White People Love Kanye West

September 12, 2008

Daniel O'Brian

Cracked pictures replaced by carefully chosen gifs to imitate their clever impact

I think I might've gotten Kanye West arrested, and now I feel like such a doofus. Especially given my history, I mean, this isn't the first time I got a hip-hop star in trouble with the law, (devotees will recall that, several months ago, I may or may not have convinced Vanilla Ice to beat his wife). In fairness, if I had known Kanye was going fly off the handle and get so aggravated that he'd smash an expensive camera at an airport, I probably wouldn't have said what I said. I should back up...

Thursday, September 11, 2008 6:00am I stumbled into Rutt's Inn, this amazing pancake place in LA, and Kanye was already there, waiting for me. He stood up and waved me over enthusiastically. "OB," he shouted, "My man, get over here, we got just oodles of shit to discuss." Ugh. He's a lot of things but, above everything else, Kanye West is a morning person. I am not. I sat down across from him, rubbing my eyes, my head throbbing and my throat dry. "Thanks for meeting me, Dan, this is really-" I silenced him with a hand wave. "I'm gonna stop you right there, 'Ye. This conversation isn't moving another inch forward until I get at least two cups of coffee in me. My eyes feel like fricking pinecones." Kanye started laughing. If I had to guess, I'd say it was because he was picturing two pinecones fornicating. That was, of course, not my intention, but Kanye probably couldn't tell that there was no hyphen between "fricking" and "pinecones." Because this was a spoken conversation.

OGs know this gif

I digress. Aside from the giggling, Kanye graciously allowed me several minutes of silence while I wolfed down two cups of black coffee. Kanye was such a fan of mine and I think he's alright, (I guess), so we both agreed it would be a good idea for the two of us to work on a project together. It was really more his idea than mine, but I figured I'd at least hear him out. I was, after all, writing a pilot for an animated children's TV show about a genetically-enhanced mouse that gets elected president; Kanye could easily do the voice for the sassy bird that becomes the vice president.

"Now," I said, after I'd finished my coffee, "what kind of project did you have in mind?" His eyes lit up. "First off, I just wanna say how psyched I am that you're meeting with me. I'm such a fan of the blog and your early mixtapes, from back when you used to rap. I mean, you're the Statutory Rap, man! I am so honored to be in your presence." "Settle down, Kanye." "Right, my bad. Anyway, I was thinkin' we could do an album together. You and me, you know, I bring you outta retirement, and we change the game, you know? You're still tight with Jay-Z, so I'm sure he'd be down to guest on a few tracks. It'd be tight, we'd get Weezy in there, Swizz Beatz. This shit's gonna be hot!" Rapping? That was the last thing I thought this meeting was going to be about. To be honest, I had no interest in the project and I made no attempts to hide my dissatisfaction. Kanye noticed immediately. "What's wrong," he asked. "You can still spit fire, right?" "Don't be a child, Kanye, of course I can. That's not the point." "Well, what is the point?" Now, before I go any further, I want you to know that I didn't think I was saying anything revelatory. I honestly didn't think I was telling any tales out of school, and I didn't mean to surprise or enrage Kanye West in any way. I mean, he says things like "psyched" and "oodles." I figured what I was about to say was common knowledge... "Well, Kanye, I was considering making a comeback, but I'm just not sure it should be with you... I mean, I want to make rap music but, you know. Not for white people." Kanye seemed positively shocked. "I don't understand," he said after some time. "Oh, uh, it's pretty simple. White people love you." I thought he was gonna have a heart attack, but it's true. White people love Kanye West. So much so, in fact, that I find it amazing that the foremost experts on stuff white people like have never mentioned it.

that was a real website in 2008 that white people posted on Facebook

Kanye West, still somewhat in shock, was ready to speak. "You're messing with me. This...this can't be. I'm... I'm from the street, I-" "Everyone knows where you're from, Kanye. And, hey, it's nothing to be ashamed about- you're selling a ton of records, you're a dynamite producer and you've sold out shows all over the globe. And there's nothing wrong with making music white people love, plenty people have done it in the past. James Taylor comes to mind." Kanye West threw up all over the table. "You lyin', DOB, you must be lyin'." Has he seriously never suspected this? "You don't believe me? Alright, as an experiment, go ahead and ask any average, suburban middle class white person if they're into rap. Go ahead. Right now. Pick someone off the street, anyone, and ask if they like rap music, and I'll tell you, (unless they're an actual hip-hop fan), they're gonna say 'Eh, I'm kinda into rap. I think Kanye West is great.' Trust me. Just about every white person who's worried about coming off as either uncool or a racist, which is to say, 'every white person,' will say almost that exact sentence, verbatim."

