Progressive Twitch streamer Hasan Piker filed a defamation lawsuit against conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings on Tuesday, accusing him of falsely claiming Piker advocated for lynching Blac…
All he does is controversy bait. Alienating people on the left isn’t some unfortunate accident, it’s intentional. Controversy sells.
When you say something edgy, you get three types of viewers. The first type is neutral people who see an argument or controversy and want to be informed about it. The second type are people who see certain groups get “triggered,” and they hate those groups, so they like you because you make people they hate mad. The third group are the haters who hate-watch you, either to more accurately criticize you, or because anger is addictive. Clicks clicks clicks. You don’t get any of those clicks by just saying good reasonsable things that people can agree with.
I have heard all kinds of things about Vaush, but I have never once heard someone talk about any genuine insight that they got from watching him. Even people who like him only ever seem to make vague allusions or talk about how he offends the right people or how there’s actually justifications for what he does and says if you actually watch him, but typically the entire conversation is dominated by all the attention-grabbing bait he puts out rather than any actual insight or analysis.
Streamers and YouTubers do this shit constantly. Whether it’s Contrapoints randomly shitting on vegans or Bad Empanada saying trans people just want to feel oppressed or anything Vaush ever says, it’s all the same shit. It’s just drama, it’s just clickbait. And it displays, in each case, prioritization of building their own audiences over any notion of building a mass movement. It also indicates that their content doesn’t really stand on their own, that they have to use those approaches.
The only leftist streamers or YouTubers I’ve actually learned anything from are ones like Shaun (not very active anymore, though I see he just put out a video) who don’t engage in that shit.
All he does is controversy bait. Alienating people on the left isn’t some unfortunate accident, it’s intentional. Controversy sells.
When you say something edgy, you get three types of viewers. The first type is neutral people who see an argument or controversy and want to be informed about it. The second type are people who see certain groups get “triggered,” and they hate those groups, so they like you because you make people they hate mad. The third group are the haters who hate-watch you, either to more accurately criticize you, or because anger is addictive. Clicks clicks clicks. You don’t get any of those clicks by just saying good reasonsable things that people can agree with.
I have heard all kinds of things about Vaush, but I have never once heard someone talk about any genuine insight that they got from watching him. Even people who like him only ever seem to make vague allusions or talk about how he offends the right people or how there’s actually justifications for what he does and says if you actually watch him, but typically the entire conversation is dominated by all the attention-grabbing bait he puts out rather than any actual insight or analysis.
Streamers and YouTubers do this shit constantly. Whether it’s Contrapoints randomly shitting on vegans or Bad Empanada saying trans people just want to feel oppressed or anything Vaush ever says, it’s all the same shit. It’s just drama, it’s just clickbait. And it displays, in each case, prioritization of building their own audiences over any notion of building a mass movement. It also indicates that their content doesn’t really stand on their own, that they have to use those approaches.
The only leftist streamers or YouTubers I’ve actually learned anything from are ones like Shaun (not very active anymore, though I see he just put out a video) who don’t engage in that shit.