Fuck this bible thumpin reactionary hillbilly dork.
“But he goes after both sides!”
No, He punches down on poor people. Fuck off with that.
The name of the song itself is a huuuuuggggge dog whistle, imo. Tells me everything I need to know about the target demographic.
Dude is a full blown nazi, his YouTube channel had (possibly still has) a playlist of videos titled something like “videos to make ya think”, including stuff about the dancing Israelis conspiracy theory.
Anybody who uses that phrase is just so unaware of how they sound. To accuse everybody else of not thinking is just so arrogant. Oh look at me, I’m the one who figured it out, all I had to do was start thinking. No one else is thinking
How is that? I’d honestly like to know. It raises my hackles, but i can’t really explain why.
“Rich men north of Richmond”… I’m not american, so maybe that’s why i don’t quite get it
Probably has something to do with the Mason Dixon line (civil war border) and Richmond being the northernmost city of the South.
Richmond was the former capital of the confederacy. The Mason-Dixon line is actually at the Pennsylvania-Maryland/Delaware border.
North of Richmond is referencing Washington DC which has a large, fairly poor Black population and its suburbs, which are very rich and somewhat liberal.
I think its a bit of a stretch that he’s not just talking about Congress/Senate when referring to rich people in DC. That seems to be the most likely scenario.
Standard rightwingery refers to “them politicians in Washington”. When he tosses in a reference to the capitol of the Confederacy, it’s pretty clear who he’s pandering to.
I think you’re probably right due to the target audience of the song and who originally seeded its success, e.g. Matt Walsh. Although I suppose you can just argue that Richmond just sounds good put next to rich men? Though if they weren’t comfortable with it being associated with the confederacy though they just wouldn’t have used it.
If I was to disregard the confederacy association I would say it’s an OK name because if you’re referring to politicians in DC they’re a group that’s worthy of being called out. It would still be stupid though because of course many of their favourite politicians are, you know, politicians and also very rich (like Donald Trump but also many more who were born into great wealth and continued to be wealthy throughout their lives.)
Kinda weird when your song talking shit about politicians contains an explicit reference to the folks you’re talking about being north of the capital of the Confederacy.
Did not know that about Richmond haha
Pretty sure Washington DC is directly North of Richmond. I’m not from USA but that was my natural assumption about who he was talking about just based on geography and the US centre of power.
Who tf is this anyway?
Apparently his name is Oliver Anthony.
Thanks friend!
How do you punch down on poor people when you are living in a camper? His song is #1 on iTunes in the US/UK/Australia, #2 in Ireland and Canada. But it certainly couldn’t be because it resonates truth for the masses. No, it is because he is punching down on the poor and you are so smart to have figured it out. The few negative opinions I have seen about this song have been from people it is calling out. Tool.
Having something resonate with a bunch of people, and saying something true isn’t always the same thing. You can say a bunch of dumb bullshit about society that resonates with people but isn’t really true, just like how he does. You have just fallen for the grift. Get his dick out of your mouth.
Did you know that iTunes play counts are hidden and he has pitiful numbers on Spotify? He’s not popular. He’s being astroturfed by fascist propaganda channels. He’s the Sound of Freedom if it was a backwoods white supremacist hick.
Yeah I don’t think many people even use iTunes anymore anyway.
Fox news viewers are more likely to use iTunes because it’s the default app on the most authoritarian platform.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this song. And it is a real feeling that people have.
But it is also just whining.
The way he goes from talking about people without anything to eat and then talks about how someone that poor and fat shouldn’t eat a fudge round just seems to be a confused message.
Is big government the problem? Or is it lack of corporate regulations that then allow big companies to pay people less than what they need to survive.
Washington can do things to fix what he is talking about, but I would be shocked if he is interested in any policy that helps poor people or people drowning in student or medical debt.
It’s the worst of both worlds. They regulate away our right to unionize and strike.
What a great point. The regulations that are “acceptable “ are all about protecting the corporations.
And so is the corporate music machine that markets this excuse for a protest song, it’s just another culture war debate masquerading as politics.
I think he’s talking about people that have deliberately gotten themselves so fat that they get a disability check from the government for it. I definitely have a problem with where he’s placing the blame, but he’s talking about what he sees around him.
I’m from an area similar to him, and the number of people trying to line themselves up for government assistance as their career is substantial. I think it speaks to the hopelessness of the area we live in these days, on top of generational poverty. Things have always been bad around here, but they got a lot worse after mining, and its supporting industries fell apart.
