Its more like saying, I know im a mediocre runner because I run maybe a 12 minute but I see all these people running a 20 minute mile and calling themselves champion runners and being paid for it.

To explain, that's what RFK Jr., Mark Sanford and Ryan Lizza are to one another.

The game plan is nothing if not transparent!

Just total failure by the group of people whose job is supposed to be knowing things, recognizing important moments and recommending the course of action. I'm not complaining they're saying things I disagree with. They are just not doing *anything*.

Nov 2025: Republicans face a thumping defeat in special elections, foreshadowing the 2026 Congressional election.

Oct 2023: PPP gets destroyed in a Seoul by-election, foreshadowing the 2024 Assembly election.

Mukbangs exist, yes, but people just *watch* them. If anyone tried to have a mass session of body horror level eating together with dozens of people, we would surely think that's taking a step further into a fundamentally new realm of online engagement. That's what gooning is!

CS Lewis was exactly right for this. Imagine a food equivalent of gooners somehow. (BTW gooners themselves use food analogies!) What would be our response be? Wouldn't we think this whole thing is totally fucked?

The reporting is too good to land on the same old, "its the friends we made along the way" conclusion. The embodiment is what makes this entire thing so morbid, and the piece just ends up waving its hand on that.

The conclusion totally glosses over the fact that the whole gooning shit involves an embodied experience at the center of it. Not the same as other online niches! And the particular embodiment is twisted and fucked up. Its original form is barely recognizable.