Grift Shop: Outfitter of the Dirtbag Left
By Harry Campbell
Artwork by Leslie Liu, Design Lead

In the aftermath of Bernie’s campaign, the online leftist social sphere felt abandoned. Many had already found a home online, spending time with other users “dunking” on conservatives and centrists, making jokes together, and creating entertainment—specifically, podcasts and merchandise.

One such internet leftist goes by the name “Grift.”

Grift runs the “Grift Shop,” an online leftist apparel store, appealing mostly to “the dirtbag left,” a growing culture of edgy, online leftists (people further left than those dubbed liberals, and with a larger emphasis on economic policy).

I sat down to talk with him about his politics, how he found the circle of social media users he now operates in, and what led him to pursue what he does now.

Grift is 28 years old. He is currently living in New Hampshire, where he was also born and raised.

He attended Washington University in St. Louis, majoring in Political Science and graduating in 2015.

I began by asking him how he became interested in politics.

Grift: I’ve definitely always been interested in politics. My parents were definitely liberals. I was definitely exposed to a lot of political news and stuff early on. I remember one of my first political memories was following the 2000 election and the aftermath on TV. 

G: I studied politics in college. The political science education I got in school was definitely inside the belly of the neoliberal beast…I didn’t really get sort of radicalized and down a more leftist socialist mindset until in the aftermath of the 2016 election. I started to get hit by the triple whammy of having that first post college job, where you’re just seeing what the lifestyle would be if you keep going down this path. And then the sort of bleak reality of that, combined with the aftermath of Trump winning like the election, as well as getting exposed to a lot of the online left, and the Chapo culture that rose up around it, like the dirtbag left and stuff around 2016 and 2017. So that was definitely what sort of sent me on to the more radical political side. And it’s made me take a much more material view of things as opposed to the way you know, the typical standard neoliberalism nowadays, among the normies manifests itself. In terms of like, let’s discuss the surface level issues of identity, representation and stuff like that, that doesn’t really get at the root material causes of the problems that they are trying to address. It’s just the deeper solution is more at the class base level, it’s at the material; in terms of resource division.

Harry Campbell: People are now more comfortable with calling themselves leftists. Would you say you were a liberal in 2016?

G: I was a supporter of Bernie in 2016. I voted for him in the primary, but I didn’t do anything with the campaign. I was just sort of passive, seeing that his positions were superior to Hillary, but also resigned. I remember having this resigned knowledge in 2016, knowing that Bernie was going to lose, and the support for him was a symbolic thing, because everybody knew it was rigged for Hillary from the beginning. No matter if any primary votes were actually tampered with, all of the campaign-party infrastructure was aligned to get her the nomination. 

G: [In 2020] I actually did a lot of volunteer work in my area for the campaign and did a lot of canvassing and stuff like that. And it was just a fun way to get involved in free time. But I would say the Twitter wave I came in on was definitely the 2019-2020 wave. Whereas, like, before I started the Grift Shop and started doing this sort of performance art online brand piece that I’m doing I was just a small account reply guy…just sort of observing what was going on.

HC: You created your account in 2011. When did you start using your account to post actual content?

G: [During the] Bernie campaign in the second half of 2019. I remember I started gaining followers (or tried to) and you know, trying to connect with other people who were in on Bernie and leftists and dirtbag leftists in like July or August of last year. And then I definitely linked up with a great group of online people, that we sort of spread memes around during the campaign. And we would do coordinated harassment campaigns against liberals who were dropping bad takes and coordinating narratives and stuff. He dropped out, but there are definitely people that I am still close with online and I interact a lot [with] that I first started getting to know during that Bernie period, but I think lately in the aftermath, the way things have played out in terms of what narrative people are pushing now, that we don’t really have much politics to do anymore because we got burned out on electoralism.

HC: You mentioned that “Grift Shop” was started as a project in early 2019? When did it really take off?

G: [I] didn’t really start seriously with it until that fall. And it definitely coincided with the momentum of the Bernie campaign and using that as a platform… doing the Chad Bernie meme, and stuff like that, where it could both promote the campaign message and provide good content to post… for fun. And then after the campaign ran its course, I [was] just trying to think about the direction that the shop is going and the stuff is definitely more just trying to be referencing the discourse. If there’s the more niche Twitter stuff, that when I show the shop to friends and family and stuff that aren’t online, it’s a lot of like, ‘Oh, this looks cool, but like I don’t really get the reference.’ I can tell it’s an inside joke of some sort, but it’s definitely not as accessible if you’re not in the online subculture already. 

HC: Was [the shop] always meant to serve this sort of group of online leftists?

G: That was something that just developed along the way… I didn’t really know where I was knowing how to use Twitter at the time when I started the shop. I wasn’t really plugged into the how to get into group chats and how to riff with people and how to, you know, build a network and have groups of people talking behind the scenes and putting out narratives and such. So, that was just something that I came to along the way organically and it’s been a cool way to build your own circle. 

G: I guess the way the first thing you find out along the way is you’re not going to get to have the established circles of different you know, podcasters and Twitter media people with their own crews and stuff, you’re not going to break into that by simping and replying…you got to build your own thing from the ground up. And it’s just that I was lucky enough to connect with people. It’s not really a formal thing besides the couple podcasts I’ve been on and the people I’ve associated with in their various podcasts and media projects. But it’s a sort of loose network of people across the book. 

HC: How long were you interested in designing your own clothes?

G: I grew up drawing. It was just something I always did for fun as a hobby. I realized at one point a couple years ago that to be happy and  lead a fulfilling life, I had to get back to doing creative stuff. And I don’t know where the clothes idea started. I think it was just a good way to put stuff that I create on physical products that could be spread. It’s a good way to spread your stuff around.

(Grift dove into the nuances of Instagram and Twitter)

G: Instagram is good for, you know…I don’t really use it but a lot of people use it to connect with their real life friends. But it’s the mechanics of how the platforms built aren’t really conducive to building an organic audience for creative projects as much. I think Twitter is definitely the superior tool for that.

HC: I will say growing up everyone just being on Instagram, the only way you can get more followers is by following more people that you know or following people that go to your school. You have to be a celebrity or you have to be incredibly, incredibly attractive. It’s very difficult. Whereas on Twitter, you can grow by being funny, or being friendly or creating original content.

G: Twitter’s: you can post jokes, you can make merch, you can do videos, you can edit videos… it’s whatever! And it wouldn’t work unless people were building these, they call them parasocial relationships. But there’s the sort of bond from afar that makes someone follow someone for their content, and then engage with it. The people in my replies have created some incredibly funny stuff, like photoshops and riffs, and it’s fun to put something out there.

Harrison Alexander Campbell ‘24 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at c.harry@wustl.edu.

“War on Christmas Veteran”

Spikes in sales around the holidays

Image used with permission from Grift

“Anti-Malarkey Aktion”

A blue antifa logo, poking fun at controversial Youtuber Vaush’s term to justify voting for Biden: “Anarcho-Bidenism”

Image used with permission from Grift

The “Posadist” Collection

A collaboration with user @posadist_trapgd, it features a dolphin emoji, referencing the niche “Posadism,” sarcastically referred to by some as UFO Communism, there’s no easy way to explain this one

Image used with permission from Grift