Based Camp - Hurkle-Durkle, Tradwives, and Hikikomori for White Women： Exploring Internet Subculture with Suzy Weiss

00:00:00.000 Yeah. There's also like this weird way that medieval debunked science is being repackaged

00:00:05.860 in the wellness world. Gomori, for those who don't know, are mostly men in Japan who are

00:00:09.800 shut-ins. They don't leave their room for years, sometimes at a time. Their parents bring them

00:00:15.220 food. They play video games. They're totally addicted to their screens. Japan is 10 years 0.99

00:00:18.980 ahead of us and everything. Fast food tastes like food enough, but it's not food. And video

00:00:25.220 games feel like problem solving and engaging, but it's really not doing those things. And he

00:00:29.560 described it as this slack noose around his neck where he technically forgot all of the

00:00:35.040 things fulfilled. He was talking to people. He was eating. He was alive in the world, but

00:00:40.320 at this really not at, what's the word I'm looking for? Like not at the level of actually

00:00:46.580 living, but not enough that he would go and change it. Like it wasn't dire enough.

00:00:50.780 Would you like to know more?

00:00:52.400 Hi everyone. We are so excited to have our favorite writer on the podcast, Susie Weiss.

00:00:57.960 She's with the Free Press. You can find her on Twitter slash X at

00:01:01.460 Snoozy Weiss. And she has written some amazing pieces. We first discovered her through this

00:01:08.720 mind-blowing article on Spoonies. But more recently, she wrote about a different type of

00:01:14.520 kind of self-care culture that we thought would be really fun to discuss today. Particularly referring

00:01:19.400 to Hercule Durgle as a trending term, but also like that rot and quiet quitting show up in the

00:01:25.560 article as well. Yeah. We'd love to talk about this with you because there's so much going on here.

00:01:30.840 We're really going to, we're going to get into Trad Wives. We're going to get, everyone should 0.90

00:01:34.180 buckle up for a ride through the internet. You had this great quote in there. Didn't you say

00:01:39.420 something like Trad Wives are the girl bosses of the home or something? Trad Wives are the girl bosses 1.00

00:01:43.360 of the, they're not different. They are. They're just villainized women. 100%. 1.00

00:01:47.040 We're trying to get what they want, which is, I thought what we all want, but I guess not.

00:01:51.460 Yeah. Well, they're having it all. They're having it all in the home. Yeah.

00:01:54.080 If you get what you want. Well, it's so interesting the way that society is so politicized that every

00:02:01.920 subculture has a team. And depending on what team you are in, that subculture is either an evil

00:02:09.140 or good subculture from the perspective of each team. Yeah. The Hustlers versus the Quiet Quitters

00:02:15.180 and the Trad Wives versus the Soft Girls. And yeah, there has to be this. Yeah. It's actually

00:02:20.780 almost odd when there are un-teamified subcultures, like MLMs. MLMs isn't explicitly a right or left

00:02:26.260 thing. But if I think box shipping, when you were talking about Hustlers, I'm like, oh, those are

00:02:31.200 right-wing nut jobs. That's what people would say about them, right? Dropshipping? Yeah. Dropshipping. 0.99

00:02:35.420 Yeah. Dropshipping. There's like a whole dropshipping culture. Like Andrew Tate's in,

00:02:38.920 university really fights for dropshipping, right? Yeah. They might, but a lot of things like that 0.98

00:02:44.200 do. So it's very similar to MLMism. So, okay. Obviously you have MLMs, which predominantly

00:02:49.180 target women, but the ones that target men are typically not monetized through the traditional

00:02:56.060 MLM model. It's more like a guru monetizes through very expensive courses. And then they try to target

00:03:03.520 teaching people like actually how to start a company. But if you're going to teach at scale,

00:03:08.800 how to start a company, there's really only a few companies that work on that model.

00:03:12.780 Dropshipping is one of them. Actually doing lectures yourself.

00:03:15.220 Oh, is dropshipping like MLM for men?

00:03:18.420 Yes.

00:03:20.060 Wait, I need this.

00:03:22.000 I have to read about this. I'm so excited.

00:03:25.380 Oh, did you?

00:03:26.160 It's like raw milk and it's like anti-vax. It's the middle of the horseshoe and you're,

00:03:30.020 you could, it's the Rorschach test. Like whatever you get it.

00:03:32.100 But it's not as abusive as MLM because you can genuinely make a lot of money doing it if you do

00:03:36.860 it right. But it is like MLM in that it forms like these cults of personality. And yeah.

00:03:44.200 And the whole vocabulary around it. Like the vocabulary around, hey girl, hey. Hey babe.

00:03:49.500 Yes.

00:03:49.800 I love that.

00:03:50.680 Oh my God. Hey hon.

