I don't typically write comments like these, but this video impacted me in a big way just now, as I feel like it peels away at a bigger issue then just an edgy sense of humor. I mean, seeing as how a lot of people on the left tend to talk about political correctness, and how comment sections on Filthy Frank and iDubbbz videos tend to discuss SJW shit, I legitimately felt like I was the only person who had relatively far left political views, whilst also gravitating towards offensive and shit posty humor. I had always planned to explore something like this myself, but when I discuss this with some of my friends (most of whom use words like SJW in a derogatory sense) they tend to brush it off in a way. Not that they're right wing at all either, but through channels like H3H3, who take a more comedic look at some of the more outlandish aspects of left wing culture (like that hugh mungus wot lady), they've come to see things like feminism and progressiveness as bad or "regressive", in general, due to them only having seen it through the lens of H3H3 or what have you. Essentially taking the lighthearted look that an H3H3 might take too far, and getting swooped up by the Sargon-machine. Even worse, is that I tend to let my sense of humor reflect in my own work (a game review channel), and have now noticed people in my own comment sections, who're also subscribed to Paul Joseph Watson and Rebel Media. In a way, I know most of them only feel like how they feel due to ignorance, and not necessarily because they're bad people, but it is keeping me from making certain comments I would make, regarding how I feel about some character portrayals, or games that might have a political element of some sort. It's like there's this giant demographic of people now, who would normally have held center left, or at least mostly reasonable views, suddenly being scared away by what they think the far left is, only to get suckered in by people who are either just as ignorant, or willfully malicious towards said far left. However, seeing as how surprisingly well received this video seems to be, and how full of personal anecdotes this comment section is, I actually feel a lot more hopeful about the situation now! I guess the climate seems to be cooling down a bit over all too, but it's at least nice to see someone else express what I've been thinking about for so long, so incredibly well. So thanks!
Have you seen Lindsay Ellis' video on Mel Brooks? Her video, and now, this, give extremely useful analysis and rumination on the philosophy "either it's all okay or none is okay", as well as about joking on sensitive subjects in general.
Bird Person, I'm still waiting that twitter message so we can talk more directly or did you chicken out? Right now you are projecting to me all those stuff you see on those "sjw rekt" videos, even though I only have said that the usage of words can drive some people to be more bigoted. Maybe instead of getting triggered at a video that you probably didn't even watch from start to finish, we can have some civil discussion. My twitter: @Siiimuu
I'm rewatching this, and thank you again. The "leaving room for people to grow" is a thing I worry about a lot if i see people (justifiably) jumped on for thoughtless behaviour, since I did some shit lord style stuff in the past that really stabs my brain when i think about it. i'm glad to be trying to be a good person now. And i always hope people who are criticized can see that there's a path out of that whole scene, rather than them being so embattled that they double down on being obnoxious.
This is really good and I loved that you used that Stewart Lee bit about political correctness. The thing about it being an "often clumsy negotiation... better than what we have before" has become sort of a credo for me and really made me think twice about the things I say and how people might react to it.
Thanks! It'd be dumb to pretend political correctness is perfect or that people don't get too invested in idpol but it def seems like the better route to me
It was perfectly said and agree. Also, I really love Always Sunny as well and that make perfect sense why many of the offensive jokes that isn't really appalling or exploitative.
Trystan McClellan Thanks! Yeah Sunny handles sensitive subjects really well for the most part. Very dark and funny but not at the expense of marginalized people
Fantastic video! Really impressive in terms of research and structure, and really hits on a lot of stuff I've been thinking about lately myself (not least because seemingly we absorb a lot of the same content). Picking out a clip from my all-time idol since I was like 16, Stewart Lee, was the kicker. As far as I'm concerned understanding the message you're sending with the content you produce (and the context of that message) is fundamental to creating art and media, and he's seemingly one of the few comics working who gets that on a deeper level. Thanks, and I'm sorry in advance for when this gets linked to Sargon or Naked Ape or something and gets bombed with dislikes
Thanks for watching and for the kind comment! I need to watch more of Stewart Lee's stuff for sure. I've mostly just watched that political correctness bit a million times. A lot of comics don't care about their message and I'm happy he thinks about it a lot Haha well we'll see. Most of the anti-sjw types who have commented have been looking for civil discussion, which is what I wanted/planned for. I think I'm pretty clearly trying to be sincere and civil in the video and if people respond to that with hysterical disliking then *RATIONAL nerd voice* they have Proven My Point
Lee can be pretty inpenetrable to non-Brits as a lot of his work is based on UK political and cultural references, but most of his Immigrant and Islam stuff is spot-on, so I highly recommend checking him out further. Just swap "UKIP" for "Republicans", "Thatcher" for "Reagan" and "Bulgarians" for "Mexicans". If you want to take any further interest in British left-wing political comedy, I STRONGLY recommend the work of Chris Morris, particularly Brass Eye. Now there's somebody that knows how to approach touchy subjects deftly.
I can def understand/relate a lot of the stuff you're referring to vs some other stuff he talks about. I'll try to check it out! Thanks! I am familiar with Brass Eye but have not ever like sat down and committed to watching it. I will say re: Chris Morris "Peter O'Hanrahanrahan" is the funniest name I've ever heard in my life
One thing I realized about making a joke that deals with offensive matters (like jokes about race or gender) is that just being offensive for the sake of being offensive is weak, lame, and actually harmful to yourself and others. My rule is this: People are NOT punchlines. Look at Dave Chapelle's Clayton Bigsby skit. It had tons of slurs and racism in it, but the ultimate butt of the joke was racism itself. The punchline was racism as a concept, not black people. People like Louis CK, Chapelle, Bill Burr and such understand this, and that's why they're funny, and why they don't get as much shit as low effort egelords like Daniel Tosh. Unfortunately when you're young, edgy and vulgar humor is hilarious, and I believe a lot of these offensive you tubers have a following of young people.
Instantly subscribed. It almost feels like I wrote this myself. Every example is one I would have made. It's almost creepy. I agree with pretty much everything. (Maybe less so on Harmon, because I listen to his Podcast and I know how aware he is of his own flaws). Loved this. Keep it up! Greatjob
probably my favorite video from yours, this was really great. as a former edgelord who also left 4chan i appreciate knowing that i share the same believes and experiences with someone who can express them in my favorite form of media
This is an incredibly mature look at this topic. I've had to ask a lot of these questions myself, growing up in the context of edgy internet humor, and make some decisions about myself and cut some people off. An important point: The line that I draw, in the context of consuming media, is how it actually effects one's behavior. I have a friend who finds edgelord shit hilarious. He finds racist jokes funny, etc. However, the fact of the matter was that he drew the line when he started making friends in real life that were outside of his assumed worldview, i.e. black friends, gay friends, and he got to understand how his words can actually effect people. He still says stuff to me in private, but he understands how it can affect people and is respectful of people irl.
Thank you! Yeah sometimes it's hard when someone is fun and funny and smart but it's so worth it to not have to wince every time they call someone a "faggot" in public or whatever. I think for me it depends more on what's implied by the joke vs whether it's edgelord or not. I think Idubbz is a lot more racist/shitty than George Miller is (Miller makes me feel uncomfortable way less even though he does crazy/offensive stuff constantly). There's a difference between a dark joke or a joke that satirizes racism vs just a racist joke. I'm glad your friend branched out though. Something I kind of came to was if I wasn't comfortable saying a joke in front of someone involved in the group the joke was about then I probably shouldn't say it. Or like, I'm fine with all the "faggot" stuff in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, but it was a different experience when I watched it with my gay friend and his partner. They both liked it and I def don't think it's a homophobic movie, it's just that a joke or a work exists unto itself- it isn't inherently more or less offensive according to the audience, and I should have been just as fine with or without my gay friend there. I of course don't say really dark jokes in public or around people I consider hyper-sensitive (or like make a darkly funny joke about rape culture in front of someone who was JUST raped lol) but I try to be consistent. I dunno! Hard to articulate.
I agree with you on George. I think he's very aware that a lot of what he does as Filthy Frank is despicable, and he finds humor in that, be it insensitive and unthoughtful (although he does seem to realize, at least from the podcast clips you played, that his humor can enable awful people). I also found it kind of funny how much trouble he had in explaining when a holocaust joke is appropriate, because as we know, it's pretty difficult to make a good holocaust joke. iDubbz leaves a bad taste in my mouth a lot of the time. I can't deny he's funny, but his humor blurs the line between "this is funny because it's undeniably a Bad Thing" and "this is funny because it scratches the part of my brain that wants to make people suffer". I also don't buy his whole "you choose to be offended" thing. It comes off to me like a defense of a bullying mentality, i.e. "It's your fault you can't handle my abuse!", basically just dodging accountability for what one says/does. As for the friend, he's still a big fan of both Filthy Frank and iDubbz, and he'll reference some of their more questionable memes in private (n****rfaggot etc), but he'll never do it in front of someone that could be marginalized or disheartened by things like that, because he knows that they'd be hurt. He gravitates towards the edginess because it's a taboo, rather than because it hurts people. While that approach is obviously not above criticism, I think the difference matters, and probably has a lot to do with why we're still friends.
Having grown up with Asperger's Syndrome, I've unintentionally insulted or made people feel awkward more times than I can count. Looking back on those moments nowadays, I feel embarrassed and disgusted with myself for not realizing what I was doing. I made those mistakes because basic social etiquette was abnormally difficult for me. Whenever I hear or see a "normal" person act that way when it ought to be easier, I can't help but feel appalled. They're not failing at something difficult, they're choosing to avoid the easy task of exercising common courtesy and basic human empathy. TLDR: Just don't be an asshole. It's not hard.
So I finally got around to watching this video and wow I'm blown away by how it flows and how insightful it is. It was almost as if you hit the next topic as I was thinking of it. This video hit a big chord with me. Being black and growing up in various circumstances, a lot of black comedians and actors have done things that I've truly loved. What its like being at a black BBQ, your relatives, being the only black guy in a situation, etc. Being able to see something funny or thought provoking and going "I can relate to that, I've been through that or I know someone who has been through that" there is nothing like that rush cause it reinforces that its okay to be you. The problem is when those same people say troublesome things about gay or trans people, views I don't vibe with. I always struggle to reconcile things like this and this video gave me a lot to think about. I still don't have the answer but thanks for this video!
Lethel Wilson Aww dude!!! thank you so much for watching and for the kind words!! I (like a lot of liberal or leftist white people) feel weird commenting on black culture but it does kind of suck that like Dave Chapelle and Migos and Donald Glover and whoever get passes for being transphobic or homophobic or whatever because people don't want to criticize them. And yeah they're important and talented but people forget that black LGBT people exist and need to be protected. I was also self-conscious that I referenced mostly white dudes (sans George Miller) in this but I was drawing from my own influences. Anyway! I dunno! Complicated! But again thanks for commenting and for watching the whole thing. I really appreciate it!
That whole into about Louis CK reminds me of my basically half-year-long process of accepting that John Lasseter, whom I never met but was a massive influence on me and my love of animation (and arguably the person who made me want to become an animator), had a long history of inappropriate behavior with his female staff members. I had a full blown mental breakdown accepting that he was one of "those" people. Even before I knew what "parasocial" was, it was the first time I really learned that it was not something to inflict upon yourself.
I love everything about this, except for a small point about watching 'problematic' stuff. If something makes you feel uncomfortable you don't have to watch it. There are literally thousands of other UA-cam videos, TV shows, movies you could be watching. If you don't care about/don't think something is 'problematic' then watch away, but it isn't like you don't have other options (This isn't directly addressed at you, more at myself a few years ago)
I think the point isn't about a lack of options but rather about challenging yourself to be exposed to different content that is out of your comfort zone. of course if something is negatively impacting you when you watch it you should stay away but if you only watch things you like then you're limiting your understanding of the world, because even if you dont like it lots of other people do like it and if you want to understand those people it can help to watch these things to get an insight into how others may view things. You need to be able to understand people you disagree with if you want to be able to change them.
This is a fantastic video Shannon. I was a big supporter of the "free speech" argument when it comes too comics and artists, but this video really made great points and honestly made me feel embarrassed for defending and giving the argument to friends and peers. This video is insightful and intelligent and I absolutely feel that more people should watch it.
I'm so glad I found your channel, recommended by Kyle Kallgren of BHH. No one has put my own thoughts and feelings on this subject into words better than you. You deserve SO much more attention. I'm in the middle of a big shift in life and am unemployed, but once I'm situated I will 100% donate to your patreon.
This is a really fantastic video. It's a very good way of articulating how people are able to enjoy potentially "problematic" media. "Political correctness" very simply comes down to "Is this going to make [group] look bad for my benefit, or is it a joke at no one's expense?". Also I loved your way of dealing with Louis CK. Very good stuff. First video of yours that I've seen and it's very good! Comedy so often doesn't get discussed properly online and this is fantastic :)
every time someones like "why do you like BLANK its got offensive this or that and you dont believe in that DO YOU???" ill send them this video. really good!
It's neither brave nor difficult to offend people. You're totally spot on here. I hit my head against the wall every time someone says that his (usually a guy for some fucking reasons) saying the N-word is brave. Nani the fuck?
This video is criminally underrated, I came here from Shaun's channel when he recommended you in a recent Q&A video and I feel like a dope I never found this channel before. I've now watched every video that is currently uploaded on this channel and I just wanted to express a few feelings. Namely that your level of self awareness, patience, and empathy is beyond approach from pretty much any other youtuber I have seen. The way you dissected this one piece in particular was so resonating with me. I hope that no matter what it is that you do, that you succeed, because we could do with more empathetic and thoughtful voices like your own.
I actually really relate, quite a lot, I am in fact quite surprised of how much I have your identical experience with the same UA-cam channels, and TV shows
Man I’ve been trying (and failing) to articulate my feelings on pc culture for forever and I’ve just never quite been able to find a way of saying how I feel on the subject that feels accurate. So in finding your video I had that epiphany like - this is exactly how I feel about this and this video helped me immensely in making my thoughts on the matter clear and understandable. So thank you so much for that!
This is totally nuanced and thoughtful and incredible. I seriously wish that everyone would approach these topics with the same amount of consideration and sincerity as you have.
This sums up my feelings on these entertainers and the struggle I feel between enjoying them (or aspects of their work) and also wanting to be an informed, empathetic person, so well. Thanks for making it!
Rick and morty was mildly ruined for me when I realized rick was kind of a Mary sue for dan Harmon to write about what an asshole he is while heavily romanticizing it. It just bothers me. This video really resonated thank you.
