I'm Also Not Jackson Hinkle

I am not interested in blind support. I do not want a fandom. I am interested in making work that lends itself to an understanding of the structures we exist in. I like the idea of that work becoming more popular and it is; I have sold thousands of copies of books and I think that’s a pretty good indicator. But I do not want a legion of people who treat me like Star Wars.

When I point out that people are engaging that way, it makes them mad. A few weeks ago, I did just that with fans of Jackson Hinkle. It was a warm-up for how they are treating my friend Caleb Maupin after he posted a video saying more about Hinkle and why he (and people like myself) should not be tied to or held accountable for anything someone else says/does.

So let’s talk about fandom.

The Toxicity of Our City

Fandom has been a significant topic of critique for me since the mid-2000s, long before I had ever read Marx. I had taken on marketing, particularly lifestyle marketing, in my comedy for years, and I had noticed personalities and influencers holding an almost hypnotic power over their followings. One of the more prominent early subjects of my criticism was YouTuber Onision, famous for preying on his fanbase of pre-teen girls to the point where To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen was on his tail for years.

My most recent documentary, Marx For Sale, is a warning. One of the biggest things that attracted me to Marx is the materialist nature of the critique. I thought, “Well, it’s fandom-proof!” I stopped doing straightforward comedy in the early 2010s and, by 2016, had a kind of resurgence as a socialist content creator. Perhaps I took it a little more seriously than my contemporaries in “Breadtube,” though, and I tended actually to apply the concepts as I understood them.

When I say that I do not want a legion of people who treat me like Star Wars, I mean I do not want to become a nexus for consumption that directs people away from their material interests and into ideology. Breadtube was this. I don’t know (or care) if it specifically began this way. I said what it was when I was sure.

People lost their shit, and I have explained many times why that is. Fandom is a supplant for community as well as an identity to take on. When one says, “Breadtube is simply a consumer product and not a political movement,” its fans take it as an attack on things fandom gives them: “community” and “identity.” It’s who they are and why they are worth something in a world that tells them they are worth nothing – external validation.

Fandom is an ideology that pushes people’s focus into the consumer arena. It directs them toward metrics and appearance, as well as networks that emphasize these things. People competitively consume; they become repeaters of slogans, recommend videos, products, etc., to their friends, and generally act as an advocate. The ultimate goal is for their lifestyle product to become the prominent one.

Political Fandom

One might notice this heavily overlaps with politics. It took a bit longer for it to get fully implemented in the political arena, but it’s essentially what politics is now. People love to call it tribalism, but I think that is a crap label that lends itself to missing the class character and social relevance of fandom. Fandom is a consumer thing, not a “creator” or “owner” thing. It is particular to capitalism and not to the class that owns.

Fandom is ideology, which is a hazard for idealist critique of the ruling order. Marx For Sale is about how Marx’s materialism can be transformed into fandom and, thus, idealism. For some, this means making Marx an aesthetic while avoiding the actual words of Marx, and for others, it is about bookish admiration with a duty of preservation.

Once the mechanical focus is no longer on the class dialectic, we can aesthetically talk about “class” all we want. In fact, we’re supposed to argue about it with other influencers and fandoms all day! Watch Marx For Sale for a full explanation.

Important to note: this doesn’t address or implicate anything any influencer or personality has ever said or done. When I critique Breadtube, it is usually “Breadtube” rather than a specific person. Why? Because I regard these things as ideological representations and I generally don’t care a lot about what an individual influencer thinks or does. In fact, as I make this critique, it is often about groups that I agree with fully on paper, and the individuals involved take that badly enough as it is.

I think a lot of people, including influencers and personalities, are quite genuine about what they are saying and doing. However, the prevailing social mode injects fandom ideology by default. Our social interactions (particularly through the internet) are heavily mediated and, thus, controlled through ownership.

Infrinkle

I generally ignore the Hinkle/Infrared (I’ll abbreviate it with “Infrinkle”) part of the internet because, in it, I see fandom and little else. When I observed that someone claiming that “Jackson Hinkle is single-handedly carrying all American communists on his shoulders” is nakedly just fandom, Hinkle’s fans swarmed me for several days, proving the point over and over.

