Space cadet Elon Musk and British pop intellectual Russell Brand, like former US president Donald Trump, don’t trust “establishment media”.
All three, circumventing accepted norms, standards, legal checks, balances, facts and sometimes rational thought entirely, communicate directly with supporters and disciples from private, unregulated media platforms while generating fat incomes.
Musk is considered one of the most influential human beings on Planet Earth, Mars and outer space with his little fingers on all sorts of important and influential buttons.
This week YouTube suspended ad revenue from Brand’s personal princedom with its 6.63 million subscribers after Channel 4’s Dispatches and the London Sunday Times raised allegations of sexual assault, rape and emotional abuse by the popular comedian between 2006 and 2013.
Brand has an additional 11.2 million followers on X and has opened up more internet windows to let out the demons in his head on other, newer social media platforms like Rumble and TikTok.
The priapic Brand has never hidden his enslavement to personal sexual gratification and in fact has made a hugely successful and lucrative career out of it as an icon of Brit “bad boy” comedy in the 2000s.
Openly misogynistic and vapid
Brand’s routines back then were openly misogynist and vapid, but audiences killed themselves laughing at the cuttingly articulate comedian. Only humourless feminists and hairy-armpit lesbians spoiled the fun with their complaining.
It was in fact Channel 4 and the BBC, as well as the selfsame Sunday Times, which provided the young upstart Brand and his dick with a leg-up in the country’s established media.
Satirical US magazine The Onion responded to the excavation of long-known Brand abuse charges this week with the headline, “Nation Could Have Sworn Russell Brand Was Already Convicted Sex Offender”.
With politics gloomy, British media – from left to right on the political spectrum – live and breathe for sex scandals and peculiar perversion.
If it is not Sir Jimmy Saville forcing himself on more than 400 children and young and old women alike, then it is Brand or Boris Johnson or Prince Andrew. The BBC and ITV have had their own manufactured “sexgates”, with anchors Phillip Schofield and Huw Edwards in the spotlight a while ago.
Brand denied the allegations and said he had not hidden his years as a sex addict and, in fact, lived them out in full public view. He alleged a conspiracy by “mainstream” media to silence him.
“They want to control these spaces and my voice,” Brand complained.
While Trump might know how to grab pussy like Brand, the former leader of the free world clearly has little understanding of human biology or pregnancy and birth.
Earlier, Trump repeatedly told NBC’s Meet the Press interviewer Kristen Welker that Democrats were proposing “abortion even after birth”.
“The radical people on this are really the Democrats that say after five months, six months, seven months, eight months, nine months, and even after birth, you are allowed to terminate the baby,” the self-proclaimed stable genius said.
Trump confidently repeated the untruth that former Virginia governor Ralph Northam had said “after the baby is born, you will make a determination, and if you want, you will kill that baby”.
The NBC interview was Trump’s first with mainstream media in a while. Since his attempted coup and entanglements with the law, Trump has had to find his own megaphones and his YouTube channel has 2.77 million subscribers. Musk has let him back on X, where Trump has 83 million followers.
It was Trump’s moment to show up “fake media” by appearing on such a “fake media” platform to bring us the truth about abortion. He did not disappoint.
Respected US biographer Walter Isaacson has just published a 670-page biography on homeboy Musk. In there it is revealed that life was bleak and kak, what with the Pretoria school bullies, his sociopath father and even the family dog that went for the poor kid.
“The Musk family kept German Shepherd dogs that were trained to attack anyone running by the house. When he was six, Elon was racing down the driveway and his favourite dog attacked him, taking a massive bite out of his back,” writes Isaacson.
Demons and darkness
For “anyone running by the house”, insert black people in apartheid South Africa.
In the emergency room, writes Isaacson, little Musk pleaded with “them” not to punish the dog.
“In recounting the story, Musk pauses and stares vacantly for a very long time. ‘Then they damn well shot the dog dead’.”
What Musk and Brand share, according to Isaacson and the four women accusing the comedian, is being overcome by “demons” – when their countenances change and their eyes, those windows to the soul, “go black”. Psychotic breaks, in other words.
When patriarchy wounds, it wounds deeply and the scars it leaves turn some little boys into morally misshapen men like Musk, Brand and Trump.
Brand never knew his father, who disappeared when he was six months old, while Musk’s father Errol, a rightwing conspiracist, subjected his son to hours of abuse and insane shouting. Trump idolises his Ku Klux Klan-loving father Fred Trump Sr, who was arrested at a KKK parade in 1927.
