site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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.

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Culture war refresh. Many people are familiar with the Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney controversy. About a week afterwards people on this website noted there wasn’t a large impact on the stock price of InBev, Bud’s parent company,

Well, InBev is now down about 10% from when the whole Bud Light - Dylan Mulvaney sponsorship. Bud light revenue is still down materially. At the same time, other major alcohol companies appear flat or up materially. Therefore, it seems the boycott has had real negative impact on InBev.

Does this mark the start of the right finding it’s muscle or is this a dead cat bounce?

The boycott worked this time because Bud Light is completely interchangeable with other products and they attacked their core audience. For the same reasons, the Gillette boycott had a real impact.

Other companies, like Disney or Apple, can get away with woke signalling because their business has a moat.

The day after the Daily Wire made some sort of indication they were going to develop kids programming, I bought an annual membership. I've only watched a DW movie/show a couple times since then, but I've renewed the membership once already. It doesn't matter that they don't even have any kids programming yet, I want to encourage them to make it.

Angel Studios has three kids shows, one for the preschool age and two that are probably TV-Y7. They aren't religious in nature, one teaches civics from a right wing stance, but the other two are non-political. They just don't include anything that would have been objectionable to a Republican 20 years ago. These shows are free to watch, but new episodes are crowdsourced (so if you want to see what happens next, pay up!)

There aren't many options, but the Right is starting to wage the culture war, in the sense of changing the culture kids are exposed to.

Disney plus includes shows and movies from more than 15 years ago. If a parent controls the remote, they can show their kids more wholesome programming. There's even ways to block specific shows in the parental controls. A truly dedicated culture warring parent could probably manually block all new shows every morning.

These shows are free to watch, but new episodes are crowdsourced (so if you want to see what happens next, pay up!)

Do you mean crowdfunded, or are they soliciting scripts from random people?

You're correct, I meant crowdfunded. Though they also have a system to submit projects for funding and distribution.