I’ve seen her deradicalize at least 15 of my former highschool students and there are plenty of stories of how she pulled people from the alt-right so even if I don’t agree with everything she says I frankly don’t feel the urge to cancel her.
She deradicalized a friend of mine who was at best an edgy centrist and pretty much also an MRA. He used to use manosphere talking points, now he's reading Marx and arming himself. Did he still send cringe takes in the group chat before the US election? Yeah. I think that election video was deeply flawed, and I did have it out with him about it, but if dude wants to vote for Biden in NYC, it's whatever in the end. Especially since after the election, he's right there with us criticising his cabinet picks and Obama.
I've never watched her videos. I have no interest in doing so, at all, but it's still cool that she managed to pull my friend left.
I don't know your classmates, but I do know people whose politics come from internet videos. From my experience, their ideologies are volatile, easily changed with the correct rhetoric, and often incoherent. Two people I've known were proto-alt-right anti-SJW about 10 years ago, got vocally leftist in 2015 around the advent of leftist YouTube, and now both of them are an odd kind of centrist Catholic. Other people I've known actually went further to the right after exposure to breadtube personalities, so it seems hit or miss.
These were my students not classmates. They were suburbanite white kids who watched praeger U and Shapiro for fun. It happens more then you’d think in wealthy communities.
Natalie is the first real gasp of air many people who live in bubbles like that get. She speaks to people with her sort of right edgy humor takes and all those students who were pretty monstrous are now pretty far left from what I can tell/heard (one just helped organize a protest outside a prison to demand BLM protestors get realesed)
I know it’s subjective evidence but I’ve seen her do more then most people on this sub will ever do to deradicalize people.
So sorry dude. I’m not gonna turn on her. I’ll criticize her shit takes but I’m not gonna flat out cancel someone for doing good shit. Call me a lib all you want for this
Bitch I’ve read Marx, I’ve also read Mao where he says to acknowledge the material conditions of your situation and work around those. And that no one movement is the exact same.
Being a purist for purity sake is fucking stupid ESPECIALLY now adays. We can either big tent and succeed. Or can be picked off in small groups one by one, blaming everyone else for not being the one true leftist.
Sorry if I came across as rude or overly harsh. Wasn't my intention. I'm not asking for anyone to get canceled nor was I criticizing her work on the basis of its content. I'm simply skeptical about the long lasting importance of kids going from one set of YouTube personalities to another set. I'm not convinced it impacts much beyond an aesthetic kids might adopt, nor do I believe they will even stick with it in 10 years. Sure, it pierces a bubble and shows them things they've never heard before. My anecdotal evidence suggests that after an initial period of interest, those kids will find something new to latch into, or they fall right back into what they initially watched, or they just become vaguely apolitical, or really anyhhing else. It doesn't stick because what they were initially didn't stick either, because it was always a superficial aesthetic.
Again, apologies if I seemed rude. Didn't mean to be confrontational in that way. I'm simply skeptical of the deradicalization angle when it comes to what I view as primarily an entertainment product.
If there's any academic studies on this topic I'd love to see it. I'm going off of personal experience and hunches here. I might also just be a grumpy old person. Watch whatever content you like and I'm happy if you enjoy it or if their work is meaningful. I've enjoyed ContraPoints content in the past and she's pretty funny sometimes.
Better then being fucking Ben Shapiro listening N word spouting reclaim the west types.
Plus most of us started atlas radlibs, don’t fuck with people simply because they aren’t as furhh th era long as you down the radicalization path. That’s how we loose a movement.
I’ve seen her deradicalize at least 15 of my former highschool students and there are plenty of stories of how she pulled people from the alt-right so even if I don’t agree with everything she says I frankly don’t feel the urge to cancel her.
She deradicalized a friend of mine who was at best an edgy centrist and pretty much also an MRA. He used to use manosphere talking points, now he's reading Marx and arming himself. Did he still send cringe takes in the group chat before the US election? Yeah. I think that election video was deeply flawed, and I did have it out with him about it, but if dude wants to vote for Biden in NYC, it's whatever in the end. Especially since after the election, he's right there with us criticising his cabinet picks and Obama.
I've never watched her videos. I have no interest in doing so, at all, but it's still cool that she managed to pull my friend left.
I don't know your classmates, but I do know people whose politics come from internet videos. From my experience, their ideologies are volatile, easily changed with the correct rhetoric, and often incoherent. Two people I've known were proto-alt-right anti-SJW about 10 years ago, got vocally leftist in 2015 around the advent of leftist YouTube, and now both of them are an odd kind of centrist Catholic. Other people I've known actually went further to the right after exposure to breadtube personalities, so it seems hit or miss.
These were my students not classmates. They were suburbanite white kids who watched praeger U and Shapiro for fun. It happens more then you’d think in wealthy communities.
Natalie is the first real gasp of air many people who live in bubbles like that get. She speaks to people with her sort of right edgy humor takes and all those students who were pretty monstrous are now pretty far left from what I can tell/heard (one just helped organize a protest outside a prison to demand BLM protestors get realesed)
I know it’s subjective evidence but I’ve seen her do more then most people on this sub will ever do to deradicalize people.
So sorry dude. I’m not gonna turn on her. I’ll criticize her shit takes but I’m not gonna flat out cancel someone for doing good shit. Call me a lib all you want for this
"I will never read Marx"
Bitch I’ve read Marx, I’ve also read Mao where he says to acknowledge the material conditions of your situation and work around those. And that no one movement is the exact same.
Being a purist for purity sake is fucking stupid ESPECIALLY now adays. We can either big tent and succeed. Or can be picked off in small groups one by one, blaming everyone else for not being the one true leftist.
Sorry if I came across as rude or overly harsh. Wasn't my intention. I'm not asking for anyone to get canceled nor was I criticizing her work on the basis of its content. I'm simply skeptical about the long lasting importance of kids going from one set of YouTube personalities to another set. I'm not convinced it impacts much beyond an aesthetic kids might adopt, nor do I believe they will even stick with it in 10 years. Sure, it pierces a bubble and shows them things they've never heard before. My anecdotal evidence suggests that after an initial period of interest, those kids will find something new to latch into, or they fall right back into what they initially watched, or they just become vaguely apolitical, or really anyhhing else. It doesn't stick because what they were initially didn't stick either, because it was always a superficial aesthetic.
Again, apologies if I seemed rude. Didn't mean to be confrontational in that way. I'm simply skeptical of the deradicalization angle when it comes to what I view as primarily an entertainment product.
If there's any academic studies on this topic I'd love to see it. I'm going off of personal experience and hunches here. I might also just be a grumpy old person. Watch whatever content you like and I'm happy if you enjoy it or if their work is meaningful. I've enjoyed ContraPoints content in the past and she's pretty funny sometimes.
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if our politics are determined by our material conditions, they're still radlibs
Better then being fucking Ben Shapiro listening N word spouting reclaim the west types.
Plus most of us started atlas radlibs, don’t fuck with people simply because they aren’t as furhh th era long as you down the radicalization path. That’s how we loose a movement.
Pretty much. Personally I just logged off listening to her and haven't had anything to do with her since.