Real quick, want to acknowledge that I misgendered Thought Slime. My apologies for that everyone and to Thought Slime if they see this. There are always parts of a vid you wish you could do over, I've got a few in this one. Thanks for the love otherwise yall!
Re: Thumbnails. I clicked on your stuff after you changed them, but I'm pretty sure it has more to do with the newer versions being more striking visual designs than being disinterested in a black perspective. The previous thumbnails look very... generic to me. THIS IS NOT AN ALLY is more visually engaging for obvious reasons. The original Burnham thumbnail reminds me of how a lot of reaction video thumbnails are framed, which my brain is programmed to ignore because they take up chunks of search results whenever you're looking for anything related to recent media or music. The Disney one has a similar issue, along with the remade one just having BIG BOLD LETTERING and complimentary coloring. This is very much a book and its cover response, but the cover here is designed by the author, so if its interesting then perhaps the ideas within will be as well. Like, consider Hbomberguy or Three Arrows. Or someone like Kaptain Kristian. They usually just have BIG CLEAR WORDS atop something eye catching, and when Hbomb includes his face its usually stylized somehow. You made your thumbnails closer to theirs and less like one of the million people reacting to the latest Marvel movie.
@@garr123 One can't be expected to know all of these things automatically. And I'm confident Thought Slime would forgive you. I watch them occasionally and I didn't know they used those pronouns.
Thoughtslime has said they go by any/all in a video once due to people using their pronouns to get mad at others in a misplaced way. I probably explained that poorly.
It took me a long time to realize that "I want to become less racist" and "I want to think of myself as less racist" are very different motivators that lead to very different behaviors
@@qweasdzxc Its less literal than that. Plenty of people want to think of themselves as not racist but do absolutely no work to actually be less racist or address the prejudices they have. Its probably more of a subconscious thought. If you want to think of yourself as less racist you probably post black squares and tell people you have a black friend and things of that nature. If you actually want to be less racist you study, learn, self-analyze and self reflect with the intention of being better than you were.
@@qweasdzxc It's easy to say "I'm not racist" - even to directly, face-to-face, interact with other people in that way is easy. Not being a Skinhead-Nazi-Punk is the easiest thing in the world. But that's just a thin slice of racism as it exists in the real world. It's much harder to realize when you're still benefiting from systemic imbalances. That also is racism, but it's much more subtle, harder to pinpoint, difficult to get to grips with than not waving a confederate flag. An example brought up in the video is speaking on behalf of others because you are better versed in socialist theory, because that's what white intellectuals spent their time with. The intentions may be pure, after all I think it's obvious that racism largely can be unified with other classist issues on an intellectual level. But it's still racist, utterly without intent.
Something that's kinda wild for me is, as you went through the stages of "breadtube" I remember all these things happening, I could track when these creators got recommended to me and it fit pretty perfectly with your timeline. But all the black creators and video essayists I've found have only been recommended to me by other content creators never by the algorithm, I had to actively seek them out.
I'm only getting his channel now because it was verbally recommended by The Weekly Planet. And I had to look it up and sub. RUclips never showed me this channel and almost all I consume is pods and video essays. BTW Weekly Planet's movie/comic book podcast I watch on here by two (verrrry open minded) white Australian guys.
As someone who has been making videos on race and pop culture on YT for over a decade. I am always glad for videos like this because it really sums up all the feelings and anxieties I've had. Especially the part of not being able to find fellow creators. I know I was here, but it still feels like those avenues were just not there for people coming up as I was. I'm so glad that is changing. I still feel-largely, behind for a number of reasons, but I am glad that newer creators can actually come up now and get huge numbers and attention. It is beautiful to see.
I’m halfway through this video and it made me think of you and the way I found your content. The algorithm suggested PBS Storied after I watched Lindsey Ellis. I appreciate channels like Storied and the way they bring variety of creators to their platform as the algorithm fails to offer more than just other videos by the same creator. BTW - your new Stephen King video kept me fully engaged and helped me power through some work!
oh how my heart fell out of my ass upon seeing my face. thank you for the shout out, brother and, as usual, this is some truly fantastic, beautiful, awesome work on your part 💗💚
You showed up as recommended on my feed after I subscribed to Lindsay Ellis, and I absolutely LOVED your analysis of the Perks of Being a Wallflower. I definitely subscribed after finishing!
Been watching your vids for a few months now, and it's was a trip to hear all the creators I follow have an avengers style team up in this vid 😂 Especially loved the vids you did on kpop, black teen comedies and teen idol pigeonholing!
You are one of my absolute favourites, every new video is brilliant and has me excitedly sharing it with my boyfriend as we both love Brittany Murphy, Jennifer's Body, The Craft etc. Stoked to see so many others also loving your work! 💖
Honestly I'm the very person you described. I'm Mexican Scottish and I just got out of an alt right rabbit hole where i woke up one day crying because i couldnt recognize myself and all the damage i did to my mind. I gotta thank you so fucking much man for helping me get out of that after 4 years of being in it [13-17]. In a few days I'm gonna be turning 18. A whole new me and an adult now. I'm still learning and trying to understand to be better for my peers and the world around me but I know I'll be the best me I can be someday soon. Not sure exactly when but soon. Thank you sir for helping me find me again in the self loathing and hatred.
Good work grabbing on to someone/something that assisted you in floating back up instead of spiraling you down. You deserve a lot of credit for your choices.
My heart breaks hearing Khadija say they'd never put their face in the thumbnails because they were afraid no one would care for them. When I first saw their video, it was seeing a black woman that made me first click, and their quirky intros made me immediately subscribe. I'm just happy to see so many incredible black creators putting themselves out there even in spaces where we are ostracized. 💛
Same here! The first video I’d seen from her was one with a thumbnail picture of her in it. And her intro to her internet nieces, nephews, and nibblings/uncles, aunties, and piblings pushed me to subscribe!
33:55 as a non-black poc (I’m Chinese) I feel that shit to my core. Not finding content creators also means my people’s issues not being talked about. I’m really about to start a channel myself but I’m afraid the stress would get to me
@@someonesomeone2166 it amazes me how many so-called leftists eat up everything the state department says about China. I just have to ask why? Why are they so eager to adopt western chauvinist views when they claim to be socialists?
@@fromthebackseat4865 honestly it's because they see the corruption in China and don't realize the same corruption they are calling out there is the same in the USA. The biggest differences though is that china was a colonized country for awhile and not a colonizer, china has hundreds of ethnic groups, and a higher population, and isn't a war based economy like the USA.
@@fromthebackseat4865 it's the holier than thou mindset they have in regards to the rest of the world, but themselves. Instead of dealing with things like their own racism or prejudices they would rather self project on someone else.
First off, thank you so much for this. This is so incredibly insightful and thoughtful, and illuminating to me in so many ways as a content creator here on RUclips. This essay has touched upon so many things that I, as a white and trans leftist content creator trying to find stability on this platform, have been thinking more and more about this past year. Where do fit in in this space? On the one hand, I am constantly aware of how I am yet another white content creator in a space that is dominated by white content creators, and I recognize the importance of both trying to talk about issues relating to people of color, especially black folks, because to not talk about that would be missing so many important factors to the issues I talk about and try to educate on, but also that I don't wish to speak over or for creators from these communities, as that's not my place. So I'm trying to navigate both those feelings, something that you touched upon is often a common existential crisis for white liberal/leftist creators in your essay on Bo Burnham. And so, I'm still trying to navigate that and using my platform to uplift other voices that aren't my own with perspectives that aren't mine either. Yet, on the other end of the spectrum, I often feel pigeon-holded as a trans content creator too, feeling that often teh only content of mine that gets attention from the algorithm is when I talk about trans oppression, forcing me to constantly talk about those issues when theres so much more to me. Yet, in that space, I often get seen as a discount Contrapoints/Abigail Thorn because they are the most prominent white trans content creators in the space, even as I try my best to distinguish myself from them but also try to learn from what made them work and also recognizing their clear inspiration on my work. Yet, when I talk about things like nerdom or scifi or Star Trek, my videos often don't do super well compared to my trans content, and also within that space I often get views mostly from white straight dudes who both find me attractive and can react both positively/fetishistic to that or negatively/aggressively to their attraction to me, and thus try to transphobically attack me to reenforce their own heterosexuality. (or create threads on message boards to dox and insult me). And then there are trans women and other LGBTQ folks who see themselves in me as a trans nerd in a nerdy space where we don't often get seen or paid attention to, despite us being an important part of that world for a long time. Not to mention the leftist space in general that often feels divided into different camps that I have zero interest in attempting to place myself into one of because that feels unnecessarily divisive, and yet, I also know I get perceived sometimes in those contexts. That's obviously a limited view of the audience, and not all encompassing, but it's something I often think about. Ultimately it leaves me constantly feeling on a knifes edge, both trying my best to uplift those who I can but also feeling like I can't break out of my own transgender niche, which even within I'm constantly seen as a copycat and a trend-follower rather then someone with my own voice.
This is definitely relatable and indicative of the exact same problem of how audiences require some form of categorizarion that will only further marginalize creators in the margins.
Hi Jesse, for what it's worth I'm a big fan of contrapoints and philosophy tube and I've never thought of you as a discount copy cat. You have your own vibe, your own voice, no one has a copyright on video essay formats and anyone who acts otherwise is being ignorant. I really appreciate your style and more importantly your compassion. I like when creators try to stick to the points and not just create a video to dunk on someone. The fact that you make a point not to make content like that is very respectable.
I'm a fan of Abigail but I never ever saw you as a discount version of her! I watch most of your videos, I must say I've not seen many of your scifi or Star Trek videos pop up on the algorithm and if I have done I probably scrolled on because it just isn't my thing. But I'm here for all of your commentary videos, not just the trans ones!
omg Jessie!! I am a Star Wars Fan but also getting into the Star Trek Universe and I absolutely LOVED your Star Trek analysis video on how Captain Jane conquered fear. I also am watching your other content about sci fi and I hope you get some tract from them because you are amazinng :)) much love to you
I actually found your channel via the recommended panel on a Philosophy Tube video, but it'd be inaccurate to say that you're simply a knockoff Abigail. It's like composing apples and oranges - I love your content, I love her content (Contrapoints' content too), but it's never occurred to me to compare y'all. You are extremely valid Jessie! (edit: I don't really have a huge interest in Star Trek or Star Wars, but I do enjoy your videos about them even though I have little to no idea what's going on lmao)
Watched this twice pon Patreon cause it is just that good. It's crazy seeing me in that Black love video. Some surreal to think about the space we both were in at that time. Running thru the streets of Reddit to this. Not gonna spoil it but this is probably my favourite from yuh yet, big man. 👏🏾
This dude ^^^ sent me here. Every once in a while I come across videos on this platform that are essential in forming my views on the state of modern digital media... this is now one of them. Thank you, you have a new sub :).
This guy moves different. Gets the silver play and instead of doing the whole “whoopee, go me” thing. He calls out YT and the space he resides in to do better AND offers a hand to other black creators. I really rate it.
I love the duality of the name "Breaking Bread", it alludes to the breaking down and deconstruction of the foundations of Bread Tube and emphasizes the need of an equal space for creators of all colors and backgrounds. Also it just hits hard as hell
When Kat Blaque made a similar video a while ago, I saw a lot of the Breadtube Audience going after her while the people they were fans of reinforced her message and openly supported her. I’m glad to see the shift in comments here to acknowledging white bias in media without as much defensiveness in the audience. Even with following and watching a lot of videos by black video essayists I don’t get a lot of their work recommended to me, so thank you for the links to other creators. As the rise of fascism has become more obvious and the plague has carried on, I’ve found myself needing non-political, low-stress entertainment and I found Kennie JD is awesome for that. If anyone has any other recommendations of creators with similar content, I’d love links.
Mila Tequila! Very awesome 2000s deep dives! Popicana is in the same vein. Good mythical morning is always wholesome fun. And there’s a woman who does amazing history videos called reading the past… the welsh twins are great, they have skincare and makeup videos. Rachel Maksy… ask a mortician… Karolina Zebrowska…. What do you like? We have options.
the response to george floyd's murder created a tiny opening of a window for poc creators to enter into on youtube. before then i'd been hard into left wing realms here but couldn't find many poc creators. the way they've had to build by shouting each other out says it all. i found intelexual media & tee noir, she shouted out khadija, khadija shouted out f.d..... it shows how navigation within the site is damn near underground for poc.
I'm 30 minutes in. I am/was basically the "low-key recovering fascist" white guy and I'm sort of shocked that this is the experience of many other breadtube viewers- I had, until now, thought I was basically a fluke. I know this video is also highlighting a lack of diversity, but you laying out the history of breadtube makes a lot of things come together for me. Video essayists like Philosophy Tube, Joel, Zoe Bee, and others have genuinely pulled me from a miserable and ideologically dangerous place over the past couple years.
I'm glad to hear it. I loved Breadtube because I was sick of all the anti-SJW content, especially in atheist/nerd spaces, but I was never on the anti-SJW train. I was the guy who kept getting kicked out of message boards because calling literal white supremacists "racist" is a "personal attack." The white supremacists never seemed to get banned. Do I seem bitter about biased moderation?
My participation in the Alt-Right online was mostly undercover, passing info from discussions with notorious people on to Antifa folx. But there was a pull. It's the same pull that I had at times from tankie groups. The pull was excitement over action now. It's the fascist idea to theorize less and act decisively that was exciting to people. Fascism appealed to a significant number of people and still has an appeal 90 years later. It's not hypothetical either, look at Duterte or Bolsonaro, Putin or Orban - they're popular for a reason. I was never personally particularly racist in the sense of thinking of other races as lower. I've always lived and worked with people of all backgrounds. I was engaging with Black people on the Right as well. My boyfriend was Black and conservative (we often clashed on politics). My best friend was not Right per se but into Divestment (the fact of me dating a BM and her rejecting them was ironic and a source of amusement). However, the more Black and white people, particularly on the Right, talked about race, the more I began to despair over whether the multicultural experiment could work. Maybe racial separatism would be better, but what about all the mixed people? Wherever cultures interact through war or trade, there is mixing. It's been that way for thousands of years. So that's not a solution either. Every time we've tried to formally define race in the US, it's been a mess because it doesn't reflect reality. But there was that feeling of despair, we might get along as individuals but does it work on a large scale? I definitely felt the pull of the Right even though I wasn't engaging with the far-Right entirely in good faith. Most people, especially poorer and minoritized people, recognize the system is broken and start looking for radical solutions. Capitalism is dying but will it be succeeded by Communism or Fascism? There's an allure of the idea of tradition but it's an idea about a time that never existed. How do we combat the authoritarian tendency that's present in all of us? My breaking point was when a notable Alt-Right figure tried to court me. I realized I was far too deep and basically burned that cover. Even though I never necessarily believed what they taught, the excitement of the destructive impulse was something I had to detox myself from. What I have noticed in various activist circles is that it's often more about the ego than the issue. Clearly, I'm not immune from that. But that's why Left wing people can swing to the far-Right and far-Right people can swing hard Left. It happens along other lines as well. Recognizing ego addiction is important. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
I'm pretty sure there's a Contrapoints or Philosophy Tube video that talks about the alt right pipeline and mentions how breadtube isn't good at deradicalizing people at all, they just radicalize to the left. Which I mean I don't think is bad necessarily, but it's on some level an ideological failure to point the guns at the "right" people rather than to dismantle your weaponry
As a Black woman who has been into commentary and video analyses since Lindsay Ellis’s Hercules video, I’m loving the rise of Black commentators, especially in the leftist space. If it wasn’t for the lack of accessibility, I would’ve loved to start a channel of my own. Currently working on my Master’s though so hopefully one of my papers will get cited in a Khadija Mbowe video one day 😭
Me, white cis male. If i learn that there is non-white creators of level of Lindsay Ellis and only reason is that algorithm is doing racial stereotyping, i am getting upset. Like where is the good stuff RUclips? Where is it, mfer!!?? Sure as hell not in my suggestions.
I hope maybe you can start a channel someday if you still want to and be a part of it!!! Also I hope your masters is going ok, I know its been a while since you commented but I know its a long process :)
Thank you so much for the shoutout!! My mom is ABSOLUTELY not a doctor or a lawyer, not even close to the median salary 😭 However, I’ve been extremely blessed and privileged to be able to make the things that I do. It’s all that I’ve really ever wanted to do anyway.
As a white dude who grew up with black cousins, this was something that took me a shameful ammount of time to understand. My default was, "It's impossible for me to be racist/do a racism, I love my family, therefore I = obviously not racist." It's a hard thing to recognize inward bias when, consciously, they're abhorrent to you. But the work of uprooting those unconscious thoughts out of your mind is good work,, and is essential to not seeing them grow and blossom into full-fledged beliefs. The ignorance of the unexamined mind is the most dangerous thing, imo
All in all, i agree however, i do remember someone, maybe Peterson saying something to the effect of, if you start recognizing inward biases, you may have been duped into believing it. The idea is that if people keep bringing up the existence of inward biases, you start internalizing and thinking thoughts you weren't initially.
@@bringinthedope5929 Well, sure, if you don't know about something but then 50 people all tell you the same lie, then it becomes easy to believe that lie if you leave it unexamined and take their word for it. Which is why we need to vet our information and see if it's backed up by reality. And racism: Never. Is. It's cloaked in a thin veneer of prejudice that gives it the airs of truthfulness, which is why dissesembling and examining them is crucial to eradicating them because once you can identify the prejudices that racism stems from, you can then use that knowledge to uproot it entirely; and that in turn makes it easier to identify; which in turn helps you to help others get that shit outta their mindgarden too. Observing, listening and learning from others is important, but unfortunately it's easy for us to learn just about anything.
As someone who is somewhat new to leftism, i often find these types of video essays hard to understand and filled with references to things i don’t know. you did a lovely job of making a complex video really understandable for people like me. thank you so much for an incredible video:)
I'm a white dude who watches just about all the breadtubers. I got recommended your video on edgy movies and who enjoy them. That video was almost like a slap in the face, I never gave it a thought on who is this media made for. And over time I came to a realization that it's almost the same for breadtube. I had just about no poc view on any issue. It was all from the point of white people. Since then I've been trying to diversify my sub box. Hearing different perspectives, even if some of them have made me uncomfortable, it really opened my eyes more than almost anything else I've been watching. Thank you F.D, you are one of the best essayist on the site and I'm glad I clicked on that video.
Same here, I just want to say the biggest thank you for the work all of the creators interviewed in the video (and especially fiq!) now making the effort to uplift one another and making it easier for us to diversify our political content. I know it wasn’t personally until I found Fiq that I was able to find some of my now favorite creators like Fab Socialism and Foreign through the recommendations, and it wasn’t until this video that I questioned why that was the case, but I deeply appreciate that process being sped up and hopefully content like this continues pushing the trend of desegregating leftist youtube discourse.
