Grift Has No Legacy

For those who want a more specific definition, let’s refer to Grift as “Culture War Grift.” This is a grift that is commonly referred to but nobody has a concrete understanding of. I’ve given colloquial definitions before, but let it suffice:

A grifter is someone who adopts a posture not out of genuine conviction or cultural understanding, but out of algorithmic loyalty. This means the grifter chooses positions that maximize his attention and engagement rather than defending tradition authentically. The grifter selects vectors of engagement that perform well online, giving the illusion of principled resistance while actually chasing visibility.

The Anti-Woke Collapse

The anti-woke response to Ghost of Yotei as of late has convinced me that we are, indeed, seeing a system in collapse. The reality is, the game had its woke aspects, but only enough to cover a shot glass. I’m uncertain as to why the conversation about Ghost of Yotei had to become more complicated than it ought to have been, but perhaps this is a simple matter of influencers struggling to maintain relevance.

I think part of the reason people within today’s “influencer class” (as Jon Del Arroz has recently called them) have resorted to echoing their own takes rather than just focus on the truth about this being a game about female empowerment and male humiliation is because they are not ideologically opposed to feminism. I noted this a while back with the SmashJT article on Samus Aran, wherein Jeff Tarzia posits Metroid as a story about female empowerment. Incidentally, this is also why Jeff was obliged to say he never called himself “anti-woke.”

Anyway, the lesson here is that if you thrive on a system of moral outrage, your sustenance requires moral discernment. If you’re anti-woke but still have a soft spot for feminism, then you’ve lost the culture war. Them’s the breaks.

In past ten years, we witnessed as the Progressive Left surged forward with rhetoric amplified by institutions and platforms. That momentum culminated during the lockdown period (2020- 2023) when the full weight of the “woke” charge hit its peak. Then, in 2024, something shifted. The Internet, fractured though it was, seemed to momentarily unify in rebuke. The contradictions were too glaring, the moral posturing too hollow. There was a knee-jerk recoil, and for a brief moment, the cockroaches scattered.

But the reprieve didn’t last. As 2025 got underway, the resistance had dulled, the outrage had cooled, and the same ideological rot crept back in. The attack dogs returned to their vomit and the cycle resumed.

I saw this most vividly when SmashJT had suddenly pivoted into anti-Christian attacks after victory was prematurely declared over last wokeness. On X, Jeff targeted voices like Razorfist, Melonie Mac, Dread Roberts, and Jon Del Arroz. But this isn’t the 1990s anymore and Christians no longer have a unified front of evangelicals raising alarm bells about degenerate media. Frankly, modern media has no moral scaffolding worth defending because Christians have long since abandoned many prominent cultural institutions.

In 2025, If you’re positioning Christians as the authoritative voices in the room then you clearly haven’t been paying attention. The fact is, over the last few decades Christians have slowly retreated from most if not all vectors of institutional authority. So how were a few voices on X calling for a rejection of pornography and a return to traditional morality tantamount to actual authority?

The Importance of Fandom Pulse

Without Christian voices present, today’s influencer class is sailing a ship without a rudder. One cannot credibly claim to defend virtue while simultaneously excusing pornography, nihilism, and cultural decay; especially when one’s standard for what’s acceptable shifts based on personal taste or convenience. Moral authority cannot be selectively applied.

Moral clarity isn’t a branding exercise, it’s a commitment. That is the underlying strength of Fandom Pulse. In a digital landscape full of grift, Fandom Pulse stands apart as a beacon of truth. Jon Del Arroz and John F. Trent have chosen the hard path: objectivity. They’ve paid for it: their content is throttled, their reach has been algorithmically suppressed and in many corners, their names have been blacklisted. Unlike what many of today’s influencer class are doing, Fandom Pulse is making a long-term investment: they’re betting on truth.

And this isn’t because Fandom Pulse is powered by some secret sauce or insider advantage. Its strength comes from something far simpler and far more enduring: trust in the enduring power of Jesus Christ.

Most Influencers Lack Moral Discernment

It always strikes me how one content creator can be crucified for voicing a particular opinion only for another, operating in the same space, to echo that exact sentiment and be showered with praise. It’s a stark reminder: the reaction isn’t about what’s being said, but who is saying it. The substance is being ignored. The idea itself is no longer evaluated on its merit, but on the social capital of the speaker.

