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Contrapoints

Started by Mister Six, June 15, 2021, 02:15:25 AM

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MoreauVasz

Bit disappointing to see her go down the 'people who criticise me are just jealous' route. She admits it's a cliche and gauche but I would say it was straight-up wrong too.

Mr Trumpet

I don't think it is wrong. When Lindsay Ellis got briefly driven off Twitter there were literally people eagerly posting "Jenny Nicholson/Sarah Z next", the only connection being that those are also successful (female) youtubers with overlapping audiences. No actual specific intimation that they'd done anything objectionable. There are definitely people on Twitter sad and miserable enough to go in for this tall poppy stuff.

MoreauVasz

The fact that some pricks seem to be working their way through YouTube looking for people to bully off the Internet doesn't automatically mean that they're motivated by jealousy.

Buelligan

No it does not but it doesn't prove they're not either. 

Anyway, I'm not entirely convinced a Guardian article will always and only reflect the absolute reality of any given situation.  Listening to her talking about it on her own channel might prove a more useful way of divining exactly what she thinks.

Mr_Simnock

Quote from: MoreauVasz on June 17, 2021, 10:31:21 AM
Bit disappointing to see her go down the 'people who criticise me are just jealous' route. She admits it's a cliche and gauche but I would say it was straight-up wrong too.

Oh for the love of god, that line is usually the reserve of celebrities with skin thinner than graphene. I find her output to be style over substance (there is substance there yes but burried under a ton of padded out nothingness), that's just what I think, nothing more.

Mr Trumpet

Well you can take some comfort in the fact that's an inaccurate paraphrasing of what she says in the article.

MoreauVasz

Always reminds me of Prince Edward declaring that people in the UK hate success.

I don't think online witch hunts have much to do with jealousy.

Buelligan

Now you mention it, Prince Edward and Nathalie Wynn are lives in parallel.  I can totally see that.  She's probably lying about the jealousy agenda to cover her obvious personal flaws and philosophical failings.  And to think I even liked her at one point!

Dr Rock

Her next vid is titled Envy so I'm sure she'll make herself clear there

pigamus

Quote from: MoreauVasz on June 17, 2021, 11:36:56 AM
The fact that some pricks seem to be working their way through YouTube looking for people to bully off the Internet doesn't automatically mean that they're motivated by jealousy.

Doesn't mean they're not, either.

Cuellar

Quote from: Contrapoints"One of the things I really don't like about my own generation is the hyper-moralism of it. It's like this extreme Spanish inquisition mentality that we have on social media, of trying to detect the signs of heresy and root it out."

Is this really a hallmark of her (and my) generation, though? She's 32. I'd associate it more with Gen Zers. Maybe wrongly. She's more online than I am, so she probably knows best. But my own peers are absolutely NOT going around rooting out heresy on twitter. I'd say 'our' generation, maybe just in the UK, is still the generation of ironic racism/sexism, the Ricky Gervais generation. We all know racism is wrong so sending those whatsapp images where it looks like a screenshot of a news story but when you expand it there's a black guy with an enormous cock is absolutely FINE.

touchingcloth

Quote from: Cuellar on June 17, 2021, 12:50:32 PM
Is this really a hallmark of her (and my) generation, though? She's 32. I'd associate it more with Gen Zers. Maybe wrongly. She's more online than I am, so she probably knows best. But my own peers are absolutely NOT going around rooting out heresy on twitter. I'd say 'our' generation, maybe just in the UK, is still the generation of ironic racism/sexism, the Ricky Gervais generation. We all know racism is wrong so sending those whatsapp images where it looks like a screenshot of a news story but when you expand it there's a black guy with an enormous cock is absolutely FINE.

I don't think it's widely seen as being fine, and I'm the same generation. It definitely happens among certain kinds of cunts, but I see it as out-and-out racism as opposed to being ironic. I get the sense that for our generation even truly ironic racism has fallen out of favour since Black Lives Matter.

Cuellar

Yes, I think you're right that 'ironic' racism isn't really acceptable among us now, but that certainly wasn't always the case. And you're right it's probably not widely regarded as FINE, but the person (the actual person, this is an example from real life) who does send round those racist 'ha ha look at this black man with a big cock' images, is also quick to condemn, in the same group chat, any celeb that does a race-dozy. I say 'ironic' racism because I think this person wouldn't think of themselves as a racist, or that those images are racist necessarily (which doesn't MAKE them not racist, of course), but I suppose it's not really ironic - just hypocritical, thick, whatever. But I think it's certainly a hangover from the 'irony' days.