This is a really well thought out essay. It seems like this is getting some positive attention which is awesome. Also: I just wish someone would look at me the way Ray Romano looks at Bo Burnham at 21:34
Adremelek Thanks! Yeah I feel like people want to have a dialogue which is great. and lol same. I love that song and that performance. I also used it because Maron is so hateful to Burnham at the end of it and the podcast was kind of awkward, like Maron MADE Burnham earn his respect, which is dumb
I've never agreed to a take more than this. I resonate a lot with this video, being a feminist and a progressive who likes more 'edgy' content like idubbz, sunny, and rlm. It's hard to find that balance between not supporting bad people and watching things that you enjoy. I think that theres room for edginess in leftism, and we need to be more receptive to that as a movement to get more people in.
Much like everybody else, I was young and stupid in regarding certain jokes just because society around me was promoting them(pre-Internet media were a dark age), but I was lucky enough to have great friends that showed me the error of my ways(A lot of them were gay or trans, actually). I've left traces of a lot of offensive work or comments from myself on the Internet which I deeply regret. But, I would rather have them stay there, to serve as a sign of how easy it is to fall into such a folly that it can happen to anyone, and also because I want to bear the shame with dignity. I need to wonder if this is the right thing to do, but I personally deem that the ugliest history is one that must never be erased. Thanks, Shannon, you are lovely.
On one hand, including clips from the kinds of videos you're critiquing makes your points clearer and helps dampen any echo-chamber effect on people who don't want to look for that kind of video. On the other hand...does anyone else worry that someone's going to walk in at the wrong time and get the wrong idea?
Thank you for making this video. This really connected with my experiences with some of my more politically incorrect friends, and with using 4chan. Stuff like this is honestly why I had to block 4chan from my browser.
This essay is so well constructed and well argued, not to mention how important so many of these points are rn. IMO the limits of good taste are more personal than we usually treat them, and I appreciated it when the McElroy brought the conversation toward a human element. These conversations are all too often framed in dehumanizing ways. MUTUAL respect forever. Great work! Thank you.
I feel you when it comes to jokes about something that hurt you personally. Like, my dad is also super dead but I avoid making dead dad jokes because my dad was a horrible monster and I'm super happy he's dead and all of my jokes about his death to close friends are really mean spirited and anything along those lines would really hurt people who lost a parent and you know, actually loved them and miss them.
Couldn't have imagined finding a video so well done and, more importantly, so painfully relevant to my interests and feelings in recent times. Insta subbed.
Good stuff. Comedy that pushes boundaries is good, but it's also hard to pull off. Anyone doing it should be prepared to take the response with grace and humility, whatever it is.
Every single movie that generated empathy in me achieved it by having the joke be on *the character*. I don't know why the eff I'd watch anything different, where the joke is on someone outside.
Wow this video. I spend a lot of time in small internet circles including some channels you mentioned, and while providing a lot of comfort and enjoyment, I'm not reaching out much beyond my own perspective. So I'm spending my time in this black and white mentality where I just don't want to give alternative perspectives time of day. Calls to 'see the other side' so often ring hollow when sympathy and free speech protection is more willingly given to massively harmful shit than people suffering on the other end -it is a cop out exactly as you say, free speech warriors seem concerned solely for their already privileged selves and unwilling to reflect. But this video has reminded me how vital it is not to paint anyone who might lean that way as the same - not for their sake but ours. Responding to and understanding normal people who disagree is as or more important than showcasing zealots. And some person or their work might repulse me greatly that I'll want nothing to do with them, which is fine but it is still important to distinguish between levels of shitty (the value in Harmon's work despite his kinda shittiness is a very strong example, and seeing filthy frank talk pretty reasonably about his stance even though I don't agree and find his work pretty loathsome). Wrong-headed anti-sjw rhetoric is so widespread that it's inescapable, which goddamn sucks but is exactly why it can't be completely ignored. This video shows that people who feel this way can be reached by doing the hard work of talking to them directly. The fact that much of what I'm saying could have come from an anti-sjw says all, I think. Genuinely think this will make sense to them where most YT/social media I follow is the left talking to ourselves (which is also good and important but can't be everything!) So yeah, rambley comment but anyway good job and thanks!
It was really wild to see FF and especially idubbbz be really candid and kind of vulnerable (there was more FF stuff I was going to use but didn't have room for). It's easy to forget that these people are still people. But at the same time neither of them ever gave me a legit white supremacist or misogynist vibe, which I try to point out too. I don't even think of them as anti-SJW (idubbbz can be but he also often criticizes easy racism and seems to have no problem w women, LGBT people, etc apart from being incendiary). I don't have any interest in watching or consuming or really discussing anything with hardline alt-right types. It's exhausting and I feel like they don't even see ME as a person (I feel like a lot of FF and idubbbz's fans are like this, and even RLM's fans!). Like there's a difference between someone who disagrees with me and someone who wants me gone or dead. It's all just complicated and a spectrum hahaha. Like I think Pewdiepie is an idiot and messed up and fed into some really dangerous, nasty rhetoric but (like Hbomb) I don't think he's a NAZI. But like Jontron can go to hell. No time to entertain that stuff. Thanks for the kind comment! It's important to get out of echo chambers but also to not let poison in haha. I think "not for their sake but for ours" is an apt way to put it
I found FF's style and performance funny but was put off by the offensive shock side. I've had no reason to think of him as a sincere hard right guy, but the tendency of far right leaning people to insist (genuinely!) they are unbiased and in the middle or simply advocating free speech (all ok or none of it etc.) has made me weary. I even deliberated a fair bit over how to word my comment when talking about 'seeing the other side' considering how often people say that to mean basically giving hate speech a platform. Like there's giving time to understand the intent of offensive comedy and then there's bill maher 'finding common ground' with milo yiannopoulos. I feel like jontron is a cautionary tale - coming from the same place as seemingly more moderate people like H3, needledrop, totalbiscuit, south park, RLM, just further down the line. And honestly I don't really know how much of this is fair. Guilt by association as it were. I do see it more on a spectrum and less of a fine line between somewhat un-pc and full bigotry which does not deserve the time of day. You have a clearer head than me with separating this stuff out ha. maybe there being people like FF who have it together more than the jontrons among them is more valuable than dividing into us v them. But at the same time the comfort these people have with and give to anti-sjw sentiment is a problem. Pewdiepie's situation was so bizarre and unique I don't wanna touch it, but it is immediately politicised not just by people condemning him but by the anti-pc hordes seeing a potential ally
I understand the weariness. FF knows a lot of his audience is like that and definitely plays to it (or used to play to it) even if he doesn't believe it, which sucks. I always got a gross vibe from totalbiscuit. Never interested in his stuff haha. And yeah re: Pewdiepie- when you have Stromfront peeking around the corner you need to rethink some things haha
Been looking forward to this since you teased the idea on Twitter of exploring ideas of niceness vs. kindness, and it didn't disappoint. Happy you found a way to expand the theme and were able to explore other ideas, all while keeping it cohesive and clear. Also, the opening bit about being let down by the personal conduct of your artistic idols (no, David!) reminds me how very thankful I am that Kubrick was a weird shut-in who died early enough that my impression of him was never tarnished. All we know is that he was a nice Jewish boy who made wonderful films and who loved his cats to an almost disconcerting but ultimately adorable degree. Which works out perfectly since this was my theoretical ideal artist profile to begin with.
I actually might do a whole separate nice vs kind video but I definitely do touch on it in this! Especially in that I didn't stop saying slurs because I was ~~scared~~. I'm not scared. It was about compassion. People assume fear drives people more than it really does. Haha Kubrick was kind of an asshole who was way too harsh on his actors but afaik he never, like, raped anyone. That's a nice ideal artist profile btw and one we can all aspire to
Great video. There was a certain period of my life where I spent a lot of time on 4chan and I don't think any site has had more of an influence over me. In some ways I think it made me a smarter, more aware and more critical person but in other ways I think it did make me more cynical and amplify my judgmental qualities. I'm just lucky I was never susceptible to full edgelordery. I think my low self esteem always acted as a buffer from me directing my angst at other people and I would always blame myself for my failures.
Thanks for watching and for the comment! I miss the wealth of information and the stimulus. I really loved the /tv/ Breaking Bad live threads and posting on /ck/ and /adv/ and stuff. But someone always soured it (and even then I left years before the /pol/ contingent got REALLY bad). I used to post on /x/ til there was a /b/ raid or something and I saw a really graphic gif of a corpse with maggots. I also was active on the creepypasta.com forums many years ago until people from /x/ found the owner, called her house, and she had to shut down the forums and I guess transfer ownership of the site. Even /ck/, COOKING, would dissolve into pedantic hateful performative arguments. It was so stupid and sucked the fun out of it. Lively debate and discussion and screaming at each other about tipping at restaurants every single day are different things lol Being judgmental will get you nowhere. This is one thing I've learned in life. You can have a value system and reject people you think are crappy or whatever but when people can tell you aren't judging them and are keeping an open mind they are immedeately drawn to that and are more comfortable and open around you. I think it plays into the integrative complexity thing. I think being naturally friendly and open-minded helped me a LOOOOT in life lol. I'm glad you didn't fall into the trap! Nobody will legitimately escape having bad self-esteem in that hostile of an environment haha
My name is Ian Paul and I'm seventeen-years old, home-schooled, and I'm the oldest of six children. I'm an avid reader and viewer and I love exposing myself to the great works of film, literature, television, video games, and sequential art. For example, I love books like Breakfast of Champions and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn equally even though when in many ways they are completely different. What makes different kinds of diverse work resonate with me is how I feel the similar sense of empathy and search for redemption. Even in an obviously offensive show like South Park, I find that the show finds a moral in presenting a satiric mirror to the world as we know it, showing ourselves for the grotesque imperfect and ridiculous beings we are. In the end, I think we're all fucked up. I'm sorry to say something like that obliviously but I feel we can only make the next step by admitting this to ourselves. That we were brought into this world weak, broken, and crying but what makes us different from animals or the would-be ignorant is how we are always changing and growing. Today's racist can be tomorrow's pacifist. The "good" can become the "bad". And then there's the fact that everybody has their own private pain and that we can't define the world simply in terms of duality. In the end, nobody is certain about anything. I'm still growing myself and the only thing I know that we as all humans know for sure is: that we were brought into this world out of an uterus, that we share the same physiological needs such as eating, breathing, and drinking, and that we are all going to eventually die. I want to forever try upholding my values and treating my fellow man as good as I can manage as an imperfect human, and if God be my witness I want try my best in doing so. Your video essays are amazing and I think you are incredibly underrated. Thank you for bringing some intelligence to UA-cam in this benevolent gesture of a great channel, and I humbly wish you a good day.
i know this is old and you probably won't see it but I believe the reason you feel more betrayed by LCK is because of the nature of comedy. When you go to see a comedian or watch one you are *trusting* them to deliver you to the other side safely and happily. It's an unconscious kind of trust. Comedians take this seriously that's why they always workshop with an audience. That audience believes in you, you better not fuck it up. So when someone who delivered you safely to the side of release turns out to be a piece of shit, it stings more than just an obscure person behind a camera or a producer or a writer. I never trusted them with my heart. Love your content! I have to go look up half the terms you use in this because I don't even know what an edge lord is? Hope you keep up the good work and take care of yourself!
This is fascinating, I'm very happy i stumbled upon your channel. I will do an essay of your essay, but don't worry I will only keep it to myself, I only want to adsorb everything you said
I'd just like to say: thank you a lot for this video. I definitely relate to things such as your 4chan experiences and trying to phase slurs out of your speech. I really started getting disillusioned with 4chan when I saw the actual tangible effects a board like /pol/ was having on people and I noped the fuck out. I don't know if you can relate but I have this weird habit where I can wind up arguing with people I agree with because I feel like they're not being empathetic and viewing things three dimensionally. For example just to make this comment grossly political: I do not care for Donald Trump. I would say I borderline hate the guy but I'm not comfortable with saying I hate anyone really. However if I ever have a friend that acts as if every Trump supporter is some sort of Nazi bigot I get genuinely upset just because they're not viewing people complexly. Anyway, ignoring my dumb quasi political spiel, thank you for this video. It feels cathartic to hear from someone else I'm not a bad person for enjoying shock humour, and that I'm not an irredeemable piece of shit for thinking it can go too far aswell.
Thanks for watching and for the kind comment!! As I understand it I got out before /pol/ rhetoric kind of poisoned all of it (I was mostly on /adv/, /ck/, /tv/, and before that /x/). I think people feel like that because of the horrible effects someone like that could have on real lives. I think discussing politics with civility and humanity is good BUT people die because of who gets elected so I can also understand being really upset with people who vote for people like that. If that makes sense. I am close with and care about lot of conservatives or moderates though so it's that weird cognitive dissonance.
StrucciMovies I guess that's true as far as the more extreme consequences go. However being someone that lives in BC (I think you mentioned stuff about Vancouver in a few vids??) I just find it silly that people can lash out at someone in such harsh terms due to them voting for the BC Libs or the NDP etc. tl;dr people should try to be more nice n stuff Anyway, eagerly awaiting future stuff.
I didn't know about the allegations towards Ck. That's just horrific. He probably was my favorite artist, Horace and Pete is a masterpiece, but I don't think I can watch his stuff anymore. Fantastic video though! You're summarising viewpoints that I tried to but couldn't really articulate.
Thank you kindly! Again I don't have any firsthand accounts of it but it seems true and I was also bummed out. Found out before Horace and Pete so I haven't seen it and probably won't. Thanks for watching!
This video-essay is so good, thank you for sharing. You provided context for why empathy is important, and then you demonstrated empathy in your critique of 'anti-PC culture' -- this is really powerful stuff. Being empathetic can feel like a radical act these days, so I appreciate the hell out of this.
