Posted on 03/26/2017 9:03:33 AM PDT by Lorianne
"Twitter is a tiny echo chamber. I'm not sure the left understand the monumental ass-whupping being dished out to them on YouTube."
Thus reads a tweet posted this Tuesday by InfoWars editor Paul Joseph Watson, who you may remember best as the right-wing vlogger who inadvertently promised every journalist in the world a free holiday to Sweden.
As with most things PJW does nowadays, the tweet was immediately and widely mocked. But however fun mocking Watson might be, there was a curious hollowness to the whole affair.
PJW's tweet offers a sketch of the social media terrain that seems spot-on. Twitter isn't wholly dominated by the left, but – Donald Trump and anyone with an egg avatar aside – left-wing views are certainly better-represented there than on any other major social network. However, left-wing Twitter has failed to translate into real-world influence. Twitter conversations aren't very accessible to outsiders.
The "echo chamber" trope is lazy and inaccurate – I've personally learnt a huge amount from people on Twitter, and often this has led to my political views changing as well. Nevertheless, Twitter lends itself best to the refinement of people's views in conversation with people they already share some sympathy with. It's an effective tool for dragging young Labour voters further left, perhaps, but not turning Trump voters into Black Lives Matter activists.
The videos these people produce are a lot of things – "amateurish" and "mind-numblingly tedious" are among the main descriptors I'd use. But somehow, they're incredibly effective. Let's face it: anyone who can get hundreds of thousands of views for a one-hour rant about Owen Jones is worthy of at least our anthropological interest, if not quite our respect.
The most famous instance of far-right views being disseminated on YouTube is PewDiePie – the site's biggest star, commanding an audience of literally millions of impressionable teenage boys, who for some reason want to watch him play computer games. He was dropped by Disney after it emerged that his videos included antisemitic jokes and Nazi imagery. PewDiePie wrote a blog post declaring: "I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes... Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive."
What PewDiePie does is very different from the likes of PJW, but this ironic racism can offer us a good example of what happens when these views, prominent in YouTube's ecosystem as they are, become normalised. Such videos are – at least anecdotally – having a measurable effect on how these kids talk about Jews, or the Nazis.
OK, ENOUGH, SNIP
Lol.
I have a wife.
You have no woman and struggle with “those feelings”.
I understand cucks like you.
You only voted for Trump after your wife's boyfriend talked you into it.
Weak.
Anyhow, one day maybe you’ll actually kiss a girl, with emphasis on maybe.
You can keep fantasizing about Jones and his groveling at the feet of the pervert pizza guy.
Oh yeah, and keep saying cuck and butthurt. Makes you look cool
Weak.
Anyhow, one day maybe you’ll actually kiss a girl, with emphasis on maybe.
You can keep fantasizing about Jones and his groveling at the feet of the pervert pizza guy.
Oh yeah, and keep saying cuck and butthurt. Makes you look cool
Wow, I've certainly triggered you, haven't I?
Cuckservatives melt down just as much as SJWs when they get triggered. Always entertaining.
What triggered you, the fact that Alex Jones fights the Left, or your wife's preference for real men?
One thing all you Gamma Male cucks have in common is that you always punch Right.
Because the most important thing isn't defeating the Left and defending America, it's moral self righteousness.
Now be a good boy and run to the store and get your wife's boyfriend a pack of smokes. He likes a cigarette when he's done servicing her.
YouTube
= = =
What is the gender neutral word for ‘you’?
I am offended by YouTube.
ZitTube, You-allTube, NotMeTube, ZeusTube, ... must be something better than YouTube.
Triggered?
I think you’re confused about who was “triggered”.
You use the left’s language and embrace their paradigms.
And you talk like a celibate with zero heterosexual experience.
Ya’ll Tube?
You are right about that I think.
The socialists prevail on a platform like Twitter because their thoughts tend to be short. Attention span is very short. More than 240 characters confuses them or they lose the train of thought in longer pieces. They are very much raised on TV and Sesame street that train and maintain infantile attention spans into adulthood.
I listened faithfully to Air America to be “fair” to the other side but never heard a reasoned argument or anything resembling wit or humor. All I heard was twisted-mouth name calling and totally unsupported assertions.
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