00:03:52.500 Yeah hon.

00:03:53.140 Okay. Let's go into, do you want to start with Hercule Durkul or Tradwise?

00:03:56.840 Can you, yeah. Define Hercule Durkul for our sage audience that probably has never heard

00:04:00.860 this term before.

00:04:01.700 Yes. Cause your audience is smart and reads books and I've never read a book, but Hercule

00:04:05.980 Durkul is this 18th century Scottish term. And we could get into the whole like trend industrial

00:04:12.320 complex, but basically it's like an update to bed rotting, which is an update to, I think

00:04:18.360 Heige, which is that there's, there's this Heige or Heige. It's like the, it's like a Nordic 0.85

00:04:24.160 Swedish word for getting cozy. And then there was like another term for staying in on a Friday

00:04:30.080 night during like Norwegian winters, but it's like this umbrella term. It falls under self

00:04:36.820 care, but Hercule Durkul is just apparently this Scottish phrase from the 18th century

00:04:41.160 that means staying in bed longer than you should. But of course, when you combine that with the

00:04:46.200 internet and the algorithm, it turns into this rallying cry for people not to feel bad

00:04:51.860 about pickling under their duvet cover all day and Hercule Durkul, which is stay in bed,

00:04:57.220 but of course means stay on your phone and allow a stream of garbage to go directly into your

00:05:02.420 eyeballs and hold still while TikTok infiltrates your brain.

00:05:06.060 So this actually reminds me of one of my favorite misinterpretations of a historic context. So

00:05:11.280 people on the show know we're very into like religious systems and stuff like that. And we were

00:05:15.580 talking with a friend of ours and they're like, Oh, we were like, how's your diet going? And they're

00:05:20.840 like, Oh, I came up with this amazing new diet system. That's based on ancient Eastern philosophy.

00:05:26.200 And I was like, Oh no, what do you think? I had like, I knew things were better.

00:05:30.900 No, no. They're like, well, I learned about this concept called Wu Wei. Are you familiar with Wu Wei?

00:05:36.300 Okay. So it's a fairly complicated concept. It is where you are elevating an aesthetic reaction to

00:05:45.180 your environment, to a moral status. It's often described as like in a river moving with the

00:05:52.220 water to get to your destination. It's like if you've read anything by the Church of the Subgenius,

00:05:58.520 it strikes me as like their concept of slack, which is very similar to the concept of slack.

00:06:03.140 But through a sort of natural elegance where you're not fighting against nature and society and

00:06:11.620 everything. Instead, you are like an Aikido using your enemy's opponent against them, or at least in

00:06:17.940 your favor. So, but she heard of this concept. That was just a diet. Yeah. No, what she thought it

00:06:23.700 meant is eat whatever you want, whenever you feel like it. Yeah. Just, yeah. Just don't try to do

00:06:31.940 anything. Just eat whatever you want. And then she immediately started eating a ton of junk food.

00:06:36.500 And she didn't wait. Yeah. Okay. But it's the same with these Herkel-Durkel and concepts like

00:06:41.480 this. It's people are trying to elevate base hedonism to a moral system of superiority over other

00:06:49.880 individuals, which is really interesting. Yeah. There's also like this weird way that medieval

00:06:55.200 debunked science is being repackaged in the wellness world. So I have a friend who gave birth

00:07:01.080 and, or my friend was talking to her friend who gave birth and she had this little midwife who 0.98

00:07:04.660 was like essentially trying to balance her four humors. Oh no. And it was after a little bit of

00:07:09.340 questioning, it was like, wait, what's the thing with the phlegm? What are, but this was like the

00:07:13.080 new age thing. But anyway, yes, it is like a misused Scottish concept. I don't know if Scottish people

00:07:21.040 stayed in bed really late in the 18th century. I assume if they did, it was because they had just

00:07:25.220 gotten back from like a land war. So I don't know. Well, I don't know. I've read some books

00:07:30.220 from England and they do say the Scots were lazy people. I can also see though, like it was only

00:07:35.900 used in a derogatory fashion, like a mother or a wife being like, you can't Herkel-Durkel all day,

00:07:41.640 that kind of thing. Totally. There is like a Yidditch, like the sound of it matches what it is,

00:07:47.120 like an onomatopoeia or something. I appreciate, but this, the Herkel-Durkel at this point,

00:07:52.100 it's old news online, but he's in line with the trend. Before you go further, one thing I want

00:07:57.820 to elevate here, which I think is really interesting, is essentially people are rediscovering

00:08:02.580 old forms of hedonism, then building sort of an aesthetic theology around them. And by this,

00:08:09.380 what I mean is in a modern context, default hedonism is status hedonism, i.e. it's go on trips

00:08:16.620 so that you can take pictures and show how much better you are than everyone else. It's hedonism tied

