Over the weekend a guy no one had heard of before named Oliver Anthony blew up on social media with a song titled “Rich Men North Of Richmond“. The video came out six days ago and has over 11 million views. I assume you have heard the song so I won’t bother embedding it. He has a Twitter account that is just a few days old. He really is an unknown but suddenly this guy is the latest right-wing villain for the media and the latest /ourguy/ hero for the right.
The song isn’t really my cup of tea musically and what he is saying is basically what lots of us have been saying for years. Mostly I am advising caution. My Spidey sense is tingling off the charts.
Maybe this guy is /ourguy/, and I hope he is, but maybe he is not. A lot of that sort of working class populism misses the underlying issues, like race and the who is actually pulling the strings. His latest video about moving forward is pretty vague and talks about how bad hate is. What should your emotions be toward people that are trying to destroy a nation and a way of life? Cautious optimism?
Nothing about this feels organic. How did a video get that much traction that fast? He made some other videos over the last few years but not many and I assume the vast majority of the views those videos have currently came in the last week.
We have been down this road before. People on the right are always looking for a heroic savior and over and over again those people have been let down, betrayed and disappointed but it doesn’t stop them for turning right back around and looking for the next one. Hell, people have been trying to find the next Reagan since the 1980s even though Reagan wasn’t all that great of a President.
Let’s see what this guy does when he starts to get those checks rolling in from his music and from Youtube and after They have some time to start working on him. Principled populism evaporates pretty quickly when you buy the new dually pick-up truck. What do we really know about this guy, what he believes on the big questions, what his plans are going forward? We don’t know anything really and that is reason enough to tread carefully.
Maybe I am being overly cynical but there is plenty of precedent to warrant caution and cynicism. More critically, we all need to stop looking for some national figure to ride to the rescue, whether it is Trump or Oliver Anthony. No one is coming to save us, we need to be about the business and hard working of looking out for ourselves.
No. I don’t think you are being overly cynical. Time after time we have seen someone come out of the woodwork saying the right things (in this case singing) but they expose themselves as working for the enemy every time. Plus – I’ve tried to listen to the song several times and it kinda sucks – so not sure how he is getting so much attention.
It is all just a bit suspicious for sure
Ever heard of the song “Keep Your Rifle By Your Side”?
Comes from a game made by Ubisoft to demonize White fundamentalists, Rural Whites, etc. Far Cry 5.
People took that song and ran with it anyways in spite of the source.
I don’t recall it, I have played a little of Far Cry 5 but I just didn’t get into it
Well don’t pick the game back up, it’s not that good and games can be too big a time waster.
Did way too much of that when I was younger.
This song is real basic but that shows how much people are starving for anything remotely about what they are going through.
I’ve seen in other discussions (I think it was Zerohedge) boomers mentioning how this song doesn’t compare to [something or another from the 70s or whenever] but they don’t get that people need a voice from the here and now, not something colored by boomer nostalgia.
This guy is not that voice, not entirely, but he’s at least airing a couple of the grievances, though not naming certain tribes. The symptoms and some puppets.
People would eat up modern IRA-style ballads if they could ever gain some reach. That, and heroes to make those ballads about, people that can inspire others. Martyrs and Warriors, not false leaders, cowardly and selfish.
That seems a bit much to ask for, at least for now, but who knows who else may step up. Loudmouthed 70-year-old boomers don’t count.
The collapse will be more like Escape from Tarkov.
You play that?
“we need to be about the business and hard working of looking out for ourselves.” – Arthur Sido
This makes me think Arthur the author is working for the man.
I think we should stop working for and start ********.
Sheep in wolf’s clothing. Media boy. 2/10 – would not bang.
Spot on as usual, Arthur. I keep saying it: nothing we read, see, or hear in the mainstream can be taken at face value. EVERYTHING has to be fact checked.
That is the nature of our times though. If you went viral tomorrow with some latent talent like that…the usual suspects will come crawling out of the woodwork to offer you money…”but you’l have to tweak your song/message a bit…” If you don’t play ball…they’ll turn off your banking, social media and threaten anyone that tries to help you. Socially, this how we boil off talent and skill.
To me it’s a ballad of the times and I am good with. If he “Bud Lite’s” himself…we can handle that too.