Hey dude! Thanks for watching and for the kind comment! I always try to be suspect and look out for myself and stuff but I've never regretted having compassion. I think people see lack of empathy as strength which is really stupid hahaha
This was a very well made and thought provoking video, and I absolutely agree with a lot of it. I appreciate the nuanced and open minded approach you took. That said I do have a couple caveats. I come from a historical materialist perspective and firmly believe that culture is driven by material conditions, not the other way around. With this in mind, I dont think it is disingenuous to say that cultural superstructure should take a backseat to material struggle. I wont say there is no top-down feedback from the cultural superstructure, but I will say that pound for pound its far less effective and cannot affect the major change that is needed in any meaningful way like changing the material base can. There is an element of zero sum to movements. Especially in contemporary times, with people so beaten down, demobilized and exhausted by the travails of modern life, people only have so much time and energy to dedicate to a given cause. The more that gets thrown into superstructural cultural conflicts, the less is left for material struggle. Moreover, identity politics are even more of a dead end because they do not threaten the material basis ruling class, who can easily coopt it into a ruling rainbow coalition. They encourage cleavages which allow the ruling class to continue to divide and conquer. Now you might say that a more inclusive culture would help to mitigate those cleavages and encourage solidarity, and I wouldnt disagree (I do personally try to be more empathetic and avoid punching down) but again as a historical materialist I dont think you can reverse engineer through the superstructure like that in any effective way. Finally, just a few thoughts on humor which does seem to punch down. Firstly, I think it can sometimes be analagous to playing a character. You take the role of a shit-heel with terrible views to expose the absurdity of the premises of those views and to drag those views to their logical conclusion. I think that this can be useful if done right. And I am loathe to accept that an artist must constantly worry about if some actual shit-heel ignoramus takes it the wrong way. Conservatives thought Colbert was taking their side, as an example, but that doesnt make his character problematic. Said shit-heels will read their godawful views into anything regardless of intent, and their views are again resulting from material conditions that the culture wont have a great impact on anyway. Art should be unfettered by the possibility that an idiot somewhere will somehow misread it. Either way, great video and it got me thinking about quite a few things and reflecting on myself. Been enjoying your channel a lot in general.
Better example of punching down in character, since you used it in your video: Mac's anti gay shit from Its Always Sunny. Surely some fundies were nodding along to his tirades, but that doesnt negate the value of the character exposing the absurdity and repulsiveness of the viewpoint.
I've been sharing this video in every improv class I've taken for the last year because it's the only piece of criticism that effectively addresses this issue. if you are in a comedy class of any stripe and the topic of appropriateness comes up, just post this video and move on.
Trust me, I don't care who drops the N word so long as they're not yelling it at me on a street at night. As a black person, I wholeheartedly agree with idubbz's sentiment that words do not carry that much power. His flippant use of it isn't damaging, what is is perhaps people overutilizing it as an insult while playing games, or between one another, and even then I'm not a baby, you know? We all grew up knowing sticks and stones may break our bones but words will never hurt us. I genuinely don't care about the N word, I have bigger problems and don't think someone dropping it contributes.
Very well thought ideas and wonderfully executed. I remember getting introduced to Harmon through his doc and had very similar feelings toward the guy. I listened to his podcast Harmontown and would fluctuate between feeling this is extremely narcissistic to this extremely raw in a way that incredible and kinda life changing. I continued listening throughout the years and he has grown and changed a hell of a lot. There are a lot of narcissistic POS writers and comedians out there but Harmon knows when and how he can be a piece of shit, and has a lot self loathing about it. And the podcast has helped pull his darkest bits out into open and look at himself, which in turn has made him a wholly different person then when he started the podcast almost six years ago. I know people in the comments have probably made this point a thousand times to you already, but maybe give a listen to of his most recent Harmontown episode. I understand if you have a personal situation with him but I think he would agree with 100% of what you said in this video and you would agree at least 90% of the topics he discusses. Dude should get the hell of Twitter though, I agree with you on that! ;)
Really loved your thoughts on this issue. For an example, I love peep show and think its my favourite comedy show. Doesn't mean it's not crap it drops trans misogynistic words for no reason other than a cheap punchline, which sucks especially for me seeing as I am a trans woman. But I'd never say someone is a bad person for liking the show because a lot of things in life are Gray. Can't wait for your future videos.
holy shit this is so well put and also are you me no really what the fuck, i can't handle how uncanny it lines up biggest difference is probably 4chan. i left right after the 2016 election, like "wait, you fuckers were SERIOUS". but then a couple years later, i came back, because i realized that there was no better place for me to be. to go among the people whose language i speak but with whom i totally disagree. who else will put in the work to call out anons' baseless bullshit with actual facts, who else will argue with these teens on the myriad merits of steven universe
See I agree with a lot of what you say, I really feel about your content much the same way as you feel about RLM. I mean, I can't stand the politics of progressivism and I obviously don't often agree with you when it comes to politics but you are also an engaging presenter who makes good, informative, and generally accurate and well researched videos which do help do broaden my perspective. Despite the fact that some of the things you believe are distasteful to me, I remain a subscriber and something of a fan of the things you make. For example, I have to disagree with your assessment of people like Idubbbz and Frank as regressive and harmful. As much as I disdain "as a" statements, I would like to point out that as a gay person with autism, I found them to be incredibly helpful in my development and ability to interact with the world with less fear and take back less hurt when it failed to be entirely accommodating. People can't hurt me anymore by using slurs about my sexuality or disability, I've come face to face with them in a friendly and fun environment and that helped to take away the sharpness and fear they would have otherwise had. "You are an autistic faggot" sounds more like a joke to me than an insult, I mean fuck it I am an autistic faggot, these words have no power. On the other end, I have seen too the way this type of irreverent content makes foreign and scary ideas and concepts (like homosexuality for example) more familiar and normal and fun. People may initially be utterly afraid of gay people and feel violent and aggressive emotions when confronted with them, but if they are instead funny and you have a reference for them that didn't immediately just make you feel sick, if the concepts elicit laughter instead of scorn, they can be much more easily brought into one's realm of familiarity. I don't expect you to take any advice from me so I won't give any, I just felt like sharing my experience.
It's not even that i think you're necessarily wrong on any of this, I just think there's more to the story than what you've presented. Like one piece of media can have entirely different impacts on people, obviously, but it can even impact the same sorts of people in opposite ways. I understand that the media that made me feel more comfortable with who I am may just as easily make other people like me feel less comfortable, and the same media that makes other people more comfortable with me may just as easily reinforce the same sorts of people into hating me. The truth is that there is no one easy answer, and we all know that, but there's definitely room for slower and more moderate, less radical politics and considerations. Things don't need to change quickly, sometimes when you want to institute change, it's better to do it as slowly as possible so you can gauge the impact it's going to have in practice and have a contingency for if it doesn't work the way you intended it to. I know that last part was incredibly vague but hopefully you get what I'm saying here.
Empathy is the best thing ever, literally every one and their mother knows that. Then why do people vote for Trump when someone calls them out on their lack of empathy towards others? For most people empathy is a deep rooted unconscious knowledge. Empathy is feared and repressed by society at large. Repression of empathy is not a hard thing to find in our world. You have to just look inside yourself after you look at a homeless person. I personally get fearful and defensive of what all I might do in an empathetic bout to right the wrongs in my immediate, day to day surroundings that in effect might end up having far-reaching, terrifying consequences for me and my life. I fear empathy. In this context if a person is to be called out for their lack of empathy towards others it has to be done with empathy. If you try to do it with fear it makes people who already fear and repress empathy, not understand it and regress even more. I guess that's what Trump and his covfefe is partly about. Also I am not denying that there are straight up sociopaths. All I am saying is that empathy should lead by example and not through power.
I've come to think of it as, "I'm not saying you CAN'T say something, I'm asking why you want to say it." If your only response is, "because people say I shouldn't," try to understand why a simple suggestion makes you react in such a way.
Comedians complaining about political correctness is the 21st century version of complaining about airplane food it's overdone and boring. Every time I hear a comedian say everything is so PC nowadays I just think "How many people didn't laugh at this idiot's jokes and they're just salty?" If people aren't laughing at your jokes in the modern day you have a few options: Find a way to joke about timeless elements, edit and improve your comedy so that it better matches your target demographic or stop doing comedy all together.
Full discretion, I'm from 4chan, and I've been going there for a very long time. I personally am not the kind of person to purposefully try to punch down, or bully other people, and even on the site itself, I don't think I've ever purposefully tried to shit on a person who's clearly not out for an internet slap fight. As a 4channer, hearing someone say "problematic", and "marginalized" automatically activates the part in my brain that houses suspicion and anger. I'm saying all this because I feel like there's an internal contradiction in myself, because I genuinely believe that racist jokes do not end with the jokes themselves, and that internet personalities can cause serious damage, despite it being "just a prank". On the other hand, I can't stand tumblr and I can't stand the thought of some high and mighty entity deeming things to be harmful. It's hypocritical of myself and the bottom line is that I agree with the statement you made in this video, on the whole. I also say this disclosure because you should consider it a serious compliment from myself that you managed to keep my attention, despite my aversion from the kind of language you choose to use. While I'm very far from being an alt right /pol/ going redpilled gentleman, this kind of discussion isn't the thing I'm used to consume. I can't say that I agree with every point you're making, as I find the "harmful" freedom in 4chan to generally be a good thing, so long as it doesn't go overboard and leak into the real world (as it eventually has). The whole idea of "hell is other people" makes 4chan a kind of escape from that endless judgment of other people, and while it can be harmful, all it needs is some tighter moderation to make it alright, and I still love the site, despite it harboring groups of people who would clearly want me dead for being Jewish. I guess that the bottom line with the site is that it's an abyss that gazes into you, and that it can genuinely influence people for the worst, while at its best, it's a place for weirdo nerds to congregate and discuss things without any filter. Having said all that, I like the overall statement that you made in the end, in that it's not hard to offend other people and that media and behavior has a real influence on others and that people should own up to it, and it's a rather nice statement to drill into people, that at the end of the day, you're dealing with other human beings who could get offended by the kind of message you're putting out. I also really like the very easy to understand message of "offensive jokes are funny until I'm the one being targeted", as any person with some degree of empathy would be able to put themselves in the place of the other minority who's being offended. On a more personal note, and I mean no offense when I say this, I would like it if you tried to speak just a bit slower and maybe made the video a tad shorter. I felt you were kind of swallowing your words at certain points because of how fast you were talking and it made the listening experience just a bit less pleasant. Thanks for the video, and I hope that you take no offense in this comment :)
Out of curiosity, how'd you find me/the video? I think a lot of people on 4chan just want to discuss things honestly with other impassioned people but it all gets dragged down too deeply for that to be sustained. I appreciated the vulnerability and honesty of a lot of people on there (and the humor that comes from a kind of true honesty) but the negativity and cruelty and bigotry got to be too much for me (and I got out way before it got to be as bad as it is now). For example I used to post on or at least lurk /tv/ a lot but all the "jokey" pedo threads and hardcore digging into the personal lives film people freaked me out and it got to the point where it made me feel too gross/uncomfortable to keep going and embarrassed I hadn't stopped sooner. See I guess I have the same reaction to "SJW" as you do to "problematic" or "marginalized". But at the same time "marginalized" especially is a pretty fair term to use, hahaha, and I tried to not alienate people in the way I was saying stuff. Thank you for taking the time to watch! Also I think if you found feminist/leftist/whatever ~~discourse~~ outside of angry tumblr teens who doxx each other because their Steven Universe fanart isn't woke enough you'd probably be more open? Someone else left a similar comment and I think the problem is the "worst" of feminism is paraded around as emblematic of it and there's a lot of value there if you go looking for it with an open mind. And oh dang dude no offense taken. Remember, I posted on 4chan for years, I have a pretty thick skin haha and I really appreciate constructive criticism. I recorded and cut this mostly in one night so it is a little rushed. I prefer to talk quickly but I really need to closed caption this and all my other videos (only have some of them done) and if I'd had more time to edit this (I had to finish it for a patreon deadline to pay bills haha) it would have been paced a little better, probably with more onscreen text to back up what I was saying, stuff like that.
I got linked the video in a discord that I go to, along with the person calling you a patrician for liking Hot Fuzz and One Piece. I figured it's worth a watch if only for that. The guy's called Arbie, by the way! For what it's worth, you made the right choice in leaving /tv/, it's definitely very, very bad at this point and not really worthy anyone's time. From what I've seen, the pedophilia shit has gone down, but in its stead is a whole lot of /pol/ flavored garbage. I really do think that it's interesting that choice of words for certain topics makes such a large impact, not to criticize your way of speaking, but had you said "harmful" instead of "problematic", I might not have seen any issue with it at all. It's interesting how a few words can have such strong connotations for certain people. I think there's a term for that called "Russel Conjugates", which refers to using specific conjugates to illicit responses from target audiences. For what it's worth, I can imagine that you're right. As long as an ideology doesn't strive to harm others, there's bound to be something that can be learned from it. The key is, exactly as you say, to keep an open mind, and I'm glad that I was capable of keeping it to watch your video. By the way, it really is impressive that you're capable of looking past the offensive personalities of the people that you watch and watch their content. Separating the art from the artist is not something I can do, I think. It's totally understandable that you didn't have enough time to make this video more "calm" if you are literally rushing your way through it in a night's work! It's still impressive that you managed to pull it off, it looks well made. Thanks for the reply!
Lol! I really liked the Breaking Bad live threads on /tv/. Those were probably my favorite memories of posting on there. Everything was happening so quickly that people didn't have time to be assholes. Every board I liked had a big downside or got ruined by something or another and I think people being creepy on /tv/ was the last straw. I knew that people wouldn't like me saying "problematic" or calling myself a feminist, but I also didn't want to back down from language I felt was accurate and appropriate. I had a "if I'm going to do this, I'm going to be honest and do this right" attitude with this video (it was also scary to admit to saying "faggot" as a dumb teen and liking idubbbz and whatever as far as criticism from the left goes, though everyone on that end has been super cool and respectful even if they don't like that I still watch this stuff). I can separate art from the artist to a point. It'd be weird if I could watch Polanski movies (which I do) and then not watch Filthy Frank because he makes fun of people haha. I also think that from my viewing and watching interviews and stuff, George Miller and idubbbz don't actually hold any of the beliefs they joke about the same way PewDiePie probably isn't a Nazi (even though his content is shrill/boring and he should not have made that dumbass joke) which I can admit and also think the jokes are immature and harmful. I was never a fan of Jontron but there's no WAY I could watch his stuff now after all the weird white supremacist stuff he said. Like I say in the video I think they're both bad and harmful but I can recognize the difference between what FF does and legitimately thinking black people are inferior/dangerous and advocating for a white ethnostate, which is horrific and repulsive. Thanks for talking! The most rewarding part of this video I think has been people who are being exposed to these ideas in a way they might not have. It's very rewarding to me. I am not a centrist and I don't think "both sides are the same" (I am hard, hard left) but I think engaging with people with different ideas in trying to bring them around is valuable and really rewarding. For what it's worth nobody on the left has really criticized the meat of what I say here and I think a lot of people on the left have views that align with mine even though they might not have articulated them the way I do or had the experiences I've had and I think this is pretty representative of feminism/progressivism as I understand it
(I'm the Arbie he mentioned!!!) I found you through a friend of mine/ours called Tinker who said check out your stuff. Your videos have always been cool and I've been subscribed since when you published the first "[...]want to be a film nerd #1". I really liked this video and supported everything you said, so I shared it with a personal Discord of mine to see what they thought. I was intrigued in their thoughts as they're old-time 4chan regulars (mostly 27+ years old and been in contact with eachother since 2007). I'd vouch they're a lot more empathetic and have varying political left leaning ideologies compared to the site's current audience. p.s. Yeah! Your One Piece video was great! I wish I had something like the manga/show when growing up.