00:08:21.600 to affirmation from peer groups. Promiscuity. Or data seeking, yeah. Whereas in a traditional

00:08:27.760 context, Herkel-Durkel hedonism is just searching out pleasure, which can often be achieved fairly

00:08:34.940 inexpensively in an individual's life. And I do think that there is some value in at least

00:08:41.020 recognizing this as an individual, as I pointed out on previous podcasts, actually maxing out

00:08:46.760 individual hedonism stats when you disassociate from affirmation. It's pretty easy. Once you learn

00:08:52.520 to cook for yourself, you can make easily four or five-tier star chef meals that are perfectly

00:09:01.140 optimized for your taste buds, that have access to spices that people fought and died over

00:09:06.040 historically. It's so easy. There are four apps you can download to make your life like you would

00:09:13.040 be like Genghis Khan level pleasure. You know what I mean? You can order sex, you can order the groceries,

00:09:19.180 you can order the most gorgeous linen sheets. I mean, you don't have to leave your house and you're

00:09:23.420 like assaulted. Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorites was one of my very wealthy friends complained about

00:09:29.180 being wealthy in this era. We've mentioned this on another show because he's like, I just can't get

00:09:33.180 anything that middle-class people couldn't get. Like he's, I used to be able to what call a restaurant

00:09:38.260 and have them deliver food to my house. Now what Uber like eats does that for everyone. I used to have

00:09:44.220 access to foods that other people don't have access to. I don't have that anymore. I used to be able to

00:09:49.860 on demand have servants. Now everyone basically has TaskRabbit. I used to like, what do I have? I had

00:09:57.400 access to maybe a band that can come play for me, but now everyone has music players.

00:10:02.200 Yeah. It's like the most gorgeous, like high fidelity systems. Yeah. Like flatness and

00:10:06.700 convenience culture has in this weird way, turned us all into Kings while spiritually impoverishing

00:10:12.640 us all. So you might as well stay in bed. The one thing that's interesting to me is in the article,

00:10:17.360 you to point out that a lot of this is potentially in, in a backlash or contrast to hustle culture and

00:10:25.580 this feeling like it's a combination of response to girl boss and hustle culture and try fight, 1.00

00:10:31.060 fight. And then this realization that we're not necessarily going to get boomer level rewards for

00:10:39.460 the work we do. It's okay. Having it all was a lie. So in response, I will do nothing.

00:10:44.780 I will have nothing and do nothing. Yeah. Weird reaction.

00:10:48.740 Do you think that this was a reaction or do you think that they just happened to be at the same time

00:10:53.940 and people reacting the, like in different ways to the same thing? And do you notice any patterns

00:11:00.440 between the types of influencers or people online who go for one answer or another?

00:11:05.740 I think there's a few ways this happened to take your question in parts. I think a big part of this

00:11:12.320 and what I get into in the article is that this is the logical conclusion of self-care culture.

00:11:15.940 I do think like the era of wellness is ending. It's, I don't know, like yoga pants don't count

00:11:21.260 as clothes anymore, which like I'm happy about, but self-care as it became like kind of mass produced,

00:11:29.700 commercialized, whatever you want to call it, began to just mean anything. It meant going to

00:11:34.040 yoga class. It meant skipping the yoga class and watching TV. It meant spending a lot of money on

00:11:38.680 food. It meant making your own food at home and making sure there were no seed oils in it.

00:11:41.860 It meant going to a protest. It meant hanging out with your friend. It just is a word that means

00:11:45.920 nothing. And so like the end part of it is just, I will be sedentary and do nothing. And that is

00:11:52.860 also self-care. I will do nothing for myself as opposed to, I guess the ideal of self-care is I

00:11:57.940 will curate this beautiful life. So I see it, like what Malcolm said, it's an update on an ancient

00:12:04.660 form of hedonism, but I also see it as like the death rattle of wellness culture. And we're going to

00:12:09.980 enter into whatever's coming next. I forget the other part of your question. Oh, the types of

00:12:14.780 influencers who do it. Yeah. Who, how does this sort? Because I, there, there's still a lot of

00:12:20.240 people who are heavy hustle and there's still a lot of people who are heavy soft life.

00:12:25.680 Yeah. I think, I don't know if it falls into a type. I think this is something that was interesting

00:12:32.400 is I keep getting fed all of these like Christian influencers and Christian podcasters.

