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 job 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 research on the most unhinged corners of the internet, plumbing the depths of 4chan and kiwi farms in search 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 believe they are alien souls trapped on Planet Earth. Even when he was exploring the most implausible masculine pseudo-science—could drinking raw onion juice really increase your testosterone? would lifting weights actually make you more conservative?—Josh’s background as an adjunct gave the streams an academic flavor.