I doubt there’s more than five people who have deliberately gotten themselves into disability by getting themselves fat. It’s incredibly hard to get onto disability and “I am fat” doesn’t cut it, you have to be able to not move to have even a chance
My mother is clinically diagnosed with a psychological disorder that caused hallucinations, anxiety and delusion. She tried to get disability for 30 years. She never got it even though she was institutionalized multiple times
Yeah. My brother in law has severe physical and mental disabilities which makes him unable to work at all and he can’t get on. Been trying for a decade and a half. It’s like these people think you can send a letter to the government saying “I am fat and lazy” and you’ll get money.
But…but…the Simpsons did it
You said it yourself-- the reason those people need to make weird choices like trying to find any way to qualify for more government assistance is because historically their income came from industries that don’t and can’t exist anymore. They don’t have any other choice. The solution is actually more availability of assistance resources so people from those places can have enough stability to be able to make choices like learning new skills or moving to a new place. Why can’t people like him-- who see this happening to the people around him, his neighbors, his family-- empathize?
No one has “deliberately” gotten morbidly obese.
I’m not absolving anyone of all personal responsibility for their body and what they put in it, but you should read about food deserts and similar. Many folks in this country ONLY have access to a McDonald’s and a gas station snack aisle.
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Fat shaming, welfare queening, both sidsing, slack jawed backwater hick bullshit. I grew up around dipshits just like him. 1, they’re hypocrites that live off the system and haven’t been able to see their own cock without the assistance of a mirror in 15 years but because they’re white it’s ok. 2, Their “color blindness” and concern trolling falls away behind closed doors. It’s empty platitudes and surface level enlightened centrist garbage and nothing more. He doesn’t mean a word of what he’s singing and the people that “resonate” with it don’t either. It’s just 4 minutes of dog-whistling and right wing propaganda.
Their “color blindness” and concern trolling falls away behind closed doors. It’s empty platitudes and surface level enlightened centrist garbage and nothing more.
Color blindness itself is basically a way to decouple yourself from the political economy you are a subject of, which is in no way “color blind” and has more or less created these system of classification. I don’t even subscribe to DiAngelo’s individualist notions of “white fragility,” I think they can even serve to reify the notion of race, but people saying they’re color blind is such a dismissal to address the world around you.
Aw yes because punching down never resonates with the masses. We’ve never elected politicians who distract from real issues by blaming poor people who don’t use them bootstraps…
How do you punch down on poor people when you are living in a camper?
You can totally hate on poor people while being poor yourself. I’ve seen it loads of times. The mentality is “I deserve welfare, but those people don’t! They’re cheating the system!”
The few negative opinions I have seen about this song have been from people it is calling out.
Short, fat people?
Living in a camper…off the grid on 90 acres of land that he owns and plans to build a farmhouse and raise livestock on. Working class my ass…
He bought it, yes, but technically the bank owns it yet. IIRC he says he owes $60K on it, and he’s paying it off. Very common practice.
With this debt, and working a standard job, he doesn’t have the means to raise livestock atm. So yes, he’s planning to, someday.
What does this even prove? If I take out a mortgage to buy a house, the bank “technically owns” my house. Does this make me not middle class?
Well, I don’t really care for the subtle, haughty undertones in your initial statements & acting like he’s some super well-off dude that has no problems. “off the grid on 90 acres that he owns”. He’s working on owning it, he wants to own land…and he’s going about it in a modest way.
But oh my god , he’s planning to do stuff on that land. Eventually. He plans to build a farmhouse & raise livestock. The sheer audacity of these life goals. That he doesn’t have cash money for, but is working towards.
Something tells me a house he builds is probably pretty different from a house you would build. It doesn’t have to be some crazy-ass expensive mansion.
You then casually dismiss this man by saying “working class, my ass”. He’s gone through his past, IIRC a lot of warehouse/industrial work. He dropped out of high school, got his GED. I think that pretty much fits into the definition of working class. It does get a little more hairy when exploring what is middle class, because it does mention “owning land”. Okay. But there’s also emphasis on education & white collar professions…that’s not this guy at all.
And maybe his dreams of owning land, building a home, and raising livestock are the main cause of his suffering. Life is exponentially harder for him because he is actively striving for life improvement, not living in a tiny box & watching Netflix on the couch.
I think that’s the main source of his frustration that shines in his song, he’s working hard & then what little he makes is “taxed to no end”. The system makes it so hard for average, ordinary people to get ahead and actually do something of value with their lives.