00:12:36.720 I don't know why they're really weird and interesting, but they were a few Christian

00:12:41.880 girls on a podcast talking about how, when you want to go out and you, and when you made plans

00:12:47.740 to go out and you don't want to go out and you're really tempted to cancel the plans. This is like

00:12:52.100 an annoying meme online. Oh, nothing like sex is great. But if you ever canceled plans at the last

00:12:56.980 minute or whatever, and these girls framed it as the devil was telling you to cancel the plans. 1.00

00:13:02.080 And maybe if you went out, that was like, God had something in store for you. Maybe you were

00:13:07.840 going to meet your husband that day or whatever. I think, while I think that is like a weird way to

00:13:13.380 frame it. And I don't think there's like a demon who's stay in bed. So comfy cozy. There is something

00:13:19.520 a little bit like feeding into this base impulse of staying in bed and like going out will like lead

00:13:27.560 to more activity. I think it shows the value of these old religious systems. This is something

00:13:34.060 we're always installing on this podcast. I'm like, many of these religious systems actually had utility

00:13:38.180 to them. And here you're seeing that utility in action. They have created a framing that prevents

00:13:44.820 them from falling into these. And I should be clear, this form of hedonism creates a spiral,

00:13:50.500 which makes your life worse. Where I would have a different hypothesis. I don't not think we're at

00:13:57.580 the end of wellness culture. I think we're at a transformational moment in wellness culture

00:14:01.900 where, and you mentioned this in the article, as I remember, is that this is reminiscent of

00:14:07.640 hikikomori culture in Japan. And that what we might be seeing is an evolution of a form of American

00:14:14.280 hikikomoridom, which I can see becoming incredibly popular among gen alpha.

00:14:22.320 Hikikomori, for those who don't know, are mostly men in Japan who are shut-ins. They don't leave 1.00

00:14:26.500 their room for years, sometimes at a time. Their parents bring them food. They play video games.

00:14:31.960 They're totally addicted to their screens. Japan is 10 years ahead of us in everything. 0.98

00:14:35.440 Yeah. Infertility class and everything. Yeah. And I think that we will get a form of American

00:14:40.000 hikikomoridom. And I think what will lead it in reference to our last talk about Spoonies

00:14:46.120 is an elevation of agoraphobia as a thing of status within certain elements of online culture.

00:14:55.780 And they will then feel emotionally rewarded and affirmed for leading in to their agoraphobia,

00:15:06.300 which will elevate the actual amount of agoraphobia they're feeling, which makes it much easier to end

00:15:12.280 up locked in your house for 10 years. And we've got an entire generation that started their lives 0.96

00:15:17.240 in COVID and stuff like that. First job, stuff like that. So they got started on the tracks of

00:15:23.720 staying inside all the time. And then they built their friend networks on Discord. They're getting

00:15:28.800 their needs fulfilled and they desperately now need to justify why they're making these decisions,

00:15:35.840 that are clearly against their best interest. And now there's communities that affirm that,

00:15:40.160 like the antinatalists and the effilists. Right.

00:15:42.300 They say, actually, you're doing a good thing by doing nothing with your life and being a drain on

00:15:47.520 society so long as you don't contribute to keeping that society going.

00:15:51.080 There's a few things I want to pick up on. One is you talked about getting your needs fulfilled.

00:15:54.920 I interviewed an incel for a story about the, for the 10th year anniversary of Tinder,

00:15:59.900 who described, yeah, it was, he was in England. He was really interesting. And he described how,

00:16:04.040 like fast food tastes like food enough, but it's not food and video games feel like problem solving

00:16:09.820 and engaging, but it's really not doing those things. And he described it as this slack noose

00:16:14.960 around his neck where he technically forgot all of the things fulfilled. He was talking to people,

00:16:20.480 he was eating, he was alive in the world, but at this really not at, what's the word I'm looking for?

00:16:26.720 Like not at the level of, of actually living, but not enough that he would go and change it.

00:16:32.080 Like it wasn't dire enough. And I thought that was really interesting.

00:16:35.620 It's like he's living in a simulated version of a human life.

00:16:39.600 Right.

00:16:40.140 We have created the things that we need. We don't need to go in VR to live a simulated life. We can

00:16:46.880 already have simulated love, simulated accomplishments, simulated adventures, and simulated food.

00:16:53.180 But I would argue that is VR. That is like a virtual, it's not reality.

00:16:56.860 Yeah. Yeah, that is. Yeah. When we, I think the mistake we made, and this is something I realized

00:17:01.940 about when I first met Malcolm, he just assumed that all this would become a big issue when brain

00:17:05.940 computer interface was a thing. Like when we were like literally plugged in, but somehow like with

00:17:11.500 just dumb screens and laptops and computers, like we are there already fully integrated.

00:17:18.240 And that's what you keep bringing up, which I think is really interesting. These ancient concepts

00:17:21.860 like Wu Wei or, and people trying to bring those into the modern era where it's, wait,

00:17:26.580 it doesn't work when the food is like hyper palatable and extra salty. And similarly with

00:17:31.360 Hercule Durkul, I'm Jewish. We have Shabbat. You're, you are not allowed to work. You must rest.

