I admire Donald Trump because he gets a tremendous amount of hate but keeps his chin up and his natural arrogance intact. Popularity isn’t a true measure of a man. Everybody gets haters.

Even in dictatorships, where they rig elections, care is taken so that it’s never 100% of the vote going to somebody. It is literally impossible to get 100% of the population to agree on anything. By the same token, no man alive is going to seduce every woman. I recall reading a story about a boy who supposedly seduced every girl in his neighborhood. I thought, bullshit. An attractive girl could get fucked hard by every guy if she was a crazy nympho because guys are indiscriminate about sex, but girls are flaky, flighty, prone to backing out of any erotic commitment for no reason at all. The most charming, sexy guy is going to run into a wall occasionally. The true seducer accepts this and moves on.

I am deep into browsing Reddit for people’s thoughts. It is fascinating to see the different viewpoints on display. One of the things I notice is that it is very easy for people to hate on things. I searched for “Heartiste” at one point and many commenters — those who knew about him at all — were calling him an incel, a loser, a bad writer, and one guy was talking about punching Roosh V in the face and calling him greasy and making fun of him for his beard. Exceptional individuals have no protections against criticism.

Even as people hate, however, they can be quite generous toward their favorites. I went into an Elvis thread and it turned into a general pic-and-text combo commentary on good-looking guys in general. There was no jealousy of the male hotties, only admiration and lust. Elvis got a little burned for being with a young chick, but all the full range of males who were admired (Paul Newman did very well) were treated pretty damn good.

Popularity feeds on itself, but can generate its own backlash. If there was a popular male singer who did very well overall, that would create its own negative reaction, particularly if that singer had unorthodox views. Elvis was very polite and never had a strong personality and opinions. He was a blank slate upon which you could impress your own fantasies without a problem.

If you want to be popular, it’s probably better to be interesting without being definite about where you stand. J.K. Rowling, the British Harry Potter woman, has been getting a lot of heat for being against trans women, costing her significant popularity. People want their literary and music heroes to align with their own personal beliefs.

The safest bet is to be a left-winger, because leftist ideology dominates the world. The notion that all races are equal, that the genders are equal, that homosexuality is okay, has swept into the world of thought and taken all before it. When J.K. Rowling opposes men-turned-women, she gets death threats and rape threats and threats to her family. It is in the nature of all political alignments to resort to threats to silence the opposition. I think it’s kinda funny.

We live in a generally peaceful world that occasionally breaks out into near-insane levels of violence. It’s like the societies of the world have a mental glitch in them. As long as things are running smoothly, you don’t see the glitch, but when the stars align right, watch out!!! The world wars were like that, urban riots are like that, things seem stable until they’re not. Mostly, they’re stable. People are too lazy to stay highly active for long, as a rule. The television set has been a great pacifier. It takes grown-ups and sticks a baby bottle in their mouth, visually.

I’ve veered off the topic of popularity, but in a way it all ties together. The need to be popular is strongest in high school, when people are growing up and at their weakest. When you’re young, high school seems like a permanent state of affairs, something you’ll always be in. Your social condition there matters a fair bit. I didn’t care much, but I was a genius and mature. I was invisible in high school. I could have been very popular and a seducer of young chicks, but I’m glad I held back. Invisibility is good for a writer and for a thinker. Popularity leads to dumbness and bad decisions, most of the time.

If your goal is to seek to be popular, you’re weak. True leaders don’t give a shit if they have average cred. Popularity demands a certain coolness and charisma that takes energy to maintain. It’s better to eschew it altogether, or if you must have popularity, to do it on your terms. The great thing about being invisible in society is it comes without obligations. The popular kids, whatever their age, are always under a kind of steady obligation and compulsion. There are a few advantages to being popular, but not many. The final verdict on popularity is that, like fame, it appeals to those who need constant reassurance that they’re worth it. It’s not normal.