white hands at the ye show

"Stop it. Stop it! I don't believe you." "Well now you're just being a baby. Kanye, man, do you have any idea just how many high-maintenance white girls have 'Stronger' memorized? Fricking all of them, man. And, I mean, haven't you noticed that the way you dress informs the style of idiot white guys everywhere?" He put his fingers in his ears and started shaking his head violently. "Look, there's just something about you. You're just gangster enough that white people will listen to you and feel cool and edgy, (yet comfortable), but not quite gangster enough that white folks will be afraid of you. Or, you know. That anyone else will actually like you. There's nothing wrong with being liked by white people. Heck, some of my best friends are white. But I'm just saying that if you decided you wanted to feature Regina Spektor on an upcoming single, two things would happen: no one in the hip-hop community would be surprised or impressed, and white kids at colleges across America would absolutely lose their shit.

and it could be on the 500 days of summer sequel soundtrack

" Seriously. U-Mass Amherst might have to shut down while all the students clean up after their simultaneous orgasm. Kanye was, understandably, having a difficult time with this new information. "But...but I'm from Chicago, man, the streets of Chicago." His eyes started to well up. "Oh, right, that's another problem. You reference Chicago a lot, and in your songs, sometimes you call it 'Chi-town,' which is fine, but other times you call it 'The Shire.' Now, uh... I know you think that's a cool nickname but...I don't know if you know this, but the Shire is where the hobbits lived in Lord of the Rings....Do...do you know what type of people love Lord of the Rings, Kanye? I don't think I need to tell you." "Oh my God." "Yeah. It's pretty awful." "I don't mean to rap for white people. I don't want to make white people happy." "Of course you don't, Kanye, nobody wants white people to be happy." "But why do they like me so much?" "Love, Kanye, white people love you. And I guess it's because you're catchy, uncomplicated and generally inoffensive. Let's be honest, all of your hits are pretty mom-friendly. Also you're very clear. White people are crazy about diction." "But still, my lyrics. I rap about life, man, and the streets. Doesn't that count for anything," he pleaded. "B-word please. You rap about working at the Gap, smoking pot and having s*x with drunk chicks. Those are the only things white guys do." "Why are you saying this," Kanye said with tears streaming down his face.

"Because I figured you knew!" Honestly. I assumed everybody knew. White people love Kanye West, Middle Eastern people love Lionel Ritchie, and Chinese people are afraid of Smash Mouth. These are Pop Culture Commandments, I don't presume to understand them, but I acknowledge them all the same. I spend plenty of time around white people, I've even been mistaken for white. But I'll never quite get why white people are so fascinated by Kanye West. Also Michael Phelps. White people are obsessed with Michael Phelps, I just don't get it. "But I sold so many records...." "That's true, you've got some insanely catchy joints, no one's taking that away from you. But, you know...Blink182 had some catchy shit too, but I don't think anyone would argue that they helped out punk music in any way. Do you see what I mean?" He did. And it hurt. He looked practically catatonic, sitting at that table, watching his world crash around him. I tried cheering him up. "Hey, on the bright side, you're bringing rap music to the whole world. You're introducing an entire generation of pasty, soccer-loving white folks to rap. Music History will look back on you fondly but, uh...the same way it looks back on Hammer." If the Rutts Inn had sharper knives, I think Kanye probably would've used one to stab someone at that point. I never was too good at comforting depressed hip-hop stars after a pancake breakfast. I know, that is an oddly specific flaw to have, but it's true. It's my one weakness. "Listen," I said, paying the bill, "I guess this a lot for you to digest, so I'll just leave you alone. I think you have a plane to catch anyway. But, hey, gimme a call if you have any interest in voicing a cartoon vice president named 'Dan Quail.' Do...do you get it?... Okay, I'll leave you alone." An hour and a half later, Kanye got arrested for flipping out at an airport and breaking a paparazzo's camera.

