Analysis Episode #14 - Russia/UkraineKeep your private data private with our sponsor, Aura! Get two weeks free, no strings attached, with our link: https://a...
Has anyone watched the new episode from First Thought/JT?
Damn there's a lot of dare I say reactionary opinions here. First of all, who the hell cares if a single person who does socialist videos sells out, they gotta make a living too. And socialism is not a poverty cult. Stop worshipping figure heads.
If you find the coverage too liberal, well it's not for you.
Go read theory. Go do praxis.
People can still be upset about someone they admired selling out and making videos devoid of all meaning. If someone cultivates an audience of baby leftists in need of guidance and then tells those same baby leftists "the western narrative is the correct one, don't worry." they aren't going to improve, or learn, they'll sit in that comfortable defanged western leftist space where they smugly dismiss the struggles of people in the rest of the world for failing to meet their perfect standards. It sucks to see someone be a worse person than you thought they were, that isn't reactionary.
That's a fair point, and I sort of regretted the comment afterwards. From my perspective, first thought hasn't been as good content wise as Second thought or the Deprogram. So I'm going to assume either it was just a meh video, or they are winding down firstthought operations.
It's been a shame watching the deprogram boys go from something special and kind of unique to another generic sort of "breadtube" group that no longer say anything too radical. It's been a slow descent though, but I think a lot of people have tried to pretend it isn't happening, because it sucks, so it hits harder once it's no longer deniable.
Yeah, I think it's hard to maintain a communist podcast for this length of time tbh. Especially maintaining the entertainment factor. It's probably inevitable, given that so many creators end up being more moderate, due to profit motive etc.etc.
I do think the best thing they could do is drop first thought, and maybe wrap some of the ideas into the Deprogram. Sort news and news analysis, theory, and shit posting.
Yeah, probably why they switched to having a guest on every week instead of talking about things on their own. Just ran out of things to say without turning into a more theory focused podcast. I think they chose to keep the same basic tone the whole time and a lot of us were expecting them to go a bit more "serious" eventually, and start actively covering more advanced ideas and theory, but they might never have even intended that in the first place. I think a lot of people (myself included) were hoping when First Thought was announced that it would be exactly that, only to find it is just as basic as JT's other stuff, making it feel redundant.
I started going down the leftist pipeline a few months before they launched the podcast. When I heard about it, it seemed perfect for me - something to deprogram liberals and get into more complex topics as time goes on. Learned a lot at first, but after about 6 months or so I started viewing it as entertainment. And I'm not an avid theory reader or anything. They still discuss some interesting topics, but it's really not radical at all and it has gotten to a point where it keeps baby leftists stuck at the start of the pipeline, instead of pushing them further
and it has gotten to a point where it keeps baby leftists stuck at the start of the pipeline, instead of pushing them further
Yeah, it was always more focused on entertainment rather than education, but it's also kept a lot of people from going further, would be nice if they had a proper "further reading" section at the end of their videos and actually discussed theory every now and then. I'm always advocating for injecting humour into socialist education, but the education does still need to be there for it to work.
I just download the good episodes and put them on my Jellyfin media server, so that the people I'm trying to radicalize will only have access to the juicy stuff.
How does that work, is it a public server? Do you have any resources on Ukraine there by anu chance? I'm interested to read more about it and have some links on hand to show to friends/family, but so far most of my knowledge comes from this instance and some media like Geopolitical Economy Report, not exactly lib-friendly
Well, I would not say it's public, rather it is "publicly accessible". I give out user accounts to people I'm trying to sway, or to people who ask. Yes, there are plenty of resources on Ukraine - some YT downloads (a hodgepodge of sources, a lot of that from Ben Norton/GER), some documentaries, etc.
Damn there's a lot of dare I say reactionary opinions here. First of all, who the hell cares if a single person who does socialist videos sells out, they gotta make a living too. And socialism is not a poverty cult. Stop worshipping figure heads.
If you find the coverage too liberal, well it's not for you. Go read theory. Go do praxis.
People can still be upset about someone they admired selling out and making videos devoid of all meaning. If someone cultivates an audience of baby leftists in need of guidance and then tells those same baby leftists "the western narrative is the correct one, don't worry." they aren't going to improve, or learn, they'll sit in that comfortable defanged western leftist space where they smugly dismiss the struggles of people in the rest of the world for failing to meet their perfect standards. It sucks to see someone be a worse person than you thought they were, that isn't reactionary.
That's a fair point, and I sort of regretted the comment afterwards. From my perspective, first thought hasn't been as good content wise as Second thought or the Deprogram. So I'm going to assume either it was just a meh video, or they are winding down firstthought operations.
Thanks for your comment
It's been a shame watching the deprogram boys go from something special and kind of unique to another generic sort of "breadtube" group that no longer say anything too radical. It's been a slow descent though, but I think a lot of people have tried to pretend it isn't happening, because it sucks, so it hits harder once it's no longer deniable.
Yeah, I think it's hard to maintain a communist podcast for this length of time tbh. Especially maintaining the entertainment factor. It's probably inevitable, given that so many creators end up being more moderate, due to profit motive etc.etc.
I do think the best thing they could do is drop first thought, and maybe wrap some of the ideas into the Deprogram. Sort news and news analysis, theory, and shit posting.
But they gotta do what gets them views so idk
Yeah, probably why they switched to having a guest on every week instead of talking about things on their own. Just ran out of things to say without turning into a more theory focused podcast. I think they chose to keep the same basic tone the whole time and a lot of us were expecting them to go a bit more "serious" eventually, and start actively covering more advanced ideas and theory, but they might never have even intended that in the first place. I think a lot of people (myself included) were hoping when First Thought was announced that it would be exactly that, only to find it is just as basic as JT's other stuff, making it feel redundant.
I started going down the leftist pipeline a few months before they launched the podcast. When I heard about it, it seemed perfect for me - something to deprogram liberals and get into more complex topics as time goes on. Learned a lot at first, but after about 6 months or so I started viewing it as entertainment. And I'm not an avid theory reader or anything. They still discuss some interesting topics, but it's really not radical at all and it has gotten to a point where it keeps baby leftists stuck at the start of the pipeline, instead of pushing them further
Yeah, it was always more focused on entertainment rather than education, but it's also kept a lot of people from going further, would be nice if they had a proper "further reading" section at the end of their videos and actually discussed theory every now and then. I'm always advocating for injecting humour into socialist education, but the education does still need to be there for it to work.
Yeah, right now theory is like once every 20 episodes
I just download the good episodes and put them on my Jellyfin media server, so that the people I'm trying to radicalize will only have access to the juicy stuff.
How does that work, is it a public server? Do you have any resources on Ukraine there by anu chance? I'm interested to read more about it and have some links on hand to show to friends/family, but so far most of my knowledge comes from this instance and some media like Geopolitical Economy Report, not exactly lib-friendly
Well, I would not say it's public, rather it is "publicly accessible". I give out user accounts to people I'm trying to sway, or to people who ask. Yes, there are plenty of resources on Ukraine - some YT downloads (a hodgepodge of sources, a lot of that from Ben Norton/GER), some documentaries, etc.