Chapo Trap House

Chapo Trap House

Founding hosts Menaker, Christman and Biederman
Presentation
Hosted by Will Menaker, Matt Christman, Felix Biederman, Amber A'Lee Frost, Virgil Texas
Genre Politics, humor,
Updates Twice-weekly
Length 60–80 minutes
Production
Production Brendan James
Publication
Debut March 13, 2016 (March 13, 2016)
Website https://thetrap.fm/

Chapo Trap House is an American politics and humor podcast hosted by Will Menaker, Matt Christman and Felix Biederman with co-hosts Amber A'Lee Frost and Virgil Texas, known for its irreverent leftist commentary.

Background

The three hosts met online through discussions on Twitter years prior to starting the podcast.[1] Under the usernames @willmenaker (Menaker), @cushbomb (Christman), and @ByYourLogic (Biederman, also formerly @swarthyvillain), they developed followings for their political commentary and have been called "minor Twitter celebrities."[1][2][3] The hosts are associated with Twitter communities called "Left Twitter" and "Weird Twitter," a name used to describe a loose group of Twitter users known for absurdist humor.[1][3]

The three first recorded together as guests on an episode of the podcast Street Fight Radio to mock the film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. They had already discussed hosting a show together for some time and, encouraged by positive reception to their Street Fight appearances, they created Chapo Trap House.[1] They chose the name "Chapo Trap House" as a reference to the Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and a slang term for a drug house, intending the title to sound like the title of a rap mixtape.[1]

Menaker, Christman, and Biederman identify with left-wing politics and frequently deride conservative and neoliberal pundits, including those of the liberal and moderate left; conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is a frequent target.[3] Menaker has said that their perspective is meant to be in "marked contrast to the utterly humorless and bloodless path that leads many people with liberal or leftist proclivities into the trap of living in constant fear of offending some group that you're not a part of, up to and including the ruling class."[1] Biederman has said the show's intended audience are those seeking alternatives to existing leftist media, which he characterizes as "the dominion of either upper middle class smugness when it's even the least bit funny and insufferable self-righteousness when it's even the least bit conscious."[1] Similarly, Christman said that leftist perspectives in media tend toward either the "smug above-it-all snark of The Daily Show or the quaver-voiced earnestness of, like Chris Hedges or something. Neither of those models offer the visceral thrill of listening to people who actually give a shit (as opposed to the wan liberalism of people who are mostly interested in showing how much smarter they are than Republicans) but who don't believe that having a sense of humor is counter-revolutionary."[1]

The show's hosts and fans popularized the "Baseball Crank" meme, which repurposed the Twitter avatar of anti-Donald Trump conservative writer Dan McLaughlin (also known by his Twitter handle @baseballcrank).[4][5] The avatar is a baseball with a face, or a "bespectacled baseball with a get-off-my-lawn facial expression," which was "digitally inserted countless times into famous scenes of pain and madness."[4] Its proliferation online was a left-wing celebration of schadenfreude at Trump's success in the 2016 Republican primary, and the Baseball Crank avatar became a mocking caricature of the outrage of anti-Trump conservatives.[4][5] On the show, Christman described the avatar as representing to him the "anguished rictus of the Republican anti-Trump people. Whenever I see anybody bitching and moaning on the right about Trump's ascendancy, I just imagine their face taking on that horrified Boschian nightmare agony of the Baseball Crank."[4][5] McLaughlin himself declined to comment to Law360 about his avatar's repurposing, but did say "They can do whatever they want, I just don’t see the value of tweeting this stuff at me. I've got more important things to worry about."[4]

On November 14, 2016, left-leaning journalists and "Weird Twitter" personalities Virgil Texas and Amber A'Lee Frost joined the show as alternating co-hosts. Texas is Biederman's collaborator in creating the fictional, parodical pundit Carl Diggler (also the subject of his own podcast, The DigCast, on which Biederman voices Diggler and Texas portrays his intern);[6] Frost produces a film podcast with Christman called Frost/Christman.[7] Both had previously appeared as guests.

Format

An episode of Chapo Trap House is typically between 60 and 80 minutes. Episodes are usually structured with a prepared "cold open," an interview with a guest, and commentary on current events. In post-production, show producer Brendan James (also known by the Twitter handle @deep_beige) intersperses the show with audio samples that correspond with the episode's discussion.[1]

Chapo Trap House is dense with inside jokes and hyper-specific references to ongoing political discussion on Twitter.[8] The show has a reading series which usually features texts by conservative writers, who have so far included Ross Douthat, Dennis Prager, and Rod Dreher.[1] The discussion is interwoven, especially when topical, with the show's "abiding obsessions," such as "the weird anti-Armenian propaganda of the Turkish deep state, the craven goofiness of centrist pundits, the awfulness of [Adam] Sandler's Reign Over Me or the heart-stopping gluttonies of Antonin Scalia: 'The ability of millions of Americans to collectively bargain came down to whether one fat old man decided to do some sit-ups or not.'"[1] Douthat is a particular favorite subject of the show, and has been called the Jack Ryan among Chapo's rotating cast of referenced characters.[8] The show also occasionally references Carl Diggler, a fictional character written by Biederman and Virgil Texas that is a parody of centrist Beltway pundits.

