Sargon of Lolcow

[Avril Lavigne]

My niece was showing me some weird food review shit on YouTube lately and I noticed an "Epic SJWs Owned Epically by EPIC LOGIC AND FACTS Compilation #289192913" thing in the sidebar.

I noticed a few of those in my sidebar recommendations a couple of days ago yet my recent Youtube history has mostly been music videos, movie reviews, clips from '90s comedy shows and old interviews with people like Crispin Glover, so I've no idea where that stuff is coming from or why Youtube assumes I'd be interested.  The last politically-related video I remember purposefully searching for on there was a rendition of The Internationale.

[Zetetic]

Perhaps if the recommendation algorithms stuck to products and general interests, and not political viewpoints, that could help...

A fair number of people will still decry that - reducing promotion, impacting monetisation - as censorship, I note.

(And you've still got to decide what's in the 'political' bucket and what isn't, and so on.)

[bgmnts]

Rogan is arguably the most influential media figure in the world if you're talking about 18-30 white males, and 90% of people have never heard of him.

Are we talking about Joe Rogan? The UFC comedian podcaster bloke?

[Large Noise]

Are we talking about Joe Rogan? The UFC comedian podcaster bloke?

Yep, his podcast is one of the biggest on iTunes and he's got 3.5mill YouTube subscribers. Plus he puts out several hours of content each week. If you calculated it by 'number of listeners'*'number of minutes', I doubt if there's any other one person with more reach among that demographic.

He's also prone to allowing right wing guests to just pontificate for hours on end with barely any pushback.

[marquis_de_sad]

Do a lot of you not play video games either? I can't understand why that sub forum is so dead.

I find I have little to say about video games for some reason. I think maybe streaming eats up a lot of the discussions, as it's easier to make points as you play without having to construct an entire theory about the game. Also, the visual example of what you might be talking about is right there in front of you. Even a character streamer like Dr Disrespect peppers his streams with game critique.

[bgmnts]

Yep, his podcast is one of the biggest on iTunes and he's got 3.5mill YouTube subscribers. Plus he puts out several hours of content each week. If you calculated it by 'number of listeners'*'number of minutes', I doubt if there's any other one person with more reach among that demographic.

He's also prone to allowing right wing guests to just pontificate for hours on end with barely any pushback.

I just got the feeling he has anyone on who might be entertaining or interesting. Never thought he was part of any kind of right wing movement.

[Kishi the Bad Lampshade]

Fans of me might like to know I actually just wrote an article around this subject for Current Affairs, which is a very good website/magazine/podcast if you like reading about leftist stuff that is interesting and thoughtful without being bogged down in theory.


If you're looking for a source of good left-wing Youtube videos along the lines of Contrapoints, PhilosophyTube, hbomberguy etc., the subreddit r/Breadtube is a nice little source.

[Barry Admin]

Or you can just post good videos on here.

[Kishi the Bad Lampshade]

This good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ

[Barry Admin]

Thanks, I'll check it out. Actually I've seen him in a few crossover videos with ContraPoints and have been meaning to watch more of his videos.

[Large Noise]

I just got the feeling he has anyone on who might be entertaining or interesting. Never thought he was part of any kind of right wing movement.

I agree that's what he's trying to do. But I think he has certain political biases due to his position as a straight, white, middle-aged millionaire, and his background in the quite machismo worlds of martial arts and (American) stand-up comedy. Those coupled with his lack of formal education in pretty much every topic he speaks about outside MMA and comedy lead him to sympathise with and get taken-in by anybody with some letters in front of their name who wants to tell him that economic inequality is the natural order of things and that political correctness is indeed going mad.

I don't think he's a bad guy really. He's not bigoted or hateful or anything. But he's out of his depth in most political discussions, which leaves him at the mercy of some pretty unpleasant right wing guests he has on. He also has on some people on the left, in fairness, but not many.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I made this point earlier in a possibly overly verbose manner, but I'll recap it: they're not just internet dregs anymore.

Yes but only because this kind of sharing made it so.

[Z]

Rogan is arguably the most influential media figure in the world if you're talking about 18-30 white males, and 90% of people have never heard of him.

18-30 seems like a pretty big stretch, mid twenties to mid 30s seems more likely, the kind of people who got into UFC in the Spike era basically. I'm 28 and I feel like my age group would be firmly on the younger end of people he drew in.

I think Rogan is probably among the more sincere kind of "lets hear both sides" type guys who think they're a lot more on the ball than they are, he's not that bad himself but he's extremely easy for certain right wing types to play.



Oddly outta all the right wing bollocks YouTube suggests to me, it's basically never a Joe Rogan show clip.

[Funcrusher]

Things that gestate on the internet will often surface in the real world eventually. That's how SJWism happened. I've seen a few videos on YouTube by a couple of guys who are Tommy Robinson supporters who seem to be part of a kind of British working class conspiracy theory thing - they're big on Muslim grooming, establishment paedophile conspiracies and the MSM spreading propaganda. Interestingly they're both black. I wonder if this may be the roots of something - probably not anything good.

