NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS

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The Politics of Ape and Machine w/Joe Costello Mar 21, 2026

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.com

For this week’s vamp valley stream, I’m publishing a talk that Evgenia and I did with Joe Costello about his wonderful new book, The Politics of Ape and Machine.

We’re in the middle of another industrial power grab. We talked to Joe to make sense of the situation. We talked about AI, the parasitic internet, industrialization’s destruction of democracy, the politics of technology, what it means to be monkeys who think they’re in control of the known universe… Joe thinks that the AI boom we’re in potentially offers a historic opportunity to transcend our entrenched, stagnant politics: the much-promised automation and the reality of computerized crapification of broad sectors of society and further centralized control will make mass reorganization of politics not just a possibility but a necessity — an opportunity that hasn’t been seen in many generations. Will people rise to the challenge? How would you bet?

This talk took place on November 23, 2025 in Manhattan at the KGB Bar. This is the first time it is being published on this pacification tech we call the internet.

For those who don’t know, Joe Costello has been on our podcast many times and I’ve republished his work before. He’s worked in politics all of his life and he’s one of the most clear thinkers and writers today on politics and on the meaning of democracy in our age of terminal industrialization. Buy his book! And check out his newsletter: Life In the 21st Century.

—Yasha

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I’ll be doing these streams every Friday at noon NYC time, broadcasting against Vampire Valley from within Vampire Valley. All live streams will be available to the public but most recorded streams will be available only to paying subscribers. Influencers are people. We need to eat, too.

Reminder: If you donate $100 or more to my Vampire Valley doc, you will automatically get an annual sub. If you’re thinking of giving a larger tax-deductible donation, get in touch with us at vampires@yashalevine.com.

INFORMATION IS PACIFICATION W/DANIEL BESSNER Mar 14, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.com

For this week’s vamp valley stream, I’m joined by Daniel Bessner to talk about how our politics are in the grips of a powerful decadent rationalist illusion: it’s the idea that information is power. But as Daniel points out, despite having all the information regular people have no effect on politics. We know everything, but can’t change anything. It is a longterm problem in nominally democratic US (and Europe) that has been massively exacerbated by internet technology. We’re wrapped up in the Spectacle, confusing the consumption of nonstop political content with politics. You could say that we’re whistleblowing on our own profession, trying to make people understand that information is not a magic spell — just knowing things about the world won’t miraculously lead to change.

—Yasha

Some essays that inform our conversation:

* End of Mass Politics and Empire’s Critic and Democracy in Exile by Daniel Bessner

* Gaza and the Death of “Information Is Power,” Information is not power, Influencerism is the highest form of capitalist realism by me.

WE'RE ALL TRAPPED IN THE VAMPIRE CASTLE Mar 06, 2026

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.com

For this week’s vamp valley stream, I talked to C. Derick Varn about the backstory of Mark Fisher’s controversial (at the time) and influential “Exiting the Vampire Castle” essay and why it still matters today.

I wrote about Fisher’s essay last summer as part of my attempt to understand the way hyper-connected communication technology is affecting our world — and how structural forces built into internet technology have worked to pacify people and have foreclosed on the possibility of any sort of politics by turning everything into entertainment...a virtual cage match of endless culture wars where everyone is constantly pitted against each other in an endless fight that involves constantly evolving identity politics, fringe causes, peripheral issues, and perceived slights.

Derick was one of the editors who worked with Mark Fisher to publish the essay in the now-defunct The North Star online magazine. He’s also a sharp critic of the influencer economy and the effect of technology on culture and politics. Check out Derick’s show on YouTube or the podcast version of the show.

Thanks…and see you next week!

