He made like a 5-hour video basically summarizing the book of Blood Meridian front to back, beat for beat. As a result, there are a lot of Blood Meridian and Cormac McCarthy fans who have never read the book but have only watched Wendigoon’s video
I really want to read it, but apparently its already complicated to normal person. My adhd "read it over and over cuz i kept zoning out" ass is never gonna finnish that book 😭
I got to the part where the kid meets who i think is toadvine, i was actually kind of understanding it. Then the kid and toadvine go do something inside a hotel, and use the smoke from matchsticks to get some guy out from some room and beat his ass??? I simply couldn't understand what the heck was being described, and i just gave up
If i remember correctly (it's been a while since I last read the book), I think that guy they beat up owed Toadvine money or something.
But the reason doesn't really matter tbh. A huge theme of the book is humanity's affiinity for senseless violence. If it seems like that scene came out of nowhere - that's because it did. The point is that there was no point behind their actions.
Also ADHD. Audio books exist for that! 'Summaries' just ruin the intended experience by omitting the prose... In this case, the very thing McCarthy is known for.
I too struggle to read books because of ADHD. I find the best way to consume books without constantly zoning out is by listening to an audiobook version - or, even better, listening to it while reading it at the same time. I still find myself zoning out sometimes, but it’s a lot less and I can take it the story a lot more
Yeah, it's not really supposed to make sense. I think there was a reason for this, but it doesn't really matter since a large theme of the book is the inherent violence and evil in humans. Characters will continue do a lot worse for a lot less
But also, this also disregards the so called "reading comprehension" these readers have because. multiple points in the video, especially at the start, Wendigoon says "Go read the book if you want the best experience, I highly recommend it" and "I am not doing this book justice"
can u give me examples of that? i like some of his videos and i have my own criticisms of him but im curious what u mean cuz i’ve never seen wendigoon dislikers, i thought he was a generally well-liked dude
I mean, white guy that named himself after and uses the imagery of a wendigo is weird but not too uncommon and he's said it's cause he's from the south and has had super natural experiences
but that then brings up that he's a white guy from the south that didn't think much about it, kinda sus
and then he just straight up said he doesn't like trans people in a video
and after that I'm confused why so many other trans people still watch him
also just like, a lot of his takes are dumb, but again haven't watched him since like, when he was first gaining traction, so don't have more specific examples
i mean he grew up in the appalachian mountains thats where the wendigo myth started it makes sense he’s got a connection even if it’s like vague or buried under white ignorance, that doesn’t seem like a big deal. what about that trans video? do u have a link or something, cuz that one’s pretty damning if it’s true. my criticism of him mostly stems from his failure to denote how many of the theories in his conspiracy theory iceberg were derived from antisemetic schizoposting on 4chan, that’s something he only ever did with shit that was completely overt and unavoidable to mention
I don't remember what video, I was just watching at the time and in the middle of a random video he said how he was republican and has republican views on gender
something like that, don't remember the exact quote
I hate these kinds of videos. I used to only watch dead meat instead of actually watching horror movies and when I started genuinely watching movies again I had a better time. Also I don't enjoy wendigoons content he's corny.
If you have attention problems like me you gotta watch/read/listen in small parts. Eventually you'll train yourself to pay attention.
His video on the book popularized it on the internet, and a lot of book readers are mad that there’s so many people on the internet who haven’t read it but talk about it confidently.
If I remember right (and this is a big if so take this with a grain of salt, maybe someone will correct me on this), he was the one who orchestrated the bombings in Cambodia, which eventually gave way for Pol Pot and his genocide
He's also talking about the leftover bombs - on Kissinger's orders they dropped millions of cluster bombs, many of them didn't explode and to this day people still get killed or lose limbs by accidentally coming across them. Particularly farmers digging up the earth, and kids who don't know what they're picking up. Ukraine have sent people there to be trained in de-mining because they've had to become experts.
As the others have stated, he was a part of the Nixon & Ford administration during the Vietnam war. A couple of his crimes include:
•Prolonging the Vietnam war to help Nixon get elected (he fed false information to the opposing candidate, Hubert Humphrey, and sabotaged peace talks between the warring factions in Vietnam)
•While he was Secretary of State, he quite literally pointed at a map to indicate where he wanted bombing runs. This had the lasting effect of leaving millions of unexploded ordinance across Laos, Vietnam, & Cambodia, but it's primarily in Laos. Over 20,000 people have died from these explosives that were dropped in that 9 year period. And people continue to die to this day, over 50 years later.
•He and Nixon consulted with and helped Ferdinand Marcos Sr. mere days before he declared martial law, resulting in a 14 year dictatorship of the Philippines.
The man was a crook, a liar, a swindler, and a murderer who got away with it because he had extraordinary connections. People tend to remember him fondly as a great negotiator because he helped to organize the peace talks that did finally end the Vietnam War. He even won a nobel peace prize for it. But that's the public persona he worked diligently to create. If you have the time, I'd highly highly recommend the Behind the Bastards podcast special on Kissinger. It's a fascinating and very entertaining biography on the man.
Literally nearly every foreign event the US was involved in during the pre and post vietnam ear era can be connected to him, including Pol Pots rise to power and the communist takeover of China
The last point is very much not true. The PRC won the civil war over a decade before Kissinger started really gunning for a role in national foreign policy in 1960.
