![]() ![]() “People mistake the tactical community for the Alabama f-ing militia or whatever,” he says. Yet this is not the home of a survivalist. Maybe some dudes want to roll up because they heard where I live.” ![]() “I live out here in the boonies a little bit. “I’ve seen humanity at its worst,” he explains, growing a little more serious. He casually lets me know that there are over 40 guns in the house, some of them loaded. The night I arrive, Mat greets me in his driveway, straddling an ATV in gym shorts and cowboy boots. Mat and Noelle live on a seven-acre plot in the middle-of-nowhere Hill Country north of San Antonio. Moon have split from his church - and their followers are armed “You might know me from videos like, ‘How to Be a Douchebag.’ ” Sometimes he wears a “f- lettuce” tank top. ![]() “Hi, I’m Mat Best,” he says in one of them, leaping down from a pullup bar. His most popular videos are at once satires and endorsements of macho culture. ![]() At the same time, he actually does own all those guns. His knowing mockery of such tropes - in one skit, after Noelle rebuffs his sexual advances, a wounded Mat overcompensates by buying an absurd number of guns - saves his work from rah-rah banality. In his brand-ambassadorial capacity, he posts photos and videos of himself, often performing skits, to market an aspirational lifestyle that revolves around firearms, red meat and his hot wife, Noelle. A 32-year-old ex-Army Ranger, he’s also the co-founder and public face of Black Rifle Coffee Company, which does gangbusters business selling artisan joe to Second Amendment die-hards. Mat Best is the de facto leader of the movement. Aptly, the community manages to embody both these sensibilities: To scroll through a #tactical feed is to drink in a strange brew of good cheer and violent imagery, of attractive Internet personalities and their guns. Its denizens call themselves members of the “tactical community.” Out of context, the words sound kind of New Age and wellness-oriented - follow these tactics for a balanced lifestyle! - but they technically refer to a culture of tricked-out assault rifles and disaster-preparedness drills. It shares the sunny, curated aesthetic of other, parallel Instagram universes, only its fetish objects aren’t lattes or surfboards but semiautomatic weapons. There is a universe of people who post and comment on photos like this, mostly via Instagram. ![]()
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