@@EpicsOfTime facts. I found Foreign directly through links and references from Fiq. Hopefully, after this video I’ll find some new favorites from the interviews and links.
Being a Black woman who’s a leftist, I’ve been sucked into hate-watching the Black femininity/hypergamy pipeline on RUclips. Absolutely love that you made this detailed overview about the state of leftist, Black, content creation. 👏🏾👏🏾🖤 thank you for helping represent Black voices in critical analysis online.
@@fightvale57 yep I think for me it was this video ohstephco made where she reacted to a mahogany pink video that had been circulating, so I went to check out the original mahogany pink video and that's when it escalated like crazy. Now it's Cynthia g, Chrissy, Themis and Thoth, Samantha cook, etc. Its really wild to witness first hand how easily one can get radicalized on this site. Lowkey I think ForHarriet stopped uploading as much and so YT started bombarding me with femininity girls and "divestors". Lol idk but the entire thing is type bizarre
I’m starting to block those channels. It’s really bad for my psyche. I was watching a person that I subscribed to before, she now covers KS. Giving very pick-me female misogynoir vibes. I made a few comments and men came for me like the hoard on Jan 6. I spent days going to war with them. Finally I deleted all of my comments, the responses, and blocking the people I engaged with and the channel entirely. Both sides of the toxicity are horrible. Bye!!!
For me it’s the fact that my first real introduction to black political creators was Aba and Preach even while I was aware of how problematic some of their views were, and it took Hasan and Noah Samsen for me to even learn of this channel, and the storyteller, and man from a foreign land, and I think that’s absurd. How I can be deep in left tube and end up at the regressive content created by people like aba and preach before even being aware of other incredible black creators, it’s really opened my eyes to how much my media consumption is shaped by algorithms and social norms even as a leftist/anti capitalist.
The hour and 18 minute mark really hit home for me. I am one of those disaffected middle class white guys who did come up during the early days of RUclips and followed a lot of that content you mentioned early on (I have loved Lindsay Ellis since her nostalgia chick days). I never became an anti-SJW (The worst I got was a few amazing atheist and thunderf00t videos during my angry atheist years). But I often look at those pictures of Charlottesville and I think if I didn’t go to a diverse school early on, if My family didn’t host foreign exchange students or if I didn’t become one myself, or if I didn’t start working abroad and on cruise ships when I did, then I could’ve become one of those tiki torch A-holes. You’re right that racism isn’t a moral issue, it’s a systemic one and I do my best to check myself when I can. Amazing video!
That whole section felt like a play by play of me in 2013, I was watching my gaming and comedy channels and it felt like the RUclips algorithm was trying to make me a fascist with every new recommendation. Luckily when things went from "lol look at these people making a fool of themselves" to "these people are ruining our culture" or something actually alarming like that even my 14 year old white boy brain paused and realized that something wasn't quite right. I also lived in a VERY progressive town, very white, but very progressive. So the attempts to make LGBT people some kind of "other" didnt work when I lived in a town with double the national average of same sex couples. I've talked to people who went down that same path and didn't stop when you or I did, a former coworker of mine who I still keep on touch with is worryingly hanging off the edge of that cliff. He "Didn't care about politics before Gamergate." Which is the sad truth for a lot of these people, they got on the bus at that stop and still haven't gotten off as it keeps driving them down towards fascism. Luckily gamer gate came at a time when I was already burnt out on the gamer anti SJW politics, I was firmly a jaded liberal in denial at that point. I knew it was happening but made an effort not to learn what it was about because it felt like such nonsense from the outside.
I came in with the assumption that I wasn't going to be able to appreciate the points I thought I was going to hear in this. And as a black guy I usually don't feel seen by any side, by not being (insert category here) enough. And after this? I just feel a hunger for more like this, just a patient voice exploring a point and perspective I hadn't fully thought out. This is fantastic, thank you so very much.
Only 20 mins in, but I remember being 12 years old, scrolling through Channel Awesome content, and finding Lindsay Ellis's videos. I was THERE for the rise of the video essay. You've nailed it. You're so right -- she deserves her accolades and respect. It's so crazy to see people who love video essays go "ugh, why?" when I recommend her. CRAZY.
The only counterpoint I would make to this video is that I think you are describing the END of a particular era of youtube. Just the past half year, a new crop of leftist video essayists have really exploded here - You, Jessie Gender, Khadija, Ada on Demand - are just the ones that I myself have really latched on to, in addition to others you have shown. I actually got to here from Aba and Preach - who I no longer subscribe to, due to their renewed focus on anti-trans content and rhetoric. The new section at the mall is opening up... and we're here for it.
I don't watch conservative BS at all, never click on their clickbait videos at all. Despite that, I'm being recommended Jordan Peterson, Adam und Stitch, Chowder and Aba und Preach videos on the top of the sidebar and my homepage on the regular, despite again having never clicked on any of them. And I don't need to, things are obvious from the thumbnails and titles of those videos - correct me if I'm wrong, Abba und Preach are pop-NiGTOWs and Adam und Stitch are Sargonite grifters. I've been very sparesly recommended Signifier vids, so much so that I just subscribed.
i personally love yhara zayd, broey deschanel, and cheyenne lin! they have great perspectives and great analyses. i also like We're In Hell, who isn't the typical American breadtuber--he's Canadian--but he's been talking less about outright politics and more about weird reality shows, lol. i dislike the whole breadtube sphere and wouldn't really consider them part of it; rather, part of this newer generation.
I feel u on the Aba and Preach shit. Their obsession with trans ppl as of late has been really off putting. I watch them for them being funny and joking on dumb shit or talking about relationships cuz I usually see where they're coming from. But lately it's starting to feel like they're just falling full force into the "redpill" anti SJW content. I always felt this way about them to an extent so I was initially hesitant to really consume their content cuz I felt a good portion of it would probably annoy me. But it's seems to be escalating to full reactionary bullshit.
That twenty minute mark break down about how they were angry at late stage capitalism not just video games but couldn't express it at the right target was just *chef's kiss*
Nothing shows quite how hard the algorithm gets a hold of you like my near 100% subscription rate to everyone in the intro. It's been great to see new faces exploding onto the scene like Signifier, Ro Ramdin, and CJ the X. Those last two, dear lord, people who were five years old when I registered my RUclips account are already smarter and funnier than me. I'm so thankful to have channels like these, and Yara Zayd, Jessie Gender, Storyteller, Kat Blaque, Conquest of Dread, Art of Paya, etc. I just want to soak up all the context and outside perspectives I can, because it's the only way to really learn. Take the Chapelle special, for instance. I've probably seen ten different videos about it at this point, but it was only in Kat's video that I finally saw how obviously questionable his bathroom story was. Of course that would be a wildly dysphoric scenario, so it doesn't ring true. But we all have blindspots, and you can only try to fix them by listening. I felt a bit called out by portions of your Bo Burnham video, but my reaction was to subscribe. Now I've seen half of your videos at this point. Through you I found Khadija Mbowe. I've been making content here for a decade, and I've been working it as a job for five. It was stressful making videos during the era of gamergate even when I knew I wasn't a target. I watched Anita's videos in response to the outrage. They were just so non-inflammatory. It didn't make sense. There were, at most, minor examples that may have been a bit out of place. I kept watching. I learned some new terms, like fridging. Useful information. If you did the math you probably noticed I went fulltime here the same year Trump was elected president. Big best year/worst year energy. I couldn't just accept that such a large portion of the people around me were okay with this. That people, even then, were still defending gamergate. I'd had enough. I was done with this idea that you dance around political topics when making gaming content. I dove into covering the likes of Bioshock, Outer Worlds, and Disco Elysium and I did away with the filter. It pissed people off. It still does. But I'm done with dancing around topics that are right in front of me. As far as I'm concerned gamers lost their right to artificially apolitical content in 2016. Hell, they should have lost it the moment gamergate happened. I pride myself in maintaining a LGBTQ+ friendly community, which very much includes the T, and I'm abundantly aware that that means drawing a line that alienates or requires the banning of large, toxic audiences. It's probably bad for my job, but I can't deal with the idea of horrific people taking comfort in my content. If I see the opportunity, I'm going to challenge them, and they're either going to change or leave. I've seen plenty of both. Republicans don't last long in my discord. As far as I'm concerned, curiosity is how you defeat bigoted ideologies. It's why I learned from Sarkeesian back when everyone was saying I should be mad at her, and it's why I'm still learning today. So keep doing what you're doing, Signifier, and anyone else who might see this. I'll keep listening. (I'm also taking plenty notes for my own essays, hah)
that's actually one of the biggest reasons why you're by far my favourite gaming youtuber, that you don't shy away from politics and expressing your opinion. it's really frustrating watching other people play disco elysium for example, and see them tip toe around being decisive about the main damn conflict of the game, just plain refusing to think about what their opinion is or expressing it (and of course being made fun of by getting the world's most laughable centrist achievement lol). yes maybe you alienate some people by doing the opposite, but i think it creates a much stronger community of people who do stick around. (also special thanks for playing pathologic, let's plays of this game are so few and far between)
i knew your profile looked familiar, when i searched my history i realized i’d watched your disco elysium play through! i was a little nervous on choosing whos play through to watch for that game so i was pleasantly surprised when your answers to questions in the game (and consequently, your politics) matched mine. it’s even more reassuring to see you here and to read this comment. i’m ro’s age, and i remember being a young leftist watching gamergate unfold and how that reflected on youtube. at times, i’d just have to leave the website to collect myself, so i respect you so much for sticking through all of it. i’m glad you stuck around to see the tides turn, keep doing what you’re doing! :)
Vibing with this comment here as a whole. I didn't really understand the outrage at Sarkeesian. The vitriol and, well, violence. I didn't have to agree with every single little part of what she said to see the value. But then I'm not a white baby boy burning with misdirected rage. There was a video recently from where he looked back with fresh eyes at the behaviour and videos and responses to Sarkeesian. Seeing clips from her in this vid, I just couldn't see it. There is nothing particularly radical about her feminism. It's pretty basic critique (that had valuable educational tidbits in it) with maybe a couple of *imperfections*... Far fewer imperfections in her argument or stances than the bois going apeshit at her. Anyway, this video has been so good and has me burning with tons of thoughts. Signifier has stoked my mind with each video I see. Why would any of us not seek this out, I'll never viscerally understand. Learn and learn. Listen. Seek out more perspectives outside ones natural bubble, even against the algorithm.
Totally agree, not enough people are open to new and/or challenging ideas, the Bo Burnham was eye opening to me for others struggles and a few of my own.
As a person who somewhat recently began watching video essay-type videos, this definitely changed the way I viewed the algorithm. Every POC creator I found came from recommendations outside RUclips, never the platform itself. Thanks for channel recommendations and definitely subscribing!
Hell yeah! It's the same for me.. Found FD'S channel some time ago and watched it a lot lately, like.. a lot! It's great content and I learn something new in every video, he's doing! But I love watching your channel as well, Quinn. You're one of the best out there and I especially loved your collab with David Lightbringer on TWOW! Remember watching these clips, when the pandemic started...
as a white viewer i love how often you shout out other black creators because youre absolutely right. Ive never heard of Yara. I found you through T1J who was the only black creator i knew about for quite a while. These walls are absolutely in place and we absolutely have to break through them Cheers
I agree, I struggle to fight the algorithm and get shown active creators outside the whitebread bubble, and anytime someone different shares the people they watch it's like getting an invite to some place you live a block from but never knew existed.
100% those walls are there. also a white viewer, who is excited to hear alternate perspectives. i know T1J. I know Yhara, but the algorithm rarely shows me her stuff unless it is extremely topical to what i am watching already. i have to actively seek it out. i found JD through his colourism vid, which at the time was close to the content i was already watching with melinda pendulum, who is recommended owing to her ties to nerd culture and queerness> she almost had to sneak in under a bunch of other flags and tags. but as a white passing person, i think it is really important that we actively seek out those perspectives, even when they make us uncomfortable. i know joel samsens breadtube breakdown was limited in the amount of black youtubers but i was excited to get the recommendations. i know i will be pursuing more after this video.
Having Jewish family, fascism never appealed to me. But I was attracted to the pickup artist/incel/manosphere garbage and there was a lot of really nasty reasons I found it attractive for way too long.
47:05 bringing Hank on here was actually such a cool and good idea considering that he actually is part of a subset of youtube far outside the bread tube lines. math and education youtubers like veritasium and 3 blue one brown are really good and i find myself being brought to them by the algorithm all the time
Yeah, Hank and John were some of my early intros into more leftist thought. Sure, maybe people will try and split hairs and say the Greens aren't leftists, but they definitely do good work in a more mainstream way to help debunk right wing propaganda and offer well expressed alteratives to right wing ideologies. Let's just say it I was in a bit of a libertarian quagmaire in the early 2010s and Crash Course and vlogbrothers helped pull me out of it just in time before shit got even crazier as the decade went on.
I'm a middle aged white woman who lives in a tiny, rural, mostly white area. I watch a lot of the creators you pointed out at the beginning, breadtubers, media focused video essayists, educational content. I have homeschooled my son for 7 years now, and I realized how few non-white faces he saw. (Beyond T1J, I've watched his videos for years) I started looking for non-white voices, and it was HARD. I found Khadija first, who did a video about decolonizing your feed, and the comment section of that video did the rest. Without that video, I'm not sure what I would have had to put in the search box to find more non-white creators. I think this video too will do the same for a lot of folks, because you have basically shown a lot of new (to me) creators. I'm so glad you've done it, because I have a new set of creators to familiarize myself with!
I had a similar experience, but I’m in my late teens. It is a bit gross that it came to it but the catalyst that triggered me to want to actively seek out the voices of POC was the death of George Floyd. I recognized I was being a horrible ally as a result so I started to do research on black video essayists and I started watching Tee Noir and then after Tee Noir shouted out Khadija I started watching her.
The point that you make at 1:18:01: how white-leftist-debate bros come from the same communities as their neo-nazi/white supremacist counterparts is so on point. Thank you for articulating these ideas for me. Thank you for helping me to understand these issues and concepts that are outside of my own perspective and grasp. Your channel is amazing. Thank you for all of your diligence and work, sir.
A lot of them come from the old New Atheist skeptic communities as well, except taking a small turn to the left (ostensibly, IMO they're mostly just grifters), instead of a hard turn to the right like most of them.
I totally don't get what he's saying about leftist debate bros. He's talking about just three guys really. One of which is vehemently not a leftist. One of which is vehemently not a debator. He says they look the same at a distance but then scoffs at the idea of actually watching a stream. He talks about how many of the leftist debate Bros were part of white supremacists communities. There's only one person he talked about that that applies too and they still hang out with white supremacists. I'm looking like the confused Jackie Chan meme listening to that part of the video. There's value in live discourse. There's value in being able to say something and have someone respond and for many people to hear it. And then at the end he's like if you want to talk to me then good luck lol. There's explicit value in the fact that I can go to what he's calling a debate Bros chat and actually have a back and forth with people and sometimes even the steamer their selves. I can go on. The criticism of that part is so vague in order to be overly agressive that it feels like he just gave up whereas the rest of the essay was very insightful and knowledgeable.
@@Theyungcity23 I don't think you heard what he said with an open mind. It was quite insightful about how these debate bros operate and the fanbase that they cultivate. I think you're being defensive.
I felt like you were speaking to me, man. As a black man, I grew up on RUclips with all the nerd content from AVGN to gamer gate to now. I never realized how it may have effected me or my viewing/thinking patterns. This was a very reflective and introspective video. Thank you sharing your feelings on RUclips as a black man. Your message speaks for the viewers too.
I spent years in toxic blk spaces, thinking I was above it all. Finally realized that I'm participating regardless and literally had to detox from the content. The only way I could do it was by staying away from blk spaces altogether. It has been a nice break, but also lonely and isolating. Finding your channel felt like finding my tribe at long last. Gratitude 🙏🏾
I find it interesting that Hbomb is constantly brought up as being one of the prime "breadtubers" when the majority of his videos and his best videos aren't even political. Him and Contrapoints are very, very different.
Most people consider him such because hes usually a gateway for people to get into “breadtube”. His Sherlock video is immensely popular and he achieved tumblr fame when he did that Donkey Kong stream.
I think it's because he puts his nerdiness on full display that allowed the far right nerdy white guys to give him a chance over other creators. Once they were roped in by the "he's one of us" mentality they could take him seriously and end up in the breadtube rabbit hole so a lot of people see him as quintessential to the breadtube experience. I see him as more of entertainment rather than education even though his videos are decently researched. Shaun and Big Joel were actually my intro to breadtube
Natalie once pointed out that part of what made hbomb's post-gamer gate content so effective was its use of cringe. Cringing at neo-nazi misogynist clowns is fun and familiar to young men who've been consuming AWGY shit for years, and it helped push them towards more long-form think pieces that would eventually deradicalize them.
Hbomb is always specifically leftist....regardless of whether the topic is deemed political. The personal is political. So the idea that is content is largely apolitical is false.
The phrase “break bread” in context of bread tube race relations is fascinating to me and drew me in immediately. I’m sure the images of the fractured white boy left attracted me as well because that’s what the left is these days. We need unity for real and engaging with black content is one of the best ways we can do that IMO.
Appreciate the perspective. I noticed the homogeneity in breadtube/edutube creators myself and I'm glad to see somone bring light to it. I hope that it pushes up other creators and other voices so it doesn't feel like such a silo. it sucks that RUclips's algorithm promotes those silos, but maybe we can change that through different viewing habits and explicit promotion of other creators by existing breadtube/edutube channels.
I think that ContraPoints and Philosophy Tube get a lot of attention because they have "characters" -- they are part actor on top of their content. It's literally shinier, so I can see why people flock to those videos. I AM ticked that YT didn't connect a Lindsey Ellis fan to Yhara Zyed -- especially when Lindsey stopped producing more content! Ugh. Thanks for breaking this down!
Signifier definitely raised a few points for me, like talking about allyship and the pitfalls for every kind you can be and how it is portrayed in media and the Edgelord movies I loved as an angry teen, early 20s something, and still do to an extent to this day.
I remeber when the only black feminist I could find on youtube were Franchesca and Kat Blaque, and back then they used to get taken out of context all the time and recived so much hatred for saying basically the same thing that alot of white leftist youtubers are saying now. It's still surprising how many white people really need a white person specifically to tell the to not be racist.
