Joshua citarella gay
Joshua Citarella, the internet theorist tracing the radicalisation of Gen Z
In , the Trump presidency and Brexit signalled the rise of right-wing populism in the west, as politics became increasingly polarised. Online, teens responded by creating and exchanging political memes on platforms such as Instagram and Discord. They began to adopt increasingly radical ideologies. Previously fringe beliefs such as anarcho-primitivism and eco-fascism became well-liked genre identities to be tried on and taken off. And now, it seems like these online subcultures are having a valid political impact offline, but there’s been no art to account for it.
“When you do not see the world reflected in art, you know something is deeply incorrect, ” says Joshua Citarella. The Fresh York artist and researcher is a formidable force in internet leftist discourse, having spent the past four years documenting zoomer politics on platforms love Instagram and Discord. His work focuses primarily on memetic subcultures – “online groups gathered around sharing funny political images” – and the effects this has on tee
MY POLITICAL JOURNEY: G
JC: What social media platforms do you use?
G: I started with Instagram, not Twitter and not the other apps.
JC: How would you describe your politics or ideology?
G: Good, I started off somewhere else, but I am leaning now to Marxism.
JC: Who would you say your biggest influences are? Writers, theorists, thinkers…
G:I used to really prefer Roland Paul and there’s this lady on Twitter – she’s called Syrian Girl – and she has marvelous political analysis, especially about the situation in Syria and the Trump administration. She’s definitely one of my favourite journalists. She has a lot of videos up on YouTube, she has a lot of commentary on political happenings in the world, even the meme culture. And if it’s related to philosophy and economics, it’s I would say Karl Marx.
JC: What results might you fetch from a political compass test?
G: A political compass is usually very inaccurate, but I usually end up in the authoritarian left, which, I would say, represents me.
JC: What about your folks? Were you raised in a progressi
Joshua Citarella Takes Us Into the Dim Corners of the Manosphere
Photo courtesy of Joshua Citarella
I first encountered Joshua Citarella&#;s work during the height of the pandemic. I had just moved to Oakland, dyed my hair purple, and taken a employment pouring beers at a taqueria. My only friend was the hot skater I was dating who introduced me to Hito Steyerl, Drain Gang, and Monday Night Memes, Citarella’s weekly Twitch streams where he performs live study on the most unhinged corners of the internet, plumbing the depths of 4chan and kiwi farms in hunt of the esoteric conspiracy theories, hyper-niche political ideologies, and unproven alternative medicine techniques. Citarella’s streams would deepdive into fringe online political factions like Neo-Monarchism, Anarcho-Primitivism, Paleo-Libertarian Distributism or Dharmic Eco-Reaction with Transhumanist characteristics, seamlessly segueing into tales of the hollow earth or Starseeds, an online community who verb they are alien souls trapped on Planet Earth. Even when he was exploring the most implausible masculine pseu
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CV
b. in New York.
Joshua Citarella is an artist and internet culture writer based in NYC.
He is the host of Doomscroll, a podcast that explores online culture and politics in the 21st century.
He is the founder of Perform Not Research, a non-profit arts organization.
He is a graduate professor at the Rhode Island College of Design. He has taught at the School of Visual Arts () and served as an outside advisor at Carnegie Mellon University () and Tufts University ().
His work is included in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum, Netherlands and the Hood Museum of Art in the U.S. His publications are included in the libraries of the Yale University, Harvard University, the Fleet Library at RISD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the School of Visual Arts, the New Museum manual store, among others.
Education
BFA, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
Solo Exhibitions
SMMoCA, "e-deologies", St James, Jamaica
Bas Fisher Invitational, "Left Futures", Miami, FL
Corcoran School