Jill Lapore, reviewing Isaacson’s book in The New Yorker, opined that at the core of Musk (and Brand and Trump, it is clear) lies a penchant for cruelty.
Cruelty, as political philosopher Judith Sklar noted, transgresses religious and political boundaries. She warns, however, that “the habits of the faithful do not differ from those of the faithless in brutalities”.
Trump, Musk and Brand should stick to what they do best: shady real estate deals, science, technology, space travel and comedy (if you find him funny). They are far too unstable to be trusted with the power and ethical demands of media.
These men have global reach and influence, amplified in echo chambers swirling with conspiracy theories and fantasy. Trust them at your peril. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.
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Musk. – “with his little fingers on all sorts of important and influential buttons.” Snide comment? Yes Marianne, very snide.
“Jill Lapore, … opined that at the core of Musk … lies a penchant for cruelty.” Where does this come from? Just some book reviewer! After Musk pleaded for the dog not to be shot?!?!
I know nothing about Brand.
I read a lot about Trump. Egotistical thug. An American Zuma!
This is one of the most misinformed opinions of Russel Brand that I have ever read. Firstly, to compare him to Trump and/or Musk is, in actual fact, laughable. The work that Brand does for the greater community of people that does not want to fall victim to a system of censorship and oppression, nor want to be part of the so-called free countries across the globe where the rich and powerful are conspiring for one-world domination, is invaluable. His work, firstly, on the acclaimed podcast Under the Skin, where informative interviews were conducted with inter alia Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Vedana Shiva, Yanis Varoufakis constitutes investigative journalism which is priceless in the age we are living in. That thread was continued, and advanced upon, on his social platforms from which he now wants to be silenced. That is the true reason for the allegations which recently came to light. We all need to be forgiven for turbulent pasts, and in Brand’s case, events which were acted out in a long-forgotten era of his life. It is a petty that also here in South-Africa, there is an attempt to have him silenced, or then, to jump on the bandwagon to have him seen in negative light when the man is seemingly doing his bit to make a change. Go and listen to his interviews and do not be fooled by this ill-informed opinion.
Bester Meyer
(Poet and Musician)
Well said!
Permission to copy and paste your comment please?
I posted this after seeing a MSM article.
So Dame Caroline, on behalf of the British Government and Taxpayers, is confirming their control of MSM in order to Punish and silence Russell Brand with their Policy of “Guilty until Proven Innocent”.
Personally I’ve always thought Brand was a bit of a moron and not particularly funny but THIS IS SO WRONG. He has not even has any Criminal Charges laid against him FFS!
Marianne Thamm has nominated herself as Executioner!
Sure
Marianne,
Musk+Brand+Trump are rather honest about their lives,
and also they were caught out by people.
But what about YOU?
Never caught!?, right?
Now you play the Holy Card,
shouting down Musk+Brand+Trump,
and use that process to uplift yourself!
Just be careful,
when you condemn, criticize, insult and bad mouth people,
you eventually become like them.
Hey Marianne,
you forgot about Kevin Spacey!
He lost all his work,
he lost his last movie.
You should mention him also in your writings.
Oh sorry, my mistake,
he was found not guilty on all (fabricated) charges.
My bad.
…. along with Cliff Richard, Alex Salmond, Harvey Proctor, and a slew of dead people accused posthumously unable to defend themselves: Ted Heath, Leon Britton among many others. The savagery of the media mob is at its most ironical when it is raised against those it accuses of being the mob… how their virtue glows in the dark!
Have the 4 women made a case if they have and he gets found guilty/not guilty then opine.
Wow, what a nasty, subjective and snide little hit piece by Marianne Thamm. It’s as if she has decided well beforehand that she intensely dislikes these three men, they seem to personify the ‘evil’ patriarchy to her, and come hell or high water she was determined to extrapolate and propagate a shallow and simplistic fact-less narrative that will go along with her radical leftist virtue signalling fantasies…
Not journalism by any stretch…
” she has decided well beforehand that she intensely dislikes (these three) men”
and she appears to be very bitter.
Erik
You said: she has decided well beforehand that she intensely dislikes (these three) men, but some editing was needed
and she appears to be very bitter.
Marianne Thamm – “All three, circumventing accepted norms, standards, legal checks, balances, facts and sometimes rational thought entirely, communicate directly with supporters and disciples from private, unregulated media platforms while generating fat incomes.”
I’m shocked that as a supposedly Professional Journalist, you condemn their need to act beyond MSM controls and politicking? This is called “freedom of speech” .
Take off your Puppet Executioner’s Hat and put on your Pro-Free-Speech, Journalistic Hat please.