I used the search tool to find your Black Men and Love video earlier this week (typed in the full title) and the search results were all black gender wars/interracial dating/anti black woman videos. yours was the only one that wasnt hateful,trolling and genuinely about something positive. its a hellscape out there. I only got into youtube communities fairly recently, this is super educational. thank you
1:18:30 White dude who grew up dirt poor in a rural area. Have seen a lot of the kids I grew up with go to varying degrees of right-wing nonsense, some unabashed fascists. I don't want to discount the role white habitus plays in this development, but there are patterns that I've noticed that I don't think I've ever really seen people speak on particularly thoroughly, namely the way the conditions you experience in poverty (can often) lead you to have overwhelmingly authoritarian viewpoints. When you grow up being beat by the people who are supposed to watch over you every time you step out of line, you figure out real quick that you should follow orders (or at least not get caught when you don't). The kids who don't end up in a whole other pipeline at a pretty young age. These kids learn that the only way they'll have any amount of security is through domination of others, and so they come to worship those who are successful in conquest. Power is respected; failure is punished. It's really hard to get any remotely left* rhetoric to appeal to these people because there is no significant amount of people actualizing any of those ideas around them. If they don't think about numero uno, they will starve and die in the streets. They often don't get left with many opportunities to develop another world view. They end up spending their whole lives slaving away, barely staying afloat, assuming that they do stay afloat. *I'm using "left" here to mean "values a philosophy of general liberation". If I go up to one of these people and start preaching intersectionality and telling them every person should do what they can to look out for every other person, they're just going to laugh and say "Alright. Let me know when someone wants to look out for me".
There's a lot of interesting stuff to unpack there. Your clearly have a lot of thoughts to share, and I'd love to watch something like that. If you haven't seen anything good on this, you should make it!!
@@yoissy I'm fortunate enough to have ended up on steadier ground than most people I grew up with (I'm a software engineer), but I don't know where I'd find the time to do something like that tbh. Maybe one day.
Having grown up in similar circumstances to you this actually makes a lot more behavior I would consider “stereotypically evil” make sense in retrospect. I ran with a real racist crowd for a while and the worst of us had a few things in common. Lived in squalor, parents neglected when they weren’t actively abusing, and a mean sense of constant power struggle. My parents weren’t like that, we were poor as dirt yeah but my parents never laid a hand on me and always taught compassion. I was going through a rebellious phase and looking for a sense of extrafamilial community so I accepted this new reality readily. Eventually I righted myself but everytime I look in on how those guys are doing years down the line and they’re worse than they used to be and way more open about it. I’m rambling but I really think you’re onto something bud I’m surprised I haven’t seen studies on this
Speaking as someone who’s gone through that anti-sjw pipeline and has recently become a “reformed left leaning white cis male,” this is extremely insightful to me and the way i interact with youtube and twitch. One thing you pointed out that hit hard was that people don’t click on black faces in thumbnails as much. I hate to admit it, but its true for me personally. Ive noticed I’ve had a bias towards white cis male creators, but i even seem to have an avoidance on clicking on videos that feature non-ciswhitemale creators. (I will mention i am more biased towards bigger creators, but that is only a small part compared to the larger issue at hand) Now that I’ve recognized and admit it to myself (which I’ve honestly been lying to myself about) i feel i can actually take the “scary” steps to change my behavior and hopefully destroy those external and internal biases. Thanks for the video, I’m definitely sticking around as this was some A+ content
As a fellow cis straight woman who is also an ex anti-sjw who escaped the pipeline, and have searched since then ways to better myself and expand my horizons, I’m so glad when I find other people who also gave the hard but necessary steps to maturity, on the internet. Good luck my friend! \(^_^)/
@@Eyeinthesky7 Clearly based on their full comment, they have recognized the biases they hold and are working to squash them. There is no need to attack them like this and it's more likely to be harmful than anything positive. Honest question, is there something hateful about using the term "cis" if you're simply putting forth the information that the gender you identify with is your birth sex?
God, please don’t ever stop making videos. I’m a double major in philosophy and comp sci with a minor in math and I would love to discuss different ideas with you because a lot of thought processes or how I make sense of experiences come from a different lens but we keep coming to the same conclusions.
That sounds like a super interesting double major! As a single major in comp sci with an interest in philosophy I can already see the value in understanding philosophy when planning programs and when working in a team! I'd love to hear if having an education in computer science can help your understanding of philosophy.
For the record it was the "Why "I Don't Dream of Labor" Doesn't Work" video that pulled me in. I had to check and yeah, that was the one that kept popping up in my Recommended view that intrigued me. I basically immediately blew through the rest of your videos and enjoyed them. It's important for me to hear someone talk about masculinity and culture, that's pretty much been my favorite thread in your videos.
For me it was his video on Edgelord movies. I sorta knew what he was getting at but I sorta wanted to hear the perspective of a black guy. And it was very enlightening even to some of my own experiences with that stuff as one of the most anti-social kinds of edgelords from my teens into my early 20s. I basically binged most of the rest of his videos and certainly took away a lot, especially the "It's just Tuesday" analogy/story about Leonardo DiCaprio in his Bo Burnham video.
Anytime I'd put black and some thought provoking subtext in the search bar, looking for more nuanced takes on love, relationships, being a black woman... The never ending suggestions of weird Kevin Samuels type videos I'd get 😂😂😂. That are rooted in colourism, anti-lgbtq, hatred for either black men or black women and bizzare rules I don't think any normal person applies in a relationship. I was like no thanks... Forever grateful for finding creators like yourself, Khadija, Yhara, Joulzey, The Grapevine and more.
Having binged loads of AVGN and NC way back when, I'm so thankful that somehow I stayed watching/looping that media instead of being filtered into the radicalization pipeline. Sometime during the pandemic I found myself getting into the BreadTube stuff with HBomberGuy, back into PhilosophyTube, and Shaun. Years late to this video, but found you via the Burnham wave and have been coming back to catchup/rewatch/tune in since.
Fiq! As a black latino man going through the black experience on a different part of the continent (I live in South America) I gotta say that your channel has added yet another layer of nuance to a home page that I have been carefully curating for a while now, because if you let the bots do their thing you get fed inane, destructive and mind-numbingly awful stuff. Finding black / POC /lgbtq+ creators is a literal ordeal (with the notable exceptions being Contra and Phil. Tube, but they're juggernauts) , so these bricks you're laying for a more egalitarian and more pluralistic ecosystem is truly inspiring. I love what you've done with the place. I know there are many like it, but this one is yours, and they way you're channeling your energy and simply doing your own thing is something I admire and respect. Here's to a lot of success my man, keep it real.
The debate bro toxicity you discuss has permeated RUclips so deeply that merely seeing this thumbnail, I was prepared for something like a "calling out" or "owning" of many of the people in said thumbnail. Now, I've seen your videos before, so I should know better, but I'm so accustomed to RUclips videos having such little nuance and being more concerned with "drama" and "big emotions" that I was simply expecting it, but what I got instead was a thoughful examination of why so much of leftist RUclips is so similar in so many ways and why it's so hard for people who don't fit that mold to enter that space. Thank you for this.
Ahhh, the algorythm kept telling me to watch the Bo Burnham video, but I never watched his special, so I was waiting on that. This is the first video of yours that I've watched and what an amazing introduction. Thank you for your work, it is very thoughtful and I subscribed to a lot of channels while watching it. It feels like I really want to have more control over my rabbit hole now. On a side-note, I really loved Yhara Zayd's videos and I always hoped she would get the millions of subs she deserved. Sad that she left the platform, but I hope it goes well for her.
Long-time Lindsay viewer here, Yhara came up in my feed earlier this year when she had maybe 7 or 8 videos up and I adore her. She has the sweetest voice I've ever heard and, aside from being well put-together, there are a few of her videos I'll put on repeat just for that.
I'll never forget when my wife (who is asian) and I went to a little lakeside resort for our anniversary 2 or 3 years ago. We were having dinner and she leaned in and said "Do you see it? Everyone is white." Me (being smart and white) says "not everyone." And she replied "Yeah. The servers." That's when I knew I had a lot to learn.
For anyone thats curious. White guy that searched "Critical Race Theory", the first video by a black content creator was Khadija Mbowe, it was the 25th video.
This is why I love and really appreciate when creators shout out other creators. That's how I've found a lot of really cool and interesting people that the algorithm just... doesn't show me
You are the first person I've seen precisely articulating on how counter-culture marginalized nerds became 'skeptics', then some got galvanized and turned into alt-right reactionaries, and when it went mainstream it paved the way for 'Breadtube'-style content (with it being done by the same type of guys). Not a lot of people might remember, but even places like 4chan has not always been alt-right/nazi (granted, it was still nasty). Your John Tron vs Destiny comparison was very on point, and you went further than that on racialisation of white Americans. Great content.
I remember when Obama was elected and 4Chan was, in general, happy about it. Of course that doesn't make them not right-wing, but they've shifted so hard to the right over the course of the past few years. I saw the writing on the wall and left. I saw the writing on the wall with a lot of "nerdy" media. Being a person who likes films and games and television and cartoons and literature who is also not a raging fascist was a very lonely existence in the mid-to-late 2010's, and it definitely contributed to my suicide attempt in 2016. It's a little better now, but we still have sooooooooooooooo far to go.
@@LiberalSquared I have similar experiences too all over the internet and its exhausting, im sorry that it contributed to your suicide attempt and I hope you are feeling better now. But yes we have a very long way to go
What I like about this new era of social commentary coming from all different hues is that you guys seem to support each other and reference each other. And I love to see it 🥰🥰🥰🥰
The left-wing "debate Bros" are essential to the cause in my opinion, they have their place. Majority of the right's mobilization and radicalization is done through agit-propaganda, aggressive "alpha" posturing, and mockery. They understand no other language. If we want to get through to people who can still be reached, it takes all kinds. The debate lords, the video-essayists, the public figures, and then of course the activists doing the actual organizing and being in the streets. I get a lot of the criticisms of some of the "debate bro" streamers and such, but a lot of the time most of them are doing a great job actually opening people's minds who were in danger of going hard right. And they all make much better good-faith arguments than the opposition.
I think a major advantage of the streaming format that wasn't addressed in this video is the flexibility and immediate turnaround. A video essay will always be better at getting ideas across and are higher quality educational content, but if some big event is happening right now and I want information about it in video form. A live broadcast from someone like hasanabi for example will get me relevant Information, in an easily digestible way, from a leftist point of view, sometimes even with some good backround knowledge added to the situation. Having an independent, leftist counter to the American live news coverage is valuable. How many thousands of people watched twitch streamers cover Jan 6 or the elections. Are these steamers just the lefts version of Steven Crowder? Yea sure, but unlike Crowder they are honest actors and without them there would be no counter to the American media machines live coverage of important events.
@@Mrbombs102 You make a good point, and beyond that it's important to acknowledge that a majority of people are not interested in sitting down to listen to and digest a video essay, especially those with a right wing worldview who are simply not going to hear what you're trying to say. The video essays, unfortunately, are largely taken in by people already on the progressive side who enjoy new information and there is a big echo chamber/preaching to the choir element. They are important and great, but we also need people who aren't going to dive into these elaborate concepts and instead give people quick statements alongside entertainment, and aren't afraid to be confrontational/reactionary and appeal to the base instincts of people. I feel like the reactionary stuff by charismatic people coming from the left is the first step, the video essay/educational stuff comes second. If the goal is actually to reach out and change people's minds, there needs to be a multifaceted unified community of the entire left/spectrum.
Hasanabi for example has flat out identified himself as an entertainer who makes left-wing agitprop. He tries to make good faith factual points from a genuine place, but he will say himself he makes propaganda. The fact is, nearly every single one of the prominent right-wing commentators online right now exclusively make propaganda in bad faith, constant strawmanning, deliberate misrepresentation of stats, culture war agitation, just completely unabashed lies in general. They believe the ends justify the means no matter what. If someone has been trained by that content, the thought provoking video essay is not going to work as a first step away from that.
Without debate bros like a Vaush, I would not have become a leftist. I think that they’re not only useful, but extremely important in breaking the aggressive brainwashing done by right-wing commentators like Crowder.
The problem with debate bros is their toxic fanbase that they end up cultivating. Some of these people are ex-nazis and ex-ethnonationalists who end up forming a cult around their debate bro and justifying even the bad takes they may have. It also results in an echo chamber where these newly deradicalised individuals end up preventing themselves from educating themselves on topics further, and end up getting information solely from their debate bro or other sources which agree with them.
For all the breadtube I've watched, I've never seen another essay laying out the history and the motivations of how it grew so clearly and insightfully. I could kind of feel a bunch of things I was vaguely familiar with clicking into a bigger critical framework, and the sensation was beautiful, even if the picture isn't sunny. (Not unlike the experience of reading Racism Without Racists, come to think of it).
Lmao I recognize everyone in the thumbnail and if the way it's framed is anything to go off, I'm super curious to engage with your analysis on the divide between the predominantly white sphere(s) of influence within the "mainstream" online "left" and just everyone else - you always make some of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking vids so I'll be waiting with bated breath
@@aidangillard2041 Dude... Im a Hasan viewer and like... He considers himself white. And like we can have a discussion about the critical frameworks of race and how white is an empty category that exists to be contrasted to non white and by that metric white supremacists do consider him nonwhite... However to a majority of non white supremacists... Yeah hes just a white dude.
@@aidangillard2041 In Europe he probably wouldn't be considered white. In America, where he lives and has most of his life experiences, he is, and that's most relevant imo. I acknowledge that there is the intersection of Islamophobia and how a lot of racists would probably consider him white up until they learn his name.
This is definitely going to be a commentary classic that everyone is going to come back to and references in a few years. Amazing work and best luck to you 👏
This was an incredible piece. The 'Debate Bro' segment really hit hard for me; while I try to distance myself from the "Debate Bro" sphere, I never considered how much they could cause a ripple in left communities. Very insightful.
This was only touched on in a single sentence in this video, but I'm really amazed you actually called out Aba and Preach as being a part of the "black manosphere". They would themselves vehemently deny being a part of such a group, yet they consistently spout black/redpill rhetoric in just about every social/relationship commentary video they do. This got me thinking, maybe one day you could do a video about the modern day red pill movement and why so many of it's spearheaders are men of color: Fresh & Fit, AMS, StephIsCold, Kevin Sammuels, Aba and Preach, The Roommates, I'm sure the list goes on. I'm curious to understand why such a large portion of the people who lead that group are men of color, from a sociological point of view. All the best.
Yea, I am embarrassed to say that I thought they were a bit more neutral, since they claimed to be. But I started to notice more and more black manosphere personalities started to pop up in my feed(and I am a woman), and I still didn't make the connection that they were soo heavily influenced by the red pill talking points. Then they started giving shout outs to Kevin Samuels(calling him a truth teller), being friends with "mediocre tutorials and reviews " and so on. I started noticing the dog whistles and them reacting harder on women for stupid things. Aba especially seems to have been heavily influenced by reddits political bro's and seem to echo a lot of their talking points.
Absolutely! It’s pretty disheartening and almost sad how mainstream the “black manosphere” content is getting. I definitely think it’s a result of the lack of black male content creators in general, so black men giving social & relationship commentary has become enticing to your average black male viewer. The sad part is, as you said, it’s nothing but redpill rhetoric and talking points dressed up differently and being served on a platter to your average black man. I truly hope to see more FD’s in the space.
I've been recommended Aba and Preach by creators who claim to be progressive and left-leaning. The first video of theirs that I tried watching was basically all about shitting on women. The comments were terrifying.
This was very thorough and it needed to be said because the left (particularly the white left) has some introspection to do. There are so many black content creators that deserve just as much respect and viewership as white content creators if not more. As a black leftist I used to find myself watching almost exclusively white content due to RUclipss algorithm but recently I've found so many great thoroughly researched black creators that speak to me and my issues as a black person more than any white creator could.
After BLM 2020, I stopped supporting none-black people. Recently, I’m even more turned off by the Hispanic community after seeing what’s going on Tiktok and what my friend’s dad said about me after I went to a Mexican wedding (my first one), two days ago. 😬
@@bmwjourdandunngoddess6024 I agree the amount of anti blackness in these leftists spaces turned me off. Black leftist understand black issues better than white creators. Yeah the white creators will talk about current black issues and some black history but they do it only to turn around and make all black issues class issues among other things. White leftists don't know how or just don't want to deal with race and whiteness. They only want to deal with class because it doesn't require them to give up whiteness and the privileges that come with that.
@@Rage_Harder_Then_Relax Maybe some of you white leftist, if that's what you are, should listen to more black leftist perspectives and no gatekeep leftists narratives. White leftist figures feel like they can speak on behalf and black and poc while shunning black perspectives they don't agree with. White leftists spaces exhibit a lot of anti black behavior and don't really engage with black people while pretending that they care about us. When we want to discuss some issues we see in white leftist spaces and the racism and dismissal of our issues with white people speaking for us but not listening to us then we get responses like yours. You and others like you are the reason many black people have stop watching and engaging with white leftist. You guys exhibit a lot of white far right and liberal characteristics that you claim to be against.
its really interesting that the search and discovery algorithm with one well defined goal (maximize watch time -> maximize profits) results in so much terrible emergent behavior. i really doubt it will change anytime soon (per financial motives and obviously white habitus) incredible video
That's actually linked to a pretty huge issue in the domain of AI/algorithms. The algorithm may be unbiased, but the data it uses are. And it will "naturally" reinforce bias. It's actually a perfect example of how racism can develop without any malicious input from anyone.
Lindsay Ellis and Todd in the Shadows really shone and took their content to new heights after breaking away from Channel Awesome. It’s very unfortunate that Lindsay is no longer making content - her video essays were iconic.
Lindsay Ellis was my favorite RUclipsr and I went through something very much like grief when she was driven offline. She's become a mom and started making public appearances lately, and I hope that means she's doing okay and has recovered from the trauma.
Me, Kolpeshtheyardstick's girlfriend, living with him in a rented townhouse in a rural area well below the poverty line getting to laugh at him on our thrift store sofa about being poor is a real highlight of his RUclips journey for me personally. So for that- thank you.
I love the way you make this seem so optimistic about the future while still being very real and honest about existing problems. It's like you are helping to provide a path forward, which seems to be in direct opposition to the whole "debate bro" thing you're talking about.
1:11:50 “These aren’t actual debates.” Thanks, super appreciate that you pan the camera back and show the debate bros yelling over each other while you do a calming ritual. When it comes to RUclips videos, I’m more interested in listening to insights than bloodsport. Love all the interview clips you include in this video essay. And thanks for the channel recommendations to check out!
When we got to the "problems with the community"/racism section of this video, I chuckled because I remember having a friend like a decade ago, who was interested in Korean culture and Korean language. But she refused to learn about it from Korean people, Native Korean Speakers etc. She'd only practice speaking with me(not Korean). I was so confused. I was like how do you expect to learn if you don't practice with Koreans and learn from them? She just wasn't interested in learning from the source, she preferred instead to learn from me, a fellow black woman. I was only a few steps ahead of her in my understanding of Korean. I could read and speak basics at restaurants, but she'd faithfully meet with me to teach her Korean that I'd just learned. She said it was because she was afraid of judgement and didn't want to feel bad for her mistakes. Honestly she probably got more judgement from me, as It was so weird to me and ridiculous, than she would have ever received from a Korean person. I imagine that implicit bias of white people is similar. They want to learn about people of color experiences from fellow white people so that they aren't as harshly judged or made to feel as bad for their mistakes, especially mistakes that aren't recognized by white creators but caught by the fine tooth comb of a black creator or creators of color. Either way, in the case of my friend and white people's bias, the root is pride and arrogance. A fear of being humbled and corrected.