00:17:36.200 So I think people would be like, oh, that's like Hercule Durkul. And it's like, no, if you're living

00:17:39.680 like a Jewish life, you are working in such a way where you need the rest. And Shabbat actually isn't 1.00

00:17:45.700 about isolating yourself. You're made to convene with your community, with your family, have meals

00:17:51.200 together. So I think people take these ancient concepts and use them to justify this like

00:17:56.360 ultimately pleasure seeking attitude. And it's like a lot of fasting more or less. There's so many

00:18:02.560 things you can't do. Right. Exactly. Oh, that's crazy. Well, now get into the trad wives part of this 1.00

00:18:10.480 conversation. Oh yeah. So, so, ah, trad wives. I'm, are you a trad wife, Simone? Is that?

00:18:18.920 We call her a trad wife in some of the video titles to get clicks because she looks like one, 1.00

00:18:23.600 but I don't think you are one by most traditional. Well, so a lot of people call what we do.

00:18:27.340 I don't know. I cook the meals and I clean inside. Technotrad. Technotrad or Neotrad?

00:18:32.060 Yeah. Technotrad. Or Radtrad. Radtrad. Radtrad's kind of rad.

00:18:36.480 Well, we'll see what they converge on as a name for it, but it's not overly trad. Like we're right

00:18:42.120 now really excited about these AI toys we're getting for our kids so that they have somebody

00:18:45.800 smart to talk with, but we're going to put them in their old toys and reprogram them to think that

00:18:50.480 they are the kid's old teddy bear. But now they have an imaginary, that's not trad in a traditional

00:18:55.900 context, but then you dress like a medieval peasant. Yeah. Talk about trad wives. Cause we, 0.97

00:19:01.300 we talk about this a lot on the show as well. I don't think it's a holistically positive trend.

00:19:06.120 I know that you would frame it as such, but I think one of the big problems with trad wives 1.00

00:19:10.180 is women begin to define the aesthetic of trad wife as the reason, as the heuristic they use 1.00

00:19:17.880 to make decisions and judge whether or not they're living a good life. And that's a very bad, they're

00:19:22.480 like, yes, my husband may not be happy with the decisions I'm making, but I am following this

00:19:27.780 aesthetic correctly. Therefore I am a good wife or a good partner. Right.

00:19:33.460 I think we also, we have gripes with the way that many people define trad wifery and that

00:19:37.840 we think that the true trad is the corporate family where everyone works, including the kids

00:19:42.900 and everyone kind of shares the burden. Whereas a lot of people who go to trad wifery, they're

00:19:47.500 working, obviously they're managing a household, but they're doing it in the modern age where we

00:19:51.360 have dishwashers and washing machines. And it's just, it's not the same to just to manage a household

00:19:57.220 and have that be your career. Well, I'd also point out that, that think about this in the

00:20:01.860 eight passengers context, right? With the eight passenger situation, you had a woman who in part

00:20:07.620 identified as a trad wife to an extent, but then because the aesthetic of trad wifery was her moral

00:20:14.380 system, she, because she was a Mormon, but she was not like, this is how it works. This is how it

00:20:20.100 infiltrates religious communities. She identified more as a trad wife than as a Mormon, more as a trad mom 0.64

00:20:26.120 than as a Mormon. And because of that. And more of a trad mom influencer.

00:20:30.140 Yeah, right. No, but because of that, when then she's all of, I'm a trad mom, right? And that is

00:20:34.180 what this aesthetic is morality. Where do trad moms compete within the hierarchy in terms of how 1.00

00:20:40.520 they're different from non-trad moms? Well, it's how strict they are with their kids, how strict they 1.00

00:20:45.420 are about how their kids engage with pornography. Yeah. And then she began to spin like virtue spiral on 0.99

00:20:53.280 these particular topics to the point where she ended up committing real and pretty severe abuse 0.79

00:20:58.440 of her children. Yes. This was crazy. It was so funny. I was talking about this with my cousins

00:21:01.900 at Shabbat dinner. I think the overall trend of trad wives is just an interesting case study because 0.58

00:21:07.600 it's where the theory of feminism of women should be able to do with it, whatever they want crashes in 1.00

00:21:13.980 to the feeling like, well, not like that. Let's do whatever you want, but it better look like this.

