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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Elon Musk’s Social-Media Beau Ideal

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Elon Musk’s Social-Media Beau Ideal

by Anne Laurie|  February 12, 20232:58 am| 36 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Riveted By The Sociological Significance Of It All, social media

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i did not imagine he would be a thrice divorced failed musician loner in the floria panhandle. i was way off (i thought it would be two divorces) https://t.co/XO3M8nDkdt

— world famous art thief (@CalmSporting) February 9, 2023

A profile of @catturd2 — a mid-50s Florida man, former rocker, and prolific shitposter — who has become wildly influential on the right, catching the ear of @elonmusk, @TuckerCarlson, and @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/ebKaMK6S2u

— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) February 9, 2023

As something of an expert in the area, let me warn you: Klee’s Rolling Stone profile is both rambling and overstuffed, leaving no wriggling-monstrosity-covering stone unturned, and including every single linkable datum on its subject. TL, DR: ‘Catturd’ is a (retired?) frontman for “a rock band with an extremely silly, fruit-themed name, which gigged at establishments like Bullwinkle’s Saloon in Tallahassee and Bubba’s Pizza in Panama City Beach”. His ex-wives seem to remember him semi-fondly, even as they describe his abusive behavior. He ‘never bothered’ to have kids, and now he’s living alone in the Florida panhandle with the cats and dogs he rescues. But he’s worked hard, in terms of endless sh*tposting, to get promoted up the interweb notoriety ladder: From Disqus comment sections, to relentlessly reply-guying luminaries like “[Jack] Posobiec and other Trump-loyal influencers — including Bill Mitchell, Dan Bongino, and Candace Owens”, to… The Former Guy, MAGA’s own God-Emperor.

And now, Twitter’s new owner is practically Catturd’s personal customer-service rep!

How much of this dude’s newfound Fame on the Internet is organic, and how much a canny marketing campaign by the Wingnut Wurlitzer on a level with Disney’s promotion of Britney Spears, remains an open question, in my eyes. But it seems to me that Musk genuinely admires Catturd as his own Big Lebowski: a free-spirited guru, beholden to no one, leading a band of devoted followers, getting boned by hot chicks, despised by the powerful and compromised… and he does it all through bathroom humor!

(Srsly, becoming a beloved character in an internet community does require both hard work and a specific talent — two things which Musk doesn’t have, but craves credit for. Musk still wants to be king of the bullies from his elite South African private school, but he’s still doing it so badly he gets metaphorically shoved down the staircase on the regular. SAD!)

People with the wherewithal to produce endless content but nothing to offer except bitterness https://t.co/1w5XJRIWam

— chatham harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison) February 9, 2023

Whole generations of lonely old people have been poisoned & coopted by conservative media to serve the money power https://t.co/Xcjw8BBHen

— chatham harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison) February 9, 2023

documenting our idiot infotainment apocalypse is necessary, but I'm bone-tired with how the biggest and worst dipshits get significantly more discourse attention than important scientists, educators, or activistshttps://t.co/BOlwguRwwF

— Karl Bode (@KarlBode) February 9, 2023

you were an asshole on the internet, here's a statue and a big profile in rolling stone, I hope you've learned your lesson

— Karl Bode (@KarlBode) February 9, 2023

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Reader Interactions

36Comments

  1. 1.

    Dangerman

    February 12, 2023 at 3:02 am

    So, he’s Joe the Plumber?

  2. 2.

    Debbie(Aussie)

    February 12, 2023 at 3:07 am

    Wow!  Assholes all the way down. Why are these RWNJ/MAGA fools so bitter?

  3. 3.

    ian

    February 12, 2023 at 3:10 am

    Millions of Americans allow their political outlooks to be shaped and influenced by a motherf*****r called catturd.

  4. 4.

    HumboldtBlue

    February 12, 2023 at 3:29 am

    They all suck at being uncles. That’s a tell, not the only tell, but it’s a tell most folks recognize.

    You can’t find a bigger failure than me, and I’m top 5 in Uncling.

    I guarantee you, your 2-year-old niece sucks at basketball, and you could totally dunk on her. So do it Dunk on that child and chuckle because she’ll be peeing on your leg later when she demands to share the comfy chair, and you read her a book before bed.

