
This one's a little unusual in that I've actually heard of the guy, but Yarvin plays roughly the same role in left-wing fantasies about the Right that Saul Alinsky plays in right-wing fantasies about the Left.
I dunno who the "Thought leaders" of the Right are. They used to be, way back in the day, people like William Buckley, Pat Buchanan, the Reason Mag crowd, the Neo-cons, and the Rush Limbaugh.
Maybe Tucker Carlson. Who else? I struggle to come up with more names. You know who destroyed the Conservative movement? It wasn't the Left. It was Trump. All these people who we thought were conservative rushed out to oppose Trump and declare Hillary and Trump were like peas in a pod, and they hated both.
Now a lot of them are liberal democrats or just have gone on radio silence. Or have come back and dishonestly support MAGA.
Rod Dreher is a perfect example. The guy's such a LOL-cow. Its one reason why I love him. He sorta supported Trump in 2024 after opposing him in 2016 and being sorta neutral in 2020. Basically Rod looks for the Bat-signal from the MSM to know whats acceptable to oppose and support and goes from there.
So, he went hard after Tucker after pretending to be his "friend". He joined in the scare-mongering over Fuentes, and was screaming his head off about how horrible Trump was - in 2016. And don't even bring up J6. OMG, the insurrection! But by 2024, for some reason, it was somehow, sorta ok, to not be too upset about President re-elected Trump.
I count on the new yawker getting nothing right
https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelsmith/p/extreme-hakeem-says-things?
Now when tennesee coates or hank ridgers kendi ger any sucg scrutiny
Never heard of him, and I swim in red lake MAGA.
The left doesn't get anything right about the right....
or economics, or politics, or freedom, or human nature, etc., but they get awards for getting it all wrong: Obama's Nobel, multiple Pulitzers for getting the entire story of Russiagate upside down. It's a bizarro world.
I heard of him 15 years ago or so, so?
Never heard of him. I laughed at his extensive Wikipedia page, which was full of thinly sourced material alleging close relationships between him and people who may have been in the same room as him at a conference once or twice. The Wikipedia page smells of leftwing astroturfing.
OK. We get Melanie as the Queen. And her son is already called a Baron. What’s not to love?
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