All leftist video creators are overrated, leftist authors less so but there’s still a huge contingent of them that are just co-opted by their main topic of critique. I don’t think this is a failing on the creators themselves but a feature of the market.
When you get down to it, no matter how ideologically ‘pure’ you manage to be, once you’re earning money for something - even if it’s not your primary income - your ability to affect the change you’re talking about becomes limited. You don’t want to risk your income. You don’t want to get ‘cancelled’ by your peers. For some this comes down to mindful self-censorship, but for most they don’t even realize that they’ve started down the algorithmic intellectual death spiral.
But! I think this is very okay and for our purposes can be leveraged. I absorbed endless amounts of this content when I was feeling the full effects of alienation. Alone all day, underappreciated and working my body to the bone in a warehouse. The reason I read ML theory at all is because of some of these chucklefucks - ThoughtSlime, The Deprogram, even broader liberal-types like Hbomberguy. They were friendly voices to listen to and fueled an inherent rebellious nature most of us have within.
But content cycles, your interests peak and change, and if you walk away from ““breadtubers”” having absorbed any actual theory, your admiration turns somewhat to scorn, and you begin to feel frustrated with the endless complaining and no actionable solutions. You’ll either fall back into liblight or your exposure to theory will grow into a larger revolutionary sprout.
That’s when you’re pushed out of the content mill and become exposed to the dreaded ideas that YouTubers can’t actually say due to ad revenue concerns. Getting to this stage of radicalization, especially in the west, used to be like pulling teeth. You’d need serious organizational power to spread the education needed.
Now it can be achieved by listening to freely accessible (and even semi-mainstream) content slop and letting well-known parasocial elements play out in a listener. Learning, admiration, surpassing the teacher, and finally finding your revolutionary spirit.
All leftist video creators are overrated, leftist authors less so but there’s still a huge contingent of them that are just co-opted by their main topic of critique. I don’t think this is a failing on the creators themselves but a feature of the market.
When you get down to it, no matter how ideologically ‘pure’ you manage to be, once you’re earning money for something - even if it’s not your primary income - your ability to affect the change you’re talking about becomes limited. You don’t want to risk your income. You don’t want to get ‘cancelled’ by your peers. For some this comes down to mindful self-censorship, but for most they don’t even realize that they’ve started down the algorithmic intellectual death spiral.
But! I think this is very okay and for our purposes can be leveraged. I absorbed endless amounts of this content when I was feeling the full effects of alienation. Alone all day, underappreciated and working my body to the bone in a warehouse. The reason I read ML theory at all is because of some of these chucklefucks - ThoughtSlime, The Deprogram, even broader liberal-types like Hbomberguy. They were friendly voices to listen to and fueled an inherent rebellious nature most of us have within.
But content cycles, your interests peak and change, and if you walk away from ““breadtubers”” having absorbed any actual theory, your admiration turns somewhat to scorn, and you begin to feel frustrated with the endless complaining and no actionable solutions. You’ll either fall back into liblight or your exposure to theory will grow into a larger revolutionary sprout.
That’s when you’re pushed out of the content mill and become exposed to the dreaded ideas that YouTubers can’t actually say due to ad revenue concerns. Getting to this stage of radicalization, especially in the west, used to be like pulling teeth. You’d need serious organizational power to spread the education needed.
Now it can be achieved by listening to freely accessible (and even semi-mainstream) content slop and letting well-known parasocial elements play out in a listener. Learning, admiration, surpassing the teacher, and finally finding your revolutionary spirit.