Free episodes of the show are available via SoundCloud and iTunes. Subscribers who contribute at least $5 a month via Patreon gain access to premium bonus episodes. By August 2016, the show generated $12,000 a month from subscribers.[9] Geek.com cited the show's premium content as an example of a viable revenue model for new podcasters.[10]

Reception

Chapo Trap House has garnered a cult following.[1] Committed fans are called Grey Wolves, a joking reference to the Turkish nationalist movement of the same name.

A review of the second episode in The A.V. Club called the show "tremendously funny" and said "it feels like an absolutely essential listen." The reviewer cautioned prospective listeners that the show's left political perspective and amateur audio quality are "not for everyone," but said the hosts' "energy and desire to improve the political landscape of this country is not only unparalleled, but also contagious: if listening to this podcast doesn’t make you want to become more a more politically engaged person, it’s hard to imagine what will."[2] A subsequent A.V. Club review of the seventh episode noted the show's marked improvements in audio quality and the hosts' newfound confidence and flow in discussion, while retaining the "raw energy and urgency that has fueled the show from the get-go."[11]

Mediaite called the show "consistently, absurdly funny and impressively literate on the diverse subjects it tackles," citing the hosts' "breadth of awareness about (seemingly) everything that's been published in every media outlet for the past few decades, and a depth of knowledge on various, arcane subjects."[3] Paste described the show as "not deliberately offensive, but unapologetically honest ... so hilarious and delightfully vulgar I can barely stand it."[1]

The Advocate praised the show for its "scathing, hilarious, erudite analysis on politics and media from a far-left perspective," and favorably analogized the thrill of listening to how Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh make their right-wing fans feel.[12] Comedy website Splitsider recommended the episode featuring video editor Vic Berger, who did an in-depth interview about his surreal Vine and YouTube shorts covering the 2016 presidential election season.[13]

Al Giordano, a liberal political commentator who plans to challenge Bernie Sanders for his Senate seat in 2018, accused Chapo Trap House of organizing fake accounts to troll him on Twitter. The accusation was based on an evident misunderstanding of the hosts' discussion of other fake accounts that had interacted with Giordano online, but not their own intention to do so. Giordano became embroiled in argument with fans of the show and other Weird Twitter users, and Daily Dot writer Jay Hathaway deemed Giordano's behavior as not "looking especially great for Giordano's possible campaign or his personal brand."[14]

In a column, Robby Soave of libertarian magazine Reason criticized the show as "apparently a group therapy session for Bernie bros."[15] Soave wrote in reaction to host Will Menaker commenting on one of his tweets, saying that he believed Menaker had a hypocritical view of free speech rights, and said the hosts "would gleefully applaud the silencing of everyone to their right."[15] Soave later appeared as a guest on a premium episode of the podcast, in which he debated the hosts on freedom of speech in the media and the viability of public education.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Rhode, Jason (July 29, 2016). "Chapo Trap House are the Vulgar, Brilliant Demigods of the New Progressive Left". Paste. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  2. 1 2 Griffith, Colin (March 28, 2016). "Podmass: Aaron Rodgers stops by You Made It Weird to talk about UFO sightings: Chapo Trap House". The A.V. Club. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Reisman, Sam (April 12, 2016). "Meet Chapo Trap House: The Funniest and Most F**ked Up New Podcast About Media and Politics". Mediaite. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Overley, Jeff (May 4, 2016). "Sidley Austin Atty's Anti-Trump Crusade Draws Fans, Mockery". Law360. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 Hathaway, Jay (May 4, 2016). "How the Baseball Crank became a weird symbol of the GOP #NeverTrump meltdown". The Daily Dot. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  6. ↑ Marantz, Andrew (October 10, 2016). "The Parody Pundit We Deserve". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 14, 2016.
  7. ↑ https://twitter.com/CHAPOTRAPHOUSE/status/798220287884066816
  8. 1 2 Brawley, Eddie (September 9, 2016). "Explaining the 'Chapo Trap House' Podcast to the Uninitiated". Splitsider. Retrieved September 9, 2016.
  9. ↑ Smith, Jack (August 29, 2016). "Liberals are making bank on a site called Patreon. The right calls it 'hipster welfare.'". Mic. Retrieved September 6, 2016.
  10. ↑ Jensen, K. Thor (June 23, 2016). "How to start your own podcast without any experience". Geek.com. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  11. ↑ Griffith, Colin (May 2, 2016). "Podmass: Orange Is The New Black's Diane Guerrero on debt and deportation: Chapo Trap House". The A.V. Club. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  12. ↑ Brillon, Gordon (August 4, 2016). "Talk talk: Here are the podcasts we are listening to this week". The Advocate. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  13. ↑ Wright, Megh (July 14, 2016). "This Week in Comedy Podcasts: 'Sooo Many White Guys' Debuts". Splitsider. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  14. ↑ Hathaway, Jay (June 15, 2016). "Democrat eyeing Bernie's Senate seat is the maddest guy online". The Daily Dot. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  15. 1 2 Soave, Robby (June 12, 2016). "If a Left-Wing Peter Thiel Sued a Right-Wing Gawker, Liberals Would Cheer. They Said So.". Reason. Retrieved August 15, 2016.

Further reading

External links

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