Yeah fear of judgment is real. Although I tbh it carries more weight coming from a black person... Discovering James Baldwin was a game changer. In spite of all the reasons he had not to care about us he still did. He saw the ways racism hurts us and how ending it could free us as well as people like himself. We need to be talking...
I feel that her slight fear of judgement from Koreans specifically is understandable as a Korean, whether we like to admit it or not there definitely have been many moments of anti-blackness in our media. I've seen this sort of apprehension from many dark-skinned black and asian folk especially, because Korean society is notorious for harsh beauty standards (one of them being pale, white skin, along with really thin and skinny body). I've seen Indian girls online worry about how Koreans may view them when they travel there and it breaks my heart that these standards have become so harsh that people who love Korean culture are almost scared to visit the place. Although being Korean, my first response would be no way! we would never judge! putting the fear your friend may have in the context of the anti-blackness along with the harsh judgement other poc HAVE faced from Koreans in other aspects makes it more understandable.
@@user-oy5hb5nq5h that’s a good point and could totally be someone’s reason for not speaking with or practicing with Koreans. However in my situation, my friend admitted to me that it was arrogance and pride, that she didn’t want to look dumb or incompetent. No matter how much I told her Korean people don’t have the same entitlement as American English speakers who judge foreigners for speaking broken English, she couldn’t believe it. She also didn’t want to be corrected or seen making mistakes, it was a mindset that bled into other parts of her life too. However she was self aware and she actively worked to grow out of that arrogance. Eventually she was able to practice speaking with Koreans ^^ but more importantly was able to become more humble in all of areas of her life. She no longer afraid to be seen trying 😊
I'm not even halfway through this yet, but this is a fantastic video for the history of the video essay/media criticism bubble alone. I've been watching RUclips since literally the first year and spent a few very anxiety-inducing years trying to somehow bridge the gap between 1), absorbing the very limited perspectives shared by (mostly) white, (mostly) male sceptics while being caught in "I'm a girl and I don't even like feminism (I think?)" trap, and 2), a desire for more depth, fair/clean argumentation and nuanced takes... and a space for my identity. The content I eventually ended up creating is (usually) inherently apolitical, but man did the "person talking or ranting at a camera about [culture war topic of the month]" shape my thought processes throughout my 20s. And I'm neither male, nor formerly right-wing (nor American, though thorougly Americanized). It's just a legitimately influential force in online millenial culture. Edit from watching on: To answer a direct question (around 1:00:00): I had never heard of Yhara before this video, despite watching and re-watching every halfway decent video essay I can get my hands on for, as mentioned, years. The few black creators that I do know and enjoy watching I have had to basically hand-pick - even Khadija, a pretty big channel comparatively, I only algorithm-stumbled onto very recently, after subscribing to you. I actually found ContraPoints through T1J 5+ years ago, but him I also knew from another (I think white? not sure) YTer's "boost POC creators" list. The black creators I have found through organic algorithm "happenstance" in 15 years of way too much time on this platform I could still count on my 2 hands, despite jumping on any chance I get to hear diversified voices. And I would probably even have to take a few of them out because they simply lucked into a viral hit. This also goes for LGBT creators. The only time during which I was even semi-regularly being recommended channels that are about LGBT issues from an inside perspective was a phase during which a lot of my watch time was spent on several trans folks' channels. So the interest detection here, as you said, does very much seem to be shadow-race-driven priotized over content-driven OR I seek diversity out less than I think I do. Even if the latter is a factor though - which it might very well be - I'm pretty confident in saying it's not at all proportionate. On that note, you I found through Twitter iirc and I binge-watched about half your videos last month. Super insightful and so well-made, I'm glad it's also a dependable source of income for you now, too. At least as dependable as this whole wobbly tower of a career can be ;) Deate bros: I think debate bros do a lot of good as intro channels to the wider and less shouty areas of the leftist sphere, if people manage that transition. They are exactly the intro a lot of people who have come up through the Pewdipipeline need, because they flaunt the "fuck you I don't care and you're stupid" aesthetic while pushing for a left(er) social attitude. Growing through the "Nice takedown bro" phase is a pretty common and valid way of arriving at a more moderate position. And: they do arm people for similar conversations (though ideally more so in content than tone). The percentage of people who eventually fall off the cliff of egomania is pretty high, but I appreciate the brute force approach to breaking open any solidified shell of right-wing dirt. The "problem" is that being successful at that hinges on actually still coming off as reasonable, making understandable and factual arguments, and actually caring while remaining badass/cocky/personally unphased, yet somehow approachable at the same time - and that is extremely hard. From my personal perspective and background, the only person who doesn't annoy the shit out of me from this sphere (too often, yet) is Vaush. I don't think your evaluation vis a vis effort and knowledge is entirely fair when it comes to him at least (can't speak on others, the few I have watched in the past annoyed me). That said, this comes from mostly watching the segments on his channel, I barely tune into the streams. And individual framing factors into this in a huge way when it comes to inter-leftist debates. The fostering of people who are rabid to dunk on someone with the "wrong opinion" IS a definite problem, though. Unfortunately, that is not relegated to just debate bro communities; but a vast majority of them definitely are not counteracting the energy they sow, yes. Ok, last edit: How dare you include "THE WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST BRO", how am I supposed to focus on the content now.
Hallo Leute! I remember you from a Stardew Valley stream a while ago… 🌻 Apart from being male and not a content creator I can relate to many of your viewpoints and I literally couldn‘t express them better. Although most of the political RUclipsrs are US-centric the world-wide influence is definitely there. In 2016 I became a bit obsessed with US politics which probably skews my perspective to this day but I think I am far from alone in that.
same, I'm an hour in now, but by 40 min I was like "wow that was one tough love video, good stuff" and then I realized there was another hour. Need to take a break now because there's a lot to process here.
Really wonderful video. I remember how much crap Kat Blaque got for discussing similar talking points just a couple of years ago. I hope more people are ready to listen now. Thanks for all your hard work on this!
The "y'all sound like all the other girls" energy is real. I extend that to other countries as well because I've been to a few. To my racialized Black ears, the rhetoric, questions, jokes, and stares really do all hit the same - everywhere.
@@nathanjasper512 they are talking about how people from other countries like to talk about how much better they are than America, yet as a racialized black person they still get treated with the same micro agressions everywhere they've traveled.
I really appreciate this video as someone who really wants to make my own commentary video about the world and media from my perspective as a young gay black man(which is not a very common one on RUclips, unfortunately). You have been a huge inspiration to me.
Luck or not, your success is so well deserved. I'm a relatively new subscriber, found you through your collab with Khadija and now this is one of my favorite channels. Thank you for all the hard work you put into your content!
259.000 and counting. You are one of a tiny amount of people who can actually break through the Post Covid brain fog. So wellIt’s possible for me to understand and remember your videos and your calm voice makes me able to concentrate on the content. Thanks for doing this channel. It’s really educational and learning about your life is so constructive to me.
I thought I was imagining that “debate bro” types were indistinguishable from 2010s Edgelorders, holy sh*t thank you for the validation. I genuinely didn’t realize some of these people (I’ve seen them primarily on Twitter) aligned with leftist politics until I got bored and dug into some of their BS on Twitter, and it has been a horrible deja vu all around.
These people don't have ideology, if they do it's extremely thin. These people noticed how many views these "debate streams/videos" get and they pursued the money. It is just a boxing match, as is mentioned in this video. Their respective fans fill the stadium, maybe get some snacks, place some bets, and watch the fight then they spend the entirety of the post-fight space claiming their side won. They both win because their audience gives them their money. The real loser is the pursuit of ideological growth and understanding.
Thank you for pointing out the white majority of LeftTube and how it's quite harder for POC to get success in this platform. As an Asian woman myself, I rarely see other Asian Video Essayists, and it might be because a lot of Asian Culture is rooted in silence. To just work hard and not point out the flaws in society. Sometimes I don't know if I should make video essay content due to the lack of other Asian Video Essayists but video essays are what I love to do.
As a white boy who loves watching video essays and is trying to diversify the list of content creators I follow so I'm not just listening to other white people educate and entertain me; I would love to see more video essays from Asian content creators, and if it's what you love to do... What you said about a lot of Asian culture being rooted in silence sounds like an incredibly interesting topic for a video essay, that's fascinating to me coming from a culture that more than anything else, needs to shut the f*ck up and listen and learn more.
That sounds like a super cool video! I'm not sure if you already know them but Xiran Jay Zhao, Ibrahim Kamit and Cheyenne Lim are more video essay style Asian creators that I really enjoy
Do it, please! Hearing a variety of perspectives is what makes video essays interesting. Sad to say, I can’t think of any Asian LeftTuber doing video essays.
Or I dunno maybe is because Asians represent 7% of the population, out of 100 youtubers let's say 5 of them get popular, who is more likely to get popular 5 of the 7 Asians? Or 5 of the 75 whites?
Answer in Progress is a good channel too. Does video essays, and I'm not sure if they are necessarily a leftist, but I like their content. The Thoughtful Beast does Asian mental health videos. Not a video essayist, but I just wanted to give their channel a recommendation.
I'm speaking as a white woman but I definitely had some deep introspection about the algorithm and how I consume media on youtube a year or two ago. I was late getting into breadtube, or at least not early, but was watching it happy as a bee until there was one of the social media dust-ups about whether breadtube was "too white." I THINK it was Kat Blaque's video that I ended up being recommended on the subject (I had previously watched some of her comics content without realizing she also talked about social justice and racism,) and being the good socially conscious lefty I decided I should definitely hear from a black woman on that particular judgement. In the video, she replied to comments she'd seen saying something like "well I don't mean to not watch black creators, I just never get recommended breadtube content by black people" and she responded by basically saying that if the algorithm isn't offering you black content creators it's because YOU aren't watching them first. You couldn't just passively consume and expect to get a balanced diet and it was on you to actively seek out those voices and subscribe to them. (This video is fuzzy in my memory, might've also been Melina Pendulum.) I kind of thought she might be exaggerating - I was voraciously consuming video essay content and I couldn't really believe youtube would miss out on ad dollars by not showing me MORE video essayists regardless of race, but, given I'd sought out her voice on the subject and had been waffling about subscribing to Kat before I'd started the video, I thought what the heck and subscribed to her. Almost IMMEDIATELY I noticed a shift in my recommendations, within a few days I'd gotten T1J recommended to me for the first time. I was definitely proved wrong and learned a lesson about the algorithm, but I'm so glad I was because I discovered you and other excellent essayists. It didn't even stop at suggesting me black content creators, but I actually got some asian ones and more trans ones too (though debatedly breadtube might've pushed me to more trans creators anyways and I have a trans sister so fall more into the white trans-invested demographic anyways.) I do try to keep my subscriptions at least somewhat trimmed (I'm due for a culling soon,) and try to watch multiple videos from a creator and be cautious about following someone I'm not definitely invested in, but that experience has definitely made me more conscious of deciding not to follow creators that are outside my demographic because of small feelings of not quite connecting with ALL their content. I've become more liberal (hah) with that LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE AND HIT THE BELL when it comes to minority content creators compared to others, both because I want to support them and raise their voices, but also because the fact that maybe I'm not the audience for some of their videos is actually a good thing. Oof IDK why I wrote all this but hopefully someone finds it enlightening or interesting haha.
In a very similar situation. White woman video essay fan. Got started by cinema analysis videos like Every Frame a Painting and went into more themes and politics videos. I think I saw a Melina Pendulum video cited by another media discussion RUclipsr and thought, well... I think of myself as a feminist. I'm aware of the quite true critique that modern feminism is just white middle class women feminism. Time to put problem into deliberate solution, slip my listening ears on, and pay attention to some perspectives that deserve more attention. Even on things not about race, especially things not about race, breadtube is better with more perspectives.
It took me dating the first trans person that I ever dated (well, I dated someone who realized they were trans after he and I split beforehand so there's that too) to really finally open up my noggin and realize the kinda bullshit I was being told to believe by these people. It's astonishing how well your timeline matches up with my personal experience. I went from a "only two genders!" asshat to being my goofy ahh nonbinary self and I wish I coulda been more open minded sooner. It sucks knowing I've said shitty shit I can't go and directly apologize for now because it's been too long, and I doubt folks'll recognize me, but I _am_ sorry to the people I've hurt with my dumbass beliefs.
Funny story: I was really into the skeptic community right before sarkesian. I converted to fundamentalist Christianity, and gave up social media and RUclips so I could read the Bible. I eventually left fundamentalism and became more moderate, at which point I got back into RUclips. What this did was allow me to skip the whole gamergate thing, and just go straight to bread tube, which opened my mind to more progressive ideas. Had it not been for my abstinence from the internet in the name of Christianity, I might have totally got sucked into gamergate. In other words, Jesus saved me from the alt right!
Real quick, want to acknowledge that I misgendered Thought Slime. My apologies for that everyone and to Thought Slime if they see this. There are always parts of a vid you wish you could do over, I've got a few in this one.
Thanks for the love otherwise yall!
Re: Thumbnails. I clicked on your stuff after you changed them, but I'm pretty sure it has more to do with the newer versions being more striking visual designs than being disinterested in a black perspective. The previous thumbnails look very... generic to me. THIS IS NOT AN ALLY is more visually engaging for obvious reasons. The original Burnham thumbnail reminds me of how a lot of reaction video thumbnails are framed, which my brain is programmed to ignore because they take up chunks of search results whenever you're looking for anything related to recent media or music. The Disney one has a similar issue, along with the remade one just having BIG BOLD LETTERING and complimentary coloring. This is very much a book and its cover response, but the cover here is designed by the author, so if its interesting then perhaps the ideas within will be as well.
Like, consider Hbomberguy or Three Arrows. Or someone like Kaptain Kristian. They usually just have BIG CLEAR WORDS atop something eye catching, and when Hbomb includes his face its usually stylized somehow. You made your thumbnails closer to theirs and less like one of the million people reacting to the latest Marvel movie.
@@garr123 One can't be expected to know all of these things automatically. And I'm confident Thought Slime would forgive you. I watch them occasionally and I didn't know they used those pronouns.
@@WinterReflections Mildred's pronouns are any/all
Thoughtslime has said they go by any/all in a video once due to people using their pronouns to get mad at others in a misplaced way. I probably explained that poorly.
@@HarkertheStoryteller Who is Mildred? Is that actually Thought Slime's name, or am I being trolled? Lol
It took me a long time to realize that
"I want to become less racist" and
"I want to think of myself as less racist" are very different motivators that lead to very different behaviors
Damn, this comment really stuck with me. Well said!
Literally added this to my notes. Thank you!
why would anyone ever have the thought in the second quote? that makes zero sense
@@qweasdzxc Its less literal than that. Plenty of people want to think of themselves as not racist but do absolutely no work to actually be less racist or address the prejudices they have. Its probably more of a subconscious thought. If you want to think of yourself as less racist you probably post black squares and tell people you have a black friend and things of that nature. If you actually want to be less racist you study, learn, self-analyze and self reflect with the intention of being better than you were.
@@qweasdzxc It's easy to say "I'm not racist" - even to directly, face-to-face, interact with other people in that way is easy. Not being a Skinhead-Nazi-Punk is the easiest thing in the world. But that's just a thin slice of racism as it exists in the real world.
It's much harder to realize when you're still benefiting from systemic imbalances. That also is racism, but it's much more subtle, harder to pinpoint, difficult to get to grips with than not waving a confederate flag.
An example brought up in the video is speaking on behalf of others because you are better versed in socialist theory, because that's what white intellectuals spent their time with. The intentions may be pure, after all I think it's obvious that racism largely can be unified with other classist issues on an intellectual level. But it's still racist, utterly without intent.
Just...thank you for this. My goodness.
This community gotta thank you for sending reinforcements it was rough for a minute😭😭
I love your channel Khadija!! Keep doin your thing sis
Oh look it’s two of my favorite video essayists!!
Found out about your channel through this video and I really love your video's so far 😊❤
I have to thank Khadija for getting to know this amazing channel 💕
that intro's a bop
My fellow gap toothed commentary channel 😬
Tara will u have him on ur podcast
@@kingofthebis1068 I would LOVE that!
@@TaraMooknee please have him, it will be interesting conversation.
I'd be down!
Something that's kinda wild for me is, as you went through the stages of "breadtube" I remember all these things happening, I could track when these creators got recommended to me and it fit pretty perfectly with your timeline. But all the black creators and video essayists I've found have only been recommended to me by other content creators never by the algorithm, I had to actively seek them out.
Same
I'm only getting his channel now because it was verbally recommended by The Weekly Planet. And I had to look it up and sub. RUclips never showed me this channel and almost all I consume is pods and video essays. BTW Weekly Planet's movie/comic book podcast I watch on here by two (verrrry open minded) white Australian guys.
Yea same here I only found this channel cus my boyfriend recommended it to me
I had to break in to the essayists of color manually before the algorithm recommended more of them to me.
Same here until I started watching a lot of their videos and actively engaging by liking and commenting as often as I could remember.
The intro goes so hard omg
Yasssssssssss and I can't wizzzait to listen to your breakdown of You!!!!
Nice user name 💯
Big AVENGERS ASSEMBLE Energy
I like your videos, keep it up! Not that you needed my input or anything
Damn this like a RUclips all star game.
As someone who has been making videos on race and pop culture on YT for over a decade. I am always glad for videos like this because it really sums up all the feelings and anxieties I've had. Especially the part of not being able to find fellow creators. I know I was here, but it still feels like those avenues were just not there for people coming up as I was. I'm so glad that is changing. I still feel-largely, behind for a number of reasons, but I am glad that newer creators can actually come up now and get huge numbers and attention. It is beautiful to see.
I’m halfway through this video and it made me think of you and the way I found your content. The algorithm suggested PBS Storied after I watched Lindsey Ellis. I appreciate channels like Storied and the way they bring variety of creators to their platform as the algorithm fails to offer more than just other videos by the same creator.
BTW - your new Stephen King video kept me fully engaged and helped me power through some work!
I literally went directly from your Stephen King video to this in the related videos tab. I'd like to think I've trained my personalized feed well 😆
love your channel
I just watched your Stephen King video. Fantastic work, u got a new subbie
So many creators I'm subbed popping up on the comments 🙌🏾
oh how my heart fell out of my ass upon seeing my face. thank you for the shout out, brother and, as usual, this is some truly fantastic, beautiful, awesome work on your part 💗💚
You showed up as recommended on my feed after I subscribed to Lindsay Ellis, and I absolutely LOVED your analysis of the Perks of Being a Wallflower. I definitely subscribed after finishing!
