This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Even if he is is sorta cringe, this is still better than young people idolizing Hollywood celebs, who tend to be left-wing .
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.
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.
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.
More options
Context Copy link
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.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link