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 -
My understanding is that even the existence of eidetic memory is a controversial proposition among psychologists and neurologists, making me sceptical about any claims of its incidence within any given demographic. If you have any non-anecdotal evidence backing this up I'd love to see it.
No offense intended, but am I supposed to be impressed by the fact that you were able to recognise an extremely popular YouTuber? Surely this isn't what most people are talking about when they throw around terms like "eidetic" or "photographic" memory. If you have more impressive examples of your ostensibly eidetic memory, I would also love to hear about them, but if this is the best example of your capabilities, I'm highly dubious.
I don't think she counts as "extremely popular".
Shoe0nHead may have two million subscribers, but I hardly ever see her referenced on /pol/, /r/kotakuinaction, or /r/kotakuinaction2 nowadays, and I doubt that I've ever seen her referenced elsewhere. Red Letter Media has one million subscribers, and I don't think I've ever seen it referenced outside /tv/.
Actual "extremely popular YouTubers" are those who regularly make Reddit's front page and have people post memes featuring them in Reddit comments—e. g., Markiplier (38 million subscribers), penguinz0 (18 million subscribers), and (I guess formerly) Pewdiepie (109 million subscribers).
Only two million subscribers? Gosh, that only puts her in the 99.94th percentile of all YouTube channels. What a nobody!
ChatGPT tells me the videos on her channel have been watched a collective 247 million times. Even assuming that only one-tenth of those are unique viewers, a population bigger than Florida has laid eyes on her at least once. Maybe "extremely" was overselling it, but she's a very popular YouTuber by any reasonable definition.
Your own article says that there are tens of thousands of YouTube channels with at least one million subscribers. My point is that a random person not already immersed in the relevant niche of the Internet is not likely to recognize one of those tens of thousands of YouTubers.
Yes, there are ~70k YouTube channels with 1 million subscribers or more, against a population of 115 million YouTube channels. She's more famous and well-known than more than 99.5% of all YouTube channels. That seems "popular" to me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Those two videos were literally the only times I'd ever seen her. I don't watch YouTube (except when linked to specific videos on fora like this one) or participate in the big social media sites (that's why I only showed up here when theMotte left Reddit).
It is also my impression that most people don't remember exactly which random Internet conversations they have open IOU-a-sauce for over timespans of years.
Okay. So? Occasionally I'll be watching a movie, and I'll recognise an actor who had a small part in a movie I watched many years prior and whom I haven't seen in anything else since. I would say I'm "good with faces", not that I have a "photographic memory". The latter term implies that you have total, perfect recall of everything you have ever experienced, even things that happened years or decades prior. It does not imply that you can identify the celebrity in a video after not having seen a picture of them for a long time. I'm sure you can't tell me what you had for breakfast on April 9th, 2015.
Well, most people don't have random Internet conversations, so this claim might well be true, but vacuously so.
I don't think you have a photographic or eidetic memory. The abilities you're describing seem fairly typical of a person who's above-average in intelligence and conscientiousness, which describes most people who post here.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link