The reader should note that I said nothing to contradict anything Hinkle said here, and I was also very explicit that it was not a critique of Hinkle himself as I responded to people who were calling me “jealous” and claiming that I was “sabotaging communism’s popularity in the US.”

The problem here is that “communist” fandoms equate their consumption with the advancement of communism. When I make a fandom critique like this, their ideological frame is that I am thus attempting to take down their figurehead, ideas, and themselves. I am not.

I get lumped in with Jackson Hinkle sometimes, also, with Infrared. I often want to say something to make a distinction between them and myself, but I generally don’t because, ultimately, it would mean I deal with a fandom dogpile. I am an adult; I have a job, a life, kids, I make things in my free time, and I don’t need that.

However, my friend Caleb Maupin has done the right thing here:

Interpersonally, this is what I know of Jackson Hinkle: my then-partner and I were speaking at a CPI conference. Prior to the conference, Caleb hung out with and talked to us on one end of the table, and Hinkle and his posse were on the other end, acting too cool for school.

Whether Hinkle has said something one agrees with or not, this is behavior that fosters precisely the kind of relationships with an audience, followers, or movements that I do not want to have. You can watch Caleb’s short video above (or go look at everyone shitting their pants on Twitter about it), but this is what matters to me:

I make a really big point to be very polite to everybody, to make everyone feel that they're appreciated, to make everyone feel that they're valued, and based on my interactions with Jackson, he doesn't do that.

He doesn't view the people that come around as a result of his work… with kindness and affection and I think he holds a lot of his audience in contempt… He doesn't particularly feel any responsibility to them.

The way he conducted himself in [the March 2022 CPI conference] when I saw him – the only time I've ever interacted with him directly – there was an arrogance there even though this was our conference that we'd done. He was this important social media commentator [and] we were the help. We were the normie little people that [he] had to surround [himself with] and be around.

Jackson wasn't particularly kind. There was an arrogance. [He] thought he was better than us. [He] didn't stay for the whole conference.

This isn’t a person who is “single-handedly carrying all American communists.” That is silly fandom bullshit. In fact, most of the Infrinkle crap is silly fandom bullshit.

I will never attack the times Hinkle has gone on mainstream media and argued a correct position. I’m not interested in causing any harm to that. I am interested in what Hinkle is accomplishing by doing so with nothing in place to attempt to avoid fandom. It’s not building any movement or organization but instead building his social profile. Whether he intends it or not, he is creating a reason for himself to have a booth at a hypothetical Political Influencer Convention. To speak on panels and be considered an expert.

And, again, that isn’t even really his fault. Whatever he thinks he is, how he behaves, or what kind of organization he attempts to affiliate himself with, it’s a result of the ethos that becoming popular within these social networks and lifestyle content platforms is a sign one’s politics are succeeding. I choose to think he probably genuinely believes that.

But it doesn’t ultimately matter, either.

Conclusion

For me, this is an opportunity to say, “I am not part of this.” I think Hinkle does some things that are good in terms of spreading awareness, but I think his effect is primarily what I covered in Marx For Sale. When he says something good, it traps people in the political fandom dynamic. This goes for the various other Infrared-adjacent people out there, as well.

It would be one thing if there were any sign whatsoever he tried to innoculate his following from this dynamic, but there isn’t. The ruling ideology is the ideology of the rulers; that is to say, if one says/does nothing, the assumption defaults to whatever the ruling dynamic dictates.

I want people to listen to me, to follow me. I would like my content to be a success. And it is! Further, I like the idea of helping erode obstacles to class consciousness. There have been times when people have said, “PETER COFFIN IS THE ANSWER” in so many words, and I have personally come out against it. I push back when I feel the lifestyle/influencer/fandom mode is foist upon me.

Anyone who has watched my content on fandom, including Marx For Sale, would know I am often the subject of my own criticism. Why? Because I want to do what I can about my effect.

“You are to become a creator, not a competitor; you are going to get what you want, but in such a way that when you get it every other man will have more than he has now.” - Wallace D. Wattles