Oooh wow! Tinker is my good pal going way back. I love that dude. That's wonderful. I need to thank him haha I think it is a combination of people aging out of 4chan, so a lot of people there would be younger than the people you know and less mature/empathetic, and the fact that the site seems to have gotten demonstrably worse over time. Either way I'm interested to see the perspective of other people who have been on the site vs my own (like I talk about I was surprised Sexkik and I had pretty much the same experience even though I'm much further left than he is). I have a lot of online friends who used to browse it for one reason another I'm sure (even if they're not vocal about it haha). That or Something Awful which I never got into. Thanks :) Something like One Piece? I have friends and stuff now but OP still helps me feel better when I read it. It's just a really unique state of mind. Hard to articulate. I think I like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies a lot because they light up that part of my brain a little bit in a way other big films/other American films don't (Snowpiercer made me feel that way a little too with how creative it was).
Haha I definitely want to! I know I want to make on on film school but I wanted that to be the last one and I wanted to do ten episodes total. I just want to have a good topic before I make more. I also honestly need to make stuff that gets more traction/views if I'm going to make a living off of doing stuff like this and it's disheartening to spend 50 hours or whatever on a video and not that many people see it. I'm kind of playing with making sincere stuff that's still an expression of what I think/feel but in a way that appeals to a larger audience. We'll see!
First video I've watched from you, this is great stuff! Think I'll subscribe. You really hit the points true of that you can love the art from someone even there are issues in it or there could be floating concerns over the true intention of said artist. There is a breaking point, but it kinda takes time to get there. The Internet has soured a lot of people sadly because of the 4chan insult type culture where putting of this nihilist idea has made people more insincere and isolated causing more lash outs towards people. I do think you can see in some people's artistic merit if they have a point other than being hateful. If you do art that does challenge taboos even if they go too far, that might be okay. But if your content is just a never ending stream of ranting about feminists, SJWs, minorities, and liberal politics then maybe you need a break. And there's a lot of UA-cam watchers who cling to that shit for the same echo chamber/4chan type of mentality. That's why I think there's an exorbitant number of liberal comedians compared to conservative comedians (At best I can name 3 conservative comedians) because their humor is more self-deprecating rather than judging others. Jontron, I believe will stand out as the greatest example of following this mentality. Loved his videos, thought he had a really keen, irreverent sense of humor. Watched Game Grumps. However, he's gone sooooo into white nationalist politics that it's overshadowing the rest of his UA-cam career. That stream/debate kinda of killed any shadow of a doubt because he unironically believes in these things...which is very concerning cause that could paint the rest of his life. Sorry for the ramble, these things concern me a lot going through similar stages of new Internet, 4chan, then watching scripted critical shows to more TV/Films. It's funny. Be a critical thinker but open to all forms of enjoyment.
great video with important points, but damn, you speak fast. Like really, really fast (I'm not a native speaker, but still). This in addition that you feel quite unstructured, and you don't give enough time for each point to sink in. And I think you really should elaborate some things more, because in most of the sound clips you play people speak a bit incoherently and without much context cheers
Thanks! Part of it is I recorded the audio and did most of the editing in one night to hit a Patreon deadline so it was admittedly a little rushed. Me talking fast is a stylistic preference (I plan to caption all of my videos- I've just been bad at it) but this essay is admittedly all over the place. I just didn't want to use emotional energy to make multiple videos on this subject especially because there's an element of being stressed out worried if the ANTI-SJW RATIONALS were gonna pounce on me. I obviously don't mind reasoned discussion but I was scared of being doxxed or mass disliked or whatever by people who didn't even watch the video so I don't wanna do too many videos THIS political and it was that plus wanting to keep it under 40 mins. I wanted to make this way shorter but kept adding to it lol. either way thanks for the feedback and thanks for watching!
Oh, I understand now:) Like I said, I'm not a native speaker, so maybe the speed is a problem only for me. Usually I can keep up with the stuff I watch, but I like to have time to digest everything - which I didn't have now. Either way, if you think the feedback on this video is good, then I think you should elaborate on these topics. I for one would love to hear that! Keep up the good work ;)
A lot of people have complained about it but I think it's just sort of what I prefer and what works for me (I used to be a fan of Yahtzee and I really like Charlie Brooker and I got it from them). My excuse is you can always pause and rewind, lol One thing I want to talk about is trigger warnings but there wasn't room for it in this video. But that's a scary thing to talk about lol Thanks!
I'd love to hear about trigger warnings, but yeah, it's scary. I already see the comment section in my head, with full of triggered people from left and right
Yes lol. I had PTSD from my dad dying in front of me when I was 14 and had a panic attack in 11th grade in class watching a really innocuous movie where there was a scene where a character reminded me of him in the moment he died (I was TRIGGERED!!!) so I have firsthand experience with how embarrassing and horrific and difficult it is to have this huge physical and emotional response to innocuous stimuli (it was a heart attack scene in STAND AND DELIVER lol). I was crying quietly and trying so hard to not let anyone know I was upset and scared people would think I was a freak or something on top of reliving the worst moment of my life in a public way. I am an unemotional person and am very self-critical of negative emotions in myself so I get doubly upset and embarrassed with stuff like that (this isn't being fair or right but it feels like weakness). I would have been able to handle it at least somewhat differently if I had known the scene was coming and no longer having that PTSD/no longer being so close to it the scene wouldn't bother me now. ANYWAY that's part of my experience with it and I'd want to talk about it in the video. I have dealt with my dad's death in a healthy way (plus that movie incident was like 9-10 years ago) and don't mind talking about it but opening myself up to scrutiny over something so personal is rough and scary. I don't necessarily want to open myself up to that. And that's not even touching my own experiences or experiences my loved ones have had with sexual violence/sexual assault/etc. It's a MINEFIELD lol. And I'm guaranteed to upset people when I could just talk about film theory instead (which will also upset people but not as bad) I almost put a TW or CW on this vid in the intro of the video itself since I talk about such brutal stuff in it but I knew it would trigger anti-SJW types into a pissy frenzy and they'd whine about it so I didn't lol
Yeah... alright, I'm okay with the video so far but it's never going to not bother me when white people assume they know what my problems are, and worry about me being hurt by words. I grew up among whites and with racism and learned to identify when I was being legitimately hated/threatened for what I was, and when it didn't matter, and really overall it's not even as if life was tough for the black kid growing up surrounded by whites. If anything, most of the hate I received was from blacks living in inner cities who resented what I represented (if you want a relevant popularman who identifies with that sentiment, Donald Glover gets it). I can understand feeling sympathy but I don't think it's something you can really understand and it irks me when people preach like this is a serious problems. There are serious problems, it's not in edgy jokes though. I get the argument about normalization but to seriously think it encourages or is born of a lack of empathy is baffling to me and just screams of "oh, the poor blacks, oh how they suffer from words". As another commenter put it two years ago, it's patronizing. That does remind me though that yeah this video is two years old. I hope this sort of stubborn mindset you exhibited here has maybe diminished with time.
Very interesting video as far as the political correctness personally it get a bit overbearing about it especially since the people that are preechy about it and would used example of say person being openly racist or sexist when challenge them they just call the person a terrible person those people that do that are all over the place in a bunch of different medium (like comics, video games, movies, tv shows ect it is that what helped forms the anti.sjw group in the first place Can't say much about 4chan because I've never been on it even though it pretty scary how they find out information about stuff with very little information they have. (Example finding Shia lebouf he will not dive us flag just by the stars in the sky) but a good video even though I'm in the anti-sjw camp
There are a lot of good points in this video but I think there is a lot of confusion as well. It perhaps would have worked better as two different videos, one about 'missing stairs' and one about the responsibility of the artist. Ultimately it is unfair to try and address sexual assault and off-colour jokes on 4chan as if these are two things on the same spectrum. With regards to 'missing stairs' and artist and other people of power tolerating and protecting them I disagree that calling them out can really effect anything. These people are protected by the privileges inherent to an industry that relies on big names to make money and while the film industry can make profits off of big names they will protect them. Until we fundamentally change this people will keep getting away with awful things. With regards to the responsibilities of the artist, you talked a lot about how the media we consume is bound to effect us, my main disagreement is that for the vast majority of people the things that effect them most are not what they see online or on tv but their everyday interactions. Being bullied by the people you know as going to be much more harmful than any offensive video, similarly having a good friends and family is infinitely more important than consuming the right media. The internet is always going to provide a barrier for empathy and I think it empathy and ones own judgement is always going to be a better guide to what we should do than blindly following a set of academic rules. Lastly I would like to counter a point about 'punching down', making those already oppressed feel more alienated or worse about their lives. Many people are feel like their unable to be angry or unhappy about their life. That being happy is an issue of mindset rather than the material conditions one lives in.In my view if a piece of art made someone feel unhappy, angry or alienated by highlighting the injustice and alienation that already exists in their own life it would be the most progressive thing art could do.
I found this video via the "intro to breadtube" playlist, and I just want you to know that as a Latino socialist, I have yet to find content on this platform that gels with my leftist ideology more than this video. I love Contra and Hbomberguy and Chapo and Cumtown and it honestly feels like people are more willing to play the idpol game than focus on actual communities that focus on marginalized communities. The thing is, its' pretty easy for an educated person to tell whether content is ironically mocking fascism and racism, or is genuinely bigoted. That's why I carefully choose what I'm a fan of, but I don't discredit people for telling offensive jokes.
I almost turned this one off after the first act, thinking it was leading into a long drawn out defense of Anti PC Brigade Media, but I'm really glad I stuck it out because I ended up really respecting your process + conclusions. I'm not into the Family Guy/South Park/Always Sunny brand of comedy - it's just not my bag - but I do love me some Bojack and Rick & Morty and worship at the altar of Contrapoints (who goes by Natalie Wynn now). Framing it from the beginning as sort of a "what are you willing to excuse" thing, because we're all good at overlooking the unsavory aspects of things we want to like, ended up being fridge brilliance for me when I saw where you were going with it about the 2/3rds mark. Greatly enjoyed.
Haha, I was thinking the same thing! Even if it's less eerie coincidence and more "a lot of these gross dudes' gross actions are in fact open secrets" irl.
Lol I watched all of this and it just feels like excuses. Maybe im wrong but it really feels like "keeping up woke appearances" just too afraid of backlash to admit to being prejudiced or not caring if you offend. I think if you start off with off color work, you should defend it! as it was a choice made alone. Its not on anyone else to infer or not see what somones "true character" is. How do i know jokes dont reflect your personal feelings? Im just as well off believing they do as i am believing they don't. Its not on me to try to sus out if someone is a "Real" racist or not. I dont need to ease my conscious with paranoid wonderings.
It's funny how you can't keep watching the kind of material from someone like Louis CK, because he probably did smt that touches you personally, smt similar that happened to you, but then is aware of the shit Frank and the other glasses dude did and said and you know it's harmful but you are able to continue watch the material and enjoy it, because their jokes probably don't touch you on personal level, because, and I'm guessing, you're not a minority, disabled and/or homosexual. It shows how ppl think. I might be wrong. But just an observation.
I think it's shitty of you to suggest that a person's is not deeply, personally, concerned about minorities unless they're consuming media that is unproblematic. Bigotry is intrinsic in this society, and the majority of media is offensive in one way or another. Also, she has stated that some of the media she consumes is misogynistic. It's like you don't think sexism is bigotry, or something.
I don't typically write comments like these, but this video impacted me in a big way just now, as I feel like it peels away at a bigger issue then just an edgy sense of humor. I mean, seeing as how a lot of people on the left tend to talk about political correctness, and how comment sections on Filthy Frank and iDubbbz videos tend to discuss SJW shit, I legitimately felt like I was the only person who had relatively far left political views, whilst also gravitating towards offensive and shit posty humor. I had always planned to explore something like this myself, but when I discuss this with some of my friends (most of whom use words like SJW in a derogatory sense) they tend to brush it off in a way. Not that they're right wing at all either, but through channels like H3H3, who take a more comedic look at some of the more outlandish aspects of left wing culture (like that hugh mungus wot lady), they've come to see things like feminism and progressiveness as bad or "regressive", in general, due to them only having seen it through the lens of H3H3 or what have you. Essentially taking the lighthearted look that an H3H3 might take too far, and getting swooped up by the Sargon-machine.
Even worse, is that I tend to let my sense of humor reflect in my own work (a game review channel), and have now noticed people in my own comment sections, who're also subscribed to Paul Joseph Watson and Rebel Media. In a way, I know most of them only feel like how they feel due to ignorance, and not necessarily because they're bad people, but it is keeping me from making certain comments I would make, regarding how I feel about some character portrayals, or games that might have a political element of some sort. It's like there's this giant demographic of people now, who would normally have held center left, or at least mostly reasonable views, suddenly being scared away by what they think the far left is, only to get suckered in by people who are either just as ignorant, or willfully malicious towards said far left.
However, seeing as how surprisingly well received this video seems to be, and how full of personal anecdotes this comment section is, I actually feel a lot more hopeful about the situation now! I guess the climate seems to be cooling down a bit over all too, but it's at least nice to see someone else express what I've been thinking about for so long, so incredibly well. So thanks!
Thanks so much for this comment!! I really appreciate it!
Wasn't expecting to find a thoughtful comment by one of my favourite UA-camrs in this video but I'm for it, keep doing the good shit Thor
Have you seen Lindsay Ellis' video on Mel Brooks? Her video, and now, this, give extremely useful analysis and rumination on the philosophy "either it's all okay or none is okay", as well as about joking on sensitive subjects in general.
Thank you!! :) I have not seen it yet but it's been suggested to me and I plan to watch it soon.
It's kind of disappointing to see people use the "I'm fighing against political correction" excuse to be truly malicious on the Internet.
It's often an excuse to be edgelords
Are you on twitter? My twitter is @Siiimuu add me and let's continue this talk there.
Bird Person, If you're gonna stop replying then I'm gonna conclude that you chickened out.