“A lot of that sort of working class populism misses the underlying issues, like race and the who is actually pulling the strings.” Correct! I’d say all of it is limited hangout tripe that purposely fails to connect all of the dots. Anything allowed on JewTube isn’t “our guy/gal”.
The song is flat out boring but perfect for the normies and cucks poised to vote harder whilst enshrouded in their Murkan flags!
It’s not worth flying the American flag anymore; the country has been effectively conquered.
this. I don’t even buy flag stamps anymore (and i always comment “nah, that country is dead, gimme the flowers/elephants/whatever else”.) dead and gone.
Same exact thing I thought. First, the universal headlines- “New amazing song viral #1 hit conservative” on every site.
Listen to song- Nothing special whatsoever. I’ve got friends who sing at the local bars with better stuff.
This is all manufactured.
Anon,
Don’t know who you are, but this seventy something “boomer” says screw you. I did my part through the years. Look at yourself and prove to me, you have done yours. Oh, and you would not be here, except for a boomer.
And, damn, I hate that term. If you hate boomers, and think we screwed it up, well look in the mirror. Your generation has as much blame, as mine.
Bear in Indy
Our guy is in the mirror.
If it ain’t outlaw country then it ain’t shit, just as the Hank Williams II shirt said back in the 1970’s.
O/T-About the Trump indictment psyop, Barry Soetoro (Obama) has been doing this since the 1990’s, the former republic won’t be surviving the Weather Underground government, plan accordingly.
Just because he is human and will probably be subverted and/or corrupted doesn’t detract from the message.
I want to think that the song has gained so much traction because it resonates with so many people, but I’m prepared to be disappointed.
Bingo, Max. Songs have a funny way, once they’ve been released into the wild and have gotten loose (so to speak), of ricocheting off in all sorts of directions, almost none of which were ever even imagined by the people who wrote them. At that point, it’s beyond control; people will make of them whatever they will, no input from the original creator either asked for or welcome.
Ask me how I know. 😉
Yeah, I’m not a fan of the song either but I applaud anyone that tells it like it is (which is why I visit you daily, Arthur!). I was suspicious of how quickly this whole thing blew up and how quickly rags like Rolling Stone were jumping to “denounce” the man…
Then today I saw some scuttlebutt about him having “links to the Dancing Isrealis” videos on his social media, so I figured he’s either for real or (((they))) are trying to get him silenced ASAP. Only time will tell I suppose.
I just saw that, makes me think a lot better of him than I did.
So I see the points of caution and suspicion.
A couple of things to preface, I am no musician, nor do I have enough knowledge to expound on the quality of this music vs others. I simply listen to what I like (widely varied) for any number of reasons. Full disclosure, I am a casual fan of good Bluegrass and old southern gospel sounds. Probably a result of familiarity in my younger years, thought long since abandoned. Evidently it wasn’t abandoned, as it still stirs me.
So much here that is interesting. When I first heard of this “viral” sensation I simply looked at the pic and thought he sort of looked like a deep country Appalachian dude. When I finally did pause to watch it I thought for the first several seconds he was a grown version of the Deliverance Banjo Boy, but he quickly disabused me of that notion.
I believe initially what was so striking for many were not the words, but the presentation. His emotion and body language was striking to me. Best way I can describe it is sometimes you know when people have anguish in their past, he seemed to have had it. Perhaps more intriguing, was the balance of lyrics. He engendered a sort of equal distribution of things. “People like me, people like you”. If you have a moment to watch reaction videos watch the faces of the people when that phrase is uttered, you can actually see it draw them in. He juxtaposes people being hungry on the street with the obese milking welfare, making hard for people to on either end to argue, and in fact encouraging them to agree. Then of course the references to taxes/inflation etc. To perfect? Maybe so.
Found some references to past alcohol and drug issues. Woven into his language are colloquialisms that likely confirm my sense that he he is a friend of Bill W., or has been in the past. Perhaps I am over-attuned to this given my history of being a drunk and getting sober. I still see/hear enough that I believe he has been through the things. That being said, an article snippet mentioned (true or not?) that he made this (first video with professional camera and sound) 30 days after getting sober. Did that mean the latest try or was it his first attempt? It matters because for most of us getting sober, we were dry, but still batshit crazy in the months after taking the sober plunge. If he is indeed newly sober he may be ripe for the picking if bad folks decide he needs cancelled, for a number of reasons. If he is the real deal, the attacks will come fast and with fury.
