I feel like she used to be a darling of the old sub, but that seems to have stopped at some point and I now rarely see her mentioned.
I think she said some tasteless things about nonbinary people (I cant remember what but I remember being offended) but I mainly I feel like people here moved on from the breadtube community after videos became too drawn out and artsy instead of actually saying anything
alluding to non-binary gender identities coming at the cost of the rights binary trans people have.
Privilege not rights. And "that's super fucking hard for us", which is sarcastic, meaning binary trans people should just suck it up and deal with it, because everyone has the right to express themselves.
Even radical people like Villainette, that have real world praxis, say increased visibility is also a liability.The same was true for gay people; and many gays systematically wanted to distance themselves from trans people because they thought it hurt their acceptance.
Natalie admits the same thing happens between binary transgender people (i.e. "old-school transsexuals") and non-binary people. That is Blaire White's whole shtick.
But again, she thinks binary transgender people should suck it up.and turned her subreddit transmedicalist.
The same way ChapoTrapHouse hosts turned their subreddit based.
She doesn't control the reactionaries in her subreddit.She also had a transmedicalist do VA work for her
Buck Angel deserves to be cancelled. Contrapoints made a forgivable mistake.
Besides it was an easy mistake to make, Buck Angel is a transman from a previous generation, most transgender people just don't know his history at all.
And there are nude statues of him; he never got phalloplasty, which he could easily afford, so then why would anyone assume that he could be a transmedicalist?And I'm gonna leave this here just to piss people off:
Vaush was right about this one. (TW: some ableism)
Oh yeah, that's what it was. I remember she posted a 40 minute video called "cancel culture" and i knew I was never going to watch her videos again
Her video was called "Canceling" and was an account of her own experience, it was not in opposition to ""cancel culture"" in general.
Something else to think about: even if it is true that every trans person has dysphoria (which, to be clear, I don't think is necessarily true, although I would claim that the vast majority of us do have dysphoria), it's sometimes really hard to recognize that what you're experiencing is dysphoria. So saying you don't need dysphoria to be trans can help questioning people be open to the idea that they may be trans even if they don't think they have dysphoria.
I know this was the case for me; 3 years ago if someone had asked me if I felt dysphoria, I would have said no. But now I'm 3 months post top surgery and I've been on hormones for nearly a year. I had dysphoria all along, but I never would have recognized it if I hadn't allowed myself to think "hmm, maybe I'm trans, even though I don't have dysphoria".
furries don't need to hate that their hands aren't paws to be a furry
Like a fish doesn't know it's swimming in water, some trans people don't feel dysphoria as intense as suicidal ideation or as something exceptional to everyday life. But (almost) all feel a sense of euphoria when their gender is recognized or when they can "perform" their gender by wearing appropriate clothes and so on.
It's not easy to know you're trans if you just kind of get on with life. Some people don't realize it until they're well into their senior years (like 70 yo AMAB fresh trans queens). But there are signs, do you just kinda put on whatever clothes and don't think about it? Do you often fantasize about being a different gender then the one you were assigned at birth? Do you play a lot of characters in DnD or games that are a different gender? Y'know, stuff like that.
how do you know you're gay if you don't experience internalized homophobia
This is a good analogy, actually. It's not like trans people naturally kill themselves, that's societal. I'm not sure a world where everyone knows women can be amab would make us hate our bodies as much. I think there'd be a lot less angst and pain about it.
Not sure if I have the timing right, but wasn't this after there was some drama with the r/contrapoints mods, and she said she didn't approve of the subreddit and didn't want anything to do with it? Was this another subreddit, or did she do something to involve herself with r/contrapoints again?
The artsy colored lights and shit instantly turn me off any of those videos anymore. I used to sit through hour long videos about the philosophy of whatever dumb shit but honestly it's exhausting now and I walk away feeling like I indulged someone's mediocre art piece instead of educating myself.
too drawn out and artsy
What's with the trend toward edgy aesthetics and overproduction in left youtubers? I subscribe to Carlos Maza because he's a smart cutey, but he's sorta adopted the multi-characters and dark surrealist shtick from Contra that I could do without.