Yasha

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I’ll be doing these streams every Friday at noon NYC time, broadcasting against the Vampire Castle from within the Vampire Castle. All live streams will be available to the public but some recorded streams will only available to paying subscribers. Influencers are people. We need to eat, too! Reminder: If you donate $100 or more to my Vampire Valley doc, you will automatically get an annual sub. If you’re thinking of giving a larger tax-deductible donation, get in touch with us at vampires@yashalevine.com

Pistachio Wars and Doom and Gloom Mar 03, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.com

Rowan and I were at UC Santa Barbara last month presenting Pistachio Wars. We had a wonderful Q&A after the screening, which you can see below. Subscribers can listen to it on our usual podcast feed and read a cleaned up transcript below.

Thank you to Rich Farell and everyone at Carsey-Wolf Center for having us out and being such gracious hosts. Sorry for being such a doomer. But desperate times and all that… Of course watch Pistachio Wars if you haven’t already.

—Yasha

RICH FARRELL: Okay. My name is Rich Farrell. I’m a graduate student in the Film and Media Studies Department, and I’m pleased to be joined by the filmmakers of Pistachio Wars, Yasha Levine and Rowan WERNHAM. So a round of applause for you.

YASHA LEVINE: Thank you.

RICH FARRELL: So I just wanted to start the Q&A with some background and beginnings. First to you, Yasha. At the beginning of the film, you say that the story started with a piece that you wrote, “A Journey Through Oligarch Valley,” in 2013, which was published in Not Safe for Work magazine online. Can you tell us a little bit about your background, how you came to work on that story, and then how you decided to adapt this into a documentary?

YASHA LEVINE: Well, I’ll try to keep it brief. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming.

I had been out of the country and started my journalism career reporting out in Russia, and I kind of missed the whole real estate bubble, the speculative boom that happened here, and the collapse that happened in 2007, 2008. I had been abroad watching it from afar. And when I came back to America, I was really curious about what it was all about. So I moved to LA and I was casting about for the best example of a speculative city that embodied the speculative boom.

I kind of toured California and chose Victorville -- a little suburb in the Mojave Desert, halfway between L.A. and Las Vegas -- because I really wanted to understand the kind of society, the kind of civilization that this boom created. Like what remained when Wall Street crashed and had to be bailed out…

PLATFORMS WANT TO INGEST AND DESTROY Feb 28, 2026

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For this anti-vamp stream from my newly established NY basement studio, I’m joined by Mike Pepi, author of Against Platforms. We talk about the failed utopian promises of the internet and how the tech platforms that now dominate our world are concentrators of power and destroyers of all other forms of organization that came before them. This monopolization/destruction isn’t an aberration or a corruption but is built into the very nature of this technology.

Mike opens his book by talking about an Apple ad that came out a few years ago that illustrates this Borg-like monopolize/destroy drive. I’m embedding it below because Apple had scrubbed this ad from the internet, following a backlash.

Compare this Apple ad…

…to the Borg. Who is more honest?

Help me make my Vampire Valley doc series. Give here. Or if you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation, write us at vampires@yashalevine.com.

Buy Mike’s book today!

Help me make my Vampire Valley doc series. Give here. Or if you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation, write us at vampires@yashalevine.com. If you give $100 or more, you will automatically get an annual sub! A two-for-one deal!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

Requiem for Nikolai Komyagin Feb 27, 2026

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.com

Evgenia pays tribute to Nikolai Komyagin, the frontman of the Russian cult band Shortparis. He died recently — tragically and unexpectedly ay 39.

As Evgenia explains, he was a true poet — and a total artist. With his music and videos, he did something that no one else had done yet. He captured on a pure emotional level the feeling of Russia with its failed utopian past and its violent present and all the ideals and the people that got ground up and spit in the two revolutions — the Bolshevik one and the Market Bolshevik one it had in less than a century. Ironically, the last big thing Shortparis made was the soundtrack to Limonov’s biopic, Limonov: The Ballad.

—IBWR

PS: Evgenia recently wrote about Limonov’s prophetic view of Russian politics.

PPS: The song in the intro/outro is Apple Orchard (Яблонный сад).