Hahaha haughty? “The poor renter looking down on the middle class landowner.” Lol, what the fuck are you talking about.
Tell me, have you ever lived in a rural area? Or been a farmworker? Because I really honestly can’t tell if I’m dealing with city folk who equate farmer who owns land with farmer who does farm work, or if I’m dealing with middle class folk who don’t understand the privilege of owning property, even if “the bank technically owns it.”
Something tells me a house he builds is probably pretty different from a house you would build.
Brave of you to assume I could even consider building a house anywhere, much less buying one.
And yeah I really don’t give a shit about his past or education. Is Jay-z working class because he grew up in the Marcy projects? Is Richard Branson working class because he left school at 16?
Life is exponentially harder for him because he is actively striving for life improvement, not living in a tiny box & watching Netflix on the couch.
This tells me everything I need to know about you. “Average and ordinary” for you and “average and ordinary” for me mean completely different things. Have you ever talked to an actual poor person?
Most of the lyrics are benign and he has plenty of musical talent. But the lyrics that comment on politics are just incredibly brain dead, I don’t know what else to tell you. It is proposing welfare recipients as the reason for poverty, but what percentage of tax returns go to welfare? Obviously like, nothing. Additionally his own region of the country has some of the highest rates of welfare recipiency and if that was cut off does he really think that would improve anything?
I think the reason it leaves so many people with a bad taste in their mouths is because clearly a bait and switch is being performed. The first part draws your attention to the issues the singer is experiencing in his life such as low pay, then in the middle he goes on to talk about the “Rich men North of Richmond-” which if that is in reference to DC politicians then fair enough- in addition to welfare recipients as if those two things are related. He is just running defence for the wealthy by trying to distract people from the problems downstream from general extreme wealth inequality by trying to convince us fat people buying candy is causing everyone’s problems. Not to mention the humour there is in seeing someone that looks pretty severely overweight themselves calling out other fat people (much like how he is an apparent working class man going after over working class people.)
In my opinion the purpose of the song is just to turn poor people against each other so we won’t get any ideas about taxing the rich or anything like that. This is probably be reason why lovely people like Matt Walsh were early promoters of the song.
If you want the truth instead of the myth being pushed by the fascists who are astroturfing this guy all over social media, you can watch this video. It’s long, but there’s a ton of evidence in the first 10 minutes.
Yeah, because a group of people have never rallied up for something they believed is true but isn’t…wait…
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I feel like I should be happy to not recognize this person.
Same
You must not subscribe to Politcal Outrage Weekly
That’s because a lot of Americans are under the impression that poor people are poor because they’re lazy, and not because they’re victims of oppression. They even cling to this absurd belief when they themselves are the victims of similar oppression. Must be lead in the water or something…
I’ve lived in very poor, rural, white American places, and it’s unironically all about skin color.
White and poor? It’s because the Democrats illegally steal your money with taxes, and any welfare is just you getting back less than you deserve.
Black and poor? It’s because you’re bad, and any welfare is the Democrats buying your vote and supporting you destroying the country with your violence.
Can confirm. There is no such thing as a “white welfare queen”.
It is basically a slightly different variations of this
It’s an outcome of puritanical Protestantism in the modern day. It’s nicknamed prosperity theology. Lack of wealth is seen as a moral failure, rather than a societal one. To be wealthy is to be granted abundance by God, and to be poor is to be punished for misdeeds in the eyes of God. It’s a cruel ideal that is deeply embedded into right wing American religious spaces.
Ah, yes. I remember Jesus explaining this in the lecture on the mount.
That sounds like something supply side Jesus would do
Actually it’s “forever chemicals” that they’re drinking https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/08/what-are-pfas-forever-chemicals-what-risk-toxicity
This song does such a good job with communicating the conservaive trinity:
- persecution complex
- mad about things they themselves voted for
- mad that the other is getting something, which is obviously undeserved
In his interviews he claims he is a centrist but takes issues with teachers turning girls into boys and boys into girls.
He’s a Jewish conspiracy level Nazi.
And unfortunately he’s also a pretty damn good singer.
Like my hackles were up the whole time I was listening to the song because I knew this is some sort of like Republican redneck protest song against the liberals, but at the same time I had to admit the guy can fucking sing and it was a good song.
We really need to step up our protest song game.
You need to get out there and look.
Lots of revolutionary music being made, just not made by industry plants and boosted by bullshit
Tho he is a good singer, the song was basic
AJJ aka Andrew Jackson Jihad has been around making protest songs for awhile.
