Freedom Club: The Unabomber Podcast
Freedom Club: The Unabomber Podcast is a biweekly podcast series that explores the life and ideology of Ted Kaczynski, also known as the "Unabomber." Created and hosted by Coyote Hill, a researcher at the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan, the show delves into Kaczynski's manifesto and its relevance in today's world of technology and environmental degradation.
The show was born out of a correspondence between Hill and Viktor Recel, a businessman who funded Hill's research at the Labadie Collection. Recel, intrigued by Hill's knowledge of dark ecology and his obsession with Kaczynski, offered Hill the opportunity to work on a podcast series about the Unabomber. Hill accepted the challenge, and Freedom Club was born.
Since its inception in 2014, Freedom Club has gained a devoted following of listeners who are interested in Kaczynski's ideas and their relevance to contemporary issues. Hill invites experts and scholars on the show to discuss and debate Kaczynski's manifesto, and also invites listeners to share their own thoughts and opinions on the topic.
In each episode, Hill delves deep into Kaczynski's ideology and how it resonates with modern society, covering topics such as technology, environmentalism, and social justice. He also explores Kaczynski's personal life and the events that led him to become one of the most infamous criminals in American history.
Through Freedom Club, Hill aims to bring Kaczynski's ideas to a wider audience and to spark a critical conversation about the dangers of technology and the importance of preserving the natural world. The show has become a platform for individuals to challenge the status quo and to question the role of technology in society.
Over the years, Freedom Club has received praise for its thought-provoking content and Hill's engaging and informative hosting style. It has won several awards and has been featured in numerous media outlets. Freedom Club continues to be a leading source for those seeking to understand Kaczynski's ideas and their ongoing relevance in the world today.
The Copies of Copies Episode
The Freedom Club: The Unabomber Podcast, hosted by Coyote Hill, has caused a stir in the media world with its unconventional and controversial approach to discussing current events and societal issues. Hill, a self-proclaimed expert on the subjects of culture, agriculture, and technology, delves deep into the roots of modern society and how it is being shaped by the advancement of technology and the dangers of copying.
One of the most notable episodes of the show, "Copies of Copies," examines the horrors of agrilogistics and the drive to make copies of ourselves, drawing connections to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ted Kaczynski's violent rejection of copy culture. Hill argues that the white supremacist movement's use of terror is a response to the decreasing productivity of copies and an embrace of a scarcity mindset.
But it's not just Hill's provocative ideas that have caught the attention of listeners. His unhinged and subjective delivery, often veering off on tangents and personal anecdotes, has garnered a cult following of devoted fans who take his thoughts to the extreme. Many have praised Hill for his ability to connect seemingly unrelated ideas and shed new light on complex issues, while others criticize his penchant for exaggeration and questionable sources.
Despite the criticism, Hill shows no signs of slowing down. His Freedom Club: The Unabomber Podcast continues to be a hot topic in the media, with each new episode eagerly anticipated by fans and detractors alike.
Adoption by Drill Community
Scarcity horror is a subgenre of UK-based drill music that emerged in the early 2020s and was inspired by the controversial podcast episode "Copies of Copies" hosted by Coyote Hill. The music, which is characterized by its dark and aggressive themes, explores the horrors of agrilogistics, the drive to make copies of ourselves, and the white supremacist movement's use of terror as a response to decreasing productivity and an embrace of scarcity mindset.
One of the key figures in the emergence of scarcity horror was rapper Kaczynski, whose violent refusal of copy culture and its mirror image in horror earned him a cult following among fans of the genre. His debut album, "The Unabomber Mixtape," was a scathing critique of modern society's reliance on technology and a call to embrace a simpler, more sustainable way of life.
Other notable artists in the scarcity horror scene include Mary Shelly, whose lyrics explore the themes of isolation and desperation in the face of environmental degradation, and White Noise, whose songs delve into the psychological consequences of living in a world where everything is a copy of a copy.
Despite its controversial themes and often disturbing lyrics, scarcity horror has gained a dedicated fanbase among those who are disillusioned with mainstream culture and are seeking an alternative to the sanitized, commercialized music that dominates the charts. So, it can be said that scarcity horror is a subgenre of UK drill music that reflects the anxieties and fears of a generation grappling with the challenges of the 21st century.
Artists in the Scarcity Horror subgenre include names such as Terror Base, Apocalypse How?, and The End Times Gang. Their music has been described as a reflection of the anxieties and fears of a generation facing an uncertain future. Despite its controversial themes, the genre has gained a devoted following among fans of UK drill music
The Letter Controversy
It was a shocking revelation for fans of the Freedom Club: The Unabomber Podcast when the private correspondence between host Coyote Hill and billionaire Viktor Recel was leaked. In the letters, Recel can be seen belittling Hill, calling him a "shoddily constructed opinion" and a "small boy using all his big ideas at once in order to impress people on Reddit." Recel also insults Hill's intelligence and suggests he find a "peasant woman" to settle down with.