I know you have twitter, add me and lets talk there in the DMs.
Bird Person, I'm still waiting that twitter message so we can talk more directly or did you chicken out? Right now you are projecting to me all those stuff you see on those "sjw rekt" videos, even though I only have said that the usage of words can drive some people to be more bigoted. Maybe instead of getting triggered at a video that you probably didn't even watch from start to finish, we can have some civil discussion.
My twitter: @Siiimuu
I'm rewatching this, and thank you again. The "leaving room for people to grow" is a thing I worry about a lot if i see people (justifiably) jumped on for thoughtless behaviour, since I did some shit lord style stuff in the past that really stabs my brain when i think about it. i'm glad to be trying to be a good person now. And i always hope people who are criticized can see that there's a path out of that whole scene, rather than them being so embattled that they double down on being obnoxious.
Aubrey Hesselgren thank you Aubrey!!!! :)
This is really good and I loved that you used that Stewart Lee bit about political correctness. The thing about it being an "often clumsy negotiation... better than what we have before" has become sort of a credo for me and really made me think twice about the things I say and how people might react to it.
Thanks! It'd be dumb to pretend political correctness is perfect or that people don't get too invested in idpol but it def seems like the better route to me
In a nutshell: the People who don’t have to care won’t. And they will pretend they care when they have to. They still don’t.
It was perfectly said and agree. Also, I really love Always Sunny as well and that make perfect sense why many of the offensive jokes that isn't really appalling or exploitative.
Trystan McClellan Thanks! Yeah Sunny handles sensitive subjects really well for the most part. Very dark and funny but not at the expense of marginalized people
Fantastic video! Really impressive in terms of research and structure, and really hits on a lot of stuff I've been thinking about lately myself (not least because seemingly we absorb a lot of the same content). Picking out a clip from my all-time idol since I was like 16, Stewart Lee, was the kicker. As far as I'm concerned understanding the message you're sending with the content you produce (and the context of that message) is fundamental to creating art and media, and he's seemingly one of the few comics working who gets that on a deeper level.
Thanks, and I'm sorry in advance for when this gets linked to Sargon or Naked Ape or something and gets bombed with dislikes
Thanks for watching and for the kind comment! I need to watch more of Stewart Lee's stuff for sure. I've mostly just watched that political correctness bit a million times. A lot of comics don't care about their message and I'm happy he thinks about it a lot
Haha well we'll see. Most of the anti-sjw types who have commented have been looking for civil discussion, which is what I wanted/planned for. I think I'm pretty clearly trying to be sincere and civil in the video and if people respond to that with hysterical disliking then *RATIONAL nerd voice* they have Proven My Point
Lee can be pretty inpenetrable to non-Brits as a lot of his work is based on UK political and cultural references, but most of his Immigrant and Islam stuff is spot-on, so I highly recommend checking him out further. Just swap "UKIP" for "Republicans", "Thatcher" for "Reagan" and "Bulgarians" for "Mexicans".
If you want to take any further interest in British left-wing political comedy, I STRONGLY recommend the work of Chris Morris, particularly Brass Eye. Now there's somebody that knows how to approach touchy subjects deftly.
I can def understand/relate a lot of the stuff you're referring to vs some other stuff he talks about. I'll try to check it out! Thanks!
I am familiar with Brass Eye but have not ever like sat down and committed to watching it. I will say re: Chris Morris "Peter O'Hanrahanrahan" is the funniest name I've ever heard in my life
One thing I realized about making a joke that deals with offensive matters (like jokes about race or gender) is that just being offensive for the sake of being offensive is weak, lame, and actually harmful to yourself and others. My rule is this: People are NOT punchlines. Look at Dave Chapelle's Clayton Bigsby skit. It had tons of slurs and racism in it, but the ultimate butt of the joke was racism itself. The punchline was racism as a concept, not black people. People like Louis CK, Chapelle, Bill Burr and such understand this, and that's why they're funny, and why they don't get as much shit as low effort egelords like Daniel Tosh. Unfortunately when you're young, edgy and vulgar humor is hilarious, and I believe a lot of these offensive you tubers have a following of young people.
Instantly subscribed. It almost feels like I wrote this myself.
Every example is one I would have made. It's almost creepy.
I agree with pretty much everything.
(Maybe less so on Harmon, because I listen to his Podcast and I know how aware he is of his own flaws).
Loved this. Keep it up!
Greatjob
probably my favorite video from yours, this was really great. as a former edgelord who also left 4chan i appreciate knowing that i share the same believes and experiences with someone who can express them in my favorite form of media
This is an incredibly mature look at this topic. I've had to ask a lot of these questions myself, growing up in the context of edgy internet humor, and make some decisions about myself and cut some people off.
An important point: The line that I draw, in the context of consuming media, is how it actually effects one's behavior. I have a friend who finds edgelord shit hilarious. He finds racist jokes funny, etc. However, the fact of the matter was that he drew the line when he started making friends in real life that were outside of his assumed worldview, i.e. black friends, gay friends, and he got to understand how his words can actually effect people. He still says stuff to me in private, but he understands how it can affect people and is respectful of people irl.
Thank you! Yeah sometimes it's hard when someone is fun and funny and smart but it's so worth it to not have to wince every time they call someone a "faggot" in public or whatever.
I think for me it depends more on what's implied by the joke vs whether it's edgelord or not. I think Idubbz is a lot more racist/shitty than George Miller is (Miller makes me feel uncomfortable way less even though he does crazy/offensive stuff constantly). There's a difference between a dark joke or a joke that satirizes racism vs just a racist joke. I'm glad your friend branched out though.
Something I kind of came to was if I wasn't comfortable saying a joke in front of someone involved in the group the joke was about then I probably shouldn't say it. Or like, I'm fine with all the "faggot" stuff in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, but it was a different experience when I watched it with my gay friend and his partner. They both liked it and I def don't think it's a homophobic movie, it's just that a joke or a work exists unto itself- it isn't inherently more or less offensive according to the audience, and I should have been just as fine with or without my gay friend there. I of course don't say really dark jokes in public or around people I consider hyper-sensitive (or like make a darkly funny joke about rape culture in front of someone who was JUST raped lol) but I try to be consistent. I dunno! Hard to articulate.
I agree with you on George. I think he's very aware that a lot of what he does as Filthy Frank is despicable, and he finds humor in that, be it insensitive and unthoughtful (although he does seem to realize, at least from the podcast clips you played, that his humor can enable awful people). I also found it kind of funny how much trouble he had in explaining when a holocaust joke is appropriate, because as we know, it's pretty difficult to make a good holocaust joke.
iDubbz leaves a bad taste in my mouth a lot of the time. I can't deny he's funny, but his humor blurs the line between "this is funny because it's undeniably a Bad Thing" and "this is funny because it scratches the part of my brain that wants to make people suffer". I also don't buy his whole "you choose to be offended" thing. It comes off to me like a defense of a bullying mentality, i.e. "It's your fault you can't handle my abuse!", basically just dodging accountability for what one says/does.
As for the friend, he's still a big fan of both Filthy Frank and iDubbz, and he'll reference some of their more questionable memes in private (n****rfaggot etc), but he'll never do it in front of someone that could be marginalized or disheartened by things like that, because he knows that they'd be hurt. He gravitates towards the edginess because it's a taboo, rather than because it hurts people. While that approach is obviously not above criticism, I think the difference matters, and probably has a lot to do with why we're still friends.
Having grown up with Asperger's Syndrome, I've unintentionally insulted or made people feel awkward more times than I can count. Looking back on those moments nowadays, I feel embarrassed and disgusted with myself for not realizing what I was doing. I made those mistakes because basic social etiquette was abnormally difficult for me. Whenever I hear or see a "normal" person act that way when it ought to be easier, I can't help but feel appalled. They're not failing at something difficult, they're choosing to avoid the easy task of exercising common courtesy and basic human empathy.
TLDR: Just don't be an asshole. It's not hard.
So I finally got around to watching this video and wow I'm blown away by how it flows and how insightful it is. It was almost as if you hit the next topic as I was thinking of it.
This video hit a big chord with me. Being black and growing up in various circumstances, a lot of black comedians and actors have done things that I've truly loved. What its like being at a black BBQ, your relatives, being the only black guy in a situation, etc. Being able to see something funny or thought provoking and going "I can relate to that, I've been through that or I know someone who has been through that" there is nothing like that rush cause it reinforces that its okay to be you. The problem is when those same people say troublesome things about gay or trans people, views I don't vibe with. I always struggle to reconcile things like this and this video gave me a lot to think about. I still don't have the answer but thanks for this video!
Lethel Wilson Aww dude!!! thank you so much for watching and for the kind words!!
I (like a lot of liberal or leftist white people) feel weird commenting on black culture but it does kind of suck that like Dave Chapelle and Migos and Donald Glover and whoever get passes for being transphobic or homophobic or whatever because people don't want to criticize them. And yeah they're important and talented but people forget that black LGBT people exist and need to be protected. I was also self-conscious that I referenced mostly white dudes (sans George Miller) in this but I was drawing from my own influences. Anyway! I dunno! Complicated! But again thanks for commenting and for watching the whole thing. I really appreciate it!
That whole into about Louis CK reminds me of my basically half-year-long process of accepting that John Lasseter, whom I never met but was a massive influence on me and my love of animation (and arguably the person who made me want to become an animator), had a long history of inappropriate behavior with his female staff members. I had a full blown mental breakdown accepting that he was one of "those" people. Even before I knew what "parasocial" was, it was the first time I really learned that it was not something to inflict upon yourself.
I love everything about this, except for a small point about watching 'problematic' stuff. If something makes you feel uncomfortable you don't have to watch it. There are literally thousands of other UA-cam videos, TV shows, movies you could be watching. If you don't care about/don't think something is 'problematic' then watch away, but it isn't like you don't have other options
(This isn't directly addressed at you, more at myself a few years ago)
I think the point isn't about a lack of options but rather about challenging yourself to be exposed to different content that is out of your comfort zone. of course if something is negatively impacting you when you watch it you should stay away but if you only watch things you like then you're limiting your understanding of the world, because even if you dont like it lots of other people do like it and if you want to understand those people it can help to watch these things to get an insight into how others may view things. You need to be able to understand people you disagree with if you want to be able to change them.
This is a fantastic video Shannon.
I was a big supporter of the "free speech" argument when it comes too comics and artists, but this video really made great points and honestly made me feel embarrassed for defending and giving the argument to friends and peers.
This video is insightful and intelligent and I absolutely feel that more people should watch it.
Oh wow! Thank you! I appreciate that. Even if this video just changed one person's mind then it was worth it :)
I'm so glad I found your channel, recommended by Kyle Kallgren of BHH. No one has put my own thoughts and feelings on this subject into words better than you. You deserve SO much more attention. I'm in the middle of a big shift in life and am unemployed, but once I'm situated I will 100% donate to your patreon.
Ah wow thanks very much! I appreciate it :)
This is a really fantastic video. It's a very good way of articulating how people are able to enjoy potentially "problematic" media. "Political correctness" very simply comes down to "Is this going to make [group] look bad for my benefit, or is it a joke at no one's expense?".
Also I loved your way of dealing with Louis CK. Very good stuff. First video of yours that I've seen and it's very good! Comedy so often doesn't get discussed properly online and this is fantastic :)
Thanks very much! I am not a comic but I love comedy (like a LOT) and I think nuance is important. Thanks for watching!
StrucciMovies I'm trying to do stuff analysing comedy on my other channel if you want to look. It's called Handshake Hyperdrive :)
every time someones like "why do you like BLANK its got offensive this or that and you dont believe in that DO YOU???" ill send them this video. really good!
tdtbaa thanks! I def have a position that isn't naturally favored by people on either side of me lol
I'm glad that I saw this now that I'm 17. I never realized the influence some media gave to me.
It's neither brave nor difficult to offend people. You're totally spot on here. I hit my head against the wall every time someone says that his (usually a guy for some fucking reasons) saying the N-word is brave. Nani the fuck?
I want that whole script on a t-shirt
This video is criminally underrated, I came here from Shaun's channel when he recommended you in a recent Q&A video and I feel like a dope I never found this channel before. I've now watched every video that is currently uploaded on this channel and I just wanted to express a few feelings. Namely that your level of self awareness, patience, and empathy is beyond approach from pretty much any other youtuber I have seen. The way you dissected this one piece in particular was so resonating with me. I hope that no matter what it is that you do, that you succeed, because we could do with more empathetic and thoughtful voices like your own.
This is the best video essay I've seen on this topic.
I actually really relate, quite a lot, I am in fact quite surprised of how much I have your identical experience with the same UA-cam channels, and TV shows
Man I’ve been trying (and failing) to articulate my feelings on pc culture for forever and I’ve just never quite been able to find a way of saying how I feel on the subject that feels accurate. So in finding your video I had that epiphany like - this is exactly how I feel about this and this video helped me immensely in making my thoughts on the matter clear and understandable. So thank you so much for that!
contrapoints fans represent!
Contra is great!!!!! Wish I had known about him sooner
StrucciMovies He doesn't get nearly as much traffic as he should. I only found out about his work thru a Shaun & Jen recommended video
Natalie is amazing
This is totally nuanced and thoughtful and incredible. I seriously wish that everyone would approach these topics with the same amount of consideration and sincerity as you have.
Ah wow! Thank you so much for the wonderful comment! I appreciate it :)
You did such a great job of verbalizing the things I care about but have difficulty putting into words myself. Thank you very much for this video.
Thank you! I really appreciate that :)
This sums up my feelings on these entertainers and the struggle I feel between enjoying them (or aspects of their work) and also wanting to be an informed, empathetic person, so well. Thanks for making it!
God this channel is so good
thank u!
Rick and morty was mildly ruined for me when I realized rick was kind of a Mary sue for dan Harmon to write about what an asshole he is while heavily romanticizing it. It just bothers me. This video really resonated thank you.
This is a really well thought out essay. It seems like this is getting some positive attention which is awesome.
Also: I just wish someone would look at me the way Ray Romano looks at Bo Burnham at 21:34
Adremelek Thanks! Yeah I feel like people want to have a dialogue which is great. and lol same. I love that song and that performance. I also used it because Maron is so hateful to Burnham at the end of it and the podcast was kind of awkward, like Maron MADE Burnham earn his respect, which is dumb
Thank you for taking so many many many of my thoughts and putting them into essays
I've never agreed to a take more than this. I resonate a lot with this video, being a feminist and a progressive who likes more 'edgy' content like idubbz, sunny, and rlm. It's hard to find that balance between not supporting bad people and watching things that you enjoy. I think that theres room for edginess in leftism, and we need to be more receptive to that as a movement to get more people in.