Whoops. *** So, uh...State of California...hopefully this should explain why Mr. West acted out the way he did. Have mercy on him, this is a tough pill for ole' Kanye to swallow. Please, take pity on him and be lenient in your sentencing. It's like Kanye finding out for the first time that there's no Santa Claus. Or, that there is a Santa Claus, and he just loves Kanye's music. Because he's a fat white guy.

https://old.reddit.com/r/CleaningTips/comments/1hp8ezp/everything_in_my_house_is_turning_green/

The tl;dr is a woman notices shit in her house is turning green and a r*dditor helps her find out it's because her husband is cheating with a woman that wears jeans.

NPReddit reports on it like it's in the news. All of the articles are slop just quoting the thread.

https://nypost.com/2025/01/30/lifestyle/a-woman-learned-of-her-husbands-infidelity-because-of-this-house-cleaning-mystery/

Most obvious reddit slop reddit shit I ever saw. Clearly trying to ape that ancient carbon-monoxide post.

Let's take a look:

• She found out he's cheating because she snooped through his phone and just by "chance" he had dm's on Instagram from a woman that "happened" to be wearing Old Navy jeans on her page. https://old.reddit.com/r/CleaningTips/comments/1i2htjj/update_everything_in_my_house_is_turning_green/

• She has nine fricking cats https://old.reddit.com/r/pacmanfrog/comments/1iag4zz/comment/m9azbwn/?context=8

• It's a woman.

• She looks like this: https://old.reddit.com/r/PlasticSurgery/comments/16k14fy/lipo_360_295_cc_breast_implant_one_week_post_op/

I'm sure parts of it are true but this is the gayest shit I ever saw.

They really said:

The old page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250125135209/https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/before-you-go/travelers-with-special-considerations.html

New page:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/before-you-go/travelers-with-special-considerations.html

right at the bottom btw . That's some foreshadowing, gays !

--

/r/4tran4 reacts

There are a lot of policies they're putting in place that will directly hurt trans people, but this one in particular strikes me as purely performative. They're trying to make sure the LGB-without-the-T idiots continue to tow the line by pretending that they still care about them. It's a distraction tactic to keep eyes off their efforts to outlaw gay marriage.

sorry for existing

Oh were not going to make it

Step 1, make it very difficult to transition

Step 2, make it very difficult to get treatment

Step 3, censor their existence

Step 4, marginalize everyone who is trans

Step 5, make the world see them as horrible beings so that no one can relate to them

Step 6, in a generation or two, have completely eliminated trans people

we're finally free from being associated with strags

Its not the lgb that dropped the t. Its us that dropped the lgb

A diaper/baby fur v-tuber (Twitch partnered, btw!) had a little melty because he kept getting less and less viewers on his super entertaining streams. He got all depressed because his true friends weren't even there and his jannies abandoned him. His dreams of being a singing/video gaming diaper tiger cub icon were seemingly circling the drain!

In his lowest point, he encouraged his viewers to treat him like a lowly CIA neighbor

等身大サーナイトがウチに来ました
いるだけでQOLが上がる理由がよくわかる
スカート部分が長いから実質的に170センチくらいあると思います

あと自立はしないが座ることができるようにかケツがすごいデカいです
デカケツサーナイトです pic.twitter.com/nQdbgwDzS1

— 田吾与作 (@UnEmployeD_vt) February 9, 2025

pic.twitter.com/0UyYGX4A8S

— Magills (@magills_) February 9, 2025

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/boeing-has-informed-its-employees-that-nasa-may-cancel-sls-contracts/

In 2009, all Asians in the US had was Joy Luck Club, pandas and "azn." Complete cultural irrelevance and felt like representation peaked in the 90s.

Since then Asian Americans were a major part of some of the defining subcultures of the 2010s: raving, streetwear and designer fashion, anime, K-pop, gaming/streaming, tech bros, millennial wanderlust, MUA YouTube, "cool" chefs and campus politics.