Im happy you approve! It's an honor to be able to celebrate your work fam
Been watching your vids for a few months now, and it's was a trip to hear all the creators I follow have an avengers style team up in this vid 😂 Especially loved the vids you did on kpop, black teen comedies and teen idol pigeonholing!
You are one of my absolute favourites, every new video is brilliant and has me excitedly sharing it with my boyfriend as we both love Brittany Murphy, Jennifer's Body, The Craft etc. Stoked to see so many others also loving your work! 💖
I love your content. I feel lie someone is speaking my language.
Honestly I'm the very person you described. I'm Mexican Scottish and I just got out of an alt right rabbit hole where i woke up one day crying because i couldnt recognize myself and all the damage i did to my mind. I gotta thank you so fucking much man for helping me get out of that after 4 years of being in it [13-17]. In a few days I'm gonna be turning 18. A whole new me and an adult now. I'm still learning and trying to understand to be better for my peers and the world around me but I know I'll be the best me I can be someday soon. Not sure exactly when but soon.
Thank you sir for helping me find me again in the self loathing and hatred.
Good work grabbing on to someone/something that assisted you in floating back up instead of spiraling you down. You deserve a lot of credit for your choices.
rlly proud of u dude. that first step can often be the hardest.
Congrats man, we're all really proud of you. :)))
Eew
I'm really happy you found your way out man and I hope you're feeling better and are like finding your way back to yourself 💜
The intro...can we just...
I read this in your voice Lmaoooo
I'm tryna find it. This is gonna kill me
@@Kismet88 all I've ever wanted
@@Kismet88 ha! Me too lol
Delete????
My heart breaks hearing Khadija say they'd never put their face in the thumbnails because they were afraid no one would care for them. When I first saw their video, it was seeing a black woman that made me first click, and their quirky intros made me immediately subscribe. I'm just happy to see so many incredible black creators putting themselves out there even in spaces where we are ostracized. 💛
Same here! The first video I’d seen from her was one with a thumbnail picture of her in it. And her intro to her internet nieces, nephews, and nibblings/uncles, aunties, and piblings pushed me to subscribe!
Same!!!
I believe Khadija goes by they/them pronouns.
@@danny.nedelk0 thanks. I edited the post. 🙏
Same, I saw they was darkskin and a video essay maker, and IMMEDIATELY clicked. It was the Beauty In The Eye Of The Colonizer video for me!
33:55 as a non-black poc (I’m Chinese) I feel that shit to my core. Not finding content creators also means my people’s issues not being talked about. I’m really about to start a channel myself but I’m afraid the stress would get to me
Not to mention a lot of these white debatelords push outright sinophobic views. The way they talk about China and Chinese people is disgusting.
Honestly so much of china is so improperly reported it's terrible
@@someonesomeone2166 it amazes me how many so-called leftists eat up everything the state department says about China. I just have to ask why? Why are they so eager to adopt western chauvinist views when they claim to be socialists?
@@fromthebackseat4865 honestly it's because they see the corruption in China and don't realize the same corruption they are calling out there is the same in the USA. The biggest differences though is that china was a colonized country for awhile and not a colonizer, china has hundreds of ethnic groups, and a higher population, and isn't a war based economy like the USA.
@@fromthebackseat4865 it's the holier than thou mindset they have in regards to the rest of the world, but themselves. Instead of dealing with things like their own racism or prejudices they would rather self project on someone else.
First off, thank you so much for this. This is so incredibly insightful and thoughtful, and illuminating to me in so many ways as a content creator here on RUclips. This essay has touched upon so many things that I, as a white and trans leftist content creator trying to find stability on this platform, have been thinking more and more about this past year. Where do fit in in this space?
On the one hand, I am constantly aware of how I am yet another white content creator in a space that is dominated by white content creators, and I recognize the importance of both trying to talk about issues relating to people of color, especially black folks, because to not talk about that would be missing so many important factors to the issues I talk about and try to educate on, but also that I don't wish to speak over or for creators from these communities, as that's not my place. So I'm trying to navigate both those feelings, something that you touched upon is often a common existential crisis for white liberal/leftist creators in your essay on Bo Burnham. And so, I'm still trying to navigate that and using my platform to uplift other voices that aren't my own with perspectives that aren't mine either.
Yet, on the other end of the spectrum, I often feel pigeon-holded as a trans content creator too, feeling that often teh only content of mine that gets attention from the algorithm is when I talk about trans oppression, forcing me to constantly talk about those issues when theres so much more to me. Yet, in that space, I often get seen as a discount Contrapoints/Abigail Thorn because they are the most prominent white trans content creators in the space, even as I try my best to distinguish myself from them but also try to learn from what made them work and also recognizing their clear inspiration on my work. Yet, when I talk about things like nerdom or scifi or Star Trek, my videos often don't do super well compared to my trans content, and also within that space I often get views mostly from white straight dudes who both find me attractive and can react both positively/fetishistic to that or negatively/aggressively to their attraction to me, and thus try to transphobically attack me to reenforce their own heterosexuality. (or create threads on message boards to dox and insult me). And then there are trans women and other LGBTQ folks who see themselves in me as a trans nerd in a nerdy space where we don't often get seen or paid attention to, despite us being an important part of that world for a long time. Not to mention the leftist space in general that often feels divided into different camps that I have zero interest in attempting to place myself into one of because that feels unnecessarily divisive, and yet, I also know I get perceived sometimes in those contexts. That's obviously a limited view of the audience, and not all encompassing, but it's something I often think about.
Ultimately it leaves me constantly feeling on a knifes edge, both trying my best to uplift those who I can but also feeling like I can't break out of my own transgender niche, which even within I'm constantly seen as a copycat and a trend-follower rather then someone with my own voice.
This is definitely relatable and indicative of the exact same problem of how audiences require some form of categorizarion that will only further marginalize creators in the margins.
Hi Jesse, for what it's worth I'm a big fan of contrapoints and philosophy tube and I've never thought of you as a discount copy cat. You have your own vibe, your own voice, no one has a copyright on video essay formats and anyone who acts otherwise is being ignorant. I really appreciate your style and more importantly your compassion. I like when creators try to stick to the points and not just create a video to dunk on someone. The fact that you make a point not to make content like that is very respectable.
I'm a fan of Abigail but I never ever saw you as a discount version of her! I watch most of your videos, I must say I've not seen many of your scifi or Star Trek videos pop up on the algorithm and if I have done I probably scrolled on because it just isn't my thing. But I'm here for all of your commentary videos, not just the trans ones!
omg Jessie!! I am a Star Wars Fan but also getting into the Star Trek Universe and I absolutely LOVED your Star Trek analysis video on how Captain Jane conquered fear. I also am watching your other content about sci fi and I hope you get some tract from them because you are amazinng :)) much love to you
I actually found your channel via the recommended panel on a Philosophy Tube video, but it'd be inaccurate to say that you're simply a knockoff Abigail. It's like composing apples and oranges - I love your content, I love her content (Contrapoints' content too), but it's never occurred to me to compare y'all. You are extremely valid Jessie!
(edit: I don't really have a huge interest in Star Trek or Star Wars, but I do enjoy your videos about them even though I have little to no idea what's going on lmao)
Watched this twice pon Patreon cause it is just that good. It's crazy seeing me in that Black love video. Some surreal to think about the space we both were in at that time. Running thru the streets of Reddit to this. Not gonna spoil it but this is probably my favourite from yuh yet, big man. 👏🏾
I thought the same thing. Putting that clip there is so meaningful to the overall message of the video. The grind to be heard is so heavy.
I love seeing you men connect!!! It really warms my heart!
This dude ^^^ sent me here. Every once in a while I come across videos on this platform that are essential in forming my views on the state of modern digital media... this is now one of them. Thank you, you have a new sub :).
@@Tucciiz same story from me! :)
@@Tucciiz @melanie g I'm so happy yall came!
This guy moves different. Gets the silver play and instead of doing the whole “whoopee, go me” thing. He calls out YT and the space he resides in to do better AND offers a hand to other black creators. I really rate it.
Well put jinbe
I love the duality of the name "Breaking Bread", it alludes to the breaking down and deconstruction of the foundations of Bread Tube and emphasizes the need of an equal space for creators of all colors and backgrounds. Also it just hits hard as hell
I also thought it alludes to the frase ‘breaking bad’ implying the algorithm has gone rogue
@@Starwars6012 I never thought of that, that makes sense!
@@holyfool5605 What other videos have you seen my comments on?
@@Izzygullion0808 i think some other video essays in this vein
why is it called bread tho?
the bread has gone...dare I say...mouldy? I'm sorry I'll go
Love you Tara 😂😂
The fact that I read this in your exact tone
This is the only RUclips comment made by a cow! 🐄
Or is it that the milk has gone sour?
(please don't actually go)
don't go, im making cake.
When Kat Blaque made a similar video a while ago, I saw a lot of the Breadtube Audience going after her while the people they were fans of reinforced her message and openly supported her. I’m glad to see the shift in comments here to acknowledging white bias in media without as much defensiveness in the audience.
Even with following and watching a lot of videos by black video essayists I don’t get a lot of their work recommended to me, so thank you for the links to other creators.
As the rise of fascism has become more obvious and the plague has carried on, I’ve found myself needing non-political, low-stress entertainment and I found Kennie JD is awesome for that. If anyone has any other recommendations of creators with similar content, I’d love links.
I LOVE Kennie so much. 😭😍
Exactly. Kat has been out here since the beginning.
That Kat Blaque video came out a year or two before folks were ready for it lmao
She still gets way too many negative comments, which is saddening and maddening. I am sure we'll have misogyny and transphobia to thank for that.
Mila Tequila! Very awesome 2000s deep dives! Popicana is in the same vein. Good mythical morning is always wholesome fun. And there’s a woman who does amazing history videos called reading the past… the welsh twins are great, they have skincare and makeup videos. Rachel Maksy… ask a mortician… Karolina Zebrowska…. What do you like? We have options.
The brutal honesty of saying "i got lucky" is the thing that i respect damn. It is a game that you played and won and you deserve it. Amazing video
the response to george floyd's murder created a tiny opening of a window for poc creators to enter into on youtube. before then i'd been hard into left wing realms here but couldn't find many poc creators. the way they've had to build by shouting each other out says it all. i found intelexual media & tee noir, she shouted out khadija, khadija shouted out f.d..... it shows how navigation within the site is damn near underground for poc.
I'm 30 minutes in. I am/was basically the "low-key recovering fascist" white guy and I'm sort of shocked that this is the experience of many other breadtube viewers- I had, until now, thought I was basically a fluke.
I know this video is also highlighting a lack of diversity, but you laying out the history of breadtube makes a lot of things come together for me. Video essayists like Philosophy Tube, Joel, Zoe Bee, and others have genuinely pulled me from a miserable and ideologically dangerous place over the past couple years.
you're literally why Sam Seder exists
@@f_youtubecensorshipf_nazis who's Sam Seder?
I'm glad to hear it.
I loved Breadtube because I was sick of all the anti-SJW content, especially in atheist/nerd spaces, but I was never on the anti-SJW train. I was the guy who kept getting kicked out of message boards because calling literal white supremacists "racist" is a "personal attack." The white supremacists never seemed to get banned. Do I seem bitter about biased moderation?
My participation in the Alt-Right online was mostly undercover, passing info from discussions with notorious people on to Antifa folx. But there was a pull. It's the same pull that I had at times from tankie groups. The pull was excitement over action now. It's the fascist idea to theorize less and act decisively that was exciting to people. Fascism appealed to a significant number of people and still has an appeal 90 years later. It's not hypothetical either, look at Duterte or Bolsonaro, Putin or Orban - they're popular for a reason.
I was never personally particularly racist in the sense of thinking of other races as lower. I've always lived and worked with people of all backgrounds. I was engaging with Black people on the Right as well. My boyfriend was Black and conservative (we often clashed on politics). My best friend was not Right per se but into Divestment (the fact of me dating a BM and her rejecting them was ironic and a source of amusement).
However, the more Black and white people, particularly on the Right, talked about race, the more I began to despair over whether the multicultural experiment could work. Maybe racial separatism would be better, but what about all the mixed people? Wherever cultures interact through war or trade, there is mixing. It's been that way for thousands of years. So that's not a solution either. Every time we've tried to formally define race in the US, it's been a mess because it doesn't reflect reality. But there was that feeling of despair, we might get along as individuals but does it work on a large scale?
I definitely felt the pull of the Right even though I wasn't engaging with the far-Right entirely in good faith. Most people, especially poorer and minoritized people, recognize the system is broken and start looking for radical solutions. Capitalism is dying but will it be succeeded by Communism or Fascism? There's an allure of the idea of tradition but it's an idea about a time that never existed. How do we combat the authoritarian tendency that's present in all of us?
My breaking point was when a notable Alt-Right figure tried to court me. I realized I was far too deep and basically burned that cover. Even though I never necessarily believed what they taught, the excitement of the destructive impulse was something I had to detox myself from.
What I have noticed in various activist circles is that it's often more about the ego than the issue. Clearly, I'm not immune from that. But that's why Left wing people can swing to the far-Right and far-Right people can swing hard Left. It happens along other lines as well. Recognizing ego addiction is important. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
I'm pretty sure there's a Contrapoints or Philosophy Tube video that talks about the alt right pipeline and mentions how breadtube isn't good at deradicalizing people at all, they just radicalize to the left. Which I mean I don't think is bad necessarily, but it's on some level an ideological failure to point the guns at the "right" people rather than to dismantle your weaponry
As a Black woman who has been into commentary and video analyses since Lindsay Ellis’s Hercules video, I’m loving the rise of Black commentators, especially in the leftist space. If it wasn’t for the lack of accessibility, I would’ve loved to start a channel of my own. Currently working on my Master’s though so hopefully one of my papers will get cited in a Khadija Mbowe video one day 😭
honey, you mean HUNKules!
I believe in you 💖🙌🏾!
Me, white cis male. If i learn that there is non-white creators of level of Lindsay Ellis and only reason is that algorithm is doing racial stereotyping, i am getting upset.
Like where is the good stuff RUclips? Where is it, mfer!!??
Sure as hell not in my suggestions.
omg good luck! i'm excited to see what you write about
I hope maybe you can start a channel someday if you still want to and be a part of it!!! Also I hope your masters is going ok, I know its been a while since you commented but I know its a long process :)
Thank you so much for the shoutout!! My mom is ABSOLUTELY not a doctor or a lawyer, not even close to the median salary 😭 However, I’ve been extremely blessed and privileged to be able to make the things that I do. It’s all that I’ve really ever wanted to do anyway.
So glad you commented ive been searching for you for a while!
Yeah, it was hard to find you but i subscribed and watch a few videos. Good luck✊🏾
I frequently see recommendations for creators who are mentioned in a video. No recommendations for [VICTORY] here so I'm glad you commented.
Nice to meet you 😂
New sub!
As a white dude who grew up with black cousins, this was something that took me a shameful ammount of time to understand. My default was, "It's impossible for me to be racist/do a racism, I love my family, therefore I = obviously not racist."
It's a hard thing to recognize inward bias when, consciously, they're abhorrent to you. But the work of uprooting those unconscious thoughts out of your mind is good work,, and is essential to not seeing them grow and blossom into full-fledged beliefs.
The ignorance of the unexamined mind is the most dangerous thing, imo
All in all, i agree however, i do remember someone, maybe Peterson saying something to the effect of, if you start recognizing inward biases, you may have been duped into believing it. The idea is that if people keep bringing up the existence of inward biases, you start internalizing and thinking thoughts you weren't initially.
@@bringinthedope5929 Well, sure, if you don't know about something but then 50 people all tell you the same lie, then it becomes easy to believe that lie if you leave it unexamined and take their word for it. Which is why we need to vet our information and see if it's backed up by reality.
And racism: Never. Is.
It's cloaked in a thin veneer of prejudice that gives it the airs of truthfulness, which is why dissesembling and examining them is crucial to eradicating them because once you can identify the prejudices that racism stems from, you can then use that knowledge to uproot it entirely; and that in turn makes it easier to identify; which in turn helps you to help others get that shit outta their mindgarden too.
Observing, listening and learning from others is important, but unfortunately it's easy for us to learn just about anything.
o.o
Bro it's ok I'm literally black but white passing and didn't understand this.
@@bringinthedope5929 I'm kind of lost on this, is he talking about how people at times can have intrusive thoughts?
As someone who is somewhat new to leftism, i often find these types of video essays hard to understand and filled with references to things i don’t know. you did a lovely job of making a complex video really understandable for people like me. thank you so much for an incredible video:)
I found going through philosophy tubes entire catalog helpful in learning a lot of the terms and basic ideas.
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305While it is good content, most people don't have 5+ hours just to get a basic background
Excellent video. We need to break bread🙏🏽
Does this mean you will soon Break Bread???
I'm a white dude who watches just about all the breadtubers. I got recommended your video on edgy movies and who enjoy them. That video was almost like a slap in the face, I never gave it a thought on who is this media made for. And over time I came to a realization that it's almost the same for breadtube. I had just about no poc view on any issue. It was all from the point of white people. Since then I've been trying to diversify my sub box. Hearing different perspectives, even if some of them have made me uncomfortable, it really opened my eyes more than almost anything else I've been watching. Thank you F.D, you are one of the best essayist on the site and I'm glad I clicked on that video.
Same here, I just want to say the biggest thank you for the work all of the creators interviewed in the video (and especially fiq!) now making the effort to uplift one another and making it easier for us to diversify our political content. I know it wasn’t personally until I found Fiq that I was able to find some of my now favorite creators like Fab Socialism and Foreign through the recommendations, and it wasn’t until this video that I questioned why that was the case, but I deeply appreciate that process being sped up and hopefully content like this continues pushing the trend of desegregating leftist youtube discourse.
amazing insight mr. john fuckerbutt
@@bogmanhimself4656 even goofy dudes gotta keep themselves to a decent standard.
and our next speaker is John F… ^double checks notes^ … *Fuckerbutt*
@@EpicsOfTime facts. I found Foreign directly through links and references from Fiq. Hopefully, after this video I’ll find some new favorites from the interviews and links.
Being a Black woman who’s a leftist, I’ve been sucked into hate-watching the Black femininity/hypergamy pipeline on RUclips.
Absolutely love that you made this detailed overview about the state of leftist, Black, content creation. 👏🏾👏🏾🖤 thank you for helping represent Black voices in critical analysis online.
Omg same. It's such a fascinating and often bizarre community. I feel like RUclips had been pushing these videos like crazy lately
First it was hypergamy then Cynthia G for me. How did this pipeline happen?!?!?