I think this is my new favourite channel
thank you! :)
Much like everybody else, I was young and stupid in regarding certain jokes just because society around me was promoting them(pre-Internet media were a dark age), but I was lucky enough to have great friends that showed me the error of my ways(A lot of them were gay or trans, actually). I've left traces of a lot of offensive work or comments from myself on the Internet which I deeply regret. But, I would rather have them stay there, to serve as a sign of how easy it is to fall into such a folly that it can happen to anyone, and also because I want to bear the shame with dignity. I need to wonder if this is the right thing to do, but I personally deem that the ugliest history is one that must never be erased. Thanks, Shannon, you are lovely.
On one hand, including clips from the kinds of videos you're critiquing makes your points clearer and helps dampen any echo-chamber effect on people who don't want to look for that kind of video. On the other hand...does anyone else worry that someone's going to walk in at the wrong time and get the wrong idea?
Thank you for making this video. This really connected with my experiences with some of my more politically incorrect friends, and with using 4chan. Stuff like this is honestly why I had to block 4chan from my browser.
This essay is so well constructed and well argued, not to mention how important so many of these points are rn.
IMO the limits of good taste are more personal than we usually treat them, and I appreciated it when the McElroy brought the conversation toward a human element. These conversations are all too often framed in dehumanizing ways. MUTUAL respect forever.
Great work! Thank you.
Caitlin Arndt thanks for watching and for the kind words! :)
I feel you when it comes to jokes about something that hurt you personally. Like, my dad is also super dead but I avoid making dead dad jokes because my dad was a horrible monster and I'm super happy he's dead and all of my jokes about his death to close friends are really mean spirited and anything along those lines would really hurt people who lost a parent and you know, actually loved them and miss them.
Couldn't have imagined finding a video so well done and, more importantly, so painfully relevant to my interests and feelings in recent times. Insta subbed.
Thanks so much for watching and for the kind words!! :)
Good stuff. Comedy that pushes boundaries is good, but it's also hard to pull off. Anyone doing it should be prepared to take the response with grace and humility, whatever it is.
DrTalos thanks! and I agree
I wish I'd found your channel sooner!
Every single movie that generated empathy in me achieved it by having the joke be on *the character*. I don't know why the eff I'd watch anything different, where the joke is on someone outside.
Wow this video. I spend a lot of time in small internet circles including some channels you mentioned, and while providing a lot of comfort and enjoyment, I'm not reaching out much beyond my own perspective. So I'm spending my time in this black and white mentality where I just don't want to give alternative perspectives time of day. Calls to 'see the other side' so often ring hollow when sympathy and free speech protection is more willingly given to massively harmful shit than people suffering on the other end -it is a cop out exactly as you say, free speech warriors seem concerned solely for their already privileged selves and unwilling to reflect. But this video has reminded me how vital it is not to paint anyone who might lean that way as the same - not for their sake but ours. Responding to and understanding normal people who disagree is as or more important than showcasing zealots. And some person or their work might repulse me greatly that I'll want nothing to do with them, which is fine but it is still important to distinguish between levels of shitty (the value in Harmon's work despite his kinda shittiness is a very strong example, and seeing filthy frank talk pretty reasonably about his stance even though I don't agree and find his work pretty loathsome). Wrong-headed anti-sjw rhetoric is so widespread that it's inescapable, which goddamn sucks but is exactly why it can't be completely ignored. This video shows that people who feel this way can be reached by doing the hard work of talking to them directly. The fact that much of what I'm saying could have come from an anti-sjw says all, I think. Genuinely think this will make sense to them where most YT/social media I follow is the left talking to ourselves (which is also good and important but can't be everything!) So yeah, rambley comment but anyway good job and thanks!
It was really wild to see FF and especially idubbbz be really candid and kind of vulnerable (there was more FF stuff I was going to use but didn't have room for). It's easy to forget that these people are still people.
But at the same time neither of them ever gave me a legit white supremacist or misogynist vibe, which I try to point out too. I don't even think of them as anti-SJW (idubbbz can be but he also often criticizes easy racism and seems to have no problem w women, LGBT people, etc apart from being incendiary). I don't have any interest in watching or consuming or really discussing anything with hardline alt-right types. It's exhausting and I feel like they don't even see ME as a person (I feel like a lot of FF and idubbbz's fans are like this, and even RLM's fans!). Like there's a difference between someone who disagrees with me and someone who wants me gone or dead. It's all just complicated and a spectrum hahaha. Like I think Pewdiepie is an idiot and messed up and fed into some really dangerous, nasty rhetoric but (like Hbomb) I don't think he's a NAZI. But like Jontron can go to hell. No time to entertain that stuff.
Thanks for the kind comment! It's important to get out of echo chambers but also to not let poison in haha. I think "not for their sake but for ours" is an apt way to put it
I found FF's style and performance funny but was put off by the offensive shock side. I've had no reason to think of him as a sincere hard right guy, but the tendency of far right leaning people to insist (genuinely!) they are unbiased and in the middle or simply advocating free speech (all ok or none of it etc.) has made me weary. I even deliberated a fair bit over how to word my comment when talking about 'seeing the other side' considering how often people say that to mean basically giving hate speech a platform. Like there's giving time to understand the intent of offensive comedy and then there's bill maher 'finding common ground' with milo yiannopoulos. I feel like jontron is a cautionary tale - coming from the same place as seemingly more moderate people like H3, needledrop, totalbiscuit, south park, RLM, just further down the line. And honestly I don't really know how much of this is fair. Guilt by association as it were. I do see it more on a spectrum and less of a fine line between somewhat un-pc and full bigotry which does not deserve the time of day. You have a clearer head than me with separating this stuff out ha. maybe there being people like FF who have it together more than the jontrons among them is more valuable than dividing into us v them. But at the same time the comfort these people have with and give to anti-sjw sentiment is a problem. Pewdiepie's situation was so bizarre and unique I don't wanna touch it, but it is immediately politicised not just by people condemning him but by the anti-pc hordes seeing a potential ally
I understand the weariness. FF knows a lot of his audience is like that and definitely plays to it (or used to play to it) even if he doesn't believe it, which sucks.
I always got a gross vibe from totalbiscuit. Never interested in his stuff haha.
And yeah re: Pewdiepie- when you have Stromfront peeking around the corner you need to rethink some things haha
Been looking forward to this since you teased the idea on Twitter of exploring ideas of niceness vs. kindness, and it didn't disappoint. Happy you found a way to expand the theme and were able to explore other ideas, all while keeping it cohesive and clear.
Also, the opening bit about being let down by the personal conduct of your artistic idols (no, David!) reminds me how very thankful I am that Kubrick was a weird shut-in who died early enough that my impression of him was never tarnished. All we know is that he was a nice Jewish boy who made wonderful films and who loved his cats to an almost disconcerting but ultimately adorable degree. Which works out perfectly since this was my theoretical ideal artist profile to begin with.
I actually might do a whole separate nice vs kind video but I definitely do touch on it in this! Especially in that I didn't stop saying slurs because I was ~~scared~~. I'm not scared. It was about compassion. People assume fear drives people more than it really does.
Haha Kubrick was kind of an asshole who was way too harsh on his actors but afaik he never, like, raped anyone. That's a nice ideal artist profile btw and one we can all aspire to
This is a great essay, and it articulates some thoughts that i've been having. You just earned a subscriber.
Thanks! :)
Great video. There was a certain period of my life where I spent a lot of time on 4chan and I don't think any site has had more of an influence over me. In some ways I think it made me a smarter, more aware and more critical person but in other ways I think it did make me more cynical and amplify my judgmental qualities. I'm just lucky I was never susceptible to full edgelordery. I think my low self esteem always acted as a buffer from me directing my angst at other people and I would always blame myself for my failures.
Thanks for watching and for the comment!
I miss the wealth of information and the stimulus. I really loved the /tv/ Breaking Bad live threads and posting on /ck/ and /adv/ and stuff. But someone always soured it (and even then I left years before the /pol/ contingent got REALLY bad). I used to post on /x/ til there was a /b/ raid or something and I saw a really graphic gif of a corpse with maggots. I also was active on the creepypasta.com forums many years ago until people from /x/ found the owner, called her house, and she had to shut down the forums and I guess transfer ownership of the site. Even /ck/, COOKING, would dissolve into pedantic hateful performative arguments. It was so stupid and sucked the fun out of it. Lively debate and discussion and screaming at each other about tipping at restaurants every single day are different things lol
Being judgmental will get you nowhere. This is one thing I've learned in life. You can have a value system and reject people you think are crappy or whatever but when people can tell you aren't judging them and are keeping an open mind they are immedeately drawn to that and are more comfortable and open around you. I think it plays into the integrative complexity thing. I think being naturally friendly and open-minded helped me a LOOOOT in life lol.
I'm glad you didn't fall into the trap! Nobody will legitimately escape having bad self-esteem in that hostile of an environment haha
thanks for making this. very informative and well done. much love for the Charlie Spider song.
Barcamayn aha thanks! it's been stuck in my head all week. it's so good
My name is Ian Paul and I'm seventeen-years old, home-schooled, and I'm the oldest of six children. I'm an avid reader and viewer and I love exposing myself to the great works of film, literature, television, video games, and sequential art. For example, I love books like Breakfast of Champions and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn equally even though when in many ways they are completely different. What makes different kinds of diverse work resonate with me is how I feel the similar sense of empathy and search for redemption. Even in an obviously offensive show like South Park, I find that the show finds a moral in presenting a satiric mirror to the world as we know it, showing ourselves for the grotesque imperfect and ridiculous beings we are. In the end, I think we're all fucked up. I'm sorry to say something like that obliviously but I feel we can only make the next step by admitting this to ourselves. That we were brought into this world weak, broken, and crying but what makes us different from animals or the would-be ignorant is how we are always changing and growing. Today's racist can be tomorrow's pacifist. The "good" can become the "bad". And then there's the fact that everybody has their own private pain and that we can't define the world simply in terms of duality. In the end, nobody is certain about anything. I'm still growing myself and the only thing I know that we as all humans know for sure is: that we were brought into this world out of an uterus, that we share the same physiological needs such as eating, breathing, and drinking, and that we are all going to eventually die. I want to forever try upholding my values and treating my fellow man as good as I can manage as an imperfect human, and if God be my witness I want try my best in doing so. Your video essays are amazing and I think you are incredibly underrated. Thank you for bringing some intelligence to UA-cam in this benevolent gesture of a great channel, and I humbly wish you a good day.
Hey Ian! Thanks for watching! And thank you so much for the kind words!
great video as always! i think dan harmon is really depressed or something with a hugely inflated* ego
Mr. Way thanks! and he definitely struggles with alcoholism and depression. he was going through a divorce when he yelled at the Finnish kid iirc
Excellent work AS USUAL, SHANNON.
Devon Johnson THANK YOU, DEVON
What?!? How did I not know about your channel? This is amazing. Subbed.
Red Walker Thanks! I don't have that many subs (yet??) so not that many people are aware of me I guess lol. Link your friends!
Red Walker haha. Red Letter Media. It's one of the Wheel of the Worst episodes
Oh my lord you mentioned Stewart Lee! I can't even get my closest friends into Stewart Lee. Thank you
You could not have confirmed my biases any harder. I agree with every word. Sad that it took me to the age of 43 to get there.
i know this is old and you probably won't see it but I believe the reason you feel more betrayed by LCK is because of the nature of comedy. When you go to see a comedian or watch one you are *trusting* them to deliver you to the other side safely and happily. It's an unconscious kind of trust. Comedians take this seriously that's why they always workshop with an audience. That audience believes in you, you better not fuck it up. So when someone who delivered you safely to the side of release turns out to be a piece of shit, it stings more than just an obscure person behind a camera or a producer or a writer. I never trusted them with my heart. Love your content! I have to go look up half the terms you use in this because I don't even know what an edge lord is? Hope you keep up the good work and take care of yourself!
This is fascinating, I'm very happy i stumbled upon your channel. I will do an essay of your essay, but don't worry I will only keep it to myself, I only want to adsorb everything you said
I'd just like to say: thank you a lot for this video. I definitely relate to things such as your 4chan experiences and trying to phase slurs out of your speech. I really started getting disillusioned with 4chan when I saw the actual tangible effects a board like /pol/ was having on people and I noped the fuck out.
I don't know if you can relate but I have this weird habit where I can wind up arguing with people I agree with because I feel like they're not being empathetic and viewing things three dimensionally. For example just to make this comment grossly political: I do not care for Donald Trump. I would say I borderline hate the guy but I'm not comfortable with saying I hate anyone really. However if I ever have a friend that acts as if every Trump supporter is some sort of Nazi bigot I get genuinely upset just because they're not viewing people complexly.
Anyway, ignoring my dumb quasi political spiel, thank you for this video. It feels cathartic to hear from someone else I'm not a bad person for enjoying shock humour, and that I'm not an irredeemable piece of shit for thinking it can go too far aswell.
Thanks for watching and for the kind comment!! As I understand it I got out before /pol/ rhetoric kind of poisoned all of it (I was mostly on /adv/, /ck/, /tv/, and before that /x/).
I think people feel like that because of the horrible effects someone like that could have on real lives. I think discussing politics with civility and humanity is good BUT people die because of who gets elected so I can also understand being really upset with people who vote for people like that. If that makes sense. I am close with and care about lot of conservatives or moderates though so it's that weird cognitive dissonance.
StrucciMovies I guess that's true as far as the more extreme consequences go. However being someone that lives in BC (I think you mentioned stuff about Vancouver in a few vids??) I just find it silly that people can lash out at someone in such harsh terms due to them voting for the BC Libs or the NDP etc.
tl;dr people should try to be more nice n stuff
Anyway, eagerly awaiting future stuff.
I live in the southern US actually, in Georgia! So when I say "conservative" I mean CONSERVATIVE hahaha
I didn't know about the allegations towards Ck. That's just horrific. He probably was my favorite artist, Horace and Pete is a masterpiece, but I don't think I can watch his stuff anymore.
Fantastic video though! You're summarising viewpoints that I tried to but couldn't really articulate.
Thank you kindly! Again I don't have any firsthand accounts of it but it seems true and I was also bummed out. Found out before Horace and Pete so I haven't seen it and probably won't.
Thanks for watching!
This video-essay is so good, thank you for sharing. You provided context for why empathy is important, and then you demonstrated empathy in your critique of 'anti-PC culture' -- this is really powerful stuff. Being empathetic can feel like a radical act these days, so I appreciate the hell out of this.