It’s not about truth, it’s about signaling.

As John F. Trent has often noted, C.S. Lewis warned us about this. In Mere Christianity, he wrote:

“He [the devil] always sends errors into the world in pairs—pairs of opposites... He relies on your extra dislike of one to draw you gradually into the opposite one.”

This is the Devil’s Duplicity. Today, we’re offered two errors: the Progressive Woke Left and the Anti-Woke Centrist Libertarians. Both are traps. The path forward isn’t between them, it’s through them.

This is why, throughout each of the “GamerGate” patterns of the last ten years, there have always been three sides: The woke (SJWs), the firestarters, and the grifters. The firestarter is someone who cries out about an injustice committed by the woke and there is a massive organic response to it. This results in the arrival of the third faction: grifters. These are influencers who involve themselves purely because they can benefit financially by talking about the “resistance” for as long as they can and for as long as responders believe the “resistance” is ongoing.

The real reason all these “GamerGate” movements have died is a due a complete lack of leadership. Many who portend to lead are just loud influencers who can’t tell the difference between content creation and audience exploitation; between truth and engagement bait. As a mirror for their audience, this would entail most people in general lack the ability to recognize good from evil.

What’s even more disgusting is that these influencers are inevitably cornered for what they truly believe in, what you often find is they don’t even fundamentally disagree with the progressive messages they oppose. And that’s why we are where we are today. Since the ultraprogressive Left has gone quiet and retreated to the annals of BlueSky, the anti-woke influencer class is now stuck repeating takes within their own circle rather than presenting anything of actual substance. They don’t have a leader.

I think this is one of the reasons you’ll see people cavort about AI because using AI properly requires a discernment compass. In other words, if you can’t tell what’s right or wrong, then how do you know the true value of something generated with the aid of an AI tool?

In contrast, consider the fact that Jon Del Arroz uses AI so readily and promotes its use writing books. The reason he isn’t afraid and rubs it in peoples’ faces is because he recognizes Christ is the ultimate moral authority. If he uses the program, he does so with the ability to bounce what is generated off what he knows is fundamentally true or false.

The AI Revolution is Coming

For many influencers, their capacity for legacy is about to be tested. Within the next two years, AI will revolutionize everything. Not incrementally, but categorically. This change has already started. Meanwhile, the players, talkers, algorithm stokers, and engagement farmers who built their brands on outrage and spectacle? They’re not built for what’s coming. They’ve optimized for virality, not discernment. And when the tools shift, their relevance will evaporate

Parsing what the AI generates requires modes of thought that have long been filtered out of education and general conversation. As such, many people have become readily pliant, like clay golems ready to be molded by whomever scored the highest Charisma score on social media. The irony of much AI criticism is that the people most afraid of AI are the ones most likely to abuse it. Notice how secular moralists borrow selectively from Christian ethics but recoil from asserting moral superiority. For they fear being labeled authoritarian. This is how wokeness seeps in, not because it’s persuasive but because people are powerless to assert any rational moral authority against outside Jesus Christ, the ultimate authority.

In a culture starved of moral discernment, self-control and discipline are rare commodities. When you lack those, any tool with power looks like a threat. As is the case with any tool, the problem isn’t AI, it’s the user. This is why, fundamentally, AI criticism is born of a lack of moral discernment. For if you do not have a fundamental grasp on what good and evil are, then you are far more easily controlled.

True Christians don’t share that fear. We know Christ is in control. That means we can approach any human invention as a tool. When AI generates something that demands moral discernment, we have a framework. We have Scripture. We have truth. We have the ability to bounce worldly ideals against the moral standard from which all standards must borrow.

Another irony we will see is that many of the loudest critics of AI will eventually submit to it. Just as the horse and buggy gave way to the automobile, resistance will collapse under utility. But this won’t be a clean transition; it will be chaotic and morally fraught. AI won’t solve the problem of discernment. Christ is the ultimate discerner. He is the standard by which truth is measured and the compass by which tools ought to be utilized.

NEXT: Longtime ‘Halo’ Art Director Quits Halo Studios & Leaves Ominous Message