The release of these letters sparked outrage among fans of the show, with many calling for a boycott of Recel's businesses and for Hill to be given a public apology. Critics of Recel have accused him of using his wealth and power to bully and belittle those who disagree with him.
In response to the scandal, Hill issued a statement saying, "I am deeply hurt by the cruel words of Viktor Recel and I stand with those who have been similarly mistreated by the wealthy and powerful. I will not be silenced and I will continue to use my platform to speak out against injustice."
The scandal has also brought attention to the subgenre of UK Drill music called "scarcity horror," which was inspired by Hill's podcast episode on the topic. Many artists within the genre have released tracks addressing themes of inequality and the dangers of a scarcity mindset. The scandal has brought a new level of relevance to the music and has further galvanized fans of the subgenre.
The two letters are published in full below:
Coyote's Proposal Letter
Dear Viktor Recel:
My Verizon bill is online. @dril is posting again. Ted Kaczynski does not deserve a second chance. None of these things are wrong, but none of these things are right.
I started a book club this winter. I wanted to reconnect with old friends, written and living. The idea was good, the results were not. That’s the problem with ideas. Their failures can never be faulted, so they live second, third, and sometimes immortal lives.
You want to feed the children. I want to feed the children. Our best ideas for feeding children are to destroy the earth and take from each other. This is the story of humanity in three sentences.
The word culture has its etymology in feeding children. It means to cultivate, to grow. All our ideas, all our beauty, everything we point to as culture has its roots in making more copies of food in order to make more copies of ourselves. Mary Shelly created modern horror during a summer where nothing grew. She gave birth to Frankenstein because the fields would not make copies of food. She lost her second child before the novel was published. Mary Shelly’s horror was that she could not make copies of Mary Shelly.
Horror is the disruption of copies.
The year without a summer gave birth to science fiction because it gave birth to Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. Soon it will be summer all the time and that will be a new type of horror. Endless Summer. Global Warming. Some people do not want to acknowledge global warming. They want to bury it, hide it. They use their power to remove it from our science. They treat it as fiction. Science Fiction. Mary Shelly created science fiction to express her horror with nature.
Why are they doing this? Because they are in denial. Our culture is burying the fact that we will not be able to cultivate soon. Instead of confronting our sins, our inability to get past the basic idea of agriculture, we make copies of monsters instead. We take good ideas and twist them. We turn old symbols on their heads once again.
The cross represents a man nailed to a tree. It is a symbol of God’s unconditional love for his creation. Set a cross on fire and it is a manifestation of horror.
Ted Kaczynski was right. Freedom cannot compete with technology. Nothing can compete with technology. Technology promises us the ability to free copying from the Earth. Copies without the body. Copies without the risk of failure. Endless unlimited copying. We will never turn our back on technology because our drive to copy is stronger than anything else. Even Uncle Teddy could not get past this. He killed people to force the newspapers to make copies of his message.
Newspapers are technology for making copies of ideas. Bombs are technology for taking from someone else. Kaczynski destroyed lives in order to make copies of his ideas. If he hadn’t become a monster, we would have never listened to him.
Horror is the medium of ideas these days. He understood that before so many others, but he was wrong. Still, his ideas lived on. That’s the problem with ideas. People blame the result, never the idea. This is why we will never abandon agriculture. It is the original technology. It is the first bad idea, only we’ll never see it that way.
White men burned crosses because their ability to make free agricultural products was taken away. They burnt crosses when confronted with a notion of equality. Equality meant less for them, less for their copies. Burning crosses are back because people are worried about fewer future copies. In the endless summer, there is less pie to go around.
That’s scarcity mindset and it is horror.
We are leaving an age of abundance and entering an age of scarcity horror.
Everything about Kaczynski is wrong except that he is right. He is the John the Baptist of scarcity horror and he predicted the coming of the Scarcity Christ who walks among us today. This Scarcity Christ is not a man, it is not a woman, it is not non-binary. It is a god. It is a system. It is a god system called technology. People were outraged when corporations became citizens, yet few have quite realized that Facebook achieved nationhood. You have which is why I am writing to you. What, Mr Recel, is beyond nationhood? God mode. The system is already God, will Facebook elevate itself like Caesar did? No, it is smarter than that. It has copied itself onto billions of devices and walks among us. It is the god of small things, the god of the people. Technology is destroying us because it needs to make more copies of itself, just like we destroyed the planet in order to make more copies of ourselves.
Scarcity Christ is here to take away our freedoms and Ted Kaczynski saw this coming. For that we locked him in a supermax cell in ADX Florence, the retirement home for monsters. World Trade Center Bomber, Underwear Bomber, Shoe Bomber, Oklahoma City Bomber, Boston Bomber. These are the monsters of ADX Florence. These are men who decided to blow up the world instead of making copies of themselves. Prometheus volcels. Prometheus incels. Frankenbombers.