Hey dude! Thanks for watching and for the kind comment! I always try to be suspect and look out for myself and stuff but I've never regretted having compassion. I think people see lack of empathy as strength which is really stupid hahaha
This was a very well made and thought provoking video, and I absolutely agree with a lot of it. I appreciate the nuanced and open minded approach you took.
That said I do have a couple caveats. I come from a historical materialist perspective and firmly believe that culture is driven by material conditions, not the other way around. With this in mind, I dont think it is disingenuous to say that cultural superstructure should take a backseat to material struggle. I wont say there is no top-down feedback from the cultural superstructure, but I will say that pound for pound its far less effective and cannot affect the major change that is needed in any meaningful way like changing the material base can. There is an element of zero sum to movements. Especially in contemporary times, with people so beaten down, demobilized and exhausted by the travails of modern life, people only have so much time and energy to dedicate to a given cause. The more that gets thrown into superstructural cultural conflicts, the less is left for material struggle.
Moreover, identity politics are even more of a dead end because they do not threaten the material basis ruling class, who can easily coopt it into a ruling rainbow coalition. They encourage cleavages which allow the ruling class to continue to divide and conquer. Now you might say that a more inclusive culture would help to mitigate those cleavages and encourage solidarity, and I wouldnt disagree (I do personally try to be more empathetic and avoid punching down) but again as a historical materialist I dont think you can reverse engineer through the superstructure like that in any effective way.
Finally, just a few thoughts on humor which does seem to punch down. Firstly, I think it can sometimes be analagous to playing a character. You take the role of a shit-heel with terrible views to expose the absurdity of the premises of those views and to drag those views to their logical conclusion. I think that this can be useful if done right. And I am loathe to accept that an artist must constantly worry about if some actual shit-heel ignoramus takes it the wrong way. Conservatives thought Colbert was taking their side, as an example, but that doesnt make his character problematic. Said shit-heels will read their godawful views into anything regardless of intent, and their views are again resulting from material conditions that the culture wont have a great impact on anyway. Art should be unfettered by the possibility that an idiot somewhere will somehow misread it.
Either way, great video and it got me thinking about quite a few things and reflecting on myself. Been enjoying your channel a lot in general.
Better example of punching down in character, since you used it in your video: Mac's anti gay shit from Its Always Sunny. Surely some fundies were nodding along to his tirades, but that doesnt negate the value of the character exposing the absurdity and repulsiveness of the viewpoint.
I wish I didn't love Woody Allen movies as much as I do...
Fantastic video! Thanks Shannon
Steve Cohen thanks for watching!
holy shit, i never thought about the creating harmful content but otherwise decent in real life.
I've been sharing this video in every improv class I've taken for the last year because it's the only piece of criticism that effectively addresses this issue. if you are in a comedy class of any stripe and the topic of appropriateness comes up, just post this video and move on.
Trust me, I don't care who drops the N word so long as they're not yelling it at me on a street at night. As a black person, I wholeheartedly agree with idubbz's sentiment that words do not carry that much power. His flippant use of it isn't damaging, what is is perhaps people overutilizing it as an insult while playing games, or between one another, and even then I'm not a baby, you know? We all grew up knowing sticks and stones may break our bones but words will never hurt us. I genuinely don't care about the N word, I have bigger problems and don't think someone dropping it contributes.
Very well thought ideas and wonderfully executed. I remember getting introduced to Harmon through his doc and had very similar feelings toward the guy. I listened to his podcast Harmontown and would fluctuate between feeling this is extremely narcissistic to this extremely raw in a way that incredible and kinda life changing. I continued listening throughout the years and he has grown and changed a hell of a lot. There are a lot of narcissistic POS writers and comedians out there but Harmon knows when and how he can be a piece of shit, and has a lot self loathing about it. And the podcast has helped pull his darkest bits out into open and look at himself, which in turn has made him a wholly different person then when he started the podcast almost six years ago. I know people in the comments have probably made this point a thousand times to you already, but maybe give a listen to of his most recent Harmontown episode. I understand if you have a personal situation with him but I think he would agree with 100% of what you said in this video and you would agree at least 90% of the topics he discusses. Dude should get the hell of Twitter though, I agree with you on that! ;)
Really loved your thoughts on this issue. For an example, I love peep show and think its my favourite comedy show. Doesn't mean it's not crap it drops trans misogynistic words for no reason other than a cheap punchline, which sucks especially for me seeing as I am a trans woman.
But I'd never say someone is a bad person for liking the show because a lot of things in life are Gray. Can't wait for your future videos.
Thanks!! :) I get what you mean about Peep Show (it's one of my fav shows too)
holy shit this is so well put and also
are you me
no really what the fuck, i can't handle how uncanny it lines up
biggest difference is probably 4chan. i left right after the 2016 election, like "wait, you fuckers were SERIOUS". but then a couple years later, i came back, because i realized that there was no better place for me to be. to go among the people whose language i speak but with whom i totally disagree. who else will put in the work to call out anons' baseless bullshit with actual facts, who else will argue with these teens on the myriad merits of steven universe
See I agree with a lot of what you say, I really feel about your content much the same way as you feel about RLM. I mean, I can't stand the politics of progressivism and I obviously don't often agree with you when it comes to politics but you are also an engaging presenter who makes good, informative, and generally accurate and well researched videos which do help do broaden my perspective. Despite the fact that some of the things you believe are distasteful to me, I remain a subscriber and something of a fan of the things you make.
For example, I have to disagree with your assessment of people like Idubbbz and Frank as regressive and harmful. As much as I disdain "as a" statements, I would like to point out that as a gay person with autism, I found them to be incredibly helpful in my development and ability to interact with the world with less fear and take back less hurt when it failed to be entirely accommodating. People can't hurt me anymore by using slurs about my sexuality or disability, I've come face to face with them in a friendly and fun environment and that helped to take away the sharpness and fear they would have otherwise had. "You are an autistic faggot" sounds more like a joke to me than an insult, I mean fuck it I am an autistic faggot, these words have no power.
On the other end, I have seen too the way this type of irreverent content makes foreign and scary ideas and concepts (like homosexuality for example) more familiar and normal and fun. People may initially be utterly afraid of gay people and feel violent and aggressive emotions when confronted with them, but if they are instead funny and you have a reference for them that didn't immediately just make you feel sick, if the concepts elicit laughter instead of scorn, they can be much more easily brought into one's realm of familiarity.
I don't expect you to take any advice from me so I won't give any, I just felt like sharing my experience.
It's not even that i think you're necessarily wrong on any of this, I just think there's more to the story than what you've presented. Like one piece of media can have entirely different impacts on people, obviously, but it can even impact the same sorts of people in opposite ways.
I understand that the media that made me feel more comfortable with who I am may just as easily make other people like me feel less comfortable, and the same media that makes other people more comfortable with me may just as easily reinforce the same sorts of people into hating me.
The truth is that there is no one easy answer, and we all know that, but there's definitely room for slower and more moderate, less radical politics and considerations. Things don't need to change quickly, sometimes when you want to institute change, it's better to do it as slowly as possible so you can gauge the impact it's going to have in practice and have a contingency for if it doesn't work the way you intended it to.
I know that last part was incredibly vague but hopefully you get what I'm saying here.
fuck man i love it's always sunny
"Roman Polanski still has a career."
Not in America, as far as I know.
Empathy is the best thing ever, literally every one and their mother knows that. Then why do people vote for Trump when someone calls them out on their lack of empathy towards others? For most people empathy is a deep rooted unconscious knowledge. Empathy is feared and repressed by society at large. Repression of empathy is not a hard thing to find in our world. You have to just look inside yourself after you look at a homeless person. I personally get fearful and defensive of what all I might do in an empathetic bout to right the wrongs in my immediate, day to day surroundings that in effect might end up having far-reaching, terrifying consequences for me and my life. I fear empathy. In this context if a person is to be called out for their lack of empathy towards others it has to be done with empathy. If you try to do it with fear it makes people who already fear and repress empathy, not understand it and regress even more. I guess that's what Trump and his covfefe is partly about. Also I am not denying that there are straight up sociopaths. All I am saying is that empathy should lead by example and not through power.
I've come to think of it as, "I'm not saying you CAN'T say something, I'm asking why you want to say it." If your only response is, "because people say I shouldn't," try to understand why a simple suggestion makes you react in such a way.
Thank you for your insight
Comedians complaining about political correctness is the 21st century version of complaining about airplane food it's overdone and boring. Every time I hear a comedian say everything is so PC nowadays I just think "How many people didn't laugh at this idiot's jokes and they're just salty?" If people aren't laughing at your jokes in the modern day you have a few options: Find a way to joke about timeless elements, edit and improve your comedy so that it better matches your target demographic or stop doing comedy all together.
Every fraction of my yes.
Full discretion, I'm from 4chan, and I've been going there for a very long time. I personally am not the kind of person to purposefully try to punch down, or bully other people, and even on the site itself, I don't think I've ever purposefully tried to shit on a person who's clearly not out for an internet slap fight.
As a 4channer, hearing someone say "problematic", and "marginalized" automatically activates the part in my brain that houses suspicion and anger. I'm saying all this because I feel like there's an internal contradiction in myself, because I genuinely believe that racist jokes do not end with the jokes themselves, and that internet personalities can cause serious damage, despite it being "just a prank". On the other hand, I can't stand tumblr and I can't stand the thought of some high and mighty entity deeming things to be harmful. It's hypocritical of myself and the bottom line is that I agree with the statement you made in this video, on the whole. I also say this disclosure because you should consider it a serious compliment from myself that you managed to keep my attention, despite my aversion from the kind of language you choose to use. While I'm very far from being an alt right /pol/ going redpilled gentleman, this kind of discussion isn't the thing I'm used to consume.
I can't say that I agree with every point you're making, as I find the "harmful" freedom in 4chan to generally be a good thing, so long as it doesn't go overboard and leak into the real world (as it eventually has). The whole idea of "hell is other people" makes 4chan a kind of escape from that endless judgment of other people, and while it can be harmful, all it needs is some tighter moderation to make it alright, and I still love the site, despite it harboring groups of people who would clearly want me dead for being Jewish. I guess that the bottom line with the site is that it's an abyss that gazes into you, and that it can genuinely influence people for the worst, while at its best, it's a place for weirdo nerds to congregate and discuss things without any filter.
Having said all that, I like the overall statement that you made in the end, in that it's not hard to offend other people and that media and behavior has a real influence on others and that people should own up to it, and it's a rather nice statement to drill into people, that at the end of the day, you're dealing with other human beings who could get offended by the kind of message you're putting out. I also really like the very easy to understand message of "offensive jokes are funny until I'm the one being targeted", as any person with some degree of empathy would be able to put themselves in the place of the other minority who's being offended.
On a more personal note, and I mean no offense when I say this, I would like it if you tried to speak just a bit slower and maybe made the video a tad shorter. I felt you were kind of swallowing your words at certain points because of how fast you were talking and it made the listening experience just a bit less pleasant.
Thanks for the video, and I hope that you take no offense in this comment :)
Out of curiosity, how'd you find me/the video?
I think a lot of people on 4chan just want to discuss things honestly with other impassioned people but it all gets dragged down too deeply for that to be sustained. I appreciated the vulnerability and honesty of a lot of people on there (and the humor that comes from a kind of true honesty) but the negativity and cruelty and bigotry got to be too much for me (and I got out way before it got to be as bad as it is now). For example I used to post on or at least lurk /tv/ a lot but all the "jokey" pedo threads and hardcore digging into the personal lives film people freaked me out and it got to the point where it made me feel too gross/uncomfortable to keep going and embarrassed I hadn't stopped sooner.
See I guess I have the same reaction to "SJW" as you do to "problematic" or "marginalized". But at the same time "marginalized" especially is a pretty fair term to use, hahaha, and I tried to not alienate people in the way I was saying stuff. Thank you for taking the time to watch! Also I think if you found feminist/leftist/whatever ~~discourse~~ outside of angry tumblr teens who doxx each other because their Steven Universe fanart isn't woke enough you'd probably be more open? Someone else left a similar comment and I think the problem is the "worst" of feminism is paraded around as emblematic of it and there's a lot of value there if you go looking for it with an open mind.
And oh dang dude no offense taken. Remember, I posted on 4chan for years, I have a pretty thick skin haha and I really appreciate constructive criticism. I recorded and cut this mostly in one night so it is a little rushed. I prefer to talk quickly but I really need to closed caption this and all my other videos (only have some of them done) and if I'd had more time to edit this (I had to finish it for a patreon deadline to pay bills haha) it would have been paced a little better, probably with more onscreen text to back up what I was saying, stuff like that.
I got linked the video in a discord that I go to, along with the person calling you a patrician for liking Hot Fuzz and One Piece. I figured it's worth a watch if only for that. The guy's called Arbie, by the way!
For what it's worth, you made the right choice in leaving /tv/, it's definitely very, very bad at this point and not really worthy anyone's time. From what I've seen, the pedophilia shit has gone down, but in its stead is a whole lot of /pol/ flavored garbage.
I really do think that it's interesting that choice of words for certain topics makes such a large impact, not to criticize your way of speaking, but had you said "harmful" instead of "problematic", I might not have seen any issue with it at all. It's interesting how a few words can have such strong connotations for certain people. I think there's a term for that called "Russel Conjugates", which refers to using specific conjugates to illicit responses from target audiences.
For what it's worth, I can imagine that you're right. As long as an ideology doesn't strive to harm others, there's bound to be something that can be learned from it. The key is, exactly as you say, to keep an open mind, and I'm glad that I was capable of keeping it to watch your video. By the way, it really is impressive that you're capable of looking past the offensive personalities of the people that you watch and watch their content. Separating the art from the artist is not something I can do, I think.
It's totally understandable that you didn't have enough time to make this video more "calm" if you are literally rushing your way through it in a night's work! It's still impressive that you managed to pull it off, it looks well made.
Thanks for the reply!
Lol!
I really liked the Breaking Bad live threads on /tv/. Those were probably my favorite memories of posting on there. Everything was happening so quickly that people didn't have time to be assholes. Every board I liked had a big downside or got ruined by something or another and I think people being creepy on /tv/ was the last straw.
I knew that people wouldn't like me saying "problematic" or calling myself a feminist, but I also didn't want to back down from language I felt was accurate and appropriate. I had a "if I'm going to do this, I'm going to be honest and do this right" attitude with this video (it was also scary to admit to saying "faggot" as a dumb teen and liking idubbbz and whatever as far as criticism from the left goes, though everyone on that end has been super cool and respectful even if they don't like that I still watch this stuff).