I love AJJ, they are a mainstay on my playlists. Their songs are good to great in the lyrics department. But musically they’re not super amazing. Their lead singer also has not a great singing voice. I don’t think any of their songs could be called “catchy” - and none of them are going to get the attention this guy’s song did, and a big part of that is their songs aren’t as good - again, simply from a music standpoint.
Yeah that first verse about how we struggle, etc. I was very interested. Then look out for miners, not minors…oook easy dunk, we can all get behind protecting kids. Then the welfare thing. Oh it’s republican talking points not a new uprising of classic country like Cash
Tyler Childers is the good version of this guy.
Fit For An Autopsy has been around for a while my dude. Look them up.
Burnin sherman
Check out David Dondero - The Filter Bubble Blues.
The song on youtube does seem to have recorded much greater pipes than he actually has live in person.
Oh that’s absolutely v i l e
And not just the highlighted one
I’m sure you can read between the lines and know exactly what voices he’s been listening to.
Image Transcription:
Picture of Oliver Anthony singing with the caption above: “When the government gives more of your tax money to corporations but you’re mad someone used EBT to buy snacks”
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please message and let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for images for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
Good job! Thank you for doing that.
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Anyone have the numbers of social welfare spending vs corporate welfare spending for a recent year? Say 2020-2022? I can’t find it.
I’m too lazy to look up the numbers, but I think the premise of this argument is rather weak.
Money spend on social welfare, vastly improves poor people’s lives. When you spend it on corporate welfare, the money tends to go into the pockets of people who are already pretty comfortable.
This is a simplification of a multifaceted issue, but by and large I think this holds a lot more water than just comparing numbers.
Also: There was a pandemic in the time period given, so there might be some selection bias.
Means testing is something that wastes a lot of public welfare funds and is usually a tool utilized by those who want to cut programs as an example of welfares inability to work. If we got rid of means testing then corporate welfare would be shown for how truly useless it is. I’m not arguing with you or anything, just adding some more detail to the topic
It depends on what exactly you consider social welfare and corporate welfare. There’s all sorts of ways to split the data.
Let’s be more specific and find out how much public money was spent on sugarry snacks for fat people, which is his ridiculous complaint. I’ll assume we’re not psychopaths who are generally against a social safety net.
I know this guy. I mean, not exactly this guy but pretty much.
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I can’t tell you how many people walked into my store at the height of that shit and said, “Well, I got the wuflu. It ain’t nothin’. Just a dang cold.”
Or, “shew buddy, China bug is about to wipe me out buddy. I ain’t never been so sick in my life. cough cough cough Whatchu wearing’ ‘at democrat rag for? You can still smell a fart cain’t yuh?”
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I was at guitar center shopping for a nylon classical and this kid was singing that Oliver guy’s one song in the acoustic room.
When he finished I told him that song is about me.
He also played wonder wall, no joke, 10 times.
Lmfao
I likes the song when I saw it on Tik Tok. Now I’m getting videos for right wing politics. I just thought it sounded good. Had no idea that it would become a nazi war cry.
Yeah, I get it. It’s like conservatives who use “Born in the USA” at political rallies. Sometimes you gotta listen to the lyrics
I just thought it sounded good
Listen to more music. His voice is mediocre and his message is disgusting.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/t-MX5P1LCuw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Thanks for recommendation, love finding new music.
id be willing to wager a $20 he used A.I. software and tweaked it for these lyrics. everyone commenting has been skirting, what i think, to be just a new trend in bait music.
The song is bad yet just cognitive enough to cause a stir.
Don’t forget how infectious stupid can be, especially when under pressure
As it’s relevant, let’s remember the video Hank Green posted on TikTok discussing how “for every word expressing a negative emotion in a headline, that increased the click-through rate to that article by 2.3%” and "if they make us disgusted, outraged, frustrated, scared? Then? Then we start thinking about clicking
It looks to reference this article from Nature:
Robertson, C.E., Pröllochs, N., Schwarzenegger, K. et al. Negativity drives online news consumption. Nat Hum Behav 7, 812–822 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4It’s easier to be a pessimist in a pessimistic situation than to be an optimist I suppose
Throwback to when @destineenstark gave an 8m3s discussion and analysis on TikTok spelling out how DESPITE Jason Williams swearing that all the video from “try that in a ‘small’ town” is all original and genuine, one thing is from Berlin, Germany, another from Plovdiv, Bulgaria, another stock image from somewhere else…
Tl;dw?
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How so?