[Large Noise]

18-30 seems like a pretty big stretch, mid twenties to mid 30s seems more likely, the kind of people who got into UFC in the Spike era basically. I'm 28 and I feel like my age group would be firmly on the younger end of people he drew in.

Yeah, you're probably right

[manticore]

Anyway yeah, my take is always that social networking - and the polarisation it has engendered - has helped make the online left into a boring, prissy load of humourless, offence-taking wankers, although there are a few really good voices out there such as hbomerguy and ContraPoints.

I don't know about social networking in general, but from what I've seen the offence-taking SJW side has very little presence on youtube.

You may know these already but anyway some left channels that don't fit that description are:

The Real News (easily the best and very educational):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrmm_7RDZJeQzq2-wvmjueg

Secular Talk (not always reliable but generally informative):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCldfgbzNILYZA4dmDt4Cd6A

Democracy Now!:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzuqE7-t13O4NIDYJfakrhw

They're all pretty dry and straightforward, which is what I like, but if someone needed lots of gimmicks, jump cuts etc. they wouldn't like them.

[Funcrusher]

Yeah, The Real News has left wing content with real substance - Bill Black on corrupt bankers or Norman Finkelstein on Palestine. Lefty YouTubers offering the zillionth snarky "takedown" of Jordan Peterson I can do without. The Majority Report is also good.

[Dog Botherer]

Fans of me might like to know I actually just wrote an article around this subject for Current Affairs, which is a very good website/magazine/podcast if you like reading about leftist stuff that is interesting and thoughtful without being bogged down in theory.


If you're looking for a source of good left-wing Youtube videos along the lines of Contrapoints, PhilosophyTube, hbomberguy etc., the subreddit r/Breadtube is a nice little source.

Cool, had actually seen this on Twitter earlier and have it bookmarked to read later. Current Affairs is probably my favourite lefty site.

[Benevolent Despot]

I go to Secular Talk, Majority Report, Young Turks for my Alex Jones hit now that he can only be promoted in the third person. Such a contrast between those snoozevilles and turbo-dinosaur-power Alex. Actually, Mr. Jones was my gateway drug to the boring left through Youtube recommendations. What goes around comes around.

[manticore]

This good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ

Not at all convinced by that. It makes a very general philosophical justification for why violence against fascism can't be equated with violence by fascists, but that's just about all. It doesn't explain why antifa's approach and tactics are justified or appropriate in present conditions. Preventing and breaking up meetings, lobbing piss bottles etc. are authoritarian tactics which can easily been turned back against the people who practise them. Antifa also undermine largely peaceful protests, giving the media sensationalist footage of violence to focus on and to ignore the reasons for the protest, and justifying police violence.

The video doesn't deal with any of that.

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

Of course the real reason we have these insufferable bellends are cluttering up our YouTubez is that we still have a legacy media that refuses to talk about diversity, gender issues, men's right, in any way which doesn't tell us the opposite of what we so often see. When you create a culture of silence within the respectable press, it does rather leave the gate wide open for anyone of the middling intelligence required to be a journalist to come along and say 'what we're all really thinking' and to be hailed as reactionary geniuses in the process. Yes, we have the tabloids. There's plenty of Little Johns and Katie Hopkinses to go round. But, obviously, there's a new generation of people who want their dicks a little smarter, and dare I say it, less middleclass and middleaged.

[marquis_de_sad]

Nah, not buying that. Half of them were fully on the New Atheist bandwagon a few years ago, making videos about Fundies and Scientologists. In fact a lot of that crop of Youtube people are, like Sargon, currently being ripped apart by the alt-right. It isn't SJWs or whatever that fuels these things, it's drama. And when the SJW wave ebbs away, they'll move on to something else. But there will always be drama.

[marquis_de_sad]

And if you want more proof of that, look at youtubers who aren't associated with politics: the Paul brothers, KSI, Onision, Keemstar, Leafy (before he went into hiding) etc etc. Take SJWs out of the picture and nothing changes. Take away drama and their channels would be completely unrecognisable.

[Benevolent Despot]

Rogan is arguably the most influential media figure in the world if you're talking about 18-30 white males, and 90% of people have never heard of him.

I'm more puzzled by this guy's popularity than the Sarg. He seems so boring. No way I've got the patience to listen to a 3 hour podcast with that voice. He looks like a bodybuilder who's about to pop, too.

[Cloud]

Fans of me might like to know I actually just wrote an article around this subject for Current Affairs, which is a very good website/magazine/podcast if you like reading about leftist stuff that is interesting and thoughtful without being bogged down in theory.