I can separate art from the artist to a point. It'd be weird if I could watch Polanski movies (which I do) and then not watch Filthy Frank because he makes fun of people haha. I also think that from my viewing and watching interviews and stuff, George Miller and idubbbz don't actually hold any of the beliefs they joke about the same way PewDiePie probably isn't a Nazi (even though his content is shrill/boring and he should not have made that dumbass joke) which I can admit and also think the jokes are immature and harmful. I was never a fan of Jontron but there's no WAY I could watch his stuff now after all the weird white supremacist stuff he said. Like I say in the video I think they're both bad and harmful but I can recognize the difference between what FF does and legitimately thinking black people are inferior/dangerous and advocating for a white ethnostate, which is horrific and repulsive.
Thanks for talking! The most rewarding part of this video I think has been people who are being exposed to these ideas in a way they might not have. It's very rewarding to me. I am not a centrist and I don't think "both sides are the same" (I am hard, hard left) but I think engaging with people with different ideas in trying to bring them around is valuable and really rewarding. For what it's worth nobody on the left has really criticized the meat of what I say here and I think a lot of people on the left have views that align with mine even though they might not have articulated them the way I do or had the experiences I've had and I think this is pretty representative of feminism/progressivism as I understand it
(I'm the Arbie he mentioned!!!)
I found you through a friend of mine/ours called Tinker who said check out your stuff. Your videos have always been cool and I've been subscribed since when you published the first "[...]want to be a film nerd #1".
I really liked this video and supported everything you said, so I shared it with a personal Discord of mine to see what they thought.
I was intrigued in their thoughts as they're old-time 4chan regulars (mostly 27+ years old and been in contact with eachother since 2007). I'd vouch they're a lot more empathetic and have varying political left leaning ideologies compared to the site's current audience.
p.s. Yeah! Your One Piece video was great! I wish I had something like the manga/show when growing up.
Oooh wow! Tinker is my good pal going way back. I love that dude. That's wonderful. I need to thank him haha
I think it is a combination of people aging out of 4chan, so a lot of people there would be younger than the people you know and less mature/empathetic, and the fact that the site seems to have gotten demonstrably worse over time. Either way I'm interested to see the perspective of other people who have been on the site vs my own (like I talk about I was surprised Sexkik and I had pretty much the same experience even though I'm much further left than he is). I have a lot of online friends who used to browse it for one reason another I'm sure (even if they're not vocal about it haha). That or Something Awful which I never got into.
Thanks :) Something like One Piece? I have friends and stuff now but OP still helps me feel better when I read it. It's just a really unique state of mind. Hard to articulate. I think I like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies a lot because they light up that part of my brain a little bit in a way other big films/other American films don't (Snowpiercer made me feel that way a little too with how creative it was).
no offense, 4chan is terrible but also being above 30 which he sounds like is a good enough reason to leave lol
Sadly, that good intro comparing Dan Harmon and Louis CK is outdated :(
Are you going to make more of those "so you want to be a film nerd..." videos? Those are why I'm a subscriber (but this was quality content too).
Haha I definitely want to! I know I want to make on on film school but I wanted that to be the last one and I wanted to do ten episodes total. I just want to have a good topic before I make more. I also honestly need to make stuff that gets more traction/views if I'm going to make a living off of doing stuff like this and it's disheartening to spend 50 hours or whatever on a video and not that many people see it. I'm kind of playing with making sincere stuff that's still an expression of what I think/feel but in a way that appeals to a larger audience. We'll see!
First video I've watched from you, this is great stuff! Think I'll subscribe. You really hit the points true of that you can love the art from someone even there are issues in it or there could be floating concerns over the true intention of said artist. There is a breaking point, but it kinda takes time to get there. The Internet has soured a lot of people sadly because of the 4chan insult type culture where putting of this nihilist idea has made people more insincere and isolated causing more lash outs towards people.
I do think you can see in some people's artistic merit if they have a point other than being hateful. If you do art that does challenge taboos even if they go too far, that might be okay. But if your content is just a never ending stream of ranting about feminists, SJWs, minorities, and liberal politics then maybe you need a break. And there's a lot of UA-cam watchers who cling to that shit for the same echo chamber/4chan type of mentality. That's why I think there's an exorbitant number of liberal comedians compared to conservative comedians (At best I can name 3 conservative comedians) because their humor is more self-deprecating rather than judging others.
Jontron, I believe will stand out as the greatest example of following this mentality. Loved his videos, thought he had a really keen, irreverent sense of humor. Watched Game Grumps. However, he's gone sooooo into white nationalist politics that it's overshadowing the rest of his UA-cam career. That stream/debate kinda of killed any shadow of a doubt because he unironically believes in these things...which is very concerning cause that could paint the rest of his life.
Sorry for the ramble, these things concern me a lot going through similar stages of new Internet, 4chan, then watching scripted critical shows to more TV/Films. It's funny. Be a critical thinker but open to all forms of enjoyment.
I feel like I'm the only person who hates rick and morty and justin roiland
no love sad fish You're def allowed to. I like it tho
great video, immediate subscribed, but also WHAT IS THAT VERSION OF DUMMY! PLAYING AT THE END OF THE VIDEO thnx
It's a surf rock cover of Spider Dance! ua-cam.com/video/Xj94aDlh0so/v-deo.html
i feel like a moron now haha but ty!
great video with important points, but damn, you speak fast. Like really, really fast (I'm not a native speaker, but still). This in addition that you feel quite unstructured, and you don't give enough time for each point to sink in. And I think you really should elaborate some things more, because in most of the sound clips you play people speak a bit incoherently and without much context
cheers
Thanks! Part of it is I recorded the audio and did most of the editing in one night to hit a Patreon deadline so it was admittedly a little rushed. Me talking fast is a stylistic preference (I plan to caption all of my videos- I've just been bad at it) but this essay is admittedly all over the place. I just didn't want to use emotional energy to make multiple videos on this subject especially because there's an element of being stressed out worried if the ANTI-SJW RATIONALS were gonna pounce on me. I obviously don't mind reasoned discussion but I was scared of being doxxed or mass disliked or whatever by people who didn't even watch the video so I don't wanna do too many videos THIS political and it was that plus wanting to keep it under 40 mins. I wanted to make this way shorter but kept adding to it lol. either way thanks for the feedback and thanks for watching!
Oh, I understand now:)
Like I said, I'm not a native speaker, so maybe the speed is a problem only for me. Usually I can keep up with the stuff I watch, but I like to have time to digest everything - which I didn't have now.
Either way, if you think the feedback on this video is good, then I think you should elaborate on these topics. I for one would love to hear that!
Keep up the good work ;)
A lot of people have complained about it but I think it's just sort of what I prefer and what works for me (I used to be a fan of Yahtzee and I really like Charlie Brooker and I got it from them). My excuse is you can always pause and rewind, lol
One thing I want to talk about is trigger warnings but there wasn't room for it in this video. But that's a scary thing to talk about lol
Thanks!
I'd love to hear about trigger warnings, but yeah, it's scary. I already see the comment section in my head, with full of triggered people from left and right
Yes lol. I had PTSD from my dad dying in front of me when I was 14 and had a panic attack in 11th grade in class watching a really innocuous movie where there was a scene where a character reminded me of him in the moment he died (I was TRIGGERED!!!) so I have firsthand experience with how embarrassing and horrific and difficult it is to have this huge physical and emotional response to innocuous stimuli (it was a heart attack scene in STAND AND DELIVER lol). I was crying quietly and trying so hard to not let anyone know I was upset and scared people would think I was a freak or something on top of reliving the worst moment of my life in a public way. I am an unemotional person and am very self-critical of negative emotions in myself so I get doubly upset and embarrassed with stuff like that (this isn't being fair or right but it feels like weakness). I would have been able to handle it at least somewhat differently if I had known the scene was coming and no longer having that PTSD/no longer being so close to it the scene wouldn't bother me now.
ANYWAY that's part of my experience with it and I'd want to talk about it in the video. I have dealt with my dad's death in a healthy way (plus that movie incident was like 9-10 years ago) and don't mind talking about it but opening myself up to scrutiny over something so personal is rough and scary. I don't necessarily want to open myself up to that. And that's not even touching my own experiences or experiences my loved ones have had with sexual violence/sexual assault/etc. It's a MINEFIELD lol. And I'm guaranteed to upset people when I could just talk about film theory instead (which will also upset people but not as bad)
I almost put a TW or CW on this vid in the intro of the video itself since I talk about such brutal stuff in it but I knew it would trigger anti-SJW types into a pissy frenzy and they'd whine about it so I didn't lol
You where right about Justin.
Yeah... alright, I'm okay with the video so far but it's never going to not bother me when white people assume they know what my problems are, and worry about me being hurt by words. I grew up among whites and with racism and learned to identify when I was being legitimately hated/threatened for what I was, and when it didn't matter, and really overall it's not even as if life was tough for the black kid growing up surrounded by whites. If anything, most of the hate I received was from blacks living in inner cities who resented what I represented (if you want a relevant popularman who identifies with that sentiment, Donald Glover gets it). I can understand feeling sympathy but I don't think it's something you can really understand and it irks me when people preach like this is a serious problems. There are serious problems, it's not in edgy jokes though. I get the argument about normalization but to seriously think it encourages or is born of a lack of empathy is baffling to me and just screams of "oh, the poor blacks, oh how they suffer from words". As another commenter put it two years ago, it's patronizing.
That does remind me though that yeah this video is two years old. I hope this sort of stubborn mindset you exhibited here has maybe diminished with time.
Hey I subscribed off this one video. Don't let me down now
I hope you like film theory and weird horror comedy shorts
Very interesting video as far as the political correctness personally it get a bit overbearing about it especially since the people that are preechy about it and would used example of say person being openly racist or sexist when challenge them they just call the person a terrible person those people that do that are all over the place in a bunch of different medium (like comics, video games, movies, tv shows ect it is that what helped forms the anti.sjw group in the first place
Can't say much about 4chan because I've never been on it even though it pretty scary how they find out information about stuff with very little information they have. (Example finding Shia lebouf he will not dive us flag just by the stars in the sky) but a good video even though I'm in the anti-sjw camp
There are a lot of good points in this video but I think there is a lot of confusion as well. It perhaps would have worked better as two different videos, one about 'missing stairs' and one about the responsibility of the artist. Ultimately it is unfair to try and address sexual assault and off-colour jokes on 4chan as if these are two things on the same spectrum.
With regards to 'missing stairs' and artist and other people of power tolerating and protecting them I disagree that calling them out can really effect anything. These people are protected by the privileges inherent to an industry that relies on big names to make money and while the film industry can make profits off of big names they will protect them. Until we fundamentally change this people will keep getting away with awful things.
With regards to the responsibilities of the artist, you talked a lot about how the media we consume is bound to effect us, my main disagreement is that for the vast majority of people the things that effect them most are not what they see online or on tv but their everyday interactions. Being bullied by the people you know as going to be much more harmful than any offensive video, similarly having a good friends and family is infinitely more important than consuming the right media. The internet is always going to provide a barrier for empathy and I think it empathy and ones own judgement is always going to be a better guide to what we should do than blindly following a set of academic rules.
Lastly I would like to counter a point about 'punching down', making those already oppressed feel more alienated or worse about their lives. Many people are feel like their unable to be angry or unhappy about their life. That being happy is an issue of mindset rather than the material conditions one lives in.In my view if a piece of art made someone feel unhappy, angry or alienated by highlighting the injustice and alienation that already exists in their own life it would be the most progressive thing art could do.
I found this video via the "intro to breadtube" playlist, and I just want you to know that as a Latino socialist, I have yet to find content on this platform that gels with my leftist ideology more than this video. I love Contra and Hbomberguy and Chapo and Cumtown and it honestly feels like people are more willing to play the idpol game than focus on actual communities that focus on marginalized communities.
The thing is, its' pretty easy for an educated person to tell whether content is ironically mocking fascism and racism, or is genuinely bigoted. That's why I carefully choose what I'm a fan of, but I don't discredit people for telling offensive jokes.
I almost turned this one off after the first act, thinking it was leading into a long drawn out defense of Anti PC Brigade Media, but I'm really glad I stuck it out because I ended up really respecting your process + conclusions.
I'm not into the Family Guy/South Park/Always Sunny brand of comedy - it's just not my bag - but I do love me some Bojack and Rick & Morty and worship at the altar of Contrapoints (who goes by Natalie Wynn now).
Framing it from the beginning as sort of a "what are you willing to excuse" thing, because we're all good at overlooking the unsavory aspects of things we want to like, ended up being fridge brilliance for me when I saw where you were going with it about the 2/3rds mark. Greatly enjoyed.
Well done. :)
Aha, thank you! :) I appreciate it. Idk why you are winking at me though Dragon!!
I must have forgotten to hold shift. Great, now I look like a weirdo... =-o
Hahaha you're good
kinda eriee how the CK stuff came out
Haha, I was thinking the same thing! Even if it's less eerie coincidence and more "a lot of these gross dudes' gross actions are in fact open secrets" irl.
You're the best! :D
like most of the video, really don't like how you consider nazi sympathizer podcasts to be insignificant and "out of character".
Lol I watched all of this and it just feels like excuses. Maybe im wrong but it really feels like "keeping up woke appearances" just too afraid of backlash to admit to being prejudiced or not caring if you offend. I think if you start off with off color work, you should defend it! as it was a choice made alone. Its not on anyone else to infer or not see what somones "true character" is. How do i know jokes dont reflect your personal feelings? Im just as well off believing they do as i am believing they don't. Its not on me to try to sus out if someone is a "Real" racist or not. I dont need to ease my conscious with paranoid wonderings.
It's funny how you can't keep watching the kind of material from someone like Louis CK, because he probably did smt that touches you personally, smt similar that happened to you, but then is aware of the shit Frank and the other glasses dude did and said and you know it's harmful but you are able to continue watch the material and enjoy it, because their jokes probably don't touch you on personal level, because, and I'm guessing, you're not a minority, disabled and/or homosexual. It shows how ppl think. I might be wrong. But just an observation.
I think it's shitty of you to suggest that a person's is not deeply, personally, concerned about minorities unless they're consuming media that is unproblematic. Bigotry is intrinsic in this society, and the majority of media is offensive in one way or another. Also, she has stated that some of the media she consumes is misogynistic. It's like you don't think sexism is bigotry, or something.
I am ambivalent about all of this.