It was pushing midnight on a Friday when we found Lindsay. We had just left a friend’s sister’s birthday to find a calm spot, away from the noise; it was still cold outside, so the Subway down the street seemed like the perfect place to sit and let the night melt away.
After about ten minutes of buying nothing, she strolled into the store with a friend, both clad all in black. Her hat caught my eye: “Fuck Trump,” written in a scrawled lettering like the script on Drake’s “If You’re Reading This Its Too Late” album cover. Was it a nod to the meme?
The MAGA cap has so quickly ingrained itself the calling card of our current fascist uprising that any piece of clothing that even slightly resembles it starts to feel like subversion. But rather than the blood-Republican red of a MAGA hat, Lindsay’s was a cool black, nodding at black culture and blaspheming American patriotism.
The only color to be found in this outfit is the red on her lips.
Why this hat? We asked.
“When everybody was talking about Trump getting elected and stuff like that, it was like, mostly, I think everybody took it as a joke. You know? I like literally have a video of like, two years ago, when I was like, “Yo, if Trump is elected…
[laugh]
“Like, seriously, I still have the video—it’s hilarious. But, you know, everybody’s takin’ it as a joke, but I’ve had this hat before he even got elected. And, you know, he doesn’t represent anything that America quote-unquote represents, you know what I’m saying? You know what I’m saying? And it’s just like, fuck him. You know what I mean? That’s just what it is — like, that’s it.”
What Trump represents, what American represent, and what we represent. The hat exists as a bridge between political rebellion and hip-hop culture without firmly planting its flag in either camp, embodying the dysphoria of our current age. We’ve somehow arrived at Baudrillard’s nightmare: a world that can only be conveyed through a web of shadows hinting at realities we can no longer understand. And as Austin Millbarge once put it, trying to explain away his ineptitude as a surgeon, our strongest purveyor of truth is parody. “We mock what we don’t understand.”
Each comment or response costs a tiny ETH fee of 2.0E-5 (about 5¢ in Ethereum cryptocurrency), payable from your Metamask.io wallet (the wallet is free, and takes just a moment to add to your browser). This system helps protect Popula conversations from trolls, fakers, Cambridges Analytica and other malign influences.
If you haven’t got any ETH yet and you’re a Popula subscriber, please write to hey@popula.com with your subscriber email address and MetaMask wallet address, and we’ll send you a little bit to get started! It’s pretty easy and a lot of fun to use, Yay.
If you’d like to learn more about cryptocurrency, Ethereum, and how Popula is using these new technologies to help protect speech rights and the free press, please visit our FAQ page.
We’re having trouble checking your subscriber status. Try refreshing the page.
Welcome! To leave a comment, you’ll need to log in, and also have your MetaMask wallet ready with some ETH cryptocurrency available.
It’s easy! Just visit metamask.io to install an in-browser MetaMask wallet. If you’re a new subscriber, write to hey@popula.com for $2 in free ETH crypto!
Thank you for being a Popula subscriber! As a subscriber, you may leave comments, but you have to be logged in as commenter here first. This is an additional login—the login for your commenting privileges—and you’ll stay logged in after you log in the first time.
We’ve sent an email to your registered address at … with your commenting details. Please follow the directions in the email to open your commenting privileges and then come back here to leave your first comment!
Thanks for registering! Please log in and you can get started commenting.
You need to connect to the Main Ethereum Network before you can leave a comment. Click on your MetaMask icon so the window pops up, then select ‘Main Ethereum Network’ from the network-chooser dropdown at the top.
You’re logged in and ready to leave comments! All you need is a MetaMask wallet and a little ETH cryptocurrency, just like with our microtipping system.
If you know what MetaMask is and have it installed, activate MetaMask and refresh:
Each comment costs 5¢ in Ethereum cryptocurrency to post! Just write your comment and click the green button. Thank you, Popula subscriber, for joining us in the new world of cryptoeconomics! Please don’t forget to set your wallet address in order to receive tips on your comments.
Alas! commenting is not yet available on your mobile device. Each comment costs a little ETH cryptocurrency to post, and for now that requires a regular computer.
So please go to your laptop, install the MetaMask browser plugin, and hold forth!