On his youtube page he has about a five minute video sort of introducing himself. Given the twang he sings with, accompanied by the bluegrass-ish sound of the resonator guitar, I was surprised. He is well spoken, and has some education or is well read. He does not sound like the Appy folks I have known, both with and without formal education. This sort of flagged with me, couldn’t say exactly why, but I am a nerd about languages and vernacular, particularly of the south. There is a bit of unexpected chasm there between his singing (performance?) and his speaking. Ok, a big chasm.
So, I did like the song and presentation…but. I too began to question things. Out of nowhere, lives off grid, possible alcohol/substance issues, sings like a mountain man but speaks fairly neutral and articulately, and bursts on the scene overnight with a song that resonated with millions all over the western world. Hmmmm.
Dunno, time will tell. As much as anything I am still struck by the fact that our present day world now requires this amount of skepticism and suspicion. My thought process on things these days would shock the younger me from even 10-15 years ago. That me would have thought this me was a tin foil hat wearing nut job.I now can see the very real possibility that this is orchestrated on some level. Alternatively it would seem hard to drop a single psyop that hit this many people all over the world this hard, on the the subjects in the song. So, I am back to Dunno.
I agree, no one is coming to save us. We are in the 4th turning or its equivalent. We are riding this sled wide open to the bottom of the hill. What happens after we hit the bottom? Remains to be seen, but the journey aint gonna be pretty.
(((THEY))) have project Mocking birded, MKULTReded everything to the point of making EVERYTHING suspect. Mission accomplished.
I’m a simple man, I’m gonna like the song. Maybe something will come out about him that kills it for me, maybe it won’t. Like usual, we’ll have to wait and see. Tired of being cynical. Keep stacking fire wood n shit.
While not really a fan of the style of music, my initial reaction was (and remains) solid approval of the message conveyed. That said, I’m increasingly skeptical of this guy, his motives, and who may be backing him. Perhaps only because he blew up so quickly, and all the usual suspects in online media are pimping his song to the nth degree. Yes, there is a thirst for a real hard right hero to be venerated. But this could be a limited hangout, or something of the sort.
In hindsight, it feels inorganic, and contrived somehow. But then I’ve been conditioned to cast suspicion on anything that looks or sounds too good to be true in this era of wall to wall censorship, propaganda, and govt/corporately controlled messaging.
Interesting too, even with the ever present chronic national case of attention deficit disorder, that this has almost completely scuttled talk of “Try that in a small town”, the discussion of which has gone by the wayside already. If this guy turns out not to be /ours, I’ll not be terribly surprised.
Sudden popularity usually is combined with being controlled. We’ll see.
There does seem to be something hinky about this phenomenon. I heard the song linked somewhere and had a vaguely favorable reaction, but overall something seemed off. And our host seems to have articulated what’s off.
But that said, sometimes propaganda backfires. Bigly. Consider who wrote “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” (go ahead, those who don’t know, go look it up; I’ll wait …) And still it’s a great song. How does this happen? Grace of “G-d”? Maybe. Or maybe “Oft evil will shall evil mar.” I don’t have the answer. I’m just relating what I’ve noticed.
Even if the guy is legit they will offer him the ticket.
The real question is if he takes it and if/how much it corrupts him.
There is a guy in South Africa named Bok van Blerk.
He wrote a song “De la Rey” (General of the Boers) and was attacked for it.
And if you read wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koos_de_la_Rey
The Department of Arts and Culture responded to a request for a statement on van Blerk’s potentially subversive lyrics, insisting that the song was “in danger of being hijacked by a minority of right-wingers”, and warning that “those who incite treason, whatever methods they employ, might well find themselves in difficulties with the law.” The Democratic Alliance opposition party has retorted that De la Rey was not nearly as potentially subversive as ANC president Jacob Zuma’s song Umshini wami (Zulu for “bring me my machine [gun]”).
On the other hand they didnt noticed on the same CD he also had a song about a famous black sport man named Habana.
The next songs like “Afrikanerheart” showed some truth about Africa.
And he has some silly songs like “Tanny Tina van Wijk” (no, this song is not about Trans…).
thought you might find this interesting:
http://mileswmathis.com/oliver.pdf
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