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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30438 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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Similarly, blue tribers dominate tech and culture to such an extent that red tribers will be perpetually unable to produce content that is nearly as good quality. As much as I might despise mainstream culture, there's a lot of craft and skill that goes into making a Marvel blockbuster, and it can't be knocked off by amateurs.* I don't know that you can make a Marvel type movie, a workmanlike blockbuster product, without a lot of blue tribers. As long as that is true, the theory that companies will fold to Red tribe boycotts because they don't want to lose 20% of their customers doesn't work, because a united blue tribe labor revolt will cost them 100% of their products. Disney might fear losing customers, but it is terrified of losing talent that it uses to produce products to sell around the globe. And the talent is much better organized than the customers will ever be. The

Let Hollywood have their blockbusters. The right can compete at other things. Not just alt-tech, but anti-woke people gaining ground on mainstream platforms, like we see with Elon and Twitter or Rogan and Spotify. Instead of Hollywood, there is YouTube, which despite being owned by Google, seems to have more conservative or neutral viewpoints than TV or cinema. There is no charismatic left-wing counterbalance to someone like Jordan Peterson or Elon Musk. On YouTube, videos by un-woke people are frequently viral and show up in recommendations, suggesting they are popular (and confirmed by high view counts and lots of comments in agreement).

Simultaneously, conservatives need to be building institutions alongside and parallel to blue tribe dominated institutions, producing beautiful cultural content to compete on talent. If cultural production is denigrated as blue tribe, and no red tribers go into it, that's permanently ceding the field, slow suicide. Both compete on quality with blue tribe, and shifting paradigms away from blue tribe framing. But never attempting to stand up inferior red tribe knockoffs, like Turks I have a lot of thoughts on how that would work, but you've read enough of me for now.

Agree. I think the worst the right can do is brand their entertainment as an alternative. It should stand on its artistic merits alone.

but anti-woke people gaining ground on mainstream platforms, like we see with Elon and Twitter or Rogan and Spotify.

Meh. Elon isn't "gaining ground'. He was just the richest man in the world and straight up bought himself a platform.

Rogan was famous long before Spotify and he faced cyclical waves of pressure that led to minor concessions (iirc Spotify took down some episodes and had some fact checking). But the fact that they got that is illustrative: Rogan is the biggest podcaster around, and they couldn't just ignore the squeeze.

To me, this is akin to when people say "Rowling is still around so cancel culture isn't a thing/is weakening" (without the bad faith) - yeah, a few incredibly atypical people can resist the headwinds.

What about the median celebrity? What about the person who is just starting out? Where is the pipeline for them? "Find someone rich and hope they're anti-woke" is not a plan.

There is no charismatic left-wing counterbalance to someone like Jordan Peterson

So what, when the wokes can maintain a steady drumbeat of negativity about them and then just straight up ban them from the big platforms like Peterson and Twitter or Tate with Youtube?

On YouTube, videos by un-woke people are frequently viral and show up in recommendations, suggesting they are popular (and confirmed by high view counts and lots of comments in agreement).

Andrew Tate is popular.

Popularity is irrelevant when the enemy controls the infrastructure and will periodically cull enemy voices.

Andrew Tate is popular.

Even if he is is sorta cringe, this is still better than young people idolizing Hollywood celebs, who tend to be left-wing .

What about the median celebrity? What about the person who is just starting out? Where is the pipeline for them? "Find someone rich and hope they're anti-woke" is not a plan.

I think YouTube ,podcasts, and other media is the pipeline. People are making $100k+ more with substack..not just well-known pundits, but even obscure people who get hundreds or thousands of subs.

To me, this is akin to when people say "Rowling is still around so cancel culture isn't a thing/is weakening" (without the bad faith) - yeah, a few incredibly atypical people can resist the headwinds.

Yeah, she is also the most popular author in the world , at least as measured by sales. It's one thing to say that the non-woke are outnumbered, which is true, but when consumers have a choice, the non-woke people tend to be the most popular, either Rogan, Musk, Chappelle, Kanye, etc.

Meh. Elon isn't "gaining ground'. He was just the richest man in the world and straight up bought himself a platform.

His popularity has been growing since 2018, when he began going after woke journalists. This is not just buying popularity. He was popular well before buying Twitter. Bill Gates is only half as rich as Musk but considerably less popular outside of the insular left-wing elite and some neoliberal types.

This is a bit far afield, but Tate doesn’t exist as an online figure absent the blue tribe. He leaned all the way in to outrage farming in a no-publicity-is-bad-publicity approach. It all depends on how you feel about Wahhabism — it’s certainly traditional and opposed to globohomo — but is he actually helpful to the Western red tribe, as an ISIS-praising supposed Islam convert (who still likes alcohol)? Tate also started up his own MLM/affiliate-marketing program. At least Alex Jones just sells snake-oil supplements as a standard retail operation. I don’t think the enemy of your enemy is always your friend.

I think YouTube ,podcasts, and other media is the pipeline.

Except the problem is this pipeline is controlled by the woke.

Andrew Tate is a great example of someone who exploited the algorithm to become super famous and...they just snuffed him out on most major social media sites. He can't make money on Youtube right now.

Now, he may have some suckers follow him to wherever so it may not be totally devastating, but how many Youtubers are seeing that and learning a lesson?

And who's to say they're not fiddling around in the back, trying to stop the next Tate?

This is the fundamental problem: you cannot trust these platforms.

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