Either way, I don't know anyone from my generation who is actively trawling twitter looking for people to cancel. I don't know anyone who really uses 'social media' much.

TrenterPercenter

#73
Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on June 15, 2021, 03:57:35 PM
One thing I've noticed more and more in these liberal Youtube videos (you can't really call them lefty anymore) is the technique of getting all their friends in to read the citations. This is innocent enough because I think it started as a joke from gaming channels where a friend of the uploader would cameo as a voice at an inappropriate time, something younger audiences love. But its fallen into a brand synergy thing. The problem is it that it creates the illusion of consensus (everyone in the in group agrees) without anyone specifically voicing their agreement. Its exactly the same thing that Fox and Sky - cut to the studio where everyone makes jokey remarks about a report, and while they're not really saying that they agree or explicitly endorsing an opinion, but their presence is there to bolster the idea that there is a commonsense/consensus view that everyone in the Good Guy group agrees with. Bomberguy's last video on vaccines was full of this. Its a dangerous thing to start doing if you're the "rational" or "progressive" side of the argument, or if you're the "debunker" of myths and fake news.

I don't think this is a problem; people on the left are in consensus on somethings and surely that is of key important for collectivist movements.  The cameos are just an aesthetic.  I think this leads us somewhat back to our conversation before, this isn't academic it is an attempt to make leftwing politics accessible; which has always been challenging.  A lot of the reason rightwing politics travel so well is because they activate primitive and simplistic mental states (states that provide the path of least resistance).  You can think about Maslows Hierarchy of needs with the rightwing politics at the bottom and leftwing ones at the top; you need to keep people hungry, scared and insecure in order to keep them distracted that the hierarchy exists and questions begin to be asked.  Likewise you need to move up the hierarchy of needs to make sense of the suffering contained with in it (and as this happens people formulate whether they prefer to preserve or deconstruct).  The ascent is a progression of complexity whilst the descent is a dive in to more reactive and simple projections of the world[nb]I'm being simplistic for brevity - but there is a key thing here about the idea that this is only about wealth but it is not it's about yes capital but is also about lots of other aspects the Marx and other spoke about alienation and lack of community being a big one[/nb] (it's why I keep trying to suggest that being reactive and reductionist is not healthy for leftwing politics).

I see Contrapoints and the like doing this; they are educators, perhaps not in the purely academic sense; but as leading people into a better understanding of the world and guarding against them "making sense" of things in a why that seeks to oppress others for individual gain (and this has to be mapped to what is reasonable and feasible for people).

PS - also highlighted a bit that I think on reflection you will admit is a bit "mate"

touchingcloth

I think coming from a mixed race background that I've always given ironic racism a bit of a free pass, because the idea of racism is so fucking ridiculously absurd to me that I think my assumption has been that seemingly-ironic racism from other people has come from a similar place. The fact that it really isn't was something that was really hammered home for me by BLM in quite a depressing way, and overnight my view of the WhatsApped pictures of black cocks completely changed. It's back to the days of putting people from other races in travelling freak shows.

Sorry, what was this thread about again?

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse


Video Game Fan 2000

Quote from: TrenterPercenter on June 17, 2021, 01:39:20 PM
I don't think this is a problem; people on the left are in consensus on somethings and surely that is of key important for collectivist movements.  The cameos are just an aesthetic.  I think this leads us somewhat back to our conversation before, this isn't academic it is an attempt to make leftwing politics accessible; which has always been challenging.  A lot of the reason rightwing politics travel so well is because they activate primitive and simplistic mental states (states that provide the path of least resistance).  You can think about Maslows Hierarchy of needs with the rightwing politics at the bottom and leftwing ones at the top; you need to keep people hungry, scared and insecure in order to keep them distracted that the hierarchy exists and questions begin to be asked.  Likewise you need to move up the hierarchy of needs to see make sense of the suffering contained with in it (and as this happens people formulate whether they prefer to preserve or deconstruct).  The ascent is a progression of complexity whilst the descent is a dive in to more reactive and simple projections of the world[nb]I'm being simplistic for brevity - but there is a key thing here about the idea that this is only about wealth but it is not it's about yes capital but is also about lots of other aspects the Marx and other spoke about alienation and lack of community being a big one[/nb] (it's why I keep trying to suggest that being reactive and reductionist is not healthy for leftwing politics).

I see Contrapoints and the like doing this; they are educators, perhaps not in the purely academic sense; but as leading people into a better understanding of the world and guarding against them "making sense" of things in a why that seeks to oppress others for individual gain (and this has to be mapped to what is reasonable and feasible for people).

