In today’s episode of Walt Right Perspectives I speak with the artist Anna Cole
Anna is the Artistic Director of Out of Lockstep, an art exhibit exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns altered the world and individual lives. The installation involves multiple rooms exploring a range of themes related to the dystopian life that evolved beginning in early 2020.
You can learn more about the exhibit here.
The exhibit will be featured at the Porcupine Freedom Festival (AKA Porcfest) at Roger's Campground in Lancaster, NH from June 17-23rd—anyone in the Northeast should definitely go check it out!
Topics include:
It was first seen as right-coded / xenophobic to be scared of Covid in early 2020
Different reactions towards Covid in the first few months of the pandemic
Why society wasn’t able to pivot on Covid policy
We ruined everyone’s life for two years to keep old fat people alive
Epidemiologists were inappropriately making normative claims about society’s risk appetite and this destroyed public trust in experts
The Dems swept Covid under the rug with Ukraine and nobody was punished
The government relied on voluntary social ostracism to enforce mandates
Covid game people license to hate an outgroup
Blue city hatred for conservatives is often sublimated family resentment
How Anna lost friends over her resistance to Covid
Stupid people are better at judging issues on a case by case basis because they aren’t capable of mental gymnastics / forcing narrow heuristics onto the world
Polarization made it impossible to have moderate views on topics like abortion
Republicans should have known Dems would find a pregnant 11 year old to turn into a cause celebre after Roe was overturned
Dems are smart enough to not talk about bad shit they did (Covid, Floyd riots) and thereby take advantage of short attention spans
The weird and gross liberal worship of Fauci in 2020-2021
Why did Ukraine happen *just* as liberals wanted to stop talking about Covid?
Lots of liberals defected from the Left to resist lockdowns and authoritarianism
Anna’s interaction with the hard left in Bushwick
Anna’s experience working as a background actor on HBO Girls
The way people project a low resolution filter about themselves when engaging with broader society
The hyper-competitive ladder-climbing aspect of living in a big progressive city
Lots of people in NYC snort addy to keep up with things
The early lockdown was comfy and had a cool dreamlike liminal vibe
TSA and the security state was the same thing as Covid lockdowns but came from the right
The modern economy screws you over with hidden fees and add-ons, subscription fees, weird Uber price discrimination
The “millennial lifestyle subsidy” of cheap VC money allowed Uber to take over the market with uncompetitive and unprofitable business practices
Working as a Doordash delivery person is a more appealing job than working at McDonalds
Walt wants Uber Eats banned because he wastes a ton of money on it
WFH enables you to live in a degenerate way if you don’t have the right hobbies
Covid mental health issues made people gain weight or get addicted to things
Covid ruined a lot of business opportunities for people
Grift around PPE loans and media dishonesty have discredited institutions
In the 2010s only the far right was attracted to free speech platforms but after covid you get people from all ideologies on Substack
Substack is one of the only platforms that doesn’t feel dead
Why are recipes on Google full of weird AI-generated stories
How parenting strategies have changed over the past 50 years
Zoomers are either hyper-agentic and entrepreneurial or lazy dopamine zombies
Will Covid make Gen Alpha iPad kids autistic?
TV was less addictive than Skinner Box mobile games on an iPad / YouTube shorts
The decline from Art → Entertainment → Content → Addiction
The slower and more intimate pace of old movies
Why were movies from the 70s so intellectual compared to grug simplistic movies in the 80s (Rocky vs Rocky IV)?
Early Boomers vs Late Boomers
Was it normal to use a typewriter in the 90s?
Anna and Walt reminisce about America Online CD-ROMs and the early interet, Billy Banks, Madame Cleo, Osama Bin Laden memes, Newgrounds
Was Lena Dunham really the voice of a generation?
Was HBO Girls a tacitly conservative show?
The lockdown really hurt extraverts
How to monetize art
The extremely leftist nature of the art world has made it hard for Anna to promote and engage with collaborators
Leftists hate themselves
Episode 34 : COVID Art with Anna Cole