SaDCast Show Notes: Yung Chomsky, Menswear and The Left (2023)

#TheSaDCast has its first guest in a few years and it's none other than Yung Chomksy, the producer of the TrueAnon Podcast and fellow menswear enthusiast.

The first part is where he talks about his menswear journey, how it aligns with his (and our) left-wing politics, and how people in his political group (especially on Twitter) view his attire. Part Two focuses much more on politics, delving deeper into the aesthetics of political movements, taking menswear out of context, and reconciling our hobby with progressivism.

It's probably the best Style & Direction episode yet!

O Chomsky.

My leftist politics shouldn't surprise anyone here, whether you read the subtext in my blog posts and podcasts or just follow my Instagram. This political development comes not only from genuine growth and empathy, but also from many conversations with my friends, some of whom are in the menswear space. A highlight isO Chomsky, a stylish menswear enthusiast, fellow MFA and producer ofPodcast TrueAnon.

I've been following YC for just over a year now, as we both noticed each other's style inMFAand sent some DMs to each other. In January, I had the pleasure of meeting him IRL when he visited LA for a live show; he wore an epic Drake's suit and even caught the attention of many other lefties on the show. Since then, he's been a huge contributor to my personal chat group, as well as the Style & Direction Discord channel (accessible on Patreon).

What's so intriguing about YC is that it represents the intersection of classic/vintage menswear and leftist politics, at least in terms of its online persona. Really, he's just a Marxist who happens to be one of the best dressed people I've ever seen. That's why I had to put him on the podcast, even though we haven't done a real interview in years! Fortunately for us, he has all his own equipment, as he produces a podcast and is also a musician.

I hope you enjoy our long discussion with Yung Chomsky; we even had to cut it into two parts! The first part is about his own journey with menswear, how his sizable left-wing Twitter audience views his weekly eviction, and a little bit about how the left and aesthetics are intertwined.

We delved into the last topic of our Part Two, not just about aesthetic political movements, but also about decontextualizing/recovering classic menswear and how we can reconcile our hobby with Progressivism.

1:10- talk about the weather
4:20- “Well speaking of servants,”
6:00-young chomsky
6:25- About TrueAnon
9:55- "We're trying to show that some things that seem like very distant conspiracy theories are actually very real, and we've explored some of the history around things like that."
12:05- One Yung Chomksy's Day of Style
19:00- “When you look at the people there, everyone behaves and dresses like a teenager in some way, just as they would in high school or college – which included me, and seeing that reflected in my peers made me more self-conscious about looking just like that. It started to feel wrong.”
22:20- “My first stop was Reddit… where all knowledge is stored.”
28:05- “This illustrates how important it is to have a basic vocabulary. Before you start shopping and building a wardrobe, you really need to figure out what you like. That's the best way to stop you from wasting money.”
33:55- “The lookbooks from people like Drake's were really important to me, just the way they do that high-low combination… – that tailoring can be done in a playful way, or combined with workwear or casual pieces.”
38:00- Reactions to the Dress
42:50- “Certain people who are not as immersed in style or menswear will have very strong and specific associations with a certain piece of clothing or a certain look… a lot of different people were 'oh Steve Bannon Steve Bannon.'”
47:50- dress left
48:05- “There is this feeling that aesthetics are bourgeois. That's the implication sometimes, and I get it; you need a lot of time or a lot of money to really get into these things. If you don't have free time or free money, you can't care about fashion. But then you can't have any hobbies.
48:50- “There is the slogan that we often hear on the left is 'bread and roses', it comes from this discourse of the worker who needs bread but needs roses too. The point is we need to be able to survive – the bread, the basics of life – but we need roses and that is the beauty: this is art, this is love, laughter and joy.”
49:20- “I get criticism of 'oh, you're wearing expensive shoes, you're not a socialist.' of work to do - don't you think someone should be compensated for doing this? If I'm trying to get it as cheap as possible, what does that say about paying the person doing it?”
50:15- “People on the left sometimes adopt this reflexive attitude of disdaining things like fashion because they've been excluded from it, because they don't have the time or money to get into it… I don't think it's good philosophically, politically to take away the idea that caring about aesthetics should not be part of our project.”