    The FINAL book (the no more drink of water book).

    They suck at Uncling, and that means they suck at being friendly and making friends, the shit you learn in kindergarten kind of stuff.

    Kids recognize that right away.

  5. 5.

    Amir Khalid

    February 12, 2023 at 3:31 am

    What I’ve learned here about Catturd2 doesn’t make me want to seek out his wisdom; in fact, it does the opposite.

  6. 6.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    February 12, 2023 at 3:57 am

    @Amir Khalid: There’s a spell in Dungeons and Dragons called Feeblemind, which drops your intelligence to the level of a poorly-educated vegetable. I’m trying to avoid reading anything about Catturd for fear it may do just that to me.

  7. 7.

    mrmoshpotato

    February 12, 2023 at 4:04 am

    🙄

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    February 12, 2023 at 4:21 am

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    Someone should have warned Elon about that. It’s too late for him now.

  9. 9.

    WereBear

    February 12, 2023 at 4:39 am

    @Debbie(Aussie): Why are these RWNJ/MAGA fools so bitter?

    Because at 60, they have to recognize none of it is working anymore.

    Asshole “Alphas” die alone and friendless, usually. He’s actually doing some good, he’s rescuing animals in Florida. Most southern states do not have the best rep in the rescue community. People on the West Coast can do rescue trips to shelters in Mexico. On the east coast, it’s the South.

    There’s no municipal support. It’s all volunteer. And now I understand his user name.

    The dogs and cats don’t know him as the asshole, at least. They don’t see the bigger picture, just as he apparently cannot.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    February 12, 2023 at 4:47 am

    People with the wherewithal to produce endless content but nothing to offer except bitterness

    Nominated!

  11. 11.

    WereBear

    February 12, 2023 at 5:13 am

    Also, where else can these people excel? In any way? They can always go the character route, which makes this guy pathetic instead of evil.

    Maybe it’s better he’s the one influencing the influencers on Fox.

  12. 12.

    WereBear

    February 12, 2023 at 5:17 am

    Also, he might be the — differently motivated — kind of rescuer. The one who collects. And someone who sees a need and puts out food and water is better than someone who does not, but often the animals don’t get other needs met because it turns into the worst kind of hoarding.

    Everyone in rescue is supposed to understand when to foster and move them on. And when they love it here, and so, should stay.

  13. 13.

    bjacques

    February 12, 2023 at 5:22 am

    Nobody remembers Westbrook Pegler.

    Better he should find honest work and save his posting for promoting animal rescue.

    And what happened to catturd1?

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    February 12, 2023 at 6:02 am

    @bjacques: And what of the original @catturd?

    I sense a conspiracy theory.

  15. 15.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 12, 2023 at 6:12 am

    I have blocked both Musk and C2 on Twitter so the don’t darken my timeline. I did this years ago.

  16. 16.

    Cameron

    February 12, 2023 at 6:43 am

    Hey, I remember The Prisoner. “I am Catturd 2.” ” who is Catturd 1? “

  17. 17.

    Chris T.

    February 12, 2023 at 6:50 am

    @Cameron: I will not be raked, shoveled, scooped, b-worded, de-b-worded, or numbered! I am a free … um, something…

    (couldn’t think of replacements for “briefed, debriefed, or numbered”…)

  18. 18.

    JR

    February 12, 2023 at 6:52 am

    Well, I learned that catturd is a prediction, in a way

  19. 19.

    Shalimar

    February 12, 2023 at 6:53 am

    Great.  Asshole is from my area.  Though I have never eaten at Bubba’s so probably never met him personally.

  20. 20.

    NorthLeft

    February 12, 2023 at 7:28 am

    The only way I have become familiar with Mr. turd2 is through some of the tweets from Musk which include Leon’s fawning subservience. So I basically know shit about him.

    Won’t read the article, but have to wonder if the journalist has got the story right or if it is another sloppily investigated and overly sympathetic puff piece.

    I/We have been misled many times before by journalists and the corporations that they serve about these blights on humanity. Won’t get fooled again! No! No!

  21. 21.

    Ken

    February 12, 2023 at 7:40 am

    @WereBear: Also, he might be the — differently motivated — kind of rescuer. The one who collects.

