So my heart has just fucking sank? I am very much in a state of denial. I do feel a bit like I’ve had the wool pulled over my eyes, whatever that means.
Today I sat down and watched the latest GeoWizard video with my parents. Very nice video, very beautiful and honestly like a breath of fresh air. Perhaps even air from the Alps.
Later in my usual ADHD brain topic jumping I wondered if Tom Scott had ever interacted with GeoWizard. It seems like a fair enough connection and they’re both called Tom. I felt like perhaps Tom Scott might’ve mentioned a straight line mission in one of his newsletters, so I searched “GeoWizard” in my inbox. Only two emails came up.
Both of which are from The Fence’s Substack, “Off The Fence” which I wasn’t expecting at all. The first one, in chronological order, highlighted what I expected Tom Scott’s hypothetical newsletter would’ve highlighted, the various Straight Line Missions Davies is known for.
Cool, a newsletter I’m subscribed to but never read also finds Brummie YouTube adventurer cool. Cool. Right? So then what’s the second email about.
I had never heard of the term Milkshake Duck and when I clicked on that Wikipedia hyperlink I couldn’t make sense of it.
GeoWizard? Distasteful history? Offensive behaviour? I mean maybe, the guy trespasses for a living and yeah he’s a bit rough around the edges. But Off The Fence know that, and his unwillingness to pay for ferry fares is why they liked him. What did he actually do??
That’s all I needed to see. Well actually it wasn’t. Because it got so much worse. He doubled down on a Patreon post which someone conveniently shared on Reddit.
It really is just abhorrent and what frustrates me the most is that this is genuinely just the average British person LOL. So why should I be surprised? Of course the middle aged white man has fallen for the same old story. A Britain in crisis because of brown people. You have to be fucking joking.
Please read the Reddit post with his statement and replies. It’s harrowing. Straight up parroting Reform lines about “mass immigration” which I thought someone like him would be able to clock as a “bunch of bollocks” (that’s how I’d imagine he’d say it) and that’s all I can do, imagine. I have to imagine this guy refuting Farage goop because it’s not the reality I’m living in.
Another bizarre line is how he’s scared of Christmas disappearing? What the fuck? He challenges a respectful commenter where’d they draw the line with immigration “one million a year? 2 million a year? 5 million? Think about it.” Well Mr. Davies I’ve thought about it and it’s not even fucking worth indulging in this fantasy. It’s like he took one look at the breaking point billboard and thought yeah that’s legit and I’ll base my politics of that. Fucking abysmal.
The point where I wanted to scream was this from Off The Fence.
When I first read this I did scoff a bit. You’re telling me this song I’ve sung countless times, in the shower, washing the dishes, on my way home, while cleaning my room is practically a white supremacist theme song? I thought it was an absolute reach from Off The Fence but once I read the Patreon post there’s no other way I can see it. Was I naive? Absolutely. But come on I thought it was just indie jargon. Or funnily enough about a climate crisis. Or just a metaphor for general overwhelm. But nah of course it’s being worried about a Christmas hating neighbour closing down your pubs. Okay even that is glossing over what it really is. Blatant xenophobia and barely disguised racism. Fuck.
“Where are we supposed to go when people take our homes and it’s all gone?” you seriously think that’s what’s happening to you? Little English boy do you wanna have a think about what colonisation looks like? What genocide looks like? Fuck you man.
As someone in the Reddit comments pointed out, it was shocking, until it wasn’t.
“This news shocked me at first, but you know, thinking about it, I had a bit of a hunch.
Many of Tom's videos - especially the newer '£10 adventure' things - have a sort of psuedo-nostalgic longing in them. He often speaks about this idea of friendliness to strangers, community, this whole idea of relying on generosity and good will. Without saying so in explicit terms, it sounds just like those who talk of an old England, the sort of England only seen on Dad's Army. Where everyone knows your name, where there's one friendly copper in the village, where everyone's white...”
This whole ordeal felt a bit like Peacemaker season 2. It was all there, or rather it wasn’t there and I chose to live in Tom’s world for a bit.
The pseudo-nostalgic bit also rings true for Pleasant Pudding. It’s built on that. For that longing of picket fences and brick houses — oh wait.
Okay not quite picket lol.
At the end of all this, the reason why I say I’m in a state of denial isn’t just because of how shocking this was to me, someone who’s 4 months behind on this. It’s also because it seems to really only be this immigration point he’s a stickler for, and because we know Reform’s immigration myth (that was parroted by the Tories and is still pushed by Labour) is indeed a myth. I think there’s every chance he can see things the way that lovely Patreon commenter put it. That being said that commenter did put it that way and he retorted with ‘but what about British values.’ Yuck. The last thing I want to do though is label him a raging racist flag shagger only for him to be pushed into another even worse echo chamber.
That being said, I can’t support Tom Davies a.k.a GeoWizard anymore. Not at least until he gets his act together. Even then, I don’t think I can listen to Pleasant Pudding ever again. Thank fuck I didn’t order the vinyl, I would probably have to burn it. Sorry.
This whole thing just has a huge “don’t let them in unless they’re good on corners” vibe. Thanks Sans Beanstalk for that one.
It’s so baffling because the 750k figure he cites was like 3 fucking years ago. Which is not when things went off the rails for Britain! And what caused immigration to spike? Oh yeah it was the new immigration system put in place after BREXIT. To encourage NON-EU IMMIGRATION. And was put forth by hmm… one NIGEL FARAGE. 1 + 1 = Amtrak dude what are we doing. Oh yeah, we’re blaming the effects of austerity and Brexit on immigrants!
I will admit, the last few paragraphs of this have been less me lamenting about this Milkshake Duck and more me venting about the horror show that is UK politics. So I’ll stop falling for the rage bait and list some songs to listen to instead of the ones by Tom Davies. Btw I’m a child of a refugee and I live on stolen and unceded land. However I don’t think that’s a requirement to see vile behaviour for what it is. Hopefully it just explains this emotional reaction I’m having to something as trivial and predictable as “YouTuber bad”.
Home Sweet Home - Wretch 32, Kano
This is Great Britain - Hyphen
Obulamu - Young Cardamom, HAB
Blue Lights - Jorja Smith
I HATE BORIS - Nadia Javed