1:50- Men's fashion and left
5:40- Aesthetics
6:55- “There is an idea that the left is not cohesive or not fashionable in general. It is a microcosm of the structural barriers or difficulties of the left movement, where right-wing conservative movements have institutional support.”
9:30-(I BELIEVE)“When I think of the left, it's always very nerd/punk. When you look to the right they are trying to present themselves as the establishment; they love authority, wearing the suit…”
12:20- “Discipline and cohesion are good values for a movement, but on the other hand, inclusiveness and openness are also leftist values, and they can come into tension.”
14:15-“When you have a mass movement of people on the streets, I think if there was some kind of aesthetic – not a uniform – it would help build a group identity. It helps build solidarity among people who might not have thought about it before.”
19:45-“We are trying to make a change in society, trying to convince people and change minds. This is a form of communication. So if we can more effectively reach people with a certain look, then it's certainly worth considering.”
24:00- Men's/Vintage fashion communities
25:05- “This community tends to be white, wealthy and therefore reactionary.”
26:55- “When we talk about vintage things, we are in aesthetics and it ends there. There's definitely a group of people where, for them, it's about this fake, fictional nostalgia. They bring 'vintage values' to this, 'the fifties', trying to get back to the social order of past decades, not just clothes.
30:30- “If you like the whole idea of dressing up, it might come from this childish ‘well, I’m going to be better than other people’ mentality, like putting other people down instead of an expression of personal style.”
33:40- “There is so much anger and resentment… things are not going well for anyone right now. If you grow up in a society where you're supposed to live a better life than your parents – inherit the world – and you don't, people get angry. You have to reach them before the bad people do.
35:10- Recovering and decontextualizing menswear
35:10- “There is an element of recovery for some of us. I'm Jewish and you know my grandfather wouldn't have been allowed into the country club where wasps would have dressed the way I now think it's cool to dress. For those who are a visible minority – Filipinos, black – I think it's a much stronger kind of recovery, but I think it's fun to think of it that way.”
39:20- “One of the defining characteristics of the postmodern era we are living in is that there is no longer a monoculture. Everything is accessible all the time. And that applies to music, art, style… it's such a cool feature of this moment that you can constantly be referencing everything at once or multiple things from different periods and not get stuck in one time or place.”
45:35- “What I want to say about myself with my clothes is that I am someone who cares about my presentation, I value silhouette and color, patterns and shapes and that is what I want to communicate.”
46:45-(I BELIEVE)“I hope when you look at my Instagram you think it's okay to be multifaceted, you can be different than what people expect you to be and it's cool to have a bunch of different interests overlapping.”
48:20- “Something that's really cool about menswear is that there's so much that you can pull from historically… we look at things like 'oh this is Italian style, this is American Ivy' but for other people they just see a suit.”
50:20- “The left has retreated into the subculture and part of the subculture is having signifiers that show other people that you are part of it. That's when you can get into these things where you're being very explicit in your appearance.
55:00- Ethical consumption under capitalism
58:35- “The idea of 'there is no ethical consumption in capitalism' can be used as a nihilistic way of saying 'everything that is done in capitalism is unethical, therefore the choices I make don't matter'. I don't think it's true, some things are worse than others and we should try to make less bad choices. That said, remembering the real goals of dismantling this system of capitalism because it is inherently exploitative, we cannot just buy from the right brands and create an equal society.”
1:05:45- “The focus should be on changing the nature of power and exploitation and not just increasing representation at the top of the hierarchy, but dismantling that hierarchy.”
1:13:15- "Brands are not your friend is what I'm trying to say."
1:13:50-Embracing progressivism in menswear
1:14:45- “With all the (spending) options, there will be something bad. You must do what you can to support good business. It's going back to 'well, it's less exploited if you buy from a traditional brand or a small craft brand'. The reason everyone shops at H&M isn't because they make better clothes, it's because people can pay to show up to shop.
1:17:30- “I think it's good to buy vintage and learn all you can about the people you're buying from and understand that sometimes buying something more expensive can mean it's better made and more durable so you don't have to replace it it. But in reality it doesn't always mean that; buying expensive stuff can just mean that it's expensive.

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Thanks for listening and reading along! Don't forget to support us atPatreonto get some extra content and access to our exclusive Discord. We also broadcast onMuscular contraction, which gives us a chance to play a few games and talk about menswear more candidly (highlights are posted on ourYouTube).

Bye Bye!

Style and Direction|Ethan MWong|Spencer DSO

The Podcast is produced by MJ and Matthew.

SaDCast Show Notes: Yung Chomsky, Menswear and The Left (2023)

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