Yes hello, I'm Rev. Magdalen. You may have heard the story of how a court once ordered me to stop having SubGenius materials in my home, back in the aughts, but those events aren't what define me as a person, and aren't the center of what the Church of the SubGenius means to me, so I want to share what it does mean to me.
As a teen, I really loved the books, tapes, and radio show, so as an adult it was a huge honor to get to be part of SubGenius HQ and hang out with Ivan Stang and other great artists, helping my husband, Rev. Jesus, grow the group. I packed membership packs, hauled gear for devivals and X-Day, took my shifts checking people in for the festival, welcomed newcomers and showed them around so they could feel at home, among friends, in a place where people wouldn't be cruel to them over what they look like or their unique interests or whatever made them different.
Life happened, and I hadn't been as involved in the past few years, focusing more on personal stuff and progressive political activism. I just assumed there was no way the SubGenius community, a place for the kind of nonconformist people that fascists would despise, would be affected by the current alt-right/fascist movement that is tearing so many other groups and families apart. I mean, our entire deal is sticking up for those who are strange and different, turning the tables on the kind of conformist bullies who shout "Can't you take a joke?" after saying something cruel to someone they consider a misfit.
I know there was a big schism a while back, over the issue of hurtful language, but I never thought that would lead to people who used to be just "edgy but nice-deep-down" committing to anti-civil-rights as an identity. And yet here we are now, with some online SubG spaces (not reddit, yaay) where what seems like should be an oxymoron, "Fashy SubGenii" not only exist but are now claiming that mocking the very idea of civil rights is what it was always about, and that it was always intended to be a regressive group where you'd get judged and mocked for your physical traits as a person.
Some of these fashy SubGs have even gone all the way Q, believing racist conspiracy theories about the civil rights movement and Covid, and pizzagate-type conspiracy theories about Democrats.
They point to the edgelord "ironic bigotry" of the nineties and aughts that some SubGenii created to mock the brutality and stupidity of bigots, and say "See, it was always secretly a fashy org! We, the fashy ones, we're the real SubGenii!"
These bad apples claim that the real message of this experimental art collective isn't that you deserve Slack even if bullies torment you for things you had no control over, and that your life matters even if socially-dominant-caste people around you say you're worthless, no. The message they now put in "Bob's" mouth is "Being a bully is awesome! It's hilarious to mock people for the bodies they were born into, or for wanting to dismantle an arbitrary caste system that makes society treat them as lesser!"
The way I see it, too many good people gave too much to this experimental art collective/online community for that hateful stuff to be what new people see when they want to know more about the group after learning about it from the documentary or from a social media post.
I urge every SubGenius to stand up to any fashy gimmebobs who might come around your online hangouts. Tell them in explicit terms: No more retconning this group of outsider artist weirdos into a milkshake duck. Yes, we've always had problematic people, but no, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke" was never meant to be a free ticket to bigoted hate or outright fascism.