This article has a lot of sharp edges, but not in a good way. I expected more from this journalist – an incisive analysis that provides new insights and food for thought it is certainly not.
DM, this piece by MT doesn’t make the grade, in fact, it’s kuk in MT’s terminology. Analise these men by all means, and write informed critisism where needed, but leave the petty snipes – it just shows your prejudice
Funny how Musk was everybody’s hero. The wonder boy who showed the world how things could be done. Electric cars which actually worked. Spaceships to Mars. Underground tunnels to whizz people from city to city. Then he bought Twitter. He revealed the government censorship and interference. He fired the Mary left wing woke censors and opened it up. Replatformed the deplatformed like Robert Kennedy Jnr. Immediately the knives came out and he is suddenly this bad boy awful man. And DM just goes along with the rest of the mainstream media. Shame on you Marianne and DM.
“Electric cars which actually worked. Spaceships to Mars. Underground tunnels to whizz people from city to city” – you realise Musk hasn’t done any of these things?
Are you suggesting, Timothy, that none of the 1,917,450 cars that Tesla has sold since its inception actually work?
Are you suggesting that SpaceX hasn’t launched 266 Falcon 9 rockets since June 2010, with only one partial failure and one complete failure?
Are you suggesting that SpaceX hasn’t launched its first attempt for the Superheavy / Starship combined reusable rocket, intended to get to Mars? Are you aware that the second flight is likely to happen next month?
Granted, the Boring Company hasn’t made a huge amount of progress yet.
Are you suggesting that just because Elon Musk isn’t the only employee of Tesla and SpaceX that he doesn’t qualify for any credit for his companies’ successes?
“He revealed the government censorship and interference. He fired the Mary left wing woke censors and opened it up”
What?
Seriously, _WHAT?_
Great article. Seems to have injured some members of the Brand and Musk fanbase however. Their reactions speak volumes.
No, not of fan of any of them, but just can’t stand the smug people who think only their opinion should be listened to and that the presumption of innocence is only for them and their preferred people.
“Brand’s routines back then were openly misogynist and vapid, but audiences killed themselves laughing at the cuttingly articulate comedian. Only humourless feminists and hairy-armpit lesbians spoiled the fun with their complaining.”
Important factual error there. Lot’s of ordinary ‘conservative’ people objected to Brand, particularly over the prank he played on Andrew Sachs. They were all dismissed by the bien pensant ‘progressives’ of the time as pearl-clutching prudes. But Brand was onside with the progressive corporates then, and they were making money out of him. Now he’s curbed his excessive lifestyle and is asking questions and making his money independently. So, since we all knew all along what he was (unproven anonymous allegations withstanding), it would surely be reasonable for a real journalist to ask “what’s changed?” or “why now?” You don’t ask that and just join in with the mob. Perhaps you should have stuck to plumbing after all.
Surely the peverse combination of access to power, bullying and a big enough audience qualify these particular individuals, as well as a slew of other powerful people (Johnson, Modi, Putin, Xi, Raisi, Bin Salman, etc?) to be classified as sociopaths? They are all certainly numb to the suffering of others, and revel in the abuse of power, while projecting themselves as lovely, kind victims of circumstance.
At the very least they each epitomise the nadir of patriarchal entitlement, except to their equally emasculated followers.
All 💯 except where you call Brand an “intellectual”. He’s as far from that as possible – about the same as Dolt 45, probably – and is in fact a poster-boy for “pseud”.
Fanclubs: It’s an opinion piece. I would think these “we’re all entitled to our opinion” types would at least still respect that one since it’s their favourite battle cry in the comments.
P.S. ‘Opinionista’ was the clue.
Marianne, you are an exceptional journalist in my opinion, and I enjoyed your article immensely.
It did resonate with me.
Some other subscribers comments on this article I found mean, distasteful and full of invective.
Not helpful.
Nor useful.
Emotional opinions never are.
Hahahaha, pot… kettle…. black
Great article Marianne
I really enjoy your insightful journalism, Marianne. Nothing wrong with a little bit of psychoanalysis! These three men also seem to me to be the proverbial adult children, damaged by events and dysfunction in their families of origin. They comport themselves as dangerous, histrionic clowns. Yes, the world benefits in some way from the movers-and-shakers amongst us, but at what price with some of them?
Nasty is as nasty does Marianne. Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence? As for Trump’s clumsy abortion comments we all know he’s referring to the defeated attempts in some US States (and in New Zealand) to make it compulsory for medical treatment to be given to aborted foetuses born alive. You might think it’s ok to leave them to die but some of us think that’s just infanticide; the word Trump should have used.