WE ARE ALL LUDDITES NOW Feb 19, 2026

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.com

For this anti-vamp stream from my newly established basement studio, I’m joined by internet by Brian Merchant, author of the wonderful book Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech. It’s a book about the rise and fall of the Luddites, a decentralized 19th movement of English textile workers against factories and the centralization of power. We talk about the history and politics of the Luddite movement and how the conditions they faced are not that different from what we all face today.

Eventually, the Luddite insurgency was crushed by a military force larger than the one England sent to fight Napoleon, which was happening at the same time. The history of this rebellion was erased, the state and its factory owners won, and the term “luddite” became synonymous with ignorance and laziness — any opposition to tech was branded as crazy and stupid. At the same time the Luddites were a huge cultural power, inspiring the Romantic movement and launching the sci-fi genre with works like Frankenstein. Of course, in the end, the Luddites were right. We’re all Luddites now, whether we realize it or not.

Watch and/or listen…and buy Brian’s book!

Yasha

* * *

I’ll be talking to people about the internet and the tech that’s destroying our minds and destroying our world — as part of my research for Vampire Valley. Live streams are available to the public but recorded streams are only available to subscribers. Reminder: If you give $100 or more to Vampire Valley, you will automatically get an annual sub. If you want to give a larger tax-deductible donation, get in touch with us at vampires@yashalevine.com

Exiting the Slop Shop Feb 17, 2026

Show notes

We record this on President’s Day to talk about the slop machine we all now inhabit and how all internet culture is an abusive psyop meant to keep us tethered and addicted and pacified. Everyone knows this. But few of us can escape.

Sam Kriss, slop merchant to the overly educated, makes an appearance in our talk. We also discuss how America’s ruling class hasn’t just psyoped the masses with this feedback loop tech — they’ve pysoped themselves, too. They’re just as confused and powerless as the rest of us. Everyone is looking for a strong leader type that hasn’t fallen victim to this feedback loop psyop — which is maybe why Xi has so many fans out there.

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Help Yasha’s crusade against the internet vampires that feed on us. Make a contribution (including a tax deductible one) to Vampire Valley today!

***

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

Jeffrey Epstein, American Exceptionalism, and a lesson from Russia Feb 12, 2026

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.com

We talk about how the Jeffrey Epstein scandal/spectacle fits into the larger context of American decline and collapse. And Evgenia explains how normalized all the Epstein revelations are to someone like her who grew up in 1990s Russia — a collapsed society that ran (and still does) on “Epstein ethics” and where living an Epstein-lite life became democratized and within reach of many men.

Among topics addressed: how Epstein is not some demonic force but a function of a massively unequal society with extremely bored and overfed elites, how social context creates sociopathy and breeds objectification, Alexei Yurchak and Hypernormalization, Mark Ames’s “The Life and Murder of Anna Loginova”, Fellini’s Satyricon, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut…and more.

Subscribe to listen!

Want to know more? Without realizing it, we did two Christmas Special episodes on Jeffrey Epstein — one in 2021 and in 2025. Christmas Special: Ghost of Epstein and Epstein Christmas Special ft. Vampire Valley… See how our views changed over the years.

New Year's Eve Banya Session Jan 04, 2026

Show notes

We recorded most of this from inside a banya on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco as a rainstorm raged outside. We had to pause several times because the heat was making us woozy, but we persevered and held it together. As promised we are now releasing the ep…

Among the topics discussed: influencerism, Olivia Nuzzi and Yasha’s stories about briefly working with her at the start of her career, the cultural emptiness of artificial intelligence, Luddites, the growing importance of controlling distribution channels as filmmaking technology gets cheaper and cheaper, August Lamm and the limitations of the anti-tech flip phone movement…and a lot more. You also get to enjoy authentic sounds of the banya: moans and grunts, water hissing at it hits hot rocks, complaints and bickering.

Have a great 2026! С лёгким паром!

If you are in the Bay Area, come out to our event tomorrow in SF: INTERNET JUNKIE ANONYMOUS!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe

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