Since the 2020s Asians have continued to take Ws while avoiding any backlash. The newest American ultra billionaire is Asian and is perhaps the only tech billionaire that isn't hated by most of the country, yet. Trump lost in 2020 in part due to backlash from healthcare workers, TikTok lovers and the optics of "Kung Flu" while winning in 2024 by softening on China and Tiktok. Stop Asian Hate was genuinely the last moment of left idpol unity before its collapse and that fake crisis was endorsed even by conservatives who focused on "who exactly are beating up Asians in SF 🤔." Asian directors won best picture three years in a row without any DEI accusations. Asians shifted right in 2024 and successfully rolled back Affirmative Action alongside whites but the focus is only on Arabs and Latinx for "betraying" the coalition. Even in this current moment Indian hate in the US and Canada is at all time high while Asians (who drive up the cost of housing more than Indians I bet) are enjoying record high Q scores. All while the stereotypical "virgin" has slowly shifted from pittiable East Asian math nerd to detestable South Asian bobs and vagene type. The entire political spectrum sees East Asian countries as the pinnacle of culture and India as a smelly den of male feminists. Jews are kicked out of leftism for their loyalty to a Muslim oppressing ethnostate while activists download little redbook. Every town has multiple boba shops and the number continues to increase.

Not sure if it's all a psyop or the payoff of several decades of keeping your head down and doing your homework but I'm wondering how much longer it can continue.

This is going to have hilariously predictable consequences.

Prices will fall for things we produce & prices will climb for things we don't. When Trump had a much smaller trade war in 2018 the price of corn fell by 20% over 2 months because countervailing tarrifs and it wasn't until Rona that they recovered.

Futures started pricing this in on Friday (all grains were down, meat was up) but Monday is going to be fun. Anyone who owns a farm in the US and isn't a corp who can hedge this is fricked.

First consumer price to see movement is going to be onions as they don't have a futures market. Anything that's harvest to supermarket in days-weeks will be next, anything that gets sprayed with water/is refrigerated.

We are also going to see next week if congress are going to hide in the corner while their authority is being usurped or not. POTUS doesn't have authority to do tarrifs like this absent a declaration of war.

Edit: Canada have already announced countervailing tarrifs. https://globalnews.ca/news/10992959/donald-trump-tariffs-canada-feb-1/ waiting for the schedule and hoping they are troll enough to stick 100% on Teslas for the lulz.

leafcucks are BIG MAD! 2,105 comments of delicious Canadian seethe to pour onto your pancakes

I get it people don't like Trudeau but to side with someone who is literally trying to destroy your country is wild.

I didn't realise Trump did this?

I'm a conservative, I agree with Trudeaus response… we have too respond we can't just sit back

Entire Canadian military force:

Frick les traîtres!!!

Traitors..?

Frogs go literally two seconds without switching sides challenge

As an American, I'm so sorry that our idiotic country voted for this guy.

please love me

So do something about it

Mass protests in all 50 states are planned for February 5th.

mass protests huh?

How insane must somebody be to support a foreign politician (which is kinda weird by itself, I don't walk around with hats of foreign politicians 🤣🤣🤣)

Uh, yeah almost like Canada is just an American state at this point, huh? Someone should do something about that...

Woa there buddy, don't go getting all patriotic on unceded land. According to its leader, Canada is a post-national state with no core identity, after all.

chuds are so fricking boring

If you support the leader of a nation who openly declares war on our country and constantly talks about annexing us, you're a fricking traitor.

He declared WAR? No way. Do you have a link to anything saying that?

Not all wars are fought with sticks

Nowadays they're fought with !

By the way, THE ENTIRE SUBREDDIT is just a huge struggle session about DJT. There's more seethe here than I know what to do with.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskCanada/comments/1ig4q57/asking_the_important_question_everyday_is_trump/ REPORTMAXXERS IN IN IN

All I can see is a people ripe for conquering. Demoralised and impotent, the Canadian nation has jeeted itself into irrelevance. !leafs weigh in

I know people are going to talk about the money, but say someone was buying it for you, what are your opinions of the game outside of cost?

And yes, because I am a troll, I want to join the same Pirate Software server and join that guild harassing him in-game. teeeheeee

Didnt watch anything new this week either. Last season was kinda whack, not much I wanna see, and the stuff I wanted to see turned out mid. Hope this season will be better.