@@fightvale57 yep I think for me it was this video ohstephco made where she reacted to a mahogany pink video that had been circulating, so I went to check out the original mahogany pink video and that's when it escalated like crazy. Now it's Cynthia g, Chrissy, Themis and Thoth, Samantha cook, etc. Its really wild to witness first hand how easily one can get radicalized on this site. Lowkey I think ForHarriet stopped uploading as much and so YT started bombarding me with femininity girls and "divestors". Lol idk but the entire thing is type bizarre
I’m starting to block those channels. It’s really bad for my psyche. I was watching a person that I subscribed to before, she now covers KS. Giving very pick-me female misogynoir vibes. I made a few comments and men came for me like the hoard on Jan 6. I spent days going to war with them. Finally I deleted all of my comments, the responses, and blocking the people I engaged with and the channel entirely. Both sides of the toxicity are horrible. Bye!!!
@@tamaracharese girl you can't give 'em a shred of energy. They're totally rabid over there. It's nasty. Protect ya peace
For me it’s the fact that my first real introduction to black political creators was Aba and Preach even while I was aware of how problematic some of their views were, and it took Hasan and Noah Samsen for me to even learn of this channel, and the storyteller, and man from a foreign land, and I think that’s absurd. How I can be deep in left tube and end up at the regressive content created by people like aba and preach before even being aware of other incredible black creators, it’s really opened my eyes to how much my media consumption is shaped by algorithms and social norms even as a leftist/anti capitalist.
*foreign man in a foreign land
idk what happened there
Aba and Preach aren't political creators. Nor have I ever seen them claim to be left or right leaning.
@@sugarwaterpurple5280 bud if you really think that’s how simple things are idk what to tell you
@@inf3rnalis804 It's pretty simple when you don't seek to politicize everything.
@@sugarwaterpurple5280 everything is “political”
The hour and 18 minute mark really hit home for me. I am one of those disaffected middle class white guys who did come up during the early days of RUclips and followed a lot of that content you mentioned early on (I have loved Lindsay Ellis since her nostalgia chick days). I never became an anti-SJW (The worst I got was a few amazing atheist and thunderf00t videos during my angry atheist years). But I often look at those pictures of Charlottesville and I think if I didn’t go to a diverse school early on, if My family didn’t host foreign exchange students or if I didn’t become one myself, or if I didn’t start working abroad and on cruise ships when I did, then I could’ve become one of those tiki torch A-holes. You’re right that racism isn’t a moral issue, it’s a systemic one and I do my best to check myself when I can. Amazing video!
That whole section felt like a play by play of me in 2013, I was watching my gaming and comedy channels and it felt like the RUclips algorithm was trying to make me a fascist with every new recommendation. Luckily when things went from "lol look at these people making a fool of themselves" to "these people are ruining our culture" or something actually alarming like that even my 14 year old white boy brain paused and realized that something wasn't quite right.
I also lived in a VERY progressive town, very white, but very progressive. So the attempts to make LGBT people some kind of "other" didnt work when I lived in a town with double the national average of same sex couples.
I've talked to people who went down that same path and didn't stop when you or I did, a former coworker of mine who I still keep on touch with is worryingly hanging off the edge of that cliff. He "Didn't care about politics before Gamergate." Which is the sad truth for a lot of these people, they got on the bus at that stop and still haven't gotten off as it keeps driving them down towards fascism.
Luckily gamer gate came at a time when I was already burnt out on the gamer anti SJW politics, I was firmly a jaded liberal in denial at that point. I knew it was happening but made an effort not to learn what it was about because it felt like such nonsense from the outside.
Your mantra of "lead with empathy" is one of the great strengths of this channel.
Or as Khadija said in a comment on the Bo Burnham video: Start off with Jaime Foxx, then hit 'em with Samuel L. Jackson's "For me, it's Tuesday."
I came in with the assumption that I wasn't going to be able to appreciate the points I thought I was going to hear in this. And as a black guy I usually don't feel seen by any side, by not being (insert category here) enough. And after this? I just feel a hunger for more like this, just a patient voice exploring a point and perspective I hadn't fully thought out. This is fantastic, thank you so very much.
marburge, you sound enough of all things to me. stay up, brother
Only 20 mins in, but I remember being 12 years old, scrolling through Channel Awesome content, and finding Lindsay Ellis's videos. I was THERE for the rise of the video essay. You've nailed it. You're so right -- she deserves her accolades and respect. It's so crazy to see people who love video essays go "ugh, why?" when I recommend her. CRAZY.
People go "ugh why" about her and her essays??? What the heck!
i love her stuff it soothes my adhd
The only counterpoint I would make to this video is that I think you are describing the END of a particular era of youtube.
Just the past half year, a new crop of leftist video essayists have really exploded here - You, Jessie Gender, Khadija, Ada on Demand - are just the ones that I myself have really latched on to, in addition to others you have shown.
I actually got to here from Aba and Preach - who I no longer subscribe to, due to their renewed focus on anti-trans content and rhetoric.
The new section at the mall is opening up... and we're here for it.
I don't watch conservative BS at all, never click on their clickbait videos at all. Despite that, I'm being recommended Jordan Peterson, Adam und Stitch, Chowder and Aba und Preach videos on the top of the sidebar and my homepage on the regular, despite again having never clicked on any of them. And I don't need to, things are obvious from the thumbnails and titles of those videos - correct me if I'm wrong, Abba und Preach are pop-NiGTOWs and Adam und Stitch are Sargonite grifters. I've been very sparesly recommended Signifier vids, so much so that I just subscribed.
i personally love yhara zayd, broey deschanel, and cheyenne lin! they have great perspectives and great analyses. i also like We're In Hell, who isn't the typical American breadtuber--he's Canadian--but he's been talking less about outright politics and more about weird reality shows, lol. i dislike the whole breadtube sphere and wouldn't really consider them part of it; rather, part of this newer generation.
If you've never watched her videos, Tee Noir is very much a highly recommended watch!!!
@@Brxcl YES AAAA ive seen her videos on colorism, and Kennie J.D. also has some good videos more broadly focusing on media
I feel u on the Aba and Preach shit. Their obsession with trans ppl as of late has been really off putting. I watch them for them being funny and joking on dumb shit or talking about relationships cuz I usually see where they're coming from. But lately it's starting to feel like they're just falling full force into the "redpill" anti SJW content. I always felt this way about them to an extent so I was initially hesitant to really consume their content cuz I felt a good portion of it would probably annoy me. But it's seems to be escalating to full reactionary bullshit.
That twenty minute mark break down about how they were angry at late stage capitalism not just video games but couldn't express it at the right target was just *chef's kiss*
Nothing shows quite how hard the algorithm gets a hold of you like my near 100% subscription rate to everyone in the intro. It's been great to see new faces exploding onto the scene like Signifier, Ro Ramdin, and CJ the X. Those last two, dear lord, people who were five years old when I registered my RUclips account are already smarter and funnier than me. I'm so thankful to have channels like these, and Yara Zayd, Jessie Gender, Storyteller, Kat Blaque, Conquest of Dread, Art of Paya, etc. I just want to soak up all the context and outside perspectives I can, because it's the only way to really learn.
Take the Chapelle special, for instance. I've probably seen ten different videos about it at this point, but it was only in Kat's video that I finally saw how obviously questionable his bathroom story was. Of course that would be a wildly dysphoric scenario, so it doesn't ring true. But we all have blindspots, and you can only try to fix them by listening. I felt a bit called out by portions of your Bo Burnham video, but my reaction was to subscribe. Now I've seen half of your videos at this point. Through you I found Khadija Mbowe.
I've been making content here for a decade, and I've been working it as a job for five. It was stressful making videos during the era of gamergate even when I knew I wasn't a target. I watched Anita's videos in response to the outrage. They were just so non-inflammatory. It didn't make sense. There were, at most, minor examples that may have been a bit out of place. I kept watching. I learned some new terms, like fridging. Useful information.
If you did the math you probably noticed I went fulltime here the same year Trump was elected president. Big best year/worst year energy. I couldn't just accept that such a large portion of the people around me were okay with this. That people, even then, were still defending gamergate. I'd had enough. I was done with this idea that you dance around political topics when making gaming content. I dove into covering the likes of Bioshock, Outer Worlds, and Disco Elysium and I did away with the filter. It pissed people off. It still does. But I'm done with dancing around topics that are right in front of me. As far as I'm concerned gamers lost their right to artificially apolitical content in 2016. Hell, they should have lost it the moment gamergate happened.
I pride myself in maintaining a LGBTQ+ friendly community, which very much includes the T, and I'm abundantly aware that that means drawing a line that alienates or requires the banning of large, toxic audiences. It's probably bad for my job, but I can't deal with the idea of horrific people taking comfort in my content. If I see the opportunity, I'm going to challenge them, and they're either going to change or leave. I've seen plenty of both. Republicans don't last long in my discord.
As far as I'm concerned, curiosity is how you defeat bigoted ideologies. It's why I learned from Sarkeesian back when everyone was saying I should be mad at her, and it's why I'm still learning today. So keep doing what you're doing, Signifier, and anyone else who might see this. I'll keep listening.
(I'm also taking plenty notes for my own essays, hah)
that's actually one of the biggest reasons why you're by far my favourite gaming youtuber, that you don't shy away from politics and expressing your opinion. it's really frustrating watching other people play disco elysium for example, and see them tip toe around being decisive about the main damn conflict of the game, just plain refusing to think about what their opinion is or expressing it (and of course being made fun of by getting the world's most laughable centrist achievement lol). yes maybe you alienate some people by doing the opposite, but i think it creates a much stronger community of people who do stick around.
(also special thanks for playing pathologic, let's plays of this game are so few and far between)
i knew your profile looked familiar, when i searched my history i realized i’d watched your disco elysium play through! i was a little nervous on choosing whos play through to watch for that game so i was pleasantly surprised when your answers to questions in the game (and consequently, your politics) matched mine. it’s even more reassuring to see you here and to read this comment. i’m ro’s age, and i remember being a young leftist watching gamergate unfold and how that reflected on youtube. at times, i’d just have to leave the website to collect myself, so i respect you so much for sticking through all of it. i’m glad you stuck around to see the tides turn, keep doing what you’re doing! :)
Good post. Just earned a sub. Also I always wanted to see disco elysium anyway! Lol
Vibing with this comment here as a whole.
I didn't really understand the outrage at Sarkeesian. The vitriol and, well, violence. I didn't have to agree with every single little part of what she said to see the value. But then I'm not a white baby boy burning with misdirected rage. There was a video recently from where he looked back with fresh eyes at the behaviour and videos and responses to Sarkeesian. Seeing clips from her in this vid, I just couldn't see it. There is nothing particularly radical about her feminism. It's pretty basic critique (that had valuable educational tidbits in it) with maybe a couple of *imperfections*... Far fewer imperfections in her argument or stances than the bois going apeshit at her.
Anyway, this video has been so good and has me burning with tons of thoughts. Signifier has stoked my mind with each video I see. Why would any of us not seek this out, I'll never viscerally understand. Learn and learn. Listen. Seek out more perspectives outside ones natural bubble, even against the algorithm.
Totally agree, not enough people are open to new and/or challenging ideas, the Bo Burnham was eye opening to me for others struggles and a few of my own.
As a person who somewhat recently began watching video essay-type videos, this definitely changed the way I viewed the algorithm. Every POC creator I found came from recommendations outside RUclips, never the platform itself. Thanks for channel recommendations and definitely subscribing!
banger
as per usual 💥
Can't wait to see how Fiq continues to shadowbox with YT Copyright in this episode of Breadtube Black.
It's checkmate on the bots from here on out. I figured out a new trick to use going forward. You'll see😁
Breadtube Black = RyeTube?
@@TheMusicalFruit shhhh
Wow. Another fantastic video. I've been watching your channel all day. This is the best content I've found in a long time.
Hell yeah! It's the same for me.. Found FD'S channel some time ago and watched it a lot lately, like.. a lot! It's great content and I learn something new in every video, he's doing!
But I love watching your channel as well, Quinn. You're one of the best out there and I especially loved your collab with David Lightbringer on TWOW!
Remember watching these clips, when the pandemic started...
QUINN
Quinn your vids are amazing! I'm glad to have found you here!
Oh wow! Hey Quinn! I love your channel too! This is fantastic seeing my faves are also faves of my faves!! Yall have great taste! ❤
My God, your empathy and nuance are such an antidote to the "hot take" industry...
Finding your channel has been a huge positive.
as a white viewer i love how often you shout out other black creators because youre absolutely right. Ive never heard of Yara. I found you through T1J who was the only black creator i knew about for quite a while. These walls are absolutely in place and we absolutely have to break through them
Cheers
I agree, I struggle to fight the algorithm and get shown active creators outside the whitebread bubble, and anytime someone different shares the people they watch it's like getting an invite to some place you live a block from but never knew existed.
Yara has wonderful film critiques!
100% those walls are there. also a white viewer, who is excited to hear alternate perspectives. i know T1J. I know Yhara, but the algorithm rarely shows me her stuff unless it is extremely topical to what i am watching already. i have to actively seek it out. i found JD through his colourism vid, which at the time was close to the content i was already watching with melinda pendulum, who is recommended owing to her ties to nerd culture and queerness> she almost had to sneak in under a bunch of other flags and tags.
but as a white passing person, i think it is really important that we actively seek out those perspectives, even when they make us uncomfortable. i know joel samsens breadtube breakdown was limited in the amount of black youtubers but i was excited to get the recommendations. i know i will be pursuing more after this video.
"What was it inside you that ever made fascism appealing in the first place?"
That shit struck deep.
I'd love to talk about it.
Having Jewish family, fascism never appealed to me. But I was attracted to the pickup artist/incel/manosphere garbage and there was a lot of really nasty reasons I found it attractive for way too long.
Fear and ignorance. Fear that I was being erased and ignorance of who does the erasing. That's vastly oversimplified but this ain't my essay
As someone who used to have low self esteem, for me it was the feelings of superiority, the smug self assurance sjw dunking gave me.
47:05 bringing Hank on here was actually such a cool and good idea considering that he actually is part of a subset of youtube far outside the bread tube lines. math and education youtubers like veritasium and 3 blue one brown are really good and i find myself being brought to them by the algorithm all the time
Yeah, Hank and John were some of my early intros into more leftist thought. Sure, maybe people will try and split hairs and say the Greens aren't leftists, but they definitely do good work in a more mainstream way to help debunk right wing propaganda and offer well expressed alteratives to right wing ideologies. Let's just say it I was in a bit of a libertarian quagmaire in the early 2010s and Crash Course and vlogbrothers helped pull me out of it just in time before shit got even crazier as the decade went on.
I think my consumption of Hank Green videos is probably why the algorithm suggested this channel to me.
I'm a middle aged white woman who lives in a tiny, rural, mostly white area. I watch a lot of the creators you pointed out at the beginning, breadtubers, media focused video essayists, educational content. I have homeschooled my son for 7 years now, and I realized how few non-white faces he saw. (Beyond T1J, I've watched his videos for years) I started looking for non-white voices, and it was HARD. I found Khadija first, who did a video about decolonizing your feed, and the comment section of that video did the rest. Without that video, I'm not sure what I would have had to put in the search box to find more non-white creators.
I think this video too will do the same for a lot of folks, because you have basically shown a lot of new (to me) creators. I'm so glad you've done it, because I have a new set of creators to familiarize myself with!
That’s wild, being black it’s been easy fir me to find great poc content creators Z I’m glad it worked out for you
I had a similar experience, but I’m in my late teens. It is a bit gross that it came to it but the catalyst that triggered me to want to actively seek out the voices of POC was the death of George Floyd. I recognized I was being a horrible ally as a result so I started to do research on black video essayists and I started watching Tee Noir and then after Tee Noir shouted out Khadija I started watching her.
The point that you make at 1:18:01: how white-leftist-debate bros come from the same communities as their neo-nazi/white supremacist counterparts is so on point. Thank you for articulating these ideas for me. Thank you for helping me to understand these issues and concepts that are outside of my own perspective and grasp. Your channel is amazing. Thank you for all of your diligence and work, sir.
yeah that really hit home for me, i really think the toxicity of debate bro stuff has always screwed with me its hard to word
A lot of them come from the old New Atheist skeptic communities as well, except taking a small turn to the left (ostensibly, IMO they're mostly just grifters), instead of a hard turn to the right like most of them.
Except not Hasan, who grew up in Turkey. Lol
I totally don't get what he's saying about leftist debate bros. He's talking about just three guys really. One of which is vehemently not a leftist. One of which is vehemently not a debator. He says they look the same at a distance but then scoffs at the idea of actually watching a stream. He talks about how many of the leftist debate Bros were part of white supremacists communities. There's only one person he talked about that that applies too and they still hang out with white supremacists. I'm looking like the confused Jackie Chan meme listening to that part of the video.
There's value in live discourse. There's value in being able to say something and have someone respond and for many people to hear it. And then at the end he's like if you want to talk to me then good luck lol. There's explicit value in the fact that I can go to what he's calling a debate Bros chat and actually have a back and forth with people and sometimes even the steamer their selves.
I can go on. The criticism of that part is so vague in order to be overly agressive that it feels like he just gave up whereas the rest of the essay was very insightful and knowledgeable.
@@Theyungcity23 I don't think you heard what he said with an open mind. It was quite insightful about how these debate bros operate and the fanbase that they cultivate. I think you're being defensive.
I felt like you were speaking to me, man. As a black man, I grew up on RUclips with all the nerd content from AVGN to gamer gate to now. I never realized how it may have effected me or my viewing/thinking patterns. This was a very reflective and introspective video. Thank you sharing your feelings on RUclips as a black man. Your message speaks for the viewers too.
I spent years in toxic blk spaces, thinking I was above it all. Finally realized that I'm participating regardless and literally had to detox from the content. The only way I could do it was by staying away from blk spaces altogether. It has been a nice break, but also lonely and isolating. Finding your channel felt like finding my tribe at long last. Gratitude 🙏🏾
I find it interesting that Hbomb is constantly brought up as being one of the prime "breadtubers" when the majority of his videos and his best videos aren't even political. Him and Contrapoints are very, very different.
Most people consider him such because hes usually a gateway for people to get into “breadtube”. His Sherlock video is immensely popular and he achieved tumblr fame when he did that Donkey Kong stream.
Yeah, and some of his prime targets are wackos even to other far-righters (ex. Flat-Earthers)
I think it's because he puts his nerdiness on full display that allowed the far right nerdy white guys to give him a chance over other creators. Once they were roped in by the "he's one of us" mentality they could take him seriously and end up in the breadtube rabbit hole so a lot of people see him as quintessential to the breadtube experience. I see him as more of entertainment rather than education even though his videos are decently researched. Shaun and Big Joel were actually my intro to breadtube
Natalie once pointed out that part of what made hbomb's post-gamer gate content so effective was its use of cringe. Cringing at neo-nazi misogynist clowns is fun and familiar to young men who've been consuming AWGY shit for years, and it helped push them towards more long-form think pieces that would eventually deradicalize them.
