These are the most important bits:
“I consumed libertarian content, mainstream conservative content,” he said on the stand. “Then I slowly started looking at some alt-right content on YouTube, and then stumbled across some of the more fringe.”
The content he described focused on the Great Replacement—a popular conspiracy theory among the far-right focused on minorities taking over white majority countries—and the idea that Muslim violence is under-covered by mainstream media. He said that he consumed conspiratorial content like Alex Jones’ Infowars where he found “conspiracies that Middle Eastern wars were a conspiracy to try to bring Muslim immigration into Europe.” This then led him to white nationalist content.
Oh wow, that last part about wars in the middle east being a conspiracy is totally new to me. I suppose it’s no less unbelievable than the planet being a flat disc or moon landing hoaxes.
Check out way back machine to look at early YouTube and you’ll find so many videos with this crap and all of them had images of crusaders because those were the groups making these videos. They were organized racist Nazi fucks who built up this imagery of a new holy war. But it was too obvious the following waves racist social media posting just hid that it was coming from these fucking losers.
He said that he consumed conspiratorial content like Alex Jones’ Infowars where he found “conspiracies that Middle Eastern wars were a conspiracy to try to bring Muslim immigration into Europe.” This then led him to white nationalist content.
I’m not surprised he said that. Alex Jones is a stepping stone toward radicalization but I consider it a distinction without a difference. Alex Jones has been a white nationalist his entire career despite his shallow denials and subterfuge. The ‘Knowledge Fight’ podcast has done an excellent job of documenting the fact that Alex Jones has never been a “harmless crank” by examining and debunking his own contemporary claims and those going back to the earliest days of his career. The only difference between Alex Jones and blatant white nationalist content is his conscious use of dog whistles. But even those have mostly been abandoned now that he’s seemingly drunk every time he records a show.
It’s funny because at the beginning of that show Dan does think Alex is just some kind of a grandstanding/ridiculous pill, gold and water filter huckster. He was listening and watching ironically, largely for cheap laughs, and as kind of a game to peel back the layers of the “turn the frogs gay” onion.
It took a decent amount of time for them to get a handle on how awful he truly was, but more importantly, the intent. When you look at it through the lens of the current episodes you can see that the beliefs were always there but that there was way more effort to maintain the mask and disguise the true sources. Pretty much like you said.
Part of what makes the show interesting, in hindsight, is how long he was given the benefit of the doubt. And I say that as more of a testament to who Dan and Jordan are and the difference of the times from then and now. His fascination morphs into disgust and the novelty becomes more of an accidental chronicle of right white radicalization. I wonder who Alex will say was really behind this.
I’ve listened to episodes here and there, but your explanation about how Dan changed over time is interesting.
A few questions :
When did Dan start to realize this wasn’t a joke (~ how long after the show started), and was it just Alex being Alex or was there a major moment where it finally hit him?
After the show started, how long did it take them to get caught up to current broadcasts? When did the podcast and Alex “sync up”? Did his hardcore alt right turn begin around the 2016 election? I know he was spouting all the racist fear mongering things during Obama’s term.
Thanks! I love the concept of the show, but I cannot take that much Alex at one time. They’re doing good work though.
Fucking YouTube my people.
I am South African. Considering a move to another country so we were watching expat videos from that country. Fuck me if YT didn’t take two searches to start serving up content about white slums and the impact of Affirmative Action on the whites of SA.
To be clear I want to move for an adventure and to further my career. I’m mixed race and have no beef with AA, YouTube wants name to be a frustrated white person who wants to leave due to politics. Get fucked.
Actually, it’s more of an anecdote. But mainly a comment or a reply, which is kind of the point of a forum-style social media site like Lemmy or Reddit.
In other words, unlike yours (and mine), they’re actually *contributing to the discussion.
edit: typo
What exactly is confusing about this? About two weeks ago I watched an episode of a show about atheism and within minutes I started getting ads for prayer and Bible apps. I played a math help vid for my 4th grader and started getting ads from Epoch Times about the globalist trans conspiracy. I started watching the Young Turks (liberal), and got Prager-U
YouTube ad program is targeted people with content that they don’t want.