lol one could write a doctoral thesis on the psychological clusterfuck that is Richard Hernia's status-striving rubebrain: the first thing to notice about Banania is his deep-seated insecurity, tormented status-anxiety and intense craving for the approval of people like Matt Yglesias, Noah Smith, Scott Alexander, etc. They judge him for his doxxed views (which he still in large part holds, but cant write about professionally), and he is haunted by that shame.

So, one could say Banania’s cringey schtick is motivated in party by projecting his crippling insecurity, tormented status anxiety & self-loathing outward (ex: always punching down at "peasants"; when he himself is a lower class flyover rube who literally went to community college lol--he hates himself, is ashamed of his family, upbringing and where he came from, thats one part).

But perhaps more directly, his (drastically altered since 2019/2020 views) are overwhelmingly motivated by the donor class funding his fake "think tank" received (some literally from the Koch Brothers, see the piece by Katz on this) in 2020/2021 to do a complete 180 reversal & change almost all his lifelong beliefs and positions. A hilarious example of this is his recent Israel schtick (despite being the child of Palestinian immigrants who fled Gaza because of what is Israel is doing over there lol).

You can search his old tweets: he's changed almost every single position to align with the donors who fund him, and his politics are now indistinguishable from Mitch McConnell. He's completely for sale, in part because he has no other alternatives: he couldn't hack it in academia and flamed out. Hilariously, some of his older tweets are kvetching about how he cant afford his student loans. Which gets to another critical aspect: he's incredibly *venal*.

Anyway, there's a lot more. But that's a start. He's a hilarious, deeply insecure, contradicted and self-loathing lifelong incel (until very recently anyway), wracked with tortured status-anxiety, desperately craving the approval of high-status libs like Yglesias (tormenting him ever further as they do not grant him that approval he so frantically craves), but most directly, simply motivated by base venality and making money out of necessity: he's a lower class flyover rube who couldnt hack it in academia, and now his only source of income is being a mouthpiece of the donor class who fund him. He has no other way of supporting himself. (Which is actually another reason he does all the pathetic and embarrassing video clip engagement farming: those types of engagement bait videos get the most revenue, which is why he does that part of his cringey, unseemly, and *venal* schtick.)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5665202&forum_id=2#48562006)

this is exactly the kind of engagement that hanania's shtick is designed to bait. when he's not tweeting he's jacking off to shit like this in his rancid studio apartment.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5665202&forum_id=2#48562037)

Except he's also a particularly miserable and self-loathing example, and we hate him for it.

HTH.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5665202&forum_id=2#48562056)