Hbomb is always specifically leftist....regardless of whether the topic is deemed political. The personal is political. So the idea that is content is largely apolitical is false.
The phrase “break bread” in context of bread tube race relations is fascinating to me and drew me in immediately. I’m sure the images of the fractured white boy left attracted me as well because that’s what the left is these days. We need unity for real and engaging with black content is one of the best ways we can do that IMO.
Agreed.
This is the moment F.D. signifier became Heisenberg
Appreciate the perspective. I noticed the homogeneity in breadtube/edutube creators myself and I'm glad to see somone bring light to it. I hope that it pushes up other creators and other voices so it doesn't feel like such a silo. it sucks that RUclips's algorithm promotes those silos, but maybe we can change that through different viewing habits and explicit promotion of other creators by existing breadtube/edutube channels.
I think that ContraPoints and Philosophy Tube get a lot of attention because they have "characters" -- they are part actor on top of their content. It's literally shinier, so I can see why people flock to those videos. I AM ticked that YT didn't connect a Lindsey Ellis fan to Yhara Zyed -- especially when Lindsey stopped producing more content! Ugh. Thanks for breaking this down!
I finally got around to finishing this and I wish I had sooner. Incredible. Thank you.
I never thought the phrase "It's still tuesday" would ever carry that much meaning.
Signifier definitely raised a few points for me, like talking about allyship and the pitfalls for every kind you can be and how it is portrayed in media and the Edgelord movies I loved as an angry teen, early 20s something, and still do to an extent to this day.
I remeber when the only black feminist I could find on youtube were Franchesca and Kat Blaque, and back then they used to get taken out of context all the time and recived so much hatred for saying basically the same thing that alot of white leftist youtubers are saying now. It's still surprising how many white people really need a white person specifically to tell the to not be racist.
I remember this time. They were CONSTANTLY being taken out of context.
I used the search tool to find your Black Men and Love video earlier this week (typed in the full title) and the search results were all black gender wars/interracial dating/anti black woman videos. yours was the only one that wasnt hateful,trolling and genuinely about something positive. its a hellscape out there.
I only got into youtube communities fairly recently, this is super educational. thank you
1:18:30 White dude who grew up dirt poor in a rural area. Have seen a lot of the kids I grew up with go to varying degrees of right-wing nonsense, some unabashed fascists. I don't want to discount the role white habitus plays in this development, but there are patterns that I've noticed that I don't think I've ever really seen people speak on particularly thoroughly, namely the way the conditions you experience in poverty (can often) lead you to have overwhelmingly authoritarian viewpoints.
When you grow up being beat by the people who are supposed to watch over you every time you step out of line, you figure out real quick that you should follow orders (or at least not get caught when you don't). The kids who don't end up in a whole other pipeline at a pretty young age. These kids learn that the only way they'll have any amount of security is through domination of others, and so they come to worship those who are successful in conquest. Power is respected; failure is punished. It's really hard to get any remotely left* rhetoric to appeal to these people because there is no significant amount of people actualizing any of those ideas around them. If they don't think about numero uno, they will starve and die in the streets. They often don't get left with many opportunities to develop another world view. They end up spending their whole lives slaving away, barely staying afloat, assuming that they do stay afloat.
*I'm using "left" here to mean "values a philosophy of general liberation". If I go up to one of these people and start preaching intersectionality and telling them every person should do what they can to look out for every other person, they're just going to laugh and say "Alright. Let me know when someone wants to look out for me".
There's a lot of interesting stuff to unpack there. Your clearly have a lot of thoughts to share, and I'd love to watch something like that. If you haven't seen anything good on this, you should make it!!
@@yoissy I'm fortunate enough to have ended up on steadier ground than most people I grew up with (I'm a software engineer), but I don't know where I'd find the time to do something like that tbh. Maybe one day.
Having grown up in similar circumstances to you this actually makes a lot more behavior I would consider “stereotypically evil” make sense in retrospect. I ran with a real racist crowd for a while and the worst of us had a few things in common. Lived in squalor, parents neglected when they weren’t actively abusing, and a mean sense of constant power struggle. My parents weren’t like that, we were poor as dirt yeah but my parents never laid a hand on me and always taught compassion. I was going through a rebellious phase and looking for a sense of extrafamilial community so I accepted this new reality readily. Eventually I righted myself but everytime I look in on how those guys are doing years down the line and they’re worse than they used to be and way more open about it. I’m rambling but I really think you’re onto something bud I’m surprised I haven’t seen studies on this
Speaking as someone who’s gone through that anti-sjw pipeline and has recently become a “reformed left leaning white cis male,” this is extremely insightful to me and the way i interact with youtube and twitch.
One thing you pointed out that hit hard was that people don’t click on black faces in thumbnails as much. I hate to admit it, but its true for me personally. Ive noticed I’ve had a bias towards white cis male creators, but i even seem to have an avoidance on clicking on videos that feature non-ciswhitemale creators. (I will mention i am more biased towards bigger creators, but that is only a small part compared to the larger issue at hand)
Now that I’ve recognized and admit it to myself (which I’ve honestly been lying to myself about) i feel i can actually take the “scary” steps to change my behavior and hopefully destroy those external and internal biases.
Thanks for the video, I’m definitely sticking around as this was some A+ content
Good on you for recognizing your bias and working on doing better. Not a lot of people can be that open minded. 👍
Why are you biased like that? Wtf is wrong with you. Stop calling yourself cis
As a fellow cis straight woman who is also an ex anti-sjw who escaped the pipeline, and have searched since then ways to better myself and expand my horizons, I’m so glad when I find other people who also gave the hard but necessary steps to maturity, on the internet.
Good luck my friend! \(^_^)/
@@Eyeinthesky7 Clearly based on their full comment, they have recognized the biases they hold and are working to squash them. There is no need to attack them like this and it's more likely to be harmful than anything positive. Honest question, is there something hateful about using the term "cis" if you're simply putting forth the information that the gender you identify with is your birth sex?
@@Eyeinthesky7 yeah that's a white response alright lol
Just got through the intro and I'm excited to be challenged by this video. I'm really grateful for your voice here.
ayyye didn’t expect you here jeremy !!
Yay!!! Agreed- so glad to have found this!
Pleasantly surprised to see you here!
God, please don’t ever stop making videos. I’m a double major in philosophy and comp sci with a minor in math and I would love to discuss different ideas with you because a lot of thought processes or how I make sense of experiences come from a different lens but we keep coming to the same conclusions.
That sounds like a super interesting double major! As a single major in comp sci with an interest in philosophy I can already see the value in understanding philosophy when planning programs and when working in a team! I'd love to hear if having an education in computer science can help your understanding of philosophy.
For the record it was the "Why "I Don't Dream of Labor" Doesn't Work" video that pulled me in. I had to check and yeah, that was the one that kept popping up in my Recommended view that intrigued me. I basically immediately blew through the rest of your videos and enjoyed them. It's important for me to hear someone talk about masculinity and culture, that's pretty much been my favorite thread in your videos.
For me it was his video on Edgelord movies. I sorta knew what he was getting at but I sorta wanted to hear the perspective of a black guy. And it was very enlightening even to some of my own experiences with that stuff as one of the most anti-social kinds of edgelords from my teens into my early 20s. I basically binged most of the rest of his videos and certainly took away a lot, especially the "It's just Tuesday" analogy/story about Leonardo DiCaprio in his Bo Burnham video.
CJ being "themselves" in the thirty second interview is the absolute best thing ever
@Anne Teall Fixed!
Anytime I'd put black and some thought provoking subtext in the search bar, looking for more nuanced takes on love, relationships, being a black woman... The never ending suggestions of weird Kevin Samuels type videos I'd get 😂😂😂. That are rooted in colourism, anti-lgbtq, hatred for either black men or black women and bizzare rules I don't think any normal person applies in a relationship. I was like no thanks... Forever grateful for finding creators like yourself, Khadija, Yhara, Joulzey, The Grapevine and more.
Yeah, the good ol hotep pipeline. Like Cynthia G, Tariq Rasheed, and Young Pharaoh
Having binged loads of AVGN and NC way back when, I'm so thankful that somehow I stayed watching/looping that media instead of being filtered into the radicalization pipeline. Sometime during the pandemic I found myself getting into the BreadTube stuff with HBomberGuy, back into PhilosophyTube, and Shaun.
Years late to this video, but found you via the Burnham wave and have been coming back to catchup/rewatch/tune in since.
That’s a banger thumbnail, can already tell this video gonna be good.
I’m a big fan of a few of the people here so this should be interesting
Fiq! As a black latino man going through the black experience on a different part of the continent (I live in South America) I gotta say that your channel has added yet another layer of nuance to a home page that I have been carefully curating for a while now, because if you let the bots do their thing you get fed inane, destructive and mind-numbingly awful stuff. Finding black / POC /lgbtq+ creators is a literal ordeal (with the notable exceptions being Contra and Phil. Tube, but they're juggernauts) , so these bricks you're laying for a more egalitarian and more pluralistic ecosystem is truly inspiring. I love what you've done with the place. I know there are many like it, but this one is yours, and they way you're channeling your energy and simply doing your own thing is something I admire and respect.
Here's to a lot of success my man, keep it real.
The debate bro toxicity you discuss has permeated RUclips so deeply that merely seeing this thumbnail, I was prepared for something like a "calling out" or "owning" of many of the people in said thumbnail. Now, I've seen your videos before, so I should know better, but I'm so accustomed to RUclips videos having such little nuance and being more concerned with "drama" and "big emotions" that I was simply expecting it, but what I got instead was a thoughful examination of why so much of leftist RUclips is so similar in so many ways and why it's so hard for people who don't fit that mold to enter that space. Thank you for this.
@Robert Yeah You're willfully ignorant, then.
Ahhh, the algorythm kept telling me to watch the Bo Burnham video, but I never watched his special, so I was waiting on that. This is the first video of yours that I've watched and what an amazing introduction. Thank you for your work, it is very thoughtful and I subscribed to a lot of channels while watching it. It feels like I really want to have more control over my rabbit hole now.
On a side-note, I really loved Yhara Zayd's videos and I always hoped she would get the millions of subs she deserved. Sad that she left the platform, but I hope it goes well for her.
Long-time Lindsay viewer here, Yhara came up in my feed earlier this year when she had maybe 7 or 8 videos up and I adore her. She has the sweetest voice I've ever heard and, aside from being well put-together, there are a few of her videos I'll put on repeat just for that.
I'll never forget when my wife (who is asian) and I went to a little lakeside resort for our anniversary 2 or 3 years ago. We were having dinner and she leaned in and said "Do you see it? Everyone is white." Me (being smart and white) says "not everyone." And she replied "Yeah. The servers."
That's when I knew I had a lot to learn.
For anyone thats curious. White guy that searched "Critical Race Theory", the first video by a black content creator was Khadija Mbowe, it was the 25th video.
I wonder what it would be if you did this via incongnito mode on a vpn.
This is why I love and really appreciate when creators shout out other creators. That's how I've found a lot of really cool and interesting people that the algorithm just... doesn't show me
You are the first person I've seen precisely articulating on how counter-culture marginalized nerds became 'skeptics', then some got galvanized and turned into alt-right reactionaries, and when it went mainstream it paved the way for 'Breadtube'-style content (with it being done by the same type of guys). Not a lot of people might remember, but even places like 4chan has not always been alt-right/nazi (granted, it was still nasty). Your John Tron vs Destiny comparison was very on point, and you went further than that on racialisation of white Americans. Great content.
I remember when Obama was elected and 4Chan was, in general, happy about it. Of course that doesn't make them not right-wing, but they've shifted so hard to the right over the course of the past few years. I saw the writing on the wall and left. I saw the writing on the wall with a lot of "nerdy" media. Being a person who likes films and games and television and cartoons and literature who is also not a raging fascist was a very lonely existence in the mid-to-late 2010's, and it definitely contributed to my suicide attempt in 2016.
It's a little better now, but we still have sooooooooooooooo far to go.
@@LiberalSquared I'm very sorry you went through that, and glad you're still around.
@@LiberalSquared I have similar experiences too all over the internet and its exhausting, im sorry that it contributed to your suicide attempt and I hope you are feeling better now. But yes we have a very long way to go
What I like about this new era of social commentary coming from all different hues is that you guys seem to support each other and reference each other. And I love to see it 🥰🥰🥰🥰
Yes. I checked FD's videos bec. Tea Noir interviewed him in her manosphere video. I stayed bec. of the Eren "slander".
😂
The left-wing "debate Bros" are essential to the cause in my opinion, they have their place. Majority of the right's mobilization and radicalization is done through agit-propaganda, aggressive "alpha" posturing, and mockery. They understand no other language. If we want to get through to people who can still be reached, it takes all kinds. The debate lords, the video-essayists, the public figures, and then of course the activists doing the actual organizing and being in the streets. I get a lot of the criticisms of some of the "debate bro" streamers and such, but a lot of the time most of them are doing a great job actually opening people's minds who were in danger of going hard right. And they all make much better good-faith arguments than the opposition.
I think a major advantage of the streaming format that wasn't addressed in this video is the flexibility and immediate turnaround.
A video essay will always be better at getting ideas across and are higher quality educational content, but if some big event is happening right now and I want information about it in video form. A live broadcast from someone like hasanabi for example will get me relevant Information, in an easily digestible way, from a leftist point of view, sometimes even with some good backround knowledge added to the situation.
Having an independent, leftist counter to the American live news coverage is valuable. How many thousands of people watched twitch streamers cover Jan 6 or the elections.
Are these steamers just the lefts version of Steven Crowder? Yea sure, but unlike Crowder they are honest actors and without them there would be no counter to the American media machines live coverage of important events.
@@Mrbombs102 You make a good point, and beyond that it's important to acknowledge that a majority of people are not interested in sitting down to listen to and digest a video essay, especially those with a right wing worldview who are simply not going to hear what you're trying to say. The video essays, unfortunately, are largely taken in by people already on the progressive side who enjoy new information and there is a big echo chamber/preaching to the choir element. They are important and great, but we also need people who aren't going to dive into these elaborate concepts and instead give people quick statements alongside entertainment, and aren't afraid to be confrontational/reactionary and appeal to the base instincts of people. I feel like the reactionary stuff by charismatic people coming from the left is the first step, the video essay/educational stuff comes second. If the goal is actually to reach out and change people's minds, there needs to be a multifaceted unified community of the entire left/spectrum.
Hasanabi for example has flat out identified himself as an entertainer who makes left-wing agitprop. He tries to make good faith factual points from a genuine place, but he will say himself he makes propaganda. The fact is, nearly every single one of the prominent right-wing commentators online right now exclusively make propaganda in bad faith, constant strawmanning, deliberate misrepresentation of stats, culture war agitation, just completely unabashed lies in general. They believe the ends justify the means no matter what. If someone has been trained by that content, the thought provoking video essay is not going to work as a first step away from that.
Without debate bros like a Vaush, I would not have become a leftist. I think that they’re not only useful, but extremely important in breaking the aggressive brainwashing done by right-wing commentators like Crowder.
The problem with debate bros is their toxic fanbase that they end up cultivating. Some of these people are ex-nazis and ex-ethnonationalists who end up forming a cult around their debate bro and justifying even the bad takes they may have.
It also results in an echo chamber where these newly deradicalised individuals end up preventing themselves from educating themselves on topics further, and end up getting information solely from their debate bro or other sources which agree with them.
For all the breadtube I've watched, I've never seen another essay laying out the history and the motivations of how it grew so clearly and insightfully. I could kind of feel a bunch of things I was vaguely familiar with clicking into a bigger critical framework, and the sensation was beautiful, even if the picture isn't sunny. (Not unlike the experience of reading Racism Without Racists, come to think of it).
thank you for raving about Yhara so much. she's such an incredible creator and so many more people should know about her
Lmao I recognize everyone in the thumbnail and if the way it's framed is anything to go off, I'm super curious to engage with your analysis on the divide between the predominantly white sphere(s) of influence within the "mainstream" online "left" and just everyone else - you always make some of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking vids so I'll be waiting with bated breath
Hmm I'm curious whether most people consider hasan white or not
@@aidangillard2041 Dude... Im a Hasan viewer and like... He considers himself white. And like we can have a discussion about the critical frameworks of race and how white is an empty category that exists to be contrasted to non white and by that metric white supremacists do consider him nonwhite... However to a majority of non white supremacists... Yeah hes just a white dude.
@@aidangillard2041 In Europe he probably wouldn't be considered white. In America, where he lives and has most of his life experiences, he is, and that's most relevant imo.
I acknowledge that there is the intersection of Islamophobia and how a lot of racists would probably consider him white up until they learn his name.
@@ProletariatPrince The level of nuance these chatters (you) have is just beautiful. A better world is possible.
@@ProletariatPrince He’s white. 💀😭 I will say though, after I heard his name I didn’t expect a white man and did warp my perception of him.
This is definitely going to be a commentary classic that everyone is going to come back to and references in a few years. Amazing work and best luck to you 👏
This!!
This was an incredible piece. The 'Debate Bro' segment really hit hard for me; while I try to distance myself from the "Debate Bro" sphere, I never considered how much they could cause a ripple in left communities. Very insightful.
This was only touched on in a single sentence in this video, but I'm really amazed you actually called out Aba and Preach as being a part of the "black manosphere". They would themselves vehemently deny being a part of such a group, yet they consistently spout black/redpill rhetoric in just about every social/relationship commentary video they do. This got me thinking, maybe one day you could do a video about the modern day red pill movement and why so many of it's spearheaders are men of color: Fresh & Fit, AMS, StephIsCold, Kevin Sammuels, Aba and Preach, The Roommates, I'm sure the list goes on. I'm curious to understand why such a large portion of the people who lead that group are men of color, from a sociological point of view. All the best.
Mostly cause the algorithm murdered the white version of that content and hasn't noticed the black version yet. Hopefully they'll notice
Yea, I am embarrassed to say that I thought they were a bit more neutral, since they claimed to be. But I started to notice more and more black manosphere personalities started to pop up in my feed(and I am a woman), and I still didn't make the connection that they were soo heavily influenced by the red pill talking points. Then they started giving shout outs to Kevin Samuels(calling him a truth teller), being friends with "mediocre tutorials and reviews " and so on. I started noticing the dog whistles and them reacting harder on women for stupid things. Aba especially seems to have been heavily influenced by reddits political bro's and seem to echo a lot of their talking points.
Absolutely! It’s pretty disheartening and almost sad how mainstream the “black manosphere” content is getting. I definitely think it’s a result of the lack of black male content creators in general, so black men giving social & relationship commentary has become enticing to your average black male viewer. The sad part is, as you said, it’s nothing but redpill rhetoric and talking points dressed up differently and being served on a platter to your average black man. I truly hope to see more FD’s in the space.
