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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28396 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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We may be seeing the GOP becoming pro-China in real time.

We may be seeing the US becoming Brezhnev time Soviet Union in real time.

Remember when American culture ruled supreme, when other countries banned American movies, music and other cultural artefacts, including blue jeans? Remember when other countries tried at enormous expense stop American cultural influence?

And remember when the bans were not respected by anyone and widely disobeyed?

Now the shoe is on the other foot.

DO YOU WANT OUR YOUNG PEOPLE LISTEN TO FILTHY CAPITALIST RADIO? ARE YOU A TRAITOR TO OUR GLORIOUS WORKER COUNTRY?

What you want is immaterial. Young people want their TikTok and will do what it takes to get it, including installing and configuring VPN. Yes, only minority is going to do it, but active minority is what always mattered.

Young people want their TikTok and will do what it takes to get it, including installing and configuring VPN. Yes, only minority is going to do it, but active minority is what always mattered.

Leaving aside the apparent assumption that there is a strong correlation between “know how and is willing to pay for and download a vpn” and “politically active”, how is going from from 30% MAUs to (eg) 3% MAUs immaterial?

Young people want their TikTok and will do what it takes to get it, including installing and configuring VPN.

Social media platforms are entirely different than fashion. If 1% of kids have black market jeans, they are fashion trendsetters. If 1% of kids install a VPN to watch videos, they are dorks. Think about it. Are 4Chan users considered cool?

The second that installing TikTok isn't as easy as clicking a button on the App Store, usage falls to near zero. Network effects work both ways.

And yet every Russian videoblogger keeps mentioning their Instagram despite Meta being banned in Russia as extremists and available via VPN. Not that their followers access any other info via this VPN.

4chan isn't cool but it has been influential. A lot of the memes (in a broader sense than just image macros) that end up on Reddit or Facebook started on 4chan.

It's true. Never underestimate the power of laziness.

Stefan Molyneux's videos get something like, 99% less views on bitchute than they did on youtube? Maybe even 99.9% less. All because his audience couldn't be bothered to type a different url into their browsers. And this was a group of people who were already primed to seek out "controversial" material from alternative sources.

Again, this isn't a TikTok ban, it's divestiture.

And this isn't quite like US cultural clout in the 80s. This is like if the Soviet Union owned CBS and used it to influence the news Americans received.

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