Hurkle-Durkle, Tradwives, and Hikikomori for White Women: Exploring Internet Subculture with Suzy Weiss

In this fascinating discussion with journalist Suzy Weiss, Malcolm and Simone dive into a range of internet subcultures and trends, from "Hercule Derkle" and the death of wellness culture to tradwives and the rise of unwellness influencers. They explore how ancient concepts like Wu Wei and Shabbat are being misappropriated to justify modern hedonism and the implications of a society where basic needs can be met without leaving one's bedroom. The conversation also touches on the contradictions of feminism, the allure of communal living, and the future of reproduction in an age of womb transplants and artificial wombs. Throughout the episode, the trio grapples with the ways in which these online phenomena reflect broader cultural shifts and the search for meaning in an increasingly atomized world.

Suzy Weiss: [00:00:00] Yeah, there's also like this weird way that medieval debunked science is being repackaged in the wellness world. Hikikomori, for those who don't know are, mostly men in Japan who are shut ins, they don't leave their room for years, sometimes at a time, their parents bring them food, they play video games, they're totally addicted to their screens, Japan is 10 years ahead of us in everything.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, and fertility collapse

Suzy Weiss: fast food tastes like food enough, but it's not food and video games feel like problem solving and engaging, but it's really not doing those things.

And he described it as this slack noose around his neck where he technically forgot all of the things fulfilled. He was talking to people, he was eating, he was alive in the world, but at this really not at what's the word I'm looking for, like not at the level of.

Of actually living but not enough that he would go and change it. Like it wasn't dire enough.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Hi everyone. We are so excited to have our favorite writer on the podcast, Susie Weiss. She's with The Free Press. You can find her on [00:01:00] Twitter slash x.

At Snoozy Weiss. And she has written some amazing pieces. We first discovered her through this mind blowing article on Spoonies. But more recently, she wrote about a different type of kind of self care culture that we thought would be really fun to discuss today. Particularly referring to hergaldergal as a trending term, but also like bed rot and quiet quitting show up in the article as well.

Suzy Weiss: Yeah.

Simone Collins: We'd love to talk about this with you because there's so much going on here.

Suzy Weiss: We're really going to, we're going to get into tradwives. We're going to get, everyone should buckle up for a ride through the internet.

Simone Collins: You had this great quote in there, didn't you say something like tradwives are the girl bosses of the home or something?

Tradwives are the girl bosses of the, they're not different. They are. They're just villainized women. 100%. We're trying

Suzy Weiss: to get what they want, which is, I thought, what we all want, but I guess not.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well they're having it all, they're having it all in the home, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If you go what you want. Well, it's so interesting the way that society is so [00:02:00] politicized that every subculture has a team.

And depending on what team you are in, that subculture is either an evil or good subculture from the perspective of each team. Yeah, the hustlers

Simone Collins: versus the quiet quitters and the trad wives versus the soft girls and yeah, there's, has to be this

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it's actually almost odd when there are un teamified subcultures, like MLMs.

MLMs isn't explicitly a right or left thing. But if I think box shipping, when you were talking about hustlers, I'm like, oh, those are right wing nut jobs. That's what people would say about them, right? Like drop

Suzy Weiss: shipping?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Dropshipping. Yeah. Dropshipping. There's like a whole dropshipping culture, like Andrew Tate's in university really fights for dropshipping, right?

Yeah. They might, but a lot of things like that do. So it's very similar to MLM ism. So, okay. Obviously you have MLMs, which predominantly target women, but the ones that target men are typically not monetized through the traditional MLM model. It's more like a guru monetizes through [00:03:00] very expensive courses.

And then they try to target teaching people like actually how to start a company. But if you're going to teach at scale, how to start a company, there's really only a few companies that work on that model. Dropshipping is one of them actually doing lectures. Is dropshipping

Suzy Weiss: like MLM for men?

Malcolm Collins: Yes, I

Suzy Weiss: have to read about this.

I'm so excited. It's like raw milk and it's like anti vax. It's the middle of the horseshoe and you're you could, it's the Rorschach test. Like whatever in it reveals your But it's not as abusive

Malcolm Collins: as MLM because you can genuinely make a lot of money doing it if you do it right.

But it is like MLM in that it freezes. forms like these cults of personality. And yeah, and the whole

Suzy Weiss: vocabulary around it, like the vocabulary around Hey girl. Hey Hey babe. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I love that.

Suzy Weiss: Oh

Simone Collins: my God.

Malcolm Collins: Hey hon.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Let's go into, do you want to start with Hercule D'Urkel or trad wise?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Define Hercule D'Urkel for our sage [00:04:00] audience that probably has never heard this term before.

Suzy Weiss: Yes. Cause your audience is smart. And reads books, and I've never read a book, but Hercule Durkle is this 18th century Scottish term, and we could get into the whole like, trend industrial complex, but basically it's like an update to bedrotting which is an update to, I think, hygiee.

Which is that there's there's a, or hide, it's like the, it's like a Nordic Swedish word for getting cozy. And then there was like another term for staying in on a Friday night during like Norwegian winters, but it's like this umbrella term. It falls under self care, but herkle derkle is just apparently this Scottish phrase from the 18th century that means staying in bed longer than you should.

But of course when you combine that with the internet and the algorithm, it turns into this rallying cry for people not to feel bad about pickling under their duvet cover all day. And herkle derkle, which is stay in bed, but of course means stay on your phone and allow a stream [00:05:00] of garbage to go directly into your eyeballs and hold still while TikTok infiltrates your brain.

Malcolm Collins: Yep. So this actually reminds me of one of my favorite misinterpretations of a historic context. So people on the show know we're very into like religious systems and stuff like that. And we were talking with a friend of ours. And they're like, Oh we were like, how's your diet going?

And they're like, Oh, I came up with this amazing new diet system. That's based on ancient Eastern philosophy. And I was like, Oh no what do you think? I'm like, I, I knew things were new and no, they're like, well, I learned about this concept called Wu Wei. Are you familiar with Wu Wei? Okay. So it's a fairly complicated