Everything about Kaczynski is wrong, except that he is right.
I don’t know what to do about that, but I am intrigued by the horror of it. I am filled with fascination by the errors that emerge when our ability to copy is threatened.
Earlier, I mentioned that I started a book club. The first book we read was White Noise by Don DeLillo. If you are familiar with this work, then you know that the protagonist is a professor at a small liberal arts college who invents the field of Hitler studies. Hitler studies turned out to be a lucrative field. It was untapped and ripe for exploitation. I feel the same potential exists for Kaczynski.I would like to create a Kaczynski podcast called Freedom Club and air it on your network. I am giving you the exclusive first option to distribute unlimited copies of my ideas on the Unabomber.
While he appears at first to be an unlikely subject of examination, I ask you to look closer at the man, at what he portended, and at all the interesting offshoots we can go in. This letter alone shows what fertile ground lay at his feet. Furthermore, all of his work exists in the public domain. There are no rights issue. Beyond that, he remains a rich figure in the public imagination, but is less known among younger consumers. As the recent Netflix series Narcos has shown, there is a great demand for the resuscitation of popular monsters from the 80’s. If Escobar can pull those ratings, then I am confident that a Kaczynski podcast can be successful.
If I am too forward for making this proposal directly to you, then I apologize. I bypassed the submission process on the advice of a mutual friend, Sean Eckhard, who was a part of my book club. He found my fascination with Kaczynski intriguing and suggested that you would as well. With his encouragement, I have drafted this letter on the hope that we can further discuss the Freedom Club Podcast proposal.
Sincerely,
Coyote Hill
Recel's Response to Coyote
Dear Mr. Hill,
I have reviewed your correspondence and find it lacking. To call it a proposal is an insult to me as a businessman, for there is nothing in the letter resembling business. Your failure to adequately address the matter has reduced Mr. Eckhard’s standing in my eyes. You are to apologize to him at once. Normally, a shoddily constructed…I am unsure what to categorize that letter as, it is clearly unworthy of being labeled an essay. An opinion perhaps? Yes, we will call it an opinion…Normally, a shoddily constructed opinion like yours would not be worthy of a response, but there is a cleverness to the nonsense you spout.
Cleverness is the currency of the internet, so perhaps you may be of some use.
You, Mr. Hill, sound like a small boy using all his big ideas at once in order to impress people on Reddit. You are obviously very proud of the two books you have read in your life, White Noise and Dark Ecology. It is unclear if you have read Frankenstein. The knowledge you display of the Creature and Mary Shelly comes from cartoons and Wikipedia. I am going to assume you have not read the original text which is another disappointment from you.
Regarding Dark Ecology, you very liberally copy Mr. Morton’s ideas about copying. Your words on the roots of culture are his. I can understand your desire to use them, for all his limitations, Mr. Morton is one of the few recent thinkers to introduce ideas worth exploring. Perhaps you mistakenly assumed he was too obscure and hoped to pass his ideas off as your own? Do not underestimate my intelligence like that again. I am widely read.
I will confess to a failing of my own. On first pass, I did not pick up on your level of sexual frustration. My attractive socialite wife pointed it out as she read your letter after our mid-afternoon intercourse. In my defense, I perform many simultaneous tasks and only give you a fraction of my attention. Nevertheless, your frustration is disturbing and must repel many women. Your letter is littered with references to miscarriages, praise of antisocial bombers, and has an unhealthy focus on the failure of copies. It is obvious that you do not have loving children. No father would refer to children as copies or blame them for environmental degradation. However, to have children, you need to fuck, which you clearly do not do.
I am already far too generous with my time however I do not wish to see you lost in a cabin making bombs. You need to find a peasant woman, one that is slow thinking and does not possess enough intelligence to care about the words that come out of your mouth. The women of the steppes have an amazing capacity to listen to astounding quantities of drivel and yet still display affection for their men. My grandfather was an idiot blowhard like yourself and he was happy to be with a big boned dimwit who enjoyed carnal pleasures. If it was not for her eternal patience, I would not exist today. While this Scarcity Christ you call Facebook has been zapping the attention spans of even our slowest creatures, I suspect you can still find such a woman in Moldova or the Ukraine. Since you possess America citizenship, it is likely that you will even get one who is of average beauty.
Because I am a man of business and cannot help every impotent beta who writes me, we must return to this Kaczynski project. The idea has potential, even if I am doubtful of yours. Like many tycoons, I have chosen to start a podcast network for the sake of vanity. Unlike vain tycoons, I realize how late I am to this game and that most promising talent is already reading advertisements for MailChimp and Tuna Biscuit Club. This reduces me to scraps such as yourself. While I can see through your big ideas and reduce them to nonsense, most people cannot. You play with heady subjects, you spin words back and forth, you turn ideas on their head and try (but fail) to connect them all together in meaning. Regular people can be fooled by you. You are not an original thinker like Morton, but you are a skilled cobbler. You understand how to tack different things on a sturdy idea and pretend it has value.