PS - also highlighted a bit that I think on reflection you will admit is a bit "mate"

I think the problem is that its easy for leftwing things to appear more in-groupy than they actually are, or more concerned with consensus within a small group of personalities than they actually are.

About 5/6 years ago when hard right stuff was still a growing interest on Youtube, you could see that a key part of the gimmick was rotating personalities between different channels to give the illusion that there was a vibrant community of conservative thinkers who were being surpressed by the mainstream media. It was effective for a while but its something that can't be sustained because eventually one someone is a guest for the third or forth time, saying the exact same thing, the illusion is broken

It's not that its the same as right wing media in intent, its the effect is negative: I think younger people are much more sensitive to being presented with "in group" politics. One of the major complaints  I've read about Contrapoints or others is that that people are unsure whether they're getting an argument or a restatement of consensus. A lot of people seemed pissed off by Contrapoints endorsement of Biden not because of the sentiment, but because it was taken rightly or wrongly, as an expression of a liberal consensus in new media by left leaning people who were looking for her for a good reason to swallow their prinicipals and vote for a despicable candidate.

A lot of online stuff veers closely to "you should believe this because all the right people already believe it" and I think its gonna take a major change in how information is presented to change that. There's nothing wrong with a bit of Us v Them but when millions of dollars enters the equation the exact qualities that make "us" the respectable side tends to change.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on June 17, 2021, 02:25:45 PM
About 5/6 years ago when hard right stuff was still a growing interest on Youtube, you could see that a key part of the gimmick was rotating personalities between different channels to give the illusion that there was a vibrant community of conservative thinkers who were being surpressed by the mainstream media. It was effective for a while but its something that can't be sustained because eventually one someone is a guest for the third or forth time, saying the exact same thing, the illusion is broken

It's not that its the same as right wing media in intent, its the effect is negative: I think younger people are much more sensitive to being presented with "in group" politics. One of the major complaints  I've read about Contrapoints or others is that that people are unsure whether they're getting an argument or a restatement of consensus. A lot of people seemed pissed off by Contrapoints endorsement of Biden not because of the sentiment, but because it was taken rightly or wrongly, as an expression of a liberal consensus in new media by left leaning people who were looking for her for a good reason to swallow their prinicipals and vote for a despicable candidate.

I completely agree that the left should be seeking pluralistic representation across its interests.  My issue has always been what should be classified as part of these interests.  We are both agreed that there are movements and individuals that seem to actively work against inclusive evolutionary ideas and thoughts.  I think this is a different thing however from the "in group" cliques you are talking about.  These are things that emerge from a lack of inclusive and "liberal" in the proper sense of the word discussion; again with spoken about this before that can simply be down to who is conceded the power to beat the drum, what kind of person that is and why they are interested in occupying such a position in the first place.  I don't think the CP is someone promoting consensus and conformity to leftwing politics; she's got whole characters lampooning this and metaphysical skits about her own struggles with these concepts.  She regularly promotes a discourse about things; with a good example being endorsing Biden.  Her better the devil you know is pragmatically rational; it's other people that othered her and continue to other, other people (soz) for being more flexible and strategic than just engaging with the priced in anger, often self-indulgent and often reactive leftwing reductionism.  I feel completely at home with Natalies views because they absolutely do not appear to come from a place of exclusionary moral self-improvement but a belief in actually protecting others (a bizarre concept I'm sure to others but utterly simplistic to those that understand it).

That being said just like Corbyn she is not to be deified or lazily projected onto.   This is more a feature of her popularity and audience as she has made efforts to counteract this imo, Corbyn much less so (again imo).  It is a massive paradox; how do you have collectivism and comradeship that does not devolve into consensus seeking, cults of personality leading to general misanthropy and depression.  It's not easy as there is psychological inertia here.  My view is for better assessment of what is inclusive and groups ability for groups to be self-regulating (i.e. when someone is wrong you tell them that regardless of their position or powerplay in leftwing spaces); it needs to form an identifiable cultural code of conduct - we are still at the stage in which this is seen as a threat; being organised that is, which is what the left is actually all about. 

This will be the future I'm sure of it as it is already doing it in the states.  I'd perhaps be inclined to think it wouldn't catch on; but the UK left, whilst politically more powerful than it has been in a while, is completely bereft of transformative ideas and resistant to the formative adaptive change that has kept it relevant in the face of incredible power and interest in eradicating it.  It's got as far as being really really angry on twitter about things; making up it's own technocratic jargon (that'll show 'em) and literally welcoming offence as a chance to make-memes-get-paid and so they can fire their morality missiles at....I mean what is the point of having them if you can't use them?.  In the US right now and as a reaction to some of the movements that I know you have at least bothered to assess, their are shoots of a healthy refutation of this and it has all the tantalising pull that proper leftwing politics should have; I suspect this is an unstoppable force in the end (well it is at least what brings me hope).