I don't have a huge problem with her, but her content is getting a bit meh. Her last video is so damn long and says so damn little.
Literally reading off wikipedia, going back to Hammurabi to stall because she can't think of any good takes.
I think that's more of it, I think her recent content seems a bit stale and she's taking longer and longer to make videos. I think Natalie is good, I just don't think about her much unless she comes out with a video and and those come out once every few months now.
She made a whole video about herself getting cancelled https://youtu.be/OjMPJVmXxV8
I kinda fell off when she made a couple of videos in a row that were like "wearing combat boots and talking about revolution is bad optics". Haven't felt the need to watch any more videos of her since. I think she did get cancelled and uncancelled a couple of times in some circles, but I didn't see anything that made me think she is bad.
People use this term too much, but her channel is honestly a grift at this point. She's coasting off a popularity gained during a time when people were panicking about incels and the alt-right, and she made a couple good videos.
Now, I can't figure out who her videos are actually for. What does she talk about, meaningfully, except for herself? Her entire last video was basically reading off wikipedia and stalling for time to increase time-watched. At a time when justice is a really important issue, and there's lots of easy, good takes to pull people left. And the gap between videos is pretty long compared to people who put in about the same amount of effort.
She was never really that good, because her whole schtick was that she was a disenchanted leftist, seeking out a new position that would actually be popular and effective. When, in reality, she's like succdem adjacent, and either hasn't read, or doesn't understand, Marx or any of the left thinkers she's claimed to be beyond.
Like most of Breadtube, that's fine if it's just a stepping stone to further radicalization. I definitely needed those.
But her actual audience is like unironic left liberals. And she herself has complained, in her video on Men and masculinity, that her former audience has moved further left than her. And she never wanted to be shoehorned into a left wing channel, as it would've limited its growth.
The last video I remember mostly liking was on Opulence. That one felt like there was synergy between all the work that goes into costumes and aesthetics, and an actual message.
Otherwise, she's just kind of a left adjacent, and honestly also left punching, personality vlogger now.
There's nothing wrong with that but, there's not much left about it. If she limits her left punching, at least she's not doing harm. But I wouldn't recommend her to someone I'm trying to pull left, which is the one thing breadtubers are supposed to be good for.
And she never wanted to be shoehorned into a left wing channel, as it would’ve limited its growth.
IMO she's never wanted to be shoehorned into being a left wing channel, but not because of limiting growth, but because I think she wants to have the flexibility to address issues that aren't specifically political or otherwise connected to "left" issues. That's just my read on it.
I think that was her excuse, but she never actually made the pivot.
Ironically, the only reason people still watch her is the very thing she didn't want her channel to be.
Someone like Innuendo Studios actually manages to straddle that line. He makes left leaning stuff, then makes something about adventure games, or film criticism.
Contra basically can't talk about anything without it having that left context baggage, I think mainly because she's afraid any change will lose her subs and attention. I'm sure she could make a rad video just about makeup, something she's clearly passionate about. But she doesn't.
Her videos became overly self-indulgent and she doesn't take criticism well when other LGBT people tell her she's wrong about something.
what would be taking the criticism well? giving up her job and hiding from the world, never to post again? cus anything less seems unacceptable considering how some act
She's an entry point for disillusioned liberals, I'm not a disillusioned liberal, what's interesting for one worldview is not always interesting for another
Some of her videos are good and funny, and interesting analyses of how the online right operates or some thought patterns people have in general. Her opinions on gender are almost always not very good imo. She has a lot of internalized transphobia and misogyny and it comes off strong in her videos. Last one I watched she basically said so, she gets insecure about herself and her identity. This doesn't make me dislike her personally, but I'm not going to refer people to her if they want to learn about trans issues or women's issues.
I think she got semi-cancelled for comments about nonbinary people. I'm nonbinary myself and I was disappointed by her tweets and how she responded to the criticism, but overall it wasn't cancel-worthy to me. A trans woman youtuber saying my existence is the reason she needs to give her pronouns when talking to the cis is really not what is standing in the way of my rights. It says more about her own insecurity and I feel sad for her for that.
Also she makes quite a bit of money and whenever that is the case for people, i think they tend to become less relatable especially to a leftist audience.
