Have We Reached The End Of The Woke Debate? - Mike Solana

Have We Reached The End Of The Woke Debate? - Mike Solana

Modern WisdomJun 15, 20241h 15m

Chris Williamson (host), Mike Solana (guest)

Hidden sexual economies, Fly Me Out app, and polite social liesMeme warfare, online tribes, and the post‑woke vibe shiftPlatform fragmentation: X vs Threads, Bluesky, Discord, etc.Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and free speech vs censorship on social platformsCollapse and reinvention of media business models and investigative journalismHigher education costs, student loans, and institutional ‘woke indoctrination’US politics: Trump vs Biden, immigration, inflation, abortion, and foreign policyChina, TikTok, trade reciprocity, and US technological/soft powerAI risk, pessimism vs optimism, and how much to slow or accelerate tech

In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Chris Williamson and Mike Solana, Have We Reached The End Of The Woke Debate? - Mike Solana explores is The Woke Era Over? Mike Solana On Memes, Media, Power Shifts Chris Williamson and Mike Solana discuss whether the 'woke vs anti‑woke' culture war is fading and being replaced by a more fragmented, unclear ideological landscape shaped by internet meme warfare. They examine how platforms like Twitter/X, TikTok, Threads and others are segmenting political tribes, and how Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter collapsed the old state-aligned narrative and broadened acceptable speech. The conversation ranges across transactional dating apps, the rise of trad-right aesthetics, Trump vs Biden, the TikTok ban, China, higher education, and the economics of modern media. Throughout, Solana argues that legacy institutions are collapsing, incentives drive outrage cycles, and new movements on both left and right lack a coherent positive vision of what they actually want.

Is The Woke Era Over? Mike Solana On Memes, Media, Power Shifts

Chris Williamson and Mike Solana discuss whether the 'woke vs anti‑woke' culture war is fading and being replaced by a more fragmented, unclear ideological landscape shaped by internet meme warfare. They examine how platforms like Twitter/X, TikTok, Threads and others are segmenting political tribes, and how Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter collapsed the old state-aligned narrative and broadened acceptable speech. The conversation ranges across transactional dating apps, the rise of trad-right aesthetics, Trump vs Biden, the TikTok ban, China, higher education, and the economics of modern media. Throughout, Solana argues that legacy institutions are collapsing, incentives drive outrage cycles, and new movements on both left and right lack a coherent positive vision of what they actually want.

Key Takeaways

The old 'woke vs anti‑woke' battlefield is fading, replaced by confusion.

Solana argues the prior era of a tight, enforced progressive narrative—backed by media, institutions, and platform censorship—has largely collapsed, especially post‑COVID and post‑Twitter acquisition, leaving a messy landscape where many people must now decide what they actually believe rather than just what they oppose.

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Internet meme culture now drives real-world politics and framing.

From DeSantis’ anti‑lab‑grown meat photo‑op to Dark Brandon, politicians increasingly use 'memetic visual language' designed for online tribes, showing that aesthetics and in‑group memes are a serious political tool, not just frivolous internet content.

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Outrage cycles are structurally incentivized by the ‘shiny object’ dynamic.

Williamson’s six‑step 'culture war shiny object cycle' explains how fringe stories get supercharged: right‑wing outrage amplifies them, left‑wing counter‑outrage doubles down, then meta‑commentary critiques the whole thing—yet everyone keeps engaging because each iteration adds just enough novelty to feel new.

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Media is shifting from ad‑driven clickbait to smaller, identity‑aligned subscriptions.

With ad revenue collapsing for outlets like BuzzFeed and Vice, Solana says sustainable media must rely on subscribers who pay to have their worldview clarified and affirmed, plus ancillary products. ...

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Elite universities persist despite costs because government-backed loans distort risk.

Solana contends US colleges function as extremely expensive, often ideological institutions that should have been disciplined by market forces; but federal loan guarantees and non-dischargeable student debt prevent rational risk assessment, keeping tuition high and institutions insulated from normal economic pressure.

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US political energy is shifting toward immigration and economic pain more than culture-war flashpoints.

He predicts 2024 will hinge mainly on illegal immigration and inflation, with foreign wars as a secondary concern and abortion important but not dominant; he sees Trump strongly favored if nothing changes, especially as Black male voters react against perceived costs of mass illegal immigration in cities.

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China’s asymmetric restrictions demand a tougher, more reciprocal US response.

Solana supports forcing TikTok’s divestiture but says that’s only a start: since China bans major US platforms and uses market leverage to shape US firms (e. ...

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AI and other frontier techs are high risk, but paralysis is also dangerous.

He’s skeptical of precise AI doomsday probabilities, arguing all transformative tech is a 'giant question mark. ...