!anime

@Kongvann pin pls

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔘🔘

Trav and Taylor are trumpers girl (698)

Taylor may have secretly voted for Trump idk her mind. But she openly campaigned for Harris so 🤷🏼‍♀️ (14)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘

NFL players of all races lean very conservative. Remember this is a sport that has had ONE openly gay active player in its entire history, It's not exactly known for its progressivism and tolerance. There are only a couple of vocally liberal players and a whole lot more far-right ones who stay relatively quiet. (743)

Is basketball different? My cities team has a coach that will not shut the frick up about issues(complimentary)but I don't really get into sportsball so I thought that was common across the board. (59)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

Compare this to the Eagles and Jalen hurts attitude towards him. I don't know anything about sports except that I want the chiefs to lose this. (983)

What did Jalen say about him? I can't find anything about it. (14)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Let's stop pretending Taylor is some kind of helpless baby who's trapped in this relationship - she's obviously fine with dating a Trump supporter. She's a typical billionaire who's insulated from everything that's happening and about to happen to America and idk why she gets special treatment. (7874)

Listen I don't know a fricking thing about this subreddit and idk even know why it's recommended honestly but you hear me this:For as much good as taytay loves to purport I'll say this much as an aviation veteran with a decade experience working with private jets: this woman can frick right the frick off. The amount of fuel she shits into the atmosphere on the regular is worthy darn near of a war crime. Not to mention just the idea of how unabashedly gaudy it is, flashing her billions around while charging what, 4-500USD a ticket?I'm over the Taylor bullshit and I'm fricking left as they come. Way fricking left. (6)

Angriness: 😡😡😡🔘🔘

I'll likely be downmarseyd for this but this is just your standard straight down the middle athlete answer during media week, if you have a problem with the answer [which is fair] then it's less about him as an individual and more about the NFL's media training and stance as a whole. The same journ*list asked everyone else the same question on both teams and they all answered pretty much the same. They do it to create as little headlines and distractions as possible before the big game. The only reason this may get more attention despite a similar neutral answer to everyone else is because of the TS connection.We have seen Trump speak negatively on both Travis and Taylor previously. As someone who isn't much of a fan of his or the Chiefs he's publicly supported and advocated for causes and groups that are diametrically opposed to Trump. Whether it be Kelce's public stance on guns, LGBT rights, BLM movement or vaccination. There is also a podcast appearance where he says Trump is racis... (766)

This is a dude that kneeled with teammates during the national anthem, who donates to inner city youth, and is generally a decent dude doing pro-vaccine commercials, and other things. I don't know his personal beliefs, but he's also the ultimate team player. He's the least likely guy to make a media mistake during the biggest week of his life at the Superbowl. He didn't say he loves Donald Trump and he didn't say Frick him. Both that would blow up the story. He just said the President coming is an honor. It would be for any President that the head of the nation wants to watch you play. Even if they are not someone you like or support. Now, that saying Trump sucks, F him would cause trouble with his team, team owner, league, fan base, half the country, that is what really sucks. Not Travis's answer. For being a Chiefs fan, I don't like the NFL limiting players free speech by threat of job loss, the owners make the game almost unwatchable knowing that you are stuffing money i... (167)

Angriness: 😡😡😡🔘🔘

Donald trump has literally gone out of his way to insult taylor and made horrible deepfake AI images of her. Also trumps boss musk has been posting in the past 2 weeks ! photoshopped images to make taylor look like a nazi and this is what he says?! I'd be fuming!! (40)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/prettybunbun

Score: 🐮🐮🔘🔘🔘

Number of comments: 5

Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

Maximum angriness: 😡😡😡🔘🔘

Minimum angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining!

autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

Sheldan Nidle lived in an alternate reality from the rest of us.

Throughout the late nineties, while everyone else was surfacing from a post=Seinfeld world, gawping at a presidential s*x scandal, and mourning the death of grunge, Nidle was filling a nascent internet with tales of mass alien visitations and the transformation of the human race into five-dimensional, super-evolved beings. He called his initiative the Ground Crew Project (GCP). Probably the strangest aspect of the GCP, though, wasn't its prediction of a coming fleet of spaceships or the extradimensional expansion of all human consciousness. After all, alien interventions and apocalypses are as common in cults as messiah complexes and communes. What is unusual, though, is that the GCP was, and still is, almost entirely a virtual cult.

Nidle was born in New York City in 1946. He went to college at Ohio University and then the University of Southern California, after which he settled in the Golden State. And those seem to be the only factual parts of his biography—because Nidle claimed he was visited upon his birth, threewise-men-like, by extraterrestrials from a planet called Sirius. These beings would speak to him telepathically, land their ships in his backyard, and take him aboard for flights through space. And that was all before the age of fourteen.