    You remind me of one of the saddest of the “Fifteen Portraits of Despair” in Neil Gaiman’s Endless Nights.

  22. 22.

    Princess

    February 12, 2023 at 7:44 am

    Cat and dog rescue, that’s nice.

    Anyway, I find social media fame fascinating — the way certain people thrive in certain spaces, the combination of an odd skill that is site-specific plus a lot of work. And someone who is able to work one site won’t necessarily be able to work another. I’m also fascinated by who comes on BJ with a big presence and gets pounded, and who ends up making a place here as a main character, and why. It’s endlessly interesting.

  23. 23.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    February 12, 2023 at 8:34 am

    what’s super interesting is how frequently these super-online right-wing types are just failed creatives — Ben Shapiro wanted to be a screenwriter but he stunk at it. Catturd apparently wanted to be a musician, he couldn’t make it big. James O’Keefe wanted to do musicals.

    If they were  creatives who couldn’t go professional they would all simply have day jobs and be doing their passions in the evening on the internet like countless thousands of others.

  24. 24.

    Citizen Alan

    February 12, 2023 at 9:12 am

    @bjacques: Sarah Palin remembers Westbrook Pegler. He was the only person she actually directly quoted in her 2008 RNC speech. That was when I knew she was evil instead of just stupid.

  25. 25.

    dnfree

    February 12, 2023 at 9:30 am

    I didn’t click the link, but the Big Lebowski was the entitled jerk harassing The Dude.

  26. 26.

    Honus

    February 12, 2023 at 9:56 am

    @ian: by his own words, a lonely, impotent, failed aging musician named catturd.  Who looks down on Joe Biden.  This is a great thinker and philosopher to Musk and TFG

  27. 27.

    Tony G

    February 12, 2023 at 9:57 am

    @ian: Yes, but who is “Catturd 1”??  (I don’t care enough to investigate.).  Seriously, there were boys like this back in Middle School.  Most of them eventually grew up.  (One of them managed to drink himself to death by the time he was 18.)  “Social Media” provides a megaphone and an audience for some of the worst people on the planet.

  28. 28.

    Karen S.

    February 12, 2023 at 10:16 am

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: But Ben Shapiro and this catturd person have grievances. It’s the fault of the terrible, awful liberals and their evil cabal that they didn’t become the great successes doing what they originally wanted to do. So now they have to let everyone know who thwarted them.

  29. 29.

    Suzanne

    February 12, 2023 at 10:16 am

    Ooooh, I will read! I was just musing a few weeks ago in this here very blog if we knew deets about this turd.

    Nothing I have learned so far surprises me.

  30. 30.

    Honus

    February 12, 2023 at 10:27 am

    @Suzanne: I wouldn’t bother reading about him now.  Wait until he’s nominated for congress or appointed to the U of Florida Board of Visitors by desantis.

  31. 31.

    kindness

    February 12, 2023 at 11:26 am

    I don’t want to click any of those links.  Lazy?  Maybe.  Really I just don’t want to get sucked into madness more than I already am.  What band did this guy play with?  They make it sound like it was a known outfit, but I have to suspect otherwise.

  32. 32.

    Dirk Reinecke

    February 12, 2023 at 11:31 am

    @Princess: Who does the bell toll for? Does it toll for Brick Oven Bill? Does it toll for Matokochan? It tolls for all of us.

  33. 33.

    cain

    February 12, 2023 at 12:32 pm

    @Princess: Cat and dog rescue, that’s nice.

    Yes, but he’s also getting banged by hot chicks – so I’m not sure what kind of animal farm is happening over there. If he is getting banged – I hope it is the punishing kind.

  34. 34.

    cain

    February 12, 2023 at 12:36 pm

    @Honus:

    Hopefully not on Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

    That would arouse the dark orange devil and is ire will rise and will have a new target. Forcing Musk to choose.

  35. 35.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    February 12, 2023 at 12:41 pm

    @Karen S.: Likely the narrative Shapiro and Catturd tell themselves,  but the truth is likely closer to they had no passion for it in the first place, they were just posers doing it because they though being artsy would make them cool.

  36. 36.

    Subsole

    February 12, 2023 at 1:38 pm

    @Ken: Ugh.

    I had successfully suppressed that memory…

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