I've been recommended Aba and Preach by creators who claim to be progressive and left-leaning. The first video of theirs that I tried watching was basically all about shitting on women. The comments were terrifying.
@@Aster_Risk can u give the names of those creators, so I can avoid them.
This was very thorough and it needed to be said because the left (particularly the white left) has some introspection to do. There are so many black content creators that deserve just as much respect and viewership as white content creators if not more. As a black leftist I used to find myself watching almost exclusively white content due to RUclipss algorithm but recently I've found so many great thoroughly researched black creators that speak to me and my issues as a black person more than any white creator could.
After BLM 2020, I stopped supporting none-black people. Recently, I’m even more turned off by the Hispanic community after seeing what’s going on Tiktok and what my friend’s dad said about me after I went to a Mexican wedding (my first one), two days ago. 😬
And I found that the black creators were so much better and talented than any none-black creator that I had ever seen.
Then maybe you all should stick to your own kind then. There won't be any issues.
@@bmwjourdandunngoddess6024 I agree the amount of anti blackness in these leftists spaces turned me off. Black leftist understand black issues better than white creators. Yeah the white creators will talk about current black issues and some black history but they do it only to turn around and make all black issues class issues among other things. White leftists don't know how or just don't want to deal with race and whiteness. They only want to deal with class because it doesn't require them to give up whiteness and the privileges that come with that.
@@Rage_Harder_Then_Relax Maybe some of you white leftist, if that's what you are, should listen to more black leftist perspectives and no gatekeep leftists narratives. White leftist figures feel like they can speak on behalf and black and poc while shunning black perspectives they don't agree with. White leftists spaces exhibit a lot of anti black behavior and don't really engage with black people while pretending that they care about us. When we want to discuss some issues we see in white leftist spaces and the racism and dismissal of our issues with white people speaking for us but not listening to us then we get responses like yours. You and others like you are the reason many black people have stop watching and engaging with white leftist. You guys exhibit a lot of white far right and liberal characteristics that you claim to be against.
its really interesting that the search and discovery algorithm with one well defined goal (maximize watch time -> maximize profits) results in so much terrible emergent behavior. i really doubt it will change anytime soon (per financial motives and obviously white habitus)
incredible video
Wow I did not expect to see you here. I'm impressed.
Geosquare based 😳
unexpected, but speed running is a largely non-profit driven community with high amounts of collaboration I suppose
That's actually linked to a pretty huge issue in the domain of AI/algorithms.
The algorithm may be unbiased, but the data it uses are. And it will "naturally" reinforce bias.
It's actually a perfect example of how racism can develop without any malicious input from anyone.
Lindsay Ellis and Todd in the Shadows really shone and took their content to new heights after breaking away from Channel Awesome. It’s very unfortunate that Lindsay is no longer making content - her video essays were iconic.
Lindsay Ellis was my favorite RUclipsr and I went through something very much like grief when she was driven offline. She's become a mom and started making public appearances lately, and I hope that means she's doing okay and has recovered from the trauma.
Isn't Lindsay Ellis still making videos on Nebula?
Lindsay is still making videos on Nebula, she released one just last week
She’s also got a couple of those watch ya call ‘ems.
Books!
She is still making content, just on Nebula! Her latest video on Yoko Ono and The Beatles is genuinely amazing.
Honestly I can’t even imagine the amount of coordination and editing that went into this. The detail and nuance was really spot on too.
Me, Kolpeshtheyardstick's girlfriend, living with him in a rented townhouse in a rural area well below the poverty line getting to laugh at him on our thrift store sofa about being poor is a real highlight of his RUclips journey for me personally. So for that- thank you.
I love the way you make this seem so optimistic about the future while still being very real and honest about existing problems. It's like you are helping to provide a path forward, which seems to be in direct opposition to the whole "debate bro" thing you're talking about.
1:11:50 “These aren’t actual debates.” Thanks, super appreciate that you pan the camera back and show the debate bros yelling over each other while you do a calming ritual. When it comes to RUclips videos, I’m more interested in listening to insights than bloodsport. Love all the interview clips you include in this video essay. And thanks for the channel recommendations to check out!
Hey, did you get your timestamp wrong? The video is just 1 hour long.
@@finaltheory778 Thanks, good catch. Edited to remove the extra one from in front of the timestamp.
When we got to the "problems with the community"/racism section of this video, I chuckled because I remember having a friend like a decade ago, who was interested in Korean culture and Korean language. But she refused to learn about it from Korean people, Native Korean Speakers etc. She'd only practice speaking with me(not Korean). I was so confused. I was like how do you expect to learn if you don't practice with Koreans and learn from them? She just wasn't interested in learning from the source, she preferred instead to learn from me, a fellow black woman. I was only a few steps ahead of her in my understanding of Korean. I could read and speak basics at restaurants, but she'd faithfully meet with me to teach her Korean that I'd just learned. She said it was because she was afraid of judgement and didn't want to feel bad for her mistakes. Honestly she probably got more judgement from me, as It was so weird to me and ridiculous, than she would have ever received from a Korean person. I imagine that implicit bias of white people is similar. They want to learn about people of color experiences from fellow white people so that they aren't as harshly judged or made to feel as bad for their mistakes, especially mistakes that aren't recognized by white creators but caught by the fine tooth comb of a black creator or creators of color. Either way, in the case of my friend and white people's bias, the root is pride and arrogance. A fear of being humbled and corrected.
as a white person I feel this rings very true!
Yeah fear of judgment is real. Although I tbh it carries more weight coming from a black person... Discovering James Baldwin was a game changer. In spite of all the reasons he had not to care about us he still did. He saw the ways racism hurts us and how ending it could free us as well as people like himself. We need to be talking...
I feel that her slight fear of judgement from Koreans specifically is understandable as a Korean, whether we like to admit it or not there definitely have been many moments of anti-blackness in our media. I've seen this sort of apprehension from many dark-skinned black and asian folk especially, because Korean society is notorious for harsh beauty standards (one of them being pale, white skin, along with really thin and skinny body). I've seen Indian girls online worry about how Koreans may view them when they travel there and it breaks my heart that these standards have become so harsh that people who love Korean culture are almost scared to visit the place. Although being Korean, my first response would be no way! we would never judge! putting the fear your friend may have in the context of the anti-blackness along with the harsh judgement other poc HAVE faced from Koreans in other aspects makes it more understandable.
Yeah I'm with @D
Your friend's situation might've contained more nuance.
@@user-oy5hb5nq5h that’s a good point and could totally be someone’s reason for not speaking with or practicing with Koreans.
However in my situation, my friend admitted to me that it was arrogance and pride, that she didn’t want to look dumb or incompetent. No matter how much I told her Korean people don’t have the same entitlement as American English speakers who judge foreigners for speaking broken English, she couldn’t believe it. She also didn’t want to be corrected or seen making mistakes, it was a mindset that bled into other parts of her life too. However she was self aware and she actively worked to grow out of that arrogance. Eventually she was able to practice speaking with Koreans ^^ but more importantly was able to become more humble in all of areas of her life. She no longer afraid to be seen trying 😊
I'm not even halfway through this yet, but this is a fantastic video for the history of the video essay/media criticism bubble alone. I've been watching RUclips since literally the first year and spent a few very anxiety-inducing years trying to somehow bridge the gap between 1), absorbing the very limited perspectives shared by (mostly) white, (mostly) male sceptics while being caught in "I'm a girl and I don't even like feminism (I think?)" trap, and 2), a desire for more depth, fair/clean argumentation and nuanced takes... and a space for my identity. The content I eventually ended up creating is (usually) inherently apolitical, but man did the "person talking or ranting at a camera about [culture war topic of the month]" shape my thought processes throughout my 20s. And I'm neither male, nor formerly right-wing (nor American, though thorougly Americanized). It's just a legitimately influential force in online millenial culture.
Edit from watching on: To answer a direct question (around 1:00:00): I had never heard of Yhara before this video, despite watching and re-watching every halfway decent video essay I can get my hands on for, as mentioned, years. The few black creators that I do know and enjoy watching I have had to basically hand-pick - even Khadija, a pretty big channel comparatively, I only algorithm-stumbled onto very recently, after subscribing to you. I actually found ContraPoints through T1J 5+ years ago, but him I also knew from another (I think white? not sure) YTer's "boost POC creators" list. The black creators I have found through organic algorithm "happenstance" in 15 years of way too much time on this platform I could still count on my 2 hands, despite jumping on any chance I get to hear diversified voices. And I would probably even have to take a few of them out because they simply lucked into a viral hit. This also goes for LGBT creators. The only time during which I was even semi-regularly being recommended channels that are about LGBT issues from an inside perspective was a phase during which a lot of my watch time was spent on several trans folks' channels. So the interest detection here, as you said, does very much seem to be shadow-race-driven priotized over content-driven OR I seek diversity out less than I think I do. Even if the latter is a factor though - which it might very well be - I'm pretty confident in saying it's not at all proportionate.
On that note, you I found through Twitter iirc and I binge-watched about half your videos last month. Super insightful and so well-made, I'm glad it's also a dependable source of income for you now, too. At least as dependable as this whole wobbly tower of a career can be ;)
Deate bros: I think debate bros do a lot of good as intro channels to the wider and less shouty areas of the leftist sphere, if people manage that transition. They are exactly the intro a lot of people who have come up through the Pewdipipeline need, because they flaunt the "fuck you I don't care and you're stupid" aesthetic while pushing for a left(er) social attitude. Growing through the "Nice takedown bro" phase is a pretty common and valid way of arriving at a more moderate position. And: they do arm people for similar conversations (though ideally more so in content than tone). The percentage of people who eventually fall off the cliff of egomania is pretty high, but I appreciate the brute force approach to breaking open any solidified shell of right-wing dirt. The "problem" is that being successful at that hinges on actually still coming off as reasonable, making understandable and factual arguments, and actually caring while remaining badass/cocky/personally unphased, yet somehow approachable at the same time - and that is extremely hard. From my personal perspective and background, the only person who doesn't annoy the shit out of me from this sphere (too often, yet) is Vaush. I don't think your evaluation vis a vis effort and knowledge is entirely fair when it comes to him at least (can't speak on others, the few I have watched in the past annoyed me). That said, this comes from mostly watching the segments on his channel, I barely tune into the streams. And individual framing factors into this in a huge way when it comes to inter-leftist debates. The fostering of people who are rabid to dunk on someone with the "wrong opinion" IS a definite problem, though. Unfortunately, that is not relegated to just debate bro communities; but a vast majority of them definitely are not counteracting the energy they sow, yes.
Ok, last edit: How dare you include "THE WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST BRO", how am I supposed to focus on the content now.
Hallo Leute! I remember you from a Stardew Valley stream a while ago… 🌻
Apart from being male and not a content creator I can relate to many of your viewpoints and I literally couldn‘t express them better. Although most of the political RUclipsrs are US-centric the world-wide influence is definitely there.
In 2016 I became a bit obsessed with US politics which probably skews my perspective to this day but I think I am far from alone in that.
thank me later, I literally saw this five minutes ago
I disagree. I enjoyed this video, but the history bit wasn't super helpful or accurate.
same, I'm an hour in now, but by 40 min I was like "wow that was one tough love video, good stuff" and then I realized there was another hour. Need to take a break now because there's a lot to process here.
I agree, the only debate bro I can watch is Vaush. I also love Demon Mama!
Really wonderful video. I remember how much crap Kat Blaque got for discussing similar talking points just a couple of years ago. I hope more people are ready to listen now. Thanks for all your hard work on this!
This is crazy because I remember Kat Blaque talking about this very topic in the midst of the timeline and she was very much punished for it. 🙃
The "y'all sound like all the other girls" energy is real. I extend that to other countries as well because I've been to a few. To my racialized Black ears, the rhetoric, questions, jokes, and stares really do all hit the same - everywhere.
I'm sorry, what does that mean?
@@nathanjasper512 they are talking about how people from other countries like to talk about how much better they are than America, yet as a racialized black person they still get treated with the same micro agressions everywhere they've traveled.
@@flamingo6828 💯
I really appreciate this video as someone who really wants to make my own commentary video about the world and media from my perspective as a young gay black man(which is not a very common one on RUclips, unfortunately). You have been a huge inspiration to me.
Do it! I'd love to hear your perspectives.
That would be super interesting to watch!
Luck or not, your success is so well deserved. I'm a relatively new subscriber, found you through your collab with Khadija and now this is one of my favorite channels. Thank you for all the hard work you put into your content!
259.000 and counting. You are one of a tiny amount of people who can actually break through the Post Covid brain fog. So wellIt’s possible for me to understand and remember your videos and your calm voice makes me able to concentrate on the content. Thanks for doing this channel. It’s really educational and learning about your life is so constructive to me.
I thought I was imagining that “debate bro” types were indistinguishable from 2010s Edgelorders, holy sh*t thank you for the validation. I genuinely didn’t realize some of these people (I’ve seen them primarily on Twitter) aligned with leftist politics until I got bored and dug into some of their BS on Twitter, and it has been a horrible deja vu all around.
You’re not imaging it. Many of us have been bringing it up constantly only for those debate lord fans to harass us.
These people don't have ideology, if they do it's extremely thin. These people noticed how many views these "debate streams/videos" get and they pursued the money. It is just a boxing match, as is mentioned in this video. Their respective fans fill the stadium, maybe get some snacks, place some bets, and watch the fight then they spend the entirety of the post-fight space claiming their side won. They both win because their audience gives them their money. The real loser is the pursuit of ideological growth and understanding.
Thank you for pointing out the white majority of LeftTube and how it's quite harder for POC to get success in this platform. As an Asian woman myself, I rarely see other Asian Video Essayists, and it might be because a lot of Asian Culture is rooted in silence. To just work hard and not point out the flaws in society.
Sometimes I don't know if I should make video essay content due to the lack of other Asian Video Essayists but video essays are what I love to do.
As a white boy who loves watching video essays and is trying to diversify the list of content creators I follow so I'm not just listening to other white people educate and entertain me; I would love to see more video essays from Asian content creators, and if it's what you love to do...
What you said about a lot of Asian culture being rooted in silence sounds like an incredibly interesting topic for a video essay, that's fascinating to me coming from a culture that more than anything else, needs to shut the f*ck up and listen and learn more.
That sounds like a super cool video! I'm not sure if you already know them but Xiran Jay Zhao, Ibrahim Kamit and Cheyenne Lim are more video essay style Asian creators that I really enjoy
Do it, please! Hearing a variety of perspectives is what makes video essays interesting. Sad to say, I can’t think of any Asian LeftTuber doing video essays.
Or I dunno maybe is because Asians represent 7% of the population, out of 100 youtubers let's say 5 of them get popular, who is more likely to get popular 5 of the 7 Asians? Or 5 of the 75 whites?
Answer in Progress is a good channel too. Does video essays, and I'm not sure if they are necessarily a leftist, but I like their content.
The Thoughtful Beast does Asian mental health videos. Not a video essayist, but I just wanted to give their channel a recommendation.
I'm speaking as a white woman but I definitely had some deep introspection about the algorithm and how I consume media on youtube a year or two ago. I was late getting into breadtube, or at least not early, but was watching it happy as a bee until there was one of the social media dust-ups about whether breadtube was "too white." I THINK it was Kat Blaque's video that I ended up being recommended on the subject (I had previously watched some of her comics content without realizing she also talked about social justice and racism,) and being the good socially conscious lefty I decided I should definitely hear from a black woman on that particular judgement.
In the video, she replied to comments she'd seen saying something like "well I don't mean to not watch black creators, I just never get recommended breadtube content by black people" and she responded by basically saying that if the algorithm isn't offering you black content creators it's because YOU aren't watching them first. You couldn't just passively consume and expect to get a balanced diet and it was on you to actively seek out those voices and subscribe to them. (This video is fuzzy in my memory, might've also been Melina Pendulum.)
I kind of thought she might be exaggerating - I was voraciously consuming video essay content and I couldn't really believe youtube would miss out on ad dollars by not showing me MORE video essayists regardless of race, but, given I'd sought out her voice on the subject and had been waffling about subscribing to Kat before I'd started the video, I thought what the heck and subscribed to her.
Almost IMMEDIATELY I noticed a shift in my recommendations, within a few days I'd gotten T1J recommended to me for the first time. I was definitely proved wrong and learned a lesson about the algorithm, but I'm so glad I was because I discovered you and other excellent essayists. It didn't even stop at suggesting me black content creators, but I actually got some asian ones and more trans ones too (though debatedly breadtube might've pushed me to more trans creators anyways and I have a trans sister so fall more into the white trans-invested demographic anyways.)
I do try to keep my subscriptions at least somewhat trimmed (I'm due for a culling soon,) and try to watch multiple videos from a creator and be cautious about following someone I'm not definitely invested in, but that experience has definitely made me more conscious of deciding not to follow creators that are outside my demographic because of small feelings of not quite connecting with ALL their content. I've become more liberal (hah) with that LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE AND HIT THE BELL when it comes to minority content creators compared to others, both because I want to support them and raise their voices, but also because the fact that maybe I'm not the audience for some of their videos is actually a good thing.
Oof IDK why I wrote all this but hopefully someone finds it enlightening or interesting haha.
Thanks for your comment, it was interesting to read and informative :]
In a very similar situation. White woman video essay fan. Got started by cinema analysis videos like Every Frame a Painting and went into more themes and politics videos. I think I saw a Melina Pendulum video cited by another media discussion RUclipsr and thought, well... I think of myself as a feminist. I'm aware of the quite true critique that modern feminism is just white middle class women feminism. Time to put problem into deliberate solution, slip my listening ears on, and pay attention to some perspectives that deserve more attention.
Even on things not about race, especially things not about race, breadtube is better with more perspectives.
It took me dating the first trans person that I ever dated (well, I dated someone who realized they were trans after he and I split beforehand so there's that too) to really finally open up my noggin and realize the kinda bullshit I was being told to believe by these people.
It's astonishing how well your timeline matches up with my personal experience. I went from a "only two genders!" asshat to being my goofy ahh nonbinary self and I wish I coulda been more open minded sooner.
It sucks knowing I've said shitty shit I can't go and directly apologize for now because it's been too long, and I doubt folks'll recognize me, but I _am_ sorry to the people I've hurt with my dumbass beliefs.
Funny story: I was really into the skeptic community right before sarkesian. I converted to fundamentalist Christianity, and gave up social media and RUclips so I could read the Bible. I eventually left fundamentalism and became more moderate, at which point I got back into RUclips. What this did was allow me to skip the whole gamergate thing, and just go straight to bread tube, which opened my mind to more progressive ideas. Had it not been for my abstinence from the internet in the name of Christianity, I might have totally got sucked into gamergate. In other words, Jesus saved me from the alt right!