Over the course of Nidle's life, aliens continued to send him messages through an implant they placed in his body, telling him all the secrets of the planet and the cosmos. He learned that humans were part of a divine/extraterrestrial experiment (the divine and the extraterrestrial seemed to be parallel in his mythology, although angels and aliens were distinct creatures). The creator had populated the planet—which is sentient—with what Nidle called "laggard souls," with the hope that they would transcend their limitations to find their place among the other evolved peoples of the universe, thereby joining the Galactic Federation of Light. The GCP were those earthbound members tasked with helping humanity transcend to the point at which they could be welcomed back into the Galactic Federation (hence the "Ground Crew" in the name).

The world learned about the GCP in 1996, when Niles starting writing about it on the burgeoning internet. His site welcomed visitors with statements like, "You are about to embark upon the greatest journey of your

life. You and the rest of life on Planet Earth are about to partake in the raising of planetary consciousness." But his GCP website wasn't just an FYI. It was an urgent message. Niles predicted that on December 17, 1996, the "laggard soul" experiment would end. He said that on that day, the planet would pass through what he called a "photon belt," which he described as an "extremely loving energy" composed of photons, gamma rays, and antimatter particles that occurs every 25,000 years.

That love light from space would hit our pineal glands and cause a spontaneous evolution in human beings. Our three-dimensional forms would expand to five dimensions. Our DNA would increase from a mere two strands to twelve. We would stop aging or getting sick. The blind would see. We would become telepathic. We would be able to manifest things just with the power of thought. Humanity would finally see the universe as it really was.

According to Nidle, even though the photon belt would turn us into superhumans, it would at the same time destroy our cities and machines and weapons. To help us survive the destruction, the Galactic Federation was supposed to send some 15.5 million spaceships to Earth. These ships were meant to shelter the human race from the planetary apocalypse, by keeping people either aboard the ships or in holographic matrixes that mirrored their lives. Some of the members of the Galactic Federation were building underground sanctuaries, as well.

It's impossible to gauge how many followers Nidle had in the early years, but the most appropriate metric was probably hits instead of commitments anyway, and he kept those numbers to himself. He did have enough followers that several New Age/UFO websites had a rule that members couldn't shill for his cult on their forums, so I imagine it was a considerable number of people buying into this shit. There is no record of any meetings in the meat space. Nidle stuck to posting weekly updates about the coming global transformation.

Of course, the big day came and went without even a twitch of anybody's pineal gland. That was no problem—Nidle just rescheduled the transformation to the following year. Meanwhile, he was creating a mythology of galactic history and its races. He described the human-like Andromedans and their cigar-shaped, hundred-mile-long mother ships; the horse-like Arcturians with their supply ships that resembled "wok lids welded together"; and the Sirians and Centaurians and Mintakins and Bellatricians, the latter of whom were reptilian. At some point, he added villains to his universe as well: beings called "dark cabalists," who were anti-transformation, as well as the "planetary elites" on our own Earth.

Some of Nidle's conspiracy-type theories fit well with the concurrent X-Files mania that began after that show debuted in September 1993. Nidle wouldn't have been alone in that influence, although he was more inclined to drop Star Trek and Star Wars references in his writings. According to a Reuters article from 2009, Britain's Ministry of Defense documented 609 UFO sightings in 1996, a huge jump from 117 the year before. The defense ministry noted, "This coincided with the rise in popularity of The X-Files." A similar phenomenon was occurring in the United States at the time. Still, Nidle's stories of the Galactic Federation were becoming so detailed that they could have been their own multi-arc TV show. He was, to use a term that these days refers to entertainment IP, "world-building."

Nidle eventually settled on May 5, 1997, as the new date for the transformation, and he tied it to the approach of the Hale-Bopp Comet. According to the messages from his implant, the comet was actually a massive, camouflaged spaceship. It contained a crew of more than 200,000, including 10,000 alien ambassadors whose mission was to help guide humanity through the transformation. A shuttle from the faux-comet flagship was supposed to land near Ayers Rock in Australia to kick off the party.

Of course, that didn't happen. But something else did: the Heaven's Gate tragedy. Just over a month before the GCP transformation date, the thirty-nine members of the UFO cult Heaven's Gate committed suicide together in a town north of San Diego. The members of that cult also believed the Hale-Bopp Comet hid an extraterrestrial ship sent to save them. They believed that their suicide would help them transcend their current existence and ascend to the ship.