If you're looking for a source of good left-wing Youtube videos along the lines of Contrapoints, PhilosophyTube, hbomberguy etc., the subreddit r/Breadtube is a nice little source.

This good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ

All interesting stuff, read the full article and watched the video (will have to check out the reddit as well)

I think the video will take at least another viewing to properly digest, but that it's pretty important viewing for anyone wanting to comment on fascism or antifa. Though I don't think it's perfect (per manticore's comments, and that you don't just take one video as gospel)
Also made me think a bit more about quite what "free speech" really is and whether that should really extend to providing a platform (e.g. Twitter) to fascists, along with the complex question of how to actually define a fascist.

Thanks

Yes but only because this kind of sharing made it so.

Thinking about this more, particularly in relation to the things Kishi shared, I'm actually less convinced now that the answer is to stop making threads about these people on random internet forums.  When someone is given a platform and (knowingly or not) exploits its algorithms and gets their voice out, it'll be heard, and people (you may consider them thick or whatever, but they're still people and still have some influence in the world) will be sucked in.  By having these discussions we can actually talk about how to deal with this shit rather than letting it quietly infest everyone who clicks around Youtube, for example.

I know you said it's not about one thread, but of course, every one thread or other type of discussion adds up and I don't think any individual can stop them happening - they'll happen, might as well turn that problem into an opportunity.

[marquis_de_sad]

I can understand why he wants to ignore attention-seekers, but I'm not convinced by Shoulder's argument that making Sargon look really really bad is going to encourage more people to be like him. Nor am I convinced that Sargon's popularity or success was down to people sharing his content to mock or disagree with him. Until recently he had a large fanbase who watched and shared his stuff because they liked it.

[Barry Admin]

Nah, not buying that. Half of them were fully on the New Atheist bandwagon a few years ago, making videos about Fundies and Scientologists. In fact a lot of that crop of Youtube people are, like Sargon, currently being ripped apart by the alt-right. It isn't SJWs or whatever that fuels these things, it's drama. And when the SJW wave ebbs away, they'll move on to something else. But there will always be drama.

There's a ton of truth here for sure. I actually got burnt out by the explosion of drama in 2016, and fucked it all off for ages.

Last Sunday, waiting for Mister Metokur to "dunk on" Sargon? I'm not kidding when I say that was an event I got ridiculously excited and energised about, as if it was a heavyweight boxing title fight or something. 28,000 of us in the end, laughing our balls off at Jim ripping the living piss out of Sargon's ill-fitting suit and muted mic. It was beautiful, it was #1 on trending, and it was very definitely drama.

[greenman]

YouTube's algorithms are definitely up to something when it comes to this kind of crappy content. One of the big problems is that these chucklefucks just shit out an endless diarrhea jetstream of utter shite - look at manic bastards like Stefan Molyneux to see what I mean, the crazy fuck is pumping out 2 hour long videos every other day, sometimes several times a day.

Every remotely left-leaning channel I've seen takes weeks to prepare and research videos. When it comes to views, and therefore what YouTube will suggest to you, carefully argued, well-researched videos have no chance at all against reactionary rants that can be recorded in one take and uploaded on the same day.

My niece was showing me some weird food review shit on YouTube lately and I noticed an "Epic SJWs Owned Epically by EPIC LOGIC AND FACTS Compilation #289192913" thing in the sidebar. She's probably far too smart to click on it and fall for that shit, but there's a constant lingering fear at the back of my mind that the next time she comes around to visit, she'll goose-step into the room and seig heil before ranting about the Muslamic invaders, and all will be lost.

The issue I spose is these kinds of rants typically don't demand much of the viewer, if your having your bigotry pandered to or your looking down on someone elses obvious bigotry.

[Bhazor]

Of course the real reason we have these insufferable bellends are cluttering up our YouTubez is that we still have a legacy media that refuses to talk about diversity, gender issues, men's right, in any way which doesn't tell us the opposite of what we so often see.

Nope and its this exact argument that these cunts use to push their nonsense. The best example being Tommy Robinson who is hailed as hero for "breaking the truth" forgetting the bit that his "expose" was reading out a BBC news article. Its the exact same bullshit they've been pushing for decades. Its PC Gone mad! Jeremy Clarkson is the only one who tells it like it is! The real people of this country don't have a voice!

[jobotic]

Of course the real reason we have these insufferable bellends are cluttering up our YouTubez is that we still have a legacy media that refuses to talk about diversity, gender issues, men's right, in any way which doesn't tell us the opposite of what we so often see. When you create a culture of silence within the respectable press, it does rather leave the gate wide open for anyone of the middling intelligence required to be a journalist to come along and say 'what we're all really thinking' and to be hailed as reactionary geniuses in the process. Yes, we have the tabloids. There's plenty of Little Johns and Katie Hopkinses to go round. But, obviously, there's a new generation of people who want their dicks a little smarter, and dare I say it, less middleclass and middleaged.

Of course.