00:21:19.680 It better not look like that. So it's like these values that are intention of, I need this woman 1.00

00:21:26.060 to want agency, but she needs to want it herself. Have you heard of a taken in hand marriage? 0.90

00:21:31.000 No, what is that? Okay. Okay. So I've got to point you to this because this could be an interesting

00:21:35.160 story. So taken in hand relationships are a concept. It was in a relationship where the woman

00:21:43.400 is completely, it's basically a 24 seven slave dom relationship, but done within the context of

00:21:53.140 traditionalism and a monogamous marriage, but also understanding the, like it definitely came out

00:21:59.700 of the BDSM community. So people who are familiar with a 24 seven slave relationship, this is when a

00:22:05.480 woman often lives in as a man's in a 24 seven sexual role play scenario. Well, in a taken in hand 1.00

00:22:12.120 relationship, they are doing that, but with the aesthetic of a traditional wife. Yeah. So instead 1.00

00:22:18.640 of like with Gorian relationships where they were going in this dynamic off of a sci-fi universe,

00:22:23.980 they're going off of like the 1950s aesthetic of traditional marriage. Yes. And where these women 1.00

00:22:30.380 want to be spanked when they make mistakes, they want to be like open hand slapped when they say 1.00

00:22:36.200 something stupid. And it is interesting to me, this recontextualization of, I think a stereotype 1.00

00:22:44.960 of the worst kind of trad wife relationship built into a BDSM relationship for the satisfaction of 1.00

00:22:53.420 women. Yeah. It's like feminist, but super not. We just shouldn't have ever gotten the right to vote. 1.00

00:22:59.620 Yeah. Everything went wrong. Everything. I want to say women should have the right to vote because 1.00

00:23:06.400 like my ancestors fought for that and everything like that. Like they weren't, but then I look at

00:23:10.160 who would be elected to office if women didn't have the right to vote. And I'm like, but functionally 0.99

00:23:15.360 the country would be economically healthier and safer. Oh my God. There was that amazing Grimes

00:23:21.520 thing. It's what do you like about the patriarch? He's like Rhodes. Rhodes.

00:23:24.380 Wait, did he say that? She said that. Yeah. It was an interview and she said, I'm into the

00:23:29.320 patriarchy. I really liked the roads. I really liked the infrastructure. It was just fun. Yeah. 0.99

00:23:33.820 Are trad wives supporting the patriarchy? Are they subverting the patriarchy because 0.99

00:23:38.220 they're choosing it themselves? No, I think that they're subverting it. I think that trad wives are 0.99

00:23:43.300 like horrifying. The idea, as Simone pointed out, that there was ever a long period in history where

00:23:50.900 your average wife could afford to not work and spend 24 seven looking after the kids. 1.00

00:23:56.380 This is a historical fantasy because people are basing their assumptions about what historical

00:24:01.960 marriages were like based on Hollywood from the 1950s. So there was a short period in American

00:24:08.720 history from about the 1910s to 1970s, where this was an aspirational lifestyle among the common

00:24:17.040 people. But it was never really the norm, except like maybe like right after World War II, when we

00:24:22.580 had that enormous economic explosion in America. And among very wealthy people. But didn't the

00:24:26.600 housewives in the 50s like go berserk and that they started? They basically did, yeah. 0.92

00:24:31.260 Yeah. Because they had the washing machine. Yeah. Yeah. So now women are, have tricked guys into 1.00

00:24:39.000 thinking they're living this conservative relationship when they're living like, I don't know,

00:24:43.920 like a harem lady would in an old Islamic palace, but without the work, just like the raising of a 1.00

00:24:50.000 few kids. And I've seen these women who like stop, I have seen trad wives stop after three kids because 1.00

00:24:57.220 they said it was too much work and they had a live in childcare. Well, and we see if you, if you look

00:25:02.280 at stay at home girlfriend videos online. Oh my God. Or stay at home daughters. Yes.

00:25:07.560 I love them. Where it's like they're, and they're not, they may do some laundry. They may clean up

00:25:12.180 dishes and film themselves doing it, but they are also completely, this is my expensive latte that

00:25:19.780 I'm not having. This is me working out. This it's a very indulgent life. So yeah. Yeah. And somehow

00:25:24.840 we've gotten to the place where you're a trad wife. If you make like a Buffalo chicken pizza from scratch, 1.00

00:25:29.260 which just feels like beside the point. But anyway, I kind of love that they explode heads. I love that

00:25:36.700 the girl bosses exploded heads. And I think all of these people are in opposition to the self-care

00:25:43.720 regime, whatever we're going to call it. That tells you that the best thing you could do is whatever

00:25:48.380 you are doing for yourself, whatever that means. Do we understand that one of your next pieces is

00:25:53.280 going to be about the next stage, the non-self-care, the self-destruction? Oh, the unwellness

00:25:59.420 influencers? The unwellness influencers? Yes. Yeah. Well, it's not, it's not my piece. I'm editing it. I

00:26:03.260 have a, I don't know if you've read Freya India. She has this great subset.