Because Heaven's Gate had sported their own website, as both a recruitment tool and a suicide note, the media started scouring this newfangled internet for other groups with similar beliefs. They found Nidle and the GCP. The Florida Palm Beach Post, for instance, ran an article with a list of strange groups with an internet presence that included the GCP. The headline for the piece was: "Beyond Heaven's Gate, Web Is a Creepy

Place." Meanwhile, an article in the Atlanta Journal reported that "A group identifying itself as the Ground Crew Project of the Spiritual Hierarchy and the Galactic Federation held a toll-free conference Thursday, promising to reveal details about how to get aboard the UFO. The group's advice: meditate."

At that point, the GCP rebranded, but not because of the negative attention from being linked to Heaven's Gate. It was because of a woman named Valerie Donner, who was a part of the inner circle of the GCP. After a falling-out with Nidle, she left the group, but managed to take with her both the name of the organization and its all-important web domain.

Instead of fighting for the GCP domain, Nidle relaunched his efforts online under a new name: the Planetary Activation Organization (PAO). The new group also had a new tone to its teachings. Nidle pulled back on prophesying the date of the transformation, claiming there was just too much intergalactic politics to ever be sure. Instead, he preached that the transformation was unspecifiably imminent, much like the Christian rapture. He also put more of the onus on humanity making itself worthy of transformation, with members of the PAO responsible for lighting the way through mass meditation and spreading the word of humankind's potential to "activate." In addition, his mythology began to trend more New Age than science fiction. He started working in concepts from other religious groups, such as Ascended Masters, an idea borrowed from theosophy and the cult of I AM. He encouraged his followers to set up their own PAO groups in their individual communities to create a network of enlightenment around the planet. He also began claiming that Earth was not just an experiment in the overarching galactic story, but the fulcrum of it. Its transformation would be a blueprint for the transformation of the entire galaxy. It was also supposedly the home of special crystals vital to the rest of the universe.

Via the PAO website, Nidle also continued to exhort his followers to prepare themselves for the coming ascension. One such update ran thusly:

The call went out for that global meditation day on the equinox, to visualize the Christ Grid energy following a certain procedure. That day was magic for those of us who experienced this 1 to 2 hour meditation. The Galactic Federation and the Confederation of Free Planets plus the Angelic Realm have all confirmed that our meditation has caused the necessary mass consciousness shift needed for the mass landings to become a reality. Therefore, they were given the go-ahead by Earth spiritual Hierarchy to proceed with the landing options depending on the secret government's intent to resist.

Nidle's productivity increased as well, and he began pumping out books and webinars and DVDs and speaking engagements at New Age and UFO conferences. His books and DVDs bore titles such as You Are Becoming a Galactic Human and Tour a Sirian Mothership and Inner Earth, Your Future Home.

On March 17, 2011, Nidle's health started to fail. The PAO website describes it this way: "As he sat at the computer, he was hit with a Direct Energy Weapon that caused marked personality changes, brain damage and, eventually, dementia. By September 2021 his health had deteriorated further and he entered a care facility, where he now lives." Wow, is he the first documented case of Havana Syndrome?

However, his presence is still alive as his followers continue to preach his gospel. Nidle's words continue to fill the internet as they did back in 1996. The PAO website still sells his books and DVDs. The organization still hosts regular webinars and podcasts and posts regular updates. YouTube has lots of videos of Nidle speaking or being interviewed. The Facebook page of Sheldan Nidle has 7.9 thousand followers, although its last update was on September 30, 2021. Among cults, the GCP/PAO stands out. Its messages\ are similar to those of many others—doomsdays and aliens and messiahs leading the way to a new and more advanced civilization are common in cults—but the outcome of its teachings is notably different. There have been no known abuses, suicides, murders, or prison sentences. Every once in a while, a comment on a YouTube video launches an accusation of hucksterism, but that's about the extent of it. Most of the members or followers of the PAO seem to be genuinely dedicated to the evolution of themselves and the human race through meditation and science fiction.

The internet might make it easier for cults to recruit, but in the best-case scenario, it also removes the element of physical isolation that is so often necessary for these groups to go rotten. It's much easier to escape a cult when you can leave with the click of a button.