CP is absolutely the type of person that instills this stuff; neither preachy or conformist; neither wet or unhealthily belligerent; willing to listen but willing to challenge; present in the march to humanity and not absent in the race to self interest.  I think people get thrown by her aesthetics and her own self proclaimed but ultimately false narcissism; your hero's should always be flawed; it should be embraced.

peanutbutter

Quote from: Cuellar on June 17, 2021, 12:50:32 PM
Is this really a hallmark of her (and my) generation, though? She's 32. I'd associate it more with Gen Zers. Maybe wrongly. She's more online than I am, so she probably knows best. But my own peers are absolutely NOT going around rooting out heresy on twitter. I'd say 'our' generation, maybe just in the UK, is still the generation of ironic racism/sexism, the Ricky Gervais generation. We all know racism is wrong so sending those whatsapp images where it looks like a screenshot of a news story but when you expand it there's a black guy with an enormous cock is absolutely FINE.
Depends how online you are, I would say it was at its worst on Tumblr about 6 years ago; it's perhaps more prevalent amongst gen z but to counter that I get the impression gen z overall is a good bit better at noticing when it's total bollocks cos they've grown up with it as a common part of online discourse and there's a lot more stuff to read into on whether the person calling you a bigot is making a valid point, how seriously they mean the terms they're dishing out, etc. People like Contrapoints definitely playing a big part in helping that development, along with Bernie Sanders emerging at the forefront of US politics with actual political beliefs that appealed to a wide range of people rather than a lot of the token identity stuff that was a huge part of that tumblr discourse back in the day.


itsfredtitmus

Feel like if you were to show one of her videos to someone that didn't 'get' trans stuff it would instead have the opposite effect and turn them into a trans-exclusionary fem because of how narcissistic and image based this person actually is

Buelligan

Maybe it's not the foremost duty of members of minority groups who suffer exclusion and prejudice to comport themselves in ways that target the approval of those that dislike or oppress them. 

Anyone who thinks it's OK to be hateful or dismissive to a whole tranche of humanity simply because one or two members of it failed to show sufficient meek deference, failed to adopt a correct submissive posture, needs punting into the ocean, IMO.

Bernice

Quote from: itsfredtitmus on June 18, 2021, 05:36:33 AM
Feel like if you were to show one of her videos to someone that didn't 'get' trans stuff it would instead have the opposite effect and turn them into a trans-exclusionary fem because of how narcissistic and image based this person actually is

Feel like this is a stupid thing to think.

PlanktonSideburns

I think there are plenty of terf wankers who would love Contrapoints for the things you're talking about there, it's not just us good guys who like aesthetics and glamour

PlanktonSideburns

Also I feel like she is well not narcissistic, she's fascinated by how others think and makes a hell of a go of trying to understand people who don't think she should exist

pigamus

I think it blows their mind that somebody can have a serious side and a frivolous side, but doing serious stuff with a glossy coating is the whole point of her

Mr Trumpet

Yeah performative flamboyance and a drag aesthetic don't equal narcissism. But she addresses this in one of her videos, where she does a bit in a smock and a hairnet.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

Quote from: Mr Trumpet on June 18, 2021, 08:34:07 AM
Yeah performative flamboyance and a drag aesthetic don't equal narcissism. But she addresses this in one of her videos, where she does a bit in a smock and a hairnet.
"Neyow neyow neyow neyow - I can't stand this, fuck this"

peanutbutter

Quote from: itsfredtitmus on June 18, 2021, 05:36:33 AM
Feel like if you were to show one of her videos to someone that didn't 'get' trans stuff it would instead have the opposite effect and turn them into a trans-exclusionary fem because of how narcissistic and image based this person actually is
I think the aesthetics have possibly reached the point they're alienating to new people (especially coupled with the length) but I would say they def did and probably still do have the potential to be quite disarming. Like, people will put it on ready to hate on it and then realise the person is actually making an effort to address the exact kind of things they were confused by but didn't know how to phrase in a manner that would get anything other than a hostile response from trans twitter or wherever.

Dex Sawash


Is there someone great who does youtube vids that are like 2-3 minutes max?

Retinend

I agree that she is slightly narcissistic. She'd probably be the first to admit it. She made a feature-length video about her unrequited feelings for another YouTuber, for example.