Secret Jewish tunnel highlights social media antisemitism

Happy new year and welcome to Modern Relics, the newsletter about religion, pop culture and the internet.

I hope you had a fun break — I went to Brisbane for Christmas and managed to dodge most of the big storms.

Modern Relics-y themed activities included watching Lady Bird, directed by Greta Gerwig for the first time and playing Persona 5 in earnest. Also, I finished Seven Surrenders, the second book in Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series. Maybe I will write about these things one day, and maybe I won’t! All come highly recommended by me though.

I’m now back at work making a new season of Soul Search, and I have a few episode concepts that were inspired by this newsletter. I’ll link to them if and when they go online.

The Pop-Tart gave its life for you, etc

There were a lot of memes that happened while I was away. For example, at an event called the "Pop-Tarts Bowl" an anthropomorphised Pop-Tart slid into a toaster while holding a sign saying "Dreams really do come true" and then it came out as a big cooked Pop-Tart and a lot of footballers gathered around and ate the Pop-Tart.

In my corner of the internet this was a really big deal on account of its religious implications.

Say this in a job interview

The secret tunnel under 770 Eastern Parkway

This week a secret tunnel was discovered beneath the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. It’s still unclear why the tunnel was dug, but it was apparently constructed over the past few years — probably begun during COVID lockdown.

The building is sacred to people in the Chabad movement, so it doesn't really make sense to dig a tunnel under it that might collapse. Still, a group of students were willing to get in the way of the City's efforts to repair the walls of the building with cement.

It’s the sort of thing ripe for online clowning, but also for antisemitism and the worst kinds of conspiracy thinking. In fact, a lot of the Jewish content I wanted to post here has been deleted because it was getting dogpiled with the most revolting shit possible.

Anyway, the Chabad-Lubavitch Headquarters has made a statement blaming the whole incident on "a group of young agitators". I'll write about this again if it generates more content, but to be honest, the antisemitism on Twitter/X is so oppressive I doubt that's going to happen.

I know what you can get me for my birthday

Lil Nas X's single, J CHRIST, is dropping

Perhaps it has already dropped even as you read this, but the point of this post isn't about the single itself, but Lil Nas X's promo on Twitter/X and TikTok, and the reaction to it.

In November last year I wrote about how Lil Nas X declared he's entering his "Christian era". A lot of his work is specifically engineered to cause controversy among religious conservatives, but he's also clearly familiar with the symbols and stories, and is deliberate about what he says and how.

Posts include, Lil Nas X dressed as Jesus snacking on communion wafers and taking tiny communion cup shots of wine, a golden crucifix transformer, an acceptance letter to Liberty University signed by Jerry Falwell, a picture of him dressed as an angel holding two guns, a fancam including conservative commentator Candice Owens saying "he's desperate for your outrage"... and there's probably more I've missed.

His TikTok comments are flooded with people accusing him of blasphemy. Lil Nas X is clapping back on Twitter/X, defending his choices and retweeting posts pointing out that black artists use biblical imagery all the time. Remember Yeezus?

Is it ironic? Is it genuine? Yes! One of the things I really appreciate about Lil Nas X is how he expresses something sincere through the visual language of irony and memes — which by the way is how a lot of younger religious people express their faith online.

The Lil Nas X Christian era is giving Weird Christian Twitter and I'm here for it. Let's goooo

Losing it at this

An awkward note!

You might be aware of the Substack Nazi controversy — the company that hosts this and many other newsletters refused to remove or demonetise pro-Nazi content on free-speech grounds. Substack has now removed five very small, unmonetised neo-Nazi newsletters from the platform, but is indicating it won’t be proactive about moderating that kind of content in future.

Substack has always been reluctant to dictate who can say what on their server space. Anti-vax and conspiracy content is common, and I’ve always felt a bit weird that the number one “faith and spirituality” newsletter is something called Tipping Point Prophecy Update which, for $7 a month, “…[walks] you through the many parallels between today’s world and the End Times”.

Until now I’ve appreciated Substack as a tool and its cross-publication recommendation features have exposed this little newsletter to a larger audience than it otherwise would have found. It’s also the only platform that allows you to publish a free newsletter for free. But the cross-publication traffic has tapered off for me now, and maybe it sounds silly coming from someone with no public profile, but I really am starting to worry about me and this newsletter being associated with the Substack brand. Modern Relics is about religion and it’s no good if Substack is unwilling to do very much about other newsletters using its services to promote hatred of Jews.

All to say, even though I technically cost Substack money, I’m actively looking around at other options. I’m able to take this mailing list to another platform and the vast majority of you read this newsletter in your inboxes anyway, so hopefully this won’t affect you at all. I'll have to pay for hosting though, and that sucks. At the moment I can't offer subscriptions to cover the cost, so I'll just try and keep expenses to a minimum, and eat it.

All to say, your support in other ways would really help! Twitter and Substack were the core of this project, so to see them go the way they have has left me feeling a bit disillusioned. But the discipline of writing this newsletter helps me think about what I consume online, and I get to cover things I wouldn't normally, so I'll keep doing it for now at least.

Sorry for such a long post! I have a lot — a LOT — of posts you sent me over the holidays, so next week I'll include as many as I can! Thanks for reading!