This article is a shining example of the right’s obsession with attacking educational institutions. Educated folks actively challenge and test their beliefs in an effort to grow, and this usually involves questioning what they were taught when young.
I was there 15 years ago as well. There were no Shapiros or Petersons because online video was still in its infancy, but a conservative upbringing and online spaces definitely pushed me down the path that the author writes about.
I changed when I went to university as well. It wasn’t liberal arts courses that got me out, it was simply being around a wide variety of different peoples and ideas. Universities don’t teach you to be “woke,” it forces you into contact with people outside your bubble.
Yup. I found 4chan like 13 years ago, right around when the “pools closed” thing happened. I was unhappy, dissatisfied with society, alienated from other people, and thought I was better than everyone else. Thats a dangerous combination, and I started off by trying to just be ‘edgy’ and shock people, but with increasing desensitization i shudder to think what might have happened if I hadn’t started smoking weed and talking to more people and eventually found psychedelics. I don’t cesdit drugs alone with getting me out but it definitely helped me relate to others and build a sense of empathy which allowed me to see through the (in retrospect) bullshit.
I kinda feel like that’s a journey many young men take. Mine was luckily really brief. I watched a bit of Dave Rubin (I believe that was his name) and his interview show. In the beginning it was all quite interesting and made some sense, but then he invited more extreme interviewees and it all quickly unravelled.
I almost fell down it around 3 years ago, watching “SJWs and feminists against video games” type videos and actively searching for them but then one day I just stopped. I really am thankful that the Youtube algorithm didn’t hit me that hard.
I’ll never understand how “SJWs and feminists against video games” continues to be a trope.
Portal was released in 2007, and by 2010 I had read a litany of articles about how Portal was a feminist masterpiece, turning the classic First Person Shooter starring a violent male protagonist on it’s head entirely, giving you a gun that makes holes. Each time you pass through a portal, you are rebirthed. There are no male characters. The only “male” coded character is the companion cube, which you are pressed to abandon by GlaDOS.
Anyway, plenty of feminists fucking loved that game, so I don’t understand how this perception continues unabated.
For those who want to catch up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6TrKkkVEhs&list=PLJA_jUddXvY62dhVThbeegLPpvQlR4CjF&index=4
I never caught onto any of that I always thought it was just a fun ass game to fuck around with physics
I mean, so many alt-right tropes don’t hold water the moment they’re held up against any sort of critical thought. I think ultimately, the far right isn’t interested in making a logical appeal. But rather, they’re interested in making emotional arguments disguised as logical arguments.