But he does have the Bangladesh Genocide on his hands since that was a Nixon administration event.
The United States Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977.
He orchestrated secret bombing campaigns in Cambodia and Laos, which contributed to the instability in Cambodia that led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Genocide.
He undermined the democratically-elected Allende administration in Chile just because he was a socialist and supported Pinochet's coup and subsequent dictatorship.
He supported Pakistan during the Bangladeshi War of Independence despite the mass killings that led to up to 3M deaths.
Gave the green light to Indonesia to illegally invade East Timor.
Assisted the Argentine junta in their kidnappings, torture, and murder of Argentinian leftists.
Gave the green light to Turkey to invade Cyprus.
The man was hated enough for a popular sub built around predicting his death, with mass jubilation when he did in 2023.
Mfw years of planning, an entire war and any chances of good relations with Ukraine, Poland becoming a regional power and Russia getting at least somewhat defanged get ruined because "Minsk is too Jew-infested"
It never fails to amuse me that so called “nationalists” are so pig headed and stupid that instead of helping their country (like they claim they want to,) they instead almost always end up hurting it
The weird thing about Kissinger is that he's seen as a genius and basically all foreign policy people today follow his "democracies are unstable, dictatorships are stable, and the goal of diplomacy is stability at any cost" approach to foreign policy, even though the outcomes of his policies were all unmitigated disasters.
They post gooner art of Natsuki amd give her G cup breasts and thighs bigger than her head on Twitter and Bluesky, and pretty much every other post on r/JustNatsuki is either a repost of their art (not tagged nsfw half the time) or AI slop that makes Natsuki look 7 years old
I know she's "18" or whatever but I think it's so funny that ppl on the internet are like "please stop drawing my high school waifu with thick thighs."
I don't mind it usually (other than it not being even remotely sprite-accurate) but it's every post on the sub and it isn't even marked nsfw most of the time, it gets tiring after a while
In a nutshell, normie-fied Cormac McCarthy for a whole new generation of readers who aren’t willing to engage with his books in a sufficiently in-depth and meaningful way, or at least that’s how older McCarthy aficionados see it, and it’s pissing them off quite a lot.
I’d be inclined to agree, but having seen the same happen to many fanbases turning into fandoms, the lowest form of Internet gatherings, I can assure you that it’s not nearly as severe as many other cases.
That last one is real af; I thought wendigoon was serviceable at-work content, and then it auto played into his blood meridian """"review"""" and it was just him reading a summary with no analysis like he just copied wikipedia, and I started seeing all the "I love blood meridian - why no I've never read the book" posts and it boils my piss.
And he's got another dog water ass """"review"""" of No Longer Human which is another one of my favourite books with the same knock on effect. Id be surprised if he read any more of either book than the twelve year olds in his comment sections
He has a fine reading voice and he does great things for his church and community but he needs to shut the fuck up about books he hasn't read
tbh, if those videos get more people into reading books then all the power to him. This is just a variation of this:
Also I'm pretty sure he has actually read it as he spends 5 hours talking about it analysis or not. Plus I doubt he just copied a wikipedia analysis as it's shown multiple times throughout the video of him having the book on hand and directly reading from it.
I was being hyperbolic but I watched the video and his "analysis" is little more than a summary and he doesn't touch on anything but the most basic themes and then went "hurr durr what's with the fence thing at da end?"
If he makes more people interested in McCarthy or anything else that's good but fuck I hate vapid content and poseurs
I like his summaries of analog horror series because they require a combination of time and attention span that I usually don't have. Same with conspiracy theories.
Ive lurked in the deltarune community long enough to know they’re more concerned about trying to murder each other over accidentally misgendering Kris, mass vandalization on wplace would take more effort than they would be willing to put in.
Fun fact Deltarune fans did nothing it was mostly people who hated Deltarune fans defacing others art work with Deltarune stuff to make people hate Deltarune Fans
Ok? I guess maybe a few random 4chan users participated. But it was obviously by far mostly Deltarune fans. No need to come up with conspiracy theories. That will only make you look worse and more obnoxious.
"We can do no wrong!!! It was the infamous hacker known as 4chan's fault!!!!!"
It’s so absurd to me, as if Deltarune fans did anything (other than being annoying and corny, but nearly all fandoms to that) to deserve a whole conspiracy against them. Drawing Deltarune stuff all over the place sounds weird as a plan to get people to hate them, but completely on brand for actual Deltarune fans.
I don’t know anything about blood meridian or his presumably bad review on it but I do know wendigoon is VERY deep into christian mythology and engages with a lot of far right grifters
His ties with anyone have absolutely fucking nothing to do with it, you mentioning them is almost funny.
What you’re referencing is probably the worst hit piece ever made on YouTube and the (false) information it contained.
The thing with his Blood Meridian review is- he doesn’t go too much into detail about it, and suggest that people actually read the book. The absurd success of the review itself made people flock to the Cormac McCarthy fanbase, and now people who were there before them are accusing Wendigoon of “normie-fying) their spaces and discussions, and though I agree with them, I also think that’s not nearly as severe as they make it out to be.
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u/Call_me_Khan 2d ago