00:26:06.460 Yeah. And we met her last November. She's super cool. She's so cool. And I was like,

00:26:11.480 I need to bring in the big gun for this one. So she's doing a deep dive into unwellness influencers 1.00

00:26:16.420 and, and they're, I guess maybe they're the opposite of trad wives. We need to like, 1.00

00:26:20.180 we need some sort of visual chart to chart. I think Ayla is the opposite of a trad wife. 1.00

00:26:27.100 Ayla is the opposite of a trad wife. I saw she was getting into it about surrogacy 1.00

00:26:30.540 on Twitter today. I was interested in that. You guys, you're pro-surrogacy.

00:26:34.560 Yeah. It's not scalable, but we were like, yeah, go for it.

00:26:37.240 I'm not allowing it. I prefer artificial wombs or xenopregnancies.

00:26:41.420 What's xenopregnancy? Xenopregnancies is using other animals to carry human fetuses, 0.99

00:26:46.840 but genetically altering them so that they creating a chimera. So it has a human womb or something.

00:26:51.140 We're more freakish than, yeah, we're more, Ayla's a trad wife. 0.98

00:26:54.700 You're like, surrogacy, that's crazy.

00:26:58.600 Surrogacy, what? Come on. That's unsustainable. I can't farm human women, 1.00

00:27:03.260 at least legally anymore in the U.S., but I can farm cows and go to the,

00:27:09.180 you wouldn't do it with cows. You do it with a capybara or something like that. That's

00:27:13.100 more closely related to us. I was having a small call about this earlier today about how to make this

00:27:17.680 real, because I'm very excited about the potentiality of the mass production of children.

00:27:23.160 A lot of people are horrified by our, so we are trad wifey to an extent, but we also want to,

00:27:31.060 culturally speaking, win, which I think requires some deviations where trad culture is breaking down,

00:27:38.900 which brings me to a question. Are you going to be a trad wife? And in what ways are you not going

00:27:43.760 to be a trad wife? Oh, that's so, I think anyone who gets married is doing a trad thing. 0.98

00:27:48.680 Like, I think there's a big reflex, I think, especially among my contemporaries who are like,

00:27:54.520 I'm getting married, but it's going to be different. And it's, you're wearing a white dress,

00:27:58.260 you're doing the thing, you got a sparkly thing on your finger. That's cool. That's fine. Like,

00:28:02.860 it's okay to want a thing that many other people want. It's annoying to me to reframe it as not that

00:28:09.220 traditional thing. I think every wife is a trad wife. So in that way, yes, I hope to be a trad wife,

00:28:13.960 I bake bread every Shabbat. Oh, no. That's confirmed. You bake bread.

00:28:19.120 I just have to hide my decolletage for my modesty for my husband. But no, I'd like to have a lot of

00:28:25.160 kids, but I also really like to work and write. And I would, everyone wants a life where they could

00:28:30.720 do both. A lifestyle that some of our friends have gone into, which is when it is open to you,

00:28:35.820 so you might consider it, is the, I call it secular Orthodox Judaism, where they are not like 0.99

00:28:41.060 theologically that into it, but they follow all the rules really strictly and live.

00:28:45.700 Postmodern Orthodox. 0.82

00:28:46.860 Yeah.

00:28:47.820 Yeah. Yeah. I am like been thinking lately more about like communal living, especially all three

00:28:52.740 of my sisters had kids in the last two years. And I see how my middle sisters who live where my 1.00

00:28:57.840 parents live in Pittsburgh, or it's just like this kibbutz where it's like in and out and this kid

00:29:02.300 and that kid. And there's just something so incredible about it. Yeah. Maybe one day,

00:29:06.560 maybe I'll be like Simone on the eve of number four. Hopefully. No, I hope, or we'll have our

00:29:13.340 big artificial womb factory and you can just pick one up. Yeah. By the way, we're not close to this

00:29:21.880 technology. I am joking about this for our audiences edification. Don't go off and say

00:29:26.960 they're growing children in their backyard. Yeah. Rodents there. I'm sure there will be this whole

00:29:34.240 status thing of, yeah, well, you grew in a human and humans are gross. Whereas I grew in a super 0.94

00:29:38.360 cute capybara. So that's fine. Wait, but I think womb, are womb transplants a thing or not a thing?

00:29:43.680 There, yes, there has been at least the first woman to successfully have a baby after receiving 1.00

00:29:49.180 a full uterine transplant has taken place. So there's at least one case of it that like we had

00:29:54.840 a gestationally functional womb transfer, which is something I think about a lot. Cause I'm like

00:29:58.340 terrified. I get my C-section this Thursday and I'm like, I don't want to lose it. I don't want to lose

00:30:02.620 it. So if I do lose it, I'm going to be like, can I get a new one? Can I get a new one?

00:30:08.480 Fingers crossed. Remember when the most, the most controversial thing was the death boards?