Definitely not defending Oliver Anthony because aside from this song, don’t know donkey about him but take this for what it’s worth as a die hard libertarian in the rural south who has also lived in urban areas.
I get how the song is appealing to actual working class people in the south. “Your dollar ain’t shit,” “overtime hours for bullshit pay,” applies to a lot of living conditions here. Employers want college degrees in these areas for $12-15 an hour. Normal people that haven’t went to trade school or college because they can’t afford it, got pregnant, had to help with bills, etc. have very slim chances of getting one.
There are legitimately people in this area who have always been on top, that now are making 80k+ per year, who still draw food stamps and have medical cards. So yeah, if you’re a normal Joe trying to be honest, it sucks dick. Because you spend 60+ hours of your week preparing to/teaching kids who are taught from birth that school is stupid and will never do anything for them, get paid $30k a year, as a good job, and your take home is less than 2000 a month. Houses start at 200k, milk is $5 a gal, gas $3.50, groceries are at an all time high because of profit margins, I get why it resonates with working class people here. If you aren’t actively gaming the system (the Welfare hating as critics of the song are calling it) the way 40% of the area does, you’re shit out of luck.
Again, don’t know anything about the dude, but know a lot about the rural south, and they’re underpaid, overworked, and the biggest victims of the government in this country because the government actively keeps a majority of them in learned helplessness and the remainder can’t get ahead because with everyone having a medical card or EBT, jobs assume they don’t have to pay shit.
I don’t think there’s a single county in the US where someone making $80k a year qualifies for food stamps. It’s indexed to the poverty rate. Do you mean WIC, maybe? That’s more universal.
Sounds like the rural South sucks ass. As someone with family from the area, I’d agree it does. They should probably stop voting for the people who want to keep them poor, desperate, dumb, and angry.
Am from rural south and this sounds like bullshit. I’m in a state that “thanks God for Mississippi” and if you make $35k+ here you’re not getting much if any in the way of government assistance. But this commenter is a self proclaimed librarian so… Also how is this government victimizing them when they’re essentially shopping at the company store? The rich are the ones gaming the tax system and handing that burden to the folks subject to “middle class welfare”.
self proclaimed librarian
It’s always the fuckin librarians
Idk under $100k in Marin and SF is considered low income.
View: “if you aren’t actively gaming the system” in my post.
People here intentionally adopt or have children, stay with their spouse for 20+ years while never married, all with the intention of getting multi-thousand dollar tax returns and keeping EBT. The wife doesn’t need to work, her husband makes enough to support them. So she has three or more children. Then she’s a single mother with no income, as far as the state is concerned, so she gets EBT/Medical Cards, etc.
I know individuals who make between 50k-80k who draw between 700-1300 in food stamps a month because of these arrangements. It’s everywhere.
That’s idiotic, because it means he can’t claim those kids as dependents and is paying far more in taxes every year than they would filing jointly. I could see people doing that for the medicaid, I guess, which is why we need to eliminate income bars for that program and just universalize it, then allow people to buy private health insurance to supplement.
Yeah, he pays more in taxes than he would if they jointly filed. But the money his wife gets back + 700-1000/mo in EBT more than makes up for it. That’s basically an extra 20 grand not taxed per year.
Since when do people get $700 plus in EBT
Idk how all states do it but in my state if you’re “single” with children you can draw anywhere from 600-1200 depending on what you make.
What’s the relevance of “obese” and “300 pounds” people specifically eating gov’t fudge when no reference was made to them making $80k or otherwise not being poor?
He is actually just stereotypically misrepresenting the social safety net as being government fudge for fat people. It’s fucking stupid. Don’t let this be the icon of libertarianism.
If you don’t see a problem with:
30-50% of the south being on food stamps and 40% of the south being obese, idk what to tell you man that’s just maths.
There is a large percentage of people on food stamps who are healthy, able bodied adults who actively choose to not work and or abuse the safety net. & those people still end up making enough to be obese making those decisions while making the system bogged down to the point where some actually disabled people, with their legs blown off or who cannot process information on the same level because they are mentally deficit, cannot get their disability or someone to take care of them.
Obesity is not a disability. It’s either a symptom or a decision.
The only problem with people being on food stamps is that their jobs either aren’t paying enough or there aren’t enough jobs. But it’s 100% excellent that food stamps are available.
If he wants to encourage people to eat healthy then that would be a fine song I guess. But he’s talking about restricting snacks for fat people in a song about how rich people are ruining his life. Just admit that it’s fucking stupid. Fat people eating snacks are not ruining his life.