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Notable Quotes

Instagram is like a Yellow Pages for hot people who are for sale.

Mike Solana

The internet is a world of based Greek statues fighting gender‑queer they/them anime fairies.

Mike Solana

The story became so absolutely clownish and so unpopular that it began to fall apart, and that’s around the time that Elon bought Twitter.

Mike Solana

Pessimists are usually right. It’s a safe bet to make that something new is not gonna work.

Mike Solana

We want to believe that someone is in charge, because if someone was in charge that would be great. But the bigger problem seems to be nihilism at the top—and no one is actually in charge.

Mike Solana

Questions Answered in This Episode

If the 'woke vs anti‑woke' framework is obsolete, what more accurate map of today’s ideological factions would you propose?

Chris Williamson and Mike Solana discuss whether the 'woke vs anti‑woke' culture war is fading and being replaced by a more fragmented, unclear ideological landscape shaped by internet meme warfare. ...

Get the full analysis with uListen AI

How can media organizations fund serious investigative reporting in a world dominated by niche subscription models and identity‑based content?

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Where should we draw the line between essential politeness and harmful collective self‑deception about issues like sex work, gender, and crime?

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What specific reciprocal trade and tech policies toward China would both major US parties realistically be willing to support?

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How can we meaningfully incorporate concerns about AI x‑risk without allowing speculative fears to become a blanket veto on technological progress?

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Transcript Preview

Chris Williamson

Fly Me Out, a new invitation only social travel club app where hot chicks can sign up for trips with rich guys, go ahead, read between the lines, recently launched sparking negative reactions on social media while concerns about trafficking are understandable, the anti-prostitution outrage feels a little precious. Are we really pretending guys haven't been using Instagram for precisely this purpose for years? WhoreDash just makes it a little more explicit, which is, by the way, why the app will probably fail, so relax. If we're clutching pearls, let's talk about the CCP using TikTok to keep a database of our fingerprints, or incels permanently connecting to their VR headsets auto blow 3,000 combo while the birth rate plummets. "Uber Meets is at least improving the fuck rate," said Riley Nork for Pirate Wires' Three Mornings Takes this morning.

Mike Solana

Yeah, that- I'm gonna be... I worked with him on that one. This, it started from a, it started from a, a tweet of mine, so I feel confident talking about this subject. I didn't know we were talking about this today, but I am happy to talk about this today. Um, where do we begin with that?

Chris Williamson

You tell me, dude. This is your story.

Mike Solana

First of all, you guys should subscribe to the Pirate Wires Daily and get our three takes every morning.

Chris Williamson

Yes, you should.

Mike Solana

You know, one, one thing that, that you guys should do-

Chris Williamson

I, I read it every morning. I read it every morning.

Mike Solana

Thank you very much. Um, I do think, I think that the... So you have this app, it's not actually called WhoreDash, it's called-

Chris Williamson

(laughs)

Mike Solana

Well you, you said it. It's, right, it's Fly, Fly Me Out. So, I mean, you have this app that is designed to connect young hot women with rich, probably not so hot guys on yachts and whatnot, and people freak out because why? It's the explicit, this is a transactional thing of it all. But I started noticing, I mean, years ago on Instagram, people with like 10,000, 20,000 followers on Instagram, f- all, like clockwork. You hit that number, maybe t- two times that number, and suddenly for some reason you wanna go to Dubai. Um, just-

Chris Williamson

A lot of time in Middle East.

Mike Solana

It's you, you see these pictures, "I'm going to Dubai, I'm going to this other random oil rich country with, where there's like lots of oil r- royalty and I'm flying first class somehow." How are you doing that with 20,000 Instagram followers? It doesn't pay you any money. Um-

Chris Williamson

No job, no, no obvious sign of employment.

Mike Solana

And this is how it, this is how the world works. Instagram is like a Yellow Pages for hot people-

Chris Williamson

(laughs)

Mike Solana

... who are for sale. I don't think all of them are like this. I don't wanna say that's true of everybody, but I mean you slide into someone's DMs and you offer them a yacht. Like that is sort of how the world works, um, online, and it's maybe how it's always worked for young hot people. I don't know. Hollywood seems like that kind of a vibe in general, but I think that what people freaked out about here is, is the explicit nature of it. It's by saying it out loud, by making it more obvious, people don't like that. Everyone w- it's, everyone's sort of... I can't believe that people are so stupid as they don't know this is happening, but, but if they are, okay, fine, different class of person. I think the average person sort of sees those Dubai trips and is like, "What's going on there?" But they don't think too much about it because there's this, this polite lie we tell about it. Anyway, you know, and it's fun. That one made me fun. Made me happy.

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