Thanks for the thorough background here, because I think most people (including myself) who just ignored him this whole time aren’t seeing this whole picture.
Like the comments above, they’re seeing what looks like a petty morality crusade years after a guy who makes stupid videos let a bad word slip, which, yeah, looks ridiculous out of context.
PewDiePie has been a right wing fucker that has eased a shit ton of young people into the alt-right pipeline for years.
Why am I not surprised, that this world’s definition of success always seems to go hand-in-hand with bigoted fascism?
It’s also a very chicken-or-egg question I think. I’m genuinely curious: Do internet/podcast/streamer celebrities get their status from already being like this, and signaling the fashy bros club that they’re ready to join the “in group” , or do they get pulled and influenced into that circle because they innocently found success from stupid videos?
Is social media influencing this directly via an algorithm that simply draws the connection between right-wing extremist ideals and capital wealth?
I feel so tragically for young folks. So much of anything pulling for their attention anymore is a targeted psy-op to “pipeline” them into some kind of zealotous soldier or another.
The Internet used to be about cats and gaming used to be a hobby divorced from political office except when someone tried to argue they “cause violence” every few years.
Like the comments above, they’re seeing what looks like a petty morality crusade years after a guy who makes stupid videos let a bad word slip, which, yeah, looks ridiculous out of context.
Yep, but there is also a weird parasocial relationship a lot of people have with him where everything wrong he does is just an oopsie, to the point where even when someone has the full context of what I mentioned, a lot of people can’t seem to add 1 + 1 and come to the conclusion that it isn’t just a bunch of mistakes, but rather who he is as a person. The pattern of repetition with him is always muffled by the constant barrage of people that will not hold him accountable, if you visit Reddit right now you will see just that on every Linux related sub.
It’s also a very chicken-or-egg question I think. I’m genuinely curious: Do internet/podcast/streamer celebrities get their status from already being like this, and signaling the fashy bros club that they’re ready to join the “in group” , or do they get pulled and influenced into that circle because they innocently found success from stupid videos?
It’s honestly both. The algorithm on social media platforms will favor right-wing content for a myriad of reasons, ranging from simply being part of the status quo and/or playing into suppressed prejudice of easily impressionable/influenceable people, all the way to the fact that the right is the one that holds the means to create, publicize and boost this type of content, while the left usually do not have the resources needed to do so, you can look at Prager U in the US for example, or think-tanks like Brasil Paralelo here in Brasil, where they will create a lot of very right-wing content and push it hard into the masses, usually buying a shitload of ads that will end up everywhere, included in leftist content on YouTube for example.
The Internet used to be about cats and gaming used to be a hobby divorced from political office except when someone tried to argue they “cause violence” every few years.
Yeah, the monopolization of the internet sucks, hopefully it’s not impossible to revert that. Federated social media like Lemmy here (yay!) is a good step to that, but I hope more and more people will just create websites for their interests.
I’ll disagree on the gaming point tho, gaming, like every media has always been political, it’s just that now-a-days there is a large portion of reactionary content in the pop culture and gaming communities where everything is “woke” and whatnot. And even when the content of the game might not have been political by themselves, like Tetris for example, the conditions surrounding its inception and distribution certainly were.
There is also the issue with gaming journalism, where it ends up being just a corp controlled ad for the games rather than being actual critic of the media being played. It’s like a dystopian version of cinema where the content and the message doesn’t matter, only that you help sell it to maintain your brand on the good side of these gigantic publishers.
a weird parasocial relationship a lot of people have with him where everything wrong he does is just an oopsie
This is interesting, as there are plenty of other celebrities who have a sort of “cult of personality” like this. I could be misinformed but Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey come to mind. I wonder what kind of phenomenon causes this and if there is any psychological research behind that.
gaming, like every media has always been political
Good point! The way technology itself is designed can even be political. I’d highly recommend reading Langdon Winner’s essay Do Artifacts Have Politics? about this.
I wonder what kind of phenomenon causes this and if there is any psychological research behind that.
I never seen any research on that, but I hope there is. I’ll take a wild guess and say that it’s probably linked to both, the way internet changed how we interact with people, and the hyper-individualization of capitalism.
And thanks for the link to the essay comrade, I’ll certainly read it!
Thanks for the thorough background here, because I think most people (including myself) who just ignored him this whole time aren’t seeing this whole picture.
Like the comments above, they’re seeing what looks like a petty morality crusade years after a guy who makes stupid videos let a bad word slip, which, yeah, looks ridiculous out of context.
Why am I not surprised, that this world’s definition of success always seems to go hand-in-hand with bigoted fascism?
It’s also a very chicken-or-egg question I think. I’m genuinely curious: Do internet/podcast/streamer celebrities get their status from already being like this, and signaling the fashy bros club that they’re ready to join the “in group” , or do they get pulled and influenced into that circle because they innocently found success from stupid videos?
Is social media influencing this directly via an algorithm that simply draws the connection between right-wing extremist ideals and capital wealth?
I feel so tragically for young folks. So much of anything pulling for their attention anymore is a targeted psy-op to “pipeline” them into some kind of zealotous soldier or another.
The Internet used to be about cats and gaming used to be a hobby divorced from political office except when someone tried to argue they “cause violence” every few years.
I’m glad to be able to inform!
Yep, but there is also a weird parasocial relationship a lot of people have with him where everything wrong he does is just an oopsie, to the point where even when someone has the full context of what I mentioned, a lot of people can’t seem to add 1 + 1 and come to the conclusion that it isn’t just a bunch of mistakes, but rather who he is as a person. The pattern of repetition with him is always muffled by the constant barrage of people that will not hold him accountable, if you visit Reddit right now you will see just that on every Linux related sub.
It’s honestly both. The algorithm on social media platforms will favor right-wing content for a myriad of reasons, ranging from simply being part of the status quo and/or playing into suppressed prejudice of easily impressionable/influenceable people, all the way to the fact that the right is the one that holds the means to create, publicize and boost this type of content, while the left usually do not have the resources needed to do so, you can look at Prager U in the US for example, or think-tanks like Brasil Paralelo here in Brasil, where they will create a lot of very right-wing content and push it hard into the masses, usually buying a shitload of ads that will end up everywhere, included in leftist content on YouTube for example.
Yeah, the monopolization of the internet sucks, hopefully it’s not impossible to revert that. Federated social media like Lemmy here (yay!) is a good step to that, but I hope more and more people will just create websites for their interests.
I’ll disagree on the gaming point tho, gaming, like every media has always been political, it’s just that now-a-days there is a large portion of reactionary content in the pop culture and gaming communities where everything is “woke” and whatnot. And even when the content of the game might not have been political by themselves, like Tetris for example, the conditions surrounding its inception and distribution certainly were.
There is also the issue with gaming journalism, where it ends up being just a corp controlled ad for the games rather than being actual critic of the media being played. It’s like a dystopian version of cinema where the content and the message doesn’t matter, only that you help sell it to maintain your brand on the good side of these gigantic publishers.
This is interesting, as there are plenty of other celebrities who have a sort of “cult of personality” like this. I could be misinformed but Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey come to mind. I wonder what kind of phenomenon causes this and if there is any psychological research behind that.
Good point! The way technology itself is designed can even be political. I’d highly recommend reading Langdon Winner’s essay Do Artifacts Have Politics? about this.
I never seen any research on that, but I hope there is. I’ll take a wild guess and say that it’s probably linked to both, the way internet changed how we interact with people, and the hyper-individualization of capitalism.
And thanks for the link to the essay comrade, I’ll certainly read it!