In a time where a reality TV personality has twice been elevated to the highest office in the world, pop culture has never seemed so dangerously impactful. And yet, because this era has also been marked by an extreme splintering in the way we consume media, some of the most major of these figures on the right (who wield vast influence over an audience often in the millions) are complete unknowns to people on the left.
Clichéd though it may be to say, it really does feel as if we’re living in two different worlds.
A Bit Fruity With Matt Bernstein aims to bridge that gap. Each fortnight, Bernstein and a rotating selection of cohosts discuss a relevant far-right figure or topic that been making waves in MAGA world. They delve into the details and see where these puzzle pieces fit in with the larger jigsaw that is this our current reality. Recent episodes have covered “The incel to ICE pipeline,” an interview with Ashley St. Clair (mother of one of Elon Musk’s troop of children) who’s been going through a de-MAGAification, and an exploration into mega popular right-wing influencer Candace Owens.
Although A Bit Fruity skews young, Bernstein (who is twenty-seven, and rose to online prominence in his teens for his posts combining makeup and political activism) never assumes that all the listeners are as extremely online as he is. Everyone is explained and contextualised here, even the names that are more well-known across the entire political spectrum. There are a lot of downsides to our current tech-heavy era, but one of the upsides is that these figures have often left a lengthy online trail that charts how their thinking and presentation have changed over the years. Bernstein is rigorous in his online sleuthing. He is amusingly open about the way these rabbit holes can take over his life (“My brain is filled with tweets!”), including his recent obsession with Debra Messing. His investigation into Candace Owens’s beginnings as a liberal with a cat-based Instagram account is also enlightening.
A Bit Fruity is a proudly leftist production. Recently, the issues that come up most often have been the attempts of the right to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism and the oppression of trans folk. While the figures discussed here have often made it their mission to advocate for these parts of the far right agenda, Bernstein’s show rarely comes from a place of anger. He speaks with an honest desire to understand the people he’s covering, whether they have come to their beliefs genuinely (if misguidedly) or because it’s been financially beneficial to do so.
Sure, there’s a lot of snark along the way. Some of these people are so ridiculous, it would be hard to avoid it. But the sincere attempts to understand are a vital part of why the show is such a warm listening experience despite the various horrors of the subject matter.
Bernstein presents each episode with a co-host or two. The most frequent guests are online commentators Taylor Lorenz and Kat Tenbarge. As they are all good friends, they share a fun chemistry, but the richest conversations happen when he talks more with subject specialists, such as Will Weldon, host of the I Hate Bill Maher podcast, who joined him on the Maher episode, and Aubrey Gordon, body positivity campaigner, co-hosted on an edition about “the celebrity Ozempidemic.” Simone Zimmerman, Jewish outreach co-ordinator for Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign until she was fired after an anti-Netanyahu Facebook post, also contributed to a recent anti-Zionism episode.
Bernstein rarely disagrees with his guest hosts, but then A Bit Fruity never really sets itself up as being a debate. Whilst it might sometimes make for a more dynamic listening experience to invite people on who didn’t agree on every single point, this dedication to talking to those who know more than him still leads to interesting, worthwhile conversations.
Bernstein is excellent at leaving room for his guests to think through an issue from various angles, steering wide-ranging conversations with a gentle, yet astute hand.
We are in a grim political era. The topics covered by A Bit Fruity can be both maddening and scary. But there’s an appealing levity to it that never minimises the seriousness of the moment. It’s a difficult tonal tightrope to walk but Bernstein’s show makes it look easy; arguably more so than some of old guard of the political commentary podcasts like Pod Save America and the Slate Political Gabfest. These shows can be so focused on the “game” of politics, they forget the effect all these poisonous machinations have on the lives of actual people.
It would nice to just ignore some of the malevolent, absurd, and frighteningly influential figures Bernstein discusses on his podcast by simply wishing them into irrelevance. Maybe we’ll be able to some day. Until then, A Bit Fruity continues to prove excellent company.
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Chloe Walker is a writer based in the UK. You can find her work at Culturefly, the BFI, Paste, and her Letterboxd.