So I think we already know the outlines of the typical criticisms of Breadtube, namely that it’s vaguely-leftist content that focuses on cultural critique and gives a nod to socialist theory here and there but it doesn’t actually achieve anything and it’s just a media-consumption demographic with no moves towards anything that resembles on the ground organising and activism. (Obviously there are a few outliers but as a rule this generally holds true.)
I dipped out of Breadtube years ago for plenty of reasons but I just posted on Lemmygrad criticising the SPD Three Arrows movement which prompted me to have a look at the Breadtuber Three Arrows and they have done exactly the same thing that Contrapoints and a lot of other large figures in this genre have done:
They build up a healthy Patreon base and then their content drops off to like a couple of videos a year, if that, while continuing to draw off a personal salary which rivals that of a full-time worker.
In the past two years Three Arrows has produced 4 videos, amounting to less than 4.5 hours of runtime all up.
That’s staggering for someone who is getting over 60k a year, at the most conservative estimate.
Likewise Contrapoints claimed to be getting 20k a month and she’s putting out like 1-2 videos a year. And there’s plenty of other examples of this too.
Imagine what could be done if people supported their local grassroots organisations instead of paying boatloads of cash for their twice-yearly YouTube treats smh.
I’ve already addressed a lot of what you’ve brought up in a reply further down in this comment thread before you commented so I’m going to try and keep this brief to avoid relitigating the same points that I made prior to you writing this comment.
Sounds like your complaints are more about the audience that certain youtubers attract more so than the youtubers themselves.
I’m criticising the structural trend that exists as I see it and I’m doing so because I think that it’s exploitative of people on the left which is why I’m bothering to even mention it in the first place.
Like, I agree that this is a believable interaction, but the question I would have to ask is why are we assigning so much weight to the opinions of randos on the internet?
Like I said, this is about the hardcore fanbase and as such the implication is pretty clear that it’s not intended to be representative of the entire viewership of a channel. I stated directly that this is my own anecdotal experience and it’s not like I was trying to pass this off as ethnographic research or anything like that.
But if we make the assumption that the hardcore fanbase is most likely to donate then this is why their opinions are salient to that part of the discussion and it’s also worth noting that I am only responding to this in regard to the prior point that was made further up that nobody thinks that Breadtube is anything beyond infotainment.
My argument is simply that this is not what is commonly held as true amongst the hardcore fanbase.
The thing is, you shouldn’t be addressing those people directly. If you’re replying to/challenging a person like this, you should be writing your response for the benefit of the audience who will be reading that exchange, and you should be responding with the presumption that the bulk of people are not the arrogant and opinionated person you’re replying to and that they would appreciate being introduced to an opposing viewpoint.
I don’t disagree but I also don’t understand why you’re assuming that I don’t already know this or why it’s relevant.
Like, this kind of complaint feels akin to what conservatives like to do where they sift through the discourse™️ in order to find the most cringey arguments that they can scrape off of tumblr, often posts from literal children/teenagers, and then sharing memes with “TRIGGERED” as the caption and pretending that those memes represent “The Left.” Or it feels like the Ben Shapiro special where he picks “debates” with random college freshmen that he can mock and talk over to show how pathetic “The Left” is, instead of finding someone who can put forward the strongest and most well thought out version of a position and debating them on fair terms.
This comes off as a pretty broad mischaracterisation of what I’ve said and how I’ve said it tbh.
I didn’t even bring up the hardcore fanbase in my original post and I wasn’t cherry-picking the absolute worst quotes or screenshots of a fanbase to dish out some epic owns on them publicly to prove that I am the chad and therefore they are the wojaks. Far from it. I was just relaying what I’ve personally seen from this cohort in a fairly neutral way so not only is it not a complaint but I really don’t see how you’ve arrived at the conclusion that I’m pulling a Ben Shapiro here and it comes off as a bit disingenuous.
instead of finding someone who can put forward the strongest and most well thought out version of a position and debating them on fair terms.
I’m not seeking to do that, I’ve already expressed my distaste for engaging with this demographic, and this is way off the point besides.
I’m not interested in finding a person who can best defend their positions to have a fair debate with them. I’m simply saying that this is what I’ve noticed.
I suppose you could make the argument that in the case of content creators that you get the community that you cultivate, but even in that case the more meaningful criticism would be to break down what a creator is doing that would cultivate an audience like that.
This is something that is way beyond the scope of what I originally criticised.
I think it would be helpful to just take a step back and reframe your experience, starting with the understanding that most people are reasonable, reachable, and teachable. And then approach these interactions with the understanding that the people posting inflammatory takes and who immediately become defensive in response to criticism aren’t the people you are trying to reach
I am generally not involved in these discussions directly but it’s mostly what I have witnessed so I’m not really sure where the assumption is coming from that I’m directly involving myself in internet slapfights over this with the hardcore fans or that I need to approach this more objectively.
I’m well aware that commenting online is a spectator sport and you’re inferring a huge amount about my intentions based on what is essentially a side note where I disagreed with a point someone made.
Either adapt your response with the understanding that your intended audience is all of the people who will be reading that exchange and that your intended audience is not the person you are responding to specifically, or step away from online discourse altogether and focus your outreach/persuasion on people in your actual life where you can have face-to-face discussions instead of semi-anonymous flame wars.
This feels like you’re almost trying to diagnose me with some sort of problem and to provide me with advice about how I need to change my ways and what I need to focus on but it’s all based on a small aside and you’re making some pretty big assumptions about what I engage with, how I engage with it, what I intend to get out of it, and what I devote my time on.
I’m not seeking advice or support for this. I’m not vexed by it. I’m just recounting what I have witnessed since it’s relevant to the discussion. Heck, I even explicitly said that I don’t recommend engaging with these people which I think implies that it’s something that I don’t generally do myself and that I don’t see it as a good use of time. If we take that and put it together with what I wrote in my original post, it’s implied that I haven’t even thought about Three Arrows for years and that it only came up incidentally, and likewise with Contrapoints, which paints a very different picture than the one you seem to have gotten from what I’ve said.