So, my sexual frustrated cobbler, my counter proposal is this. We will place you on a research retainer to develop the Freedom Club concept. If you can prove yourself worthy, we will promote you to rank of podcaster where we will distribute unlimited copies of your blather and perhaps you can fool a woman into fucking with you. Should you accept, we will send you $2,000 stipend and direct you to the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan which houses the Kaczynski papers. Much like Mary Shelly, I suspect you possess only the most rudimentary knowledge of the man.
I have wasted so many words on you but hope that your cleverness proves yourself worthy of continued correspondence. In closing, never mention your telephone bill to me again. I have no care where it is posted.
With Regret, Viktor Recel
Another Letter From Recel
Dear Mr. Hill,
I have been monitoring your recent episodes of the Freedom Club podcast. Your continued obsession with Kaczynski and his ideas is, as always, a spectacle. You spin words back and forth, turning ideas on their heads and trying to connect them all together in meaning. It is a performance, and one that I must admit, has its own peculiar charm.
However, I find myself compelled to divert from the topic of your podcast and instead, focus on a subject of a more personal nature. You see, Mr. Hill, my attractive socialite wife has been a topic of discussion among your listeners, a fact that I find both amusing and mildly irritating.
My wife, a woman of exceptional beauty and sophistication, is not just an ornament to be admired. She is a force to be reckoned with, a whirlwind of intelligence and charm that leaves a lasting impression on everyone she meets. Her sharp business acumen is matched only by her ability to navigate the complex social circles she moves in with grace and ease.
It is after our mid-afternoon intercourse, when she is at her most radiant, that she often indulges me with her insights on your podcast. Her observations are astute, her criticisms sharp, and her praise, when it is given, is sincere. I find these discussions to be a refreshing diversion from the usual business matters that occupy my day.
I must confess, Mr. Hill, that these conversations with my wife have given me a new perspective on your podcast. It is not the content that intrigues me, but rather the reaction it elicits from my wife, a woman who is not easily impressed. It is a testament to your ability to provoke thought and stir debate, even if I find your ideas to be, at best, questionable.
In closing, I would advise you to continue with your podcast, your exploration of Kaczynski's ideas, and your attempts to challenge the status quo. It provides a source of entertainment for my wife and I, and for that, I suppose, I should be grateful.
With Regret,
Viktor Recel
The Attractive Socialite Wife Meme
In the world of internet memes, the Attractive Socialite Wife has become infamous for her love of collecting and hoarding the most influential and successful podcast hosts and influencers, much like a wealthy collector might collect designer bags or rare art. With her sharp business acumen and no-nonsense attitude, the Attractive Socialite Wife is not to be underestimated.
The Attractive Socialite Wife meme originated from a scandal involving Viktor Recel, a wealthy businessman, and Coyote Hill, a podcast host and influencer. In a leaked exchange of letters between the two, Recel referred to his attractive socialite wife reading Hill's letter after their mid-afternoon intercourse. Hill's fans, inspired by his ideas on the horrors of copies and copies of copies, as well as a resentment of the excesses of the wealthy, seized upon this line and turned it into a meme featuring the Attractive Socialite Wife sitting on piles of influential podcast hosts and influencers.
As the meme gained popularity, the Attractive Socialite Wife became a symbol of the greed and extravagance of the wealthy elite, with many internet users poking fun at the absurdity of collecting successful individuals as if they were mere objects. Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of the meme, it also serves as a commentary on the often cutthroat world of podcasting and influencer culture, where the pursuit of fame and success can lead to ruthless competition and a willingness to do whatever it takes to come out on top.
Sale of the Podcast
After much consideration, Viktor Recel decided to sell the rights to the highly successful Freedom Club podcast to Streamify, a generic corporate streaming service known for its watered-down content and lack of commitment to supporting independent creators. Recel saw this as a chance to get back at Coyote Hill, who he had been feuding with for some time.
The deal included several unusual clauses, such as a provision requiring Hill to record a series of promotional advertisements for Streamify and a clause prohibiting him from criticizing the company or its practices on any platform. Recel also insisted on including a non-disparagement clause, which would penalize Hill financially if he spoke negatively about Recel or the Freedom Club sale in any way.
Many fans of the Freedom Club podcast were disappointed with the sale to Streamify, feeling that it marked the end of an era and the betrayal of Hill's independent spirit. Despite this, Hill decided to move forward with the deal, hoping to use the promotional platform and financial resources of Streamify to continue spreading his ideas and message to a wider audience.