What are your thoughts on Burgerpunk?

Did you pull this out of your ass or off of 4chan? These are fucking memes.

They've taken baby's first lit pics alongside boomer political drivel and lost causer jack off novels, thrown a smattering of random shit they once thought about reading but never quite got around to on there too, makes people think they're realllll smart.

You can't just staple -punk onto the end of a random pile of shit and think you've done something.

Spotted the American.

so at the time of writing this, seeing the 3 posts in the thread, my first thought was "nah, this has to be bait," since the one other person replying seems to understand what's going on here and is upset by it - only to get hit with what is essentially a "u mad bro?". but my curiosity got the better of me. i went to look this up real quick because i've never heard of burgerpunk as a term/concept before. the first 3 functional results were a github page, a subreddit, and a thread started on the incels.is forum (which, for the sake of brevity i don't think i'll get into - it's on an incel forum, which to anyone familiar with incels is self explanitory). now just based on those results i'm inclined to ask op if they're doing ok, but i haven't met a single person with a hetalia pfp who's ever been ok. lemme look into those resluts real quick.

the tl;dr for anyone uninterested in reading all this is that burgerpunk - to my understanding - is a very shallow, pseudo-intellectual, incel riddled ideological movement that, instead of promoting real positive or progressive action and change among american people and society, opts to lull the individual into cynicism - believing that there is nothing they can do. that society is somehow broken and that they shouldn't try to fix it, because they can't fix it. that all people have succumbed to their vices of consumerism (shame on them). to convince an individual to essentially lie down and rot. the easy way out, imo.

firstly, the github page. the first four links on the page are the most notable. the first two link to 4chan pages that no longer exist. the third is a google doc that i will get to in a minute. the fourth takes you to the repository with a whole host of rules for submitting your own entry to the site - adding another 'layer'. off-putting terminology imo. some of the rules say to explicitly not discuss this on certain 4chan boards like /tv/ and /pol/, but most of them are about how to format your 'layer' and rules for the google doc. but that doc. let's get to that. the google doc seems to be an extension of the repository. more or less, it reads like a teenage boy's creative writing project. trying to make one point, but ultimately coming across as another as a result of their own emotional incompetence and inability to self-reflect. it attempts to make a statement about how the outside world has been destructive to their physicality and psyche, when ultimately the issues that they are having can be resolved through willpower and maybe a good friend or two. now, the first piece, which i'll refer to as "All Hail the Holy Bypass". the piece is about a man overcome by his addiction to fast foods, presumably as a result of a failed relationship. it not-so-subtly illustrates this addiction with the line "I love burgers." being written every other sentence. it oozes contempt and loathing for the self, and for the society and people in which the piece is set. lines like "...his last relationship was a bad dream then.", "And recently, nobody has even come close to that level of connection where it’d even be appropriate to open up that bottomless pit.", and "Mel’s the only one he knows who prefers to be lost in the face of structure and pyramid schemes. I love burgers. And the only one he knows is himself." the themes and tones of "All Hail the Holy Bypass" are even more evident in another piece in the document called "tfw no NAZBOL domestic terrorist GF". which, in summary, is about an incel in college who gets befriended by a girl in his class. this summary is generous, as it almost immediately devolves into self hatred and more anger at society. the main character essentially pins all his self worth onto who he was in high school, and has little to no intent on changing. he claims and insists that it was because of his bullies as an adolescent that he's an incel. after describing the type of bullying the protagonist endured, the author continues with the following - "Hearing this input like this every day after school in a boy’s most sensitive years has its effect. That being a shallow minded, emotionally stunted, depressive and unmotivated. Naturally a chubby kid with few friends at the barrel bottom of the high school peaking order had terrible romantic prospects." if the initial search results didn't clue me in on what type of person this ideology was made for and who it attracts, this document made it glaringly obvious. but i decided to read the website anyways, because i simply must know.

the introductory foreword layer, in terms of quality, isn't really that great. the authors take a moment to shit on other people in literature/academia by saying they essentially don't know what they're talking about and have nothing worth saying. only to turn around and say that they themselves don't have anything worth saying, but also that they're brave for even daring to "write this book". a segment that i take issue with in particular is about writing as an art form. "These young men had been exposed to far too many writing seminars, and had grown far too used to the ideas those seminars promulgate: that one is writing for other people rather than oneself; that language is more important than story; that ambiguity is to be preferred over clarity and simplicity. These are usually signs of a milkshake mind. " now i don't know what english/creative writing class these guys were in but this is not the take they think it is. writing, like any art form, is to communicate. it simply uses the vessel of the written language to do so. the first two points are blatantly wrong, but i'm sorry they feel that way i guess. the third point is also kind of shit. i would hope that people still use metaphor and symbolism to make you consider what you're consuming instead of just outright saying what you should think or feel about a work of art. the lack of critical thought is what i would describe as "milkshake minded". the overview essentially states that burgerpunk is "described as the aesthetic reconciliation of the postmodernist individual recognizing the cognitive dissonance between the vast nature of corporate service-based globalization and the individualist nature of consumption forced upon them by the very nature and propaganda of their capitalist benefactors." which is such a cold take. if you dumb down the language i can almost hear the stoner friend saying "bro... isn't it fucked up, how, like... the big guys up top... like, the rich people... that they, like... they don't want us to be free, man... like, they want us to, like... work for nothin'... then spend it all... on, like, the stuff they make for us... by the way, you got any snacks or sumthin'?". i'm begging on my hands and knees for the authors to go out and talk to people on a regular basis. just normal people. they even bring up gestalt and try to be philosophical with the angle of "did the object matter", referring specifically to the replacement of minimum wage workers with kiosks and gas cars being replaced with electric - that to the common individual, these changes don't matter. my brothers in christ, it matters because you feel that it matters to you. this whole site is peppered with feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, like for example "seeing as he stood just 5 feet, 11 inches tall." "“Really?” asked Harry, who had heard that interested-sounding questions would get people to like you more." which are in the first part of the first layer - the one specifically labeled "layer 01" (which, in this instance, is a short story). not to mention the whole thing being riddled with bigoted ideology, slurs, and dogwhistles in later layers (which i'm sure there are more of that i couldn't notice). it honestly nullifies any and all ground the ideology could've stood on. to say that corporate/capitalist america put you here and then turn around and be mad at like,, gay people, women, anyone just living their life and in probably just as shitty of a spot as you, is ridiculous and hypocritical to say the least. i could only really stomach the first layer of this slop, so i'll quickly go over the subreddit before i hit character limit.

what can be expected of the subreddit is about the same as the github page. some trump appreciation here, several posts by user u/KyleRizzenhouse there. the sub isn't terribly active. posts are months or years apart. but it still echoes the sentiment of the github in the occasional crosspost of art and news that feeds into the cycle of doom. i saw a cruelty squad mention on there as well, as if we are actively living in a world that is as comically evil and bad as cruelty squad. of course we're not doing good right now. anyone who wants to pay attention to anything going on can tell you that we're not doing good right now. but that's not an excuse to become complacent and hateful. if anything, this type of ideology creates further class division which is the absolute last thing we need right now. especially if we want to prevent the dystopia that burgerpunk followers seem to romanticize out of their own failure to step up to the plate as citizens and functional members of society. is it a cry for help? yes, but you're not going to get help if you want to lie down like a dog or bite the hand that feeds you. self-isolation and doomposting gets you nowhere but further into the hole you started digging yourself.

"spotted the american" aph italy pfp. literally explode into 10 trillion micro-particles. that's my thoughts on burgerpunk.