Their website: https://www.paoweb.com/

Orange Site thread

Brandon Sanderson

For those that don't know, Brandon Sanderson is a Mormon author that specializes in writing fantasy for people that believe video games are art. The Mormonism manifests itself as embarassing and clunky attempts at insults.

For example:

But don't worry. He doesn't need the crutch of Mormonism to help him write atrocities.

Sanderson started getting big in 2006 when not mentioning current-day issues in your writing wasn't considered violence. Because his early work was inoffensive, some of his fans had certain opinions and would be described as chud-adjacent today. We'll come back to them in a moment.

With success came the the desire to expand, and what better way to reach more people than making it more relatable™ and courting a "modern audience"! It started out subtle: a background character making comments about the same s*x, allegories about mental health and, eventually, an out-of-place political desire to install a modern democracy in a medieval fantasy world. It got progressively more obvious with each new book, but it clearly worked, because you can't go anywhere online to discuss fiction now without being bombarded with Sanderson recommendations.

And now a large chunk of his fan base looks like this

Wind and Truth

The most recent addition to the Sanderson Literary Universe was the 5th book in the Stormlight Archive series, Wind and Truth.

We're going to look at some 1-star reviews, which are mostly chuds dumb enough to have kept reading up until now.

Remember the excerpts from earlier? ALL his writing is like that. All 4 previous books in the series. These geniuses endured 4,546 pages of slop to get to this point

Goodreads Link. Sort by 1-star reviews. 2-stars are also funny, but it's mostly just people begging him to get another editor.

I will be honest, I cried

I didn't realize I was reading garbage until there was a gay character!

^ This is an actual quote

This guy wrote a whole novel in protest

Can't read it? You're welcome!

It turns into an impassioned plea for Sanderson to renounce Mormonism in favour of mainstream Christianity, which is funny, but not actually worth reading.

I couldn't drug myself to sleep, so I used boring audiobooks

The best part of these 1-star reviewers pouring out their hearts (and some of them posting from accounts with face pics and real names) is that none of it meant anything. The book was well-received overall and will fund the next 5 books in the series!

If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.

If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal.

Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.

— JD Vance (@JDVance) February 9, 2025

Burgers have an extremely r-slurred political system. If a PM in Canada actually tried the Burger "Ignore the courts", the House of Commons would force a non confidence vote, and they would likely lose it.

What's the point of the judiciary if one of the President's goons says "The President said so"?

MAGA cultists should be forced to pay a 300% tariff on everything.

I never want to hear any of you BIPOCs call chuds stupid again. Dr Oaken has decreed otherwise.

Darn Elon making the world unsafe for assassination of government officials

BONUS EGG CRACKING LORE!

nobody who loves these kids has made them sound cooler than wired has made them sound while trying to destroy them pic.twitter.com/6IAFBog6lu

— Mike Solana (@micsolana) February 6, 2025

https://web.archive.org/web/20250206083241/https://www.wired.com/story/edward-coristine-tesla-sexy-path-networks-doge/

!oldstrags ik it was one of you dinosaurs

ok, first of all, why tf aren't they just transparent from the get-go? why do I have to go in and manually remove the solid color smh

2econdly, why are FRICKING SPRITES NOT EVENLY SPACED

I can't go in an spit them because they just threw them in there with all different widths !!!

I had to manually keyframe the spritesheet to move around in blender bc that was easier than trying to split it into frames ong fr fr

and there's FRICKING dead space at the end of the line too so the programs that want X rows X columns don't work because it won't devide easily because the guy thought he was clever inserting some ancient butt long forgotten meme

theres no frame of reference you have to pick a point to hold still and that's I assume how we end up with this:

link to post

Literally DAYS after getting married (audacity ) and therefore securing an income, mediocre Physics youtuber contracted a fake illness called 'Long COVID', which has no medical basis in reality.

She very much enjoyed the free money and attention being rained over her in volumes that were far greater than they ever were when she was making videos about hecking science.

However, this career move seems to have dried up since Fresh competition has now shown up on the scene and is drawing the attention of her simps.

Though her years of living out the female fantasy of being a waking corpse are behind her, the reality of having wasted several fertile years on a grift may dawn on her soon.

What causes a sufferer of 'Long COVID' to suddenly recover with no apparent changes to treatment? Are there any other diseases that suddenly go into remission with no impetus? It's one of the many mysteries about the female body that doctors must investigate, like why PCOS magically stops existing when you lose 20lbs. We'll just never know.