00:30:13.480 What were they called? Oh yeah. Death panels. Death panels. That was like the craziest thing.

00:30:19.320 And now we're talking about God knows what, who's in line for the first womb transplant,

00:30:23.640 probably the most natalist among us, but yeah, we'll see. It's a weird world. I do think the story of

00:30:29.600 reproduction, breeding, IVF, IVF regret, birth control, getting off birth control,

00:30:36.140 the world of fertility, toxicity, testosterone numbers going down. That is what I'm focused on,

00:30:41.920 I think for this next couple of months. Cause I think it's a really rich subject.

00:30:44.900 You should talk with raw egg nationalist. If you can already do raw egg nationalist.

00:30:49.840 Oh yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. I follow him on Twitter. He's really interesting.

00:30:53.560 We can introduce you. He's been on our show before.

00:30:55.720 Yeah. No, he has like a font of great research. He will just send it. He'll email us like here,

00:31:01.340 this study, I think you'll like it. And it, whoa, like he finds really good stuff. So

00:31:04.920 he'll be a great informant. Okay, cool. Cause I, I'm also like raw eggs and like the status of the

00:31:11.040 egg as like the perfect food, the evil food, cholesterol, the white's good egg whites,

00:31:15.100 white, like you can follow what we think of like fertility in a way through the story of how we

00:31:21.900 regard eggs and milk. Yeah. That's good. And like, we're out of the alt milk, soy milk era,

00:31:27.840 which now we're renegade raw milk. Now you're, you guys are on milkers. No one now.

00:31:32.580 No God. No, you're not. Yeah. No, but that's new. I think I got you guys pinned down.

00:31:38.520 No, we are speed running life. A lot of people are like the things you do are really like unhealthy a

00:31:43.740 lot of the time. And it's yeah, but we're not life extensionists or anything. I just want to live

00:31:47.800 long enough to give my kids a good life and get the tasks that I'm working on done.

00:31:51.320 Oh, you're like, get the two gallon whole milk and get in the car. We're going home.

00:31:55.540 You're not doing like the boutique. Let's drive away.

00:31:57.720 No, we go to one of those bulk stores and we just get like BJ's pretty much all our food comes

00:32:02.800 from BJ's and then goes in a chest freezer. But in our district where I'm running for office,

00:32:07.240 there is definitely a big theme about raw, like this farmer tried to sell raw milk and they stopped

00:32:13.820 him. Oh yeah. Cause you're in Pennsylvania with a lot of Amish and Mennonite communities. I'm from

00:32:18.460 Pennsylvania. We have a lot of eggs in our, we have chickens at our house as we gave them out

00:32:23.540 at the last party, but we're not like chicken supremacists. We're chickens as an ascetic. I

00:32:28.820 don't actually think we're making our health that much better by having our own chickens.

00:32:34.000 It helps me deal with the anxiety of the food that the kids always don't eat. Cause then I just

00:32:38.160 feed it to the chickens and then I feed the eggs to the kids and then it just the circle of life.

00:32:41.840 There you go. It's a circle of life.

00:32:43.600 It's good. Yeah, but good. Okay. We're going to make some intros for you. Thank you so much

00:32:47.640 for talking about this. I can't wait for your next article.

00:32:50.120 We would love you to come on. Like every time you do a piece, if you want to come on and talk

00:32:53.380 about it, just let us know. You gave me so many ideas. Dropshipping at the MLM for men is really,

00:32:59.520 that's going to, that's going to be fun for me.

00:33:01.500 Effilism you need to go deep on. That's the one that no one has done. It is so fascinating.

00:33:05.660 What is it?

00:33:06.580 Okay. Effilism. It's life spelled backwards ism. You can look up our effilism for the subreddit on the

00:33:11.980 subject. It is a movement that is an extreme form of antinatalism that wants to erase all

00:33:18.100 life on the planet. So not just get rid of humanity, but ensure that sentient life never

00:33:22.520 evolves again on planet earth. Cause they think that sentient life is an intrinsic evil

00:33:27.060 and it's a pretty big movement now.

00:33:29.880 So it's like pro mass shootings. I would assume. 0.92

00:33:32.260 Yeah, kind of. So they're about seven times the size of the pronatalist movement to give you an

00:33:37.500 idea of like size of this movement and they are absolutely insane. And I think that they're going

00:33:43.960 to be an increasingly big thing as pronatalism picks up steam, because then people have to justify how

00:33:51.260 they're not bad people. And so they come up with these moral frameworks, like negative utilitarianism

00:33:56.480 to justify their means.

Based Camp - May 30, 2024

Hurkle-Durkle, Tradwives, and Hikikomori for White Women： Exploring Internet Subculture with Suzy Weiss

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