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 know Three arrows does some sort of podcast patreon subscribers can listen to, so maybe that’s where they are getting their money’s worth?
I think, in some cases at least, what slows videos down is the added quality of research or production most creators invest in after getting popular. In many ways it’s also the creative mind sometimes needing some direction a producer gives in general media, and not having that lets them just go absolutely wild is useless work that ends up being scrapped. I might be a bit charitable though because I only followed a few breadtubers, there may be many more that are just grifting.
Personally what intrigues me the most about breadtubers is how they become mild and inoffensive versions of themselves after becoming popular/well-off. Like, what causes that? Is it that the societal problems they criticized no longer applies to them? Is it the allure of advertising money? Is it secret CIA threats? I really do wonder.
I think Shaun still keeps to the same type of content, which is probably why I still bother watching what he puts out.
Personally what intrigues me the most about breadtubers is how they become mild and inoffensive versions of themselves after becoming popular/well-off. Like, what causes that? Is it that the societal problems they criticized no longer applies to them? Is it the allure of advertising money? Is it secret CIA threats? I really do wonder.
The same exact cause for hungry as fuck “progressives” like AOC to settle and water down and tiptoe away from their original mission: They’ve switched classes and, therefore, their new class interests are in conflict with their original mission. What’s there to be hungry about anymore when you start being fed really well? Why continue trying to destroy the status quo when it’s benefiting you materially? This is why it’s important to maintain loyalties to class interests (in this case, the interests of the proletariat), instead of individuals who are susceptible to corruption. China does this very well and provides the blueprint.
In many ways it’s also the creative mind sometimes needing some direction a producer gives in general media, and not having that lets them just go absolutely wild is useless work that ends up being scrapped
Hbomb
Personally what intrigues me the most about breadtubers is how they become mild and inoffensive versions of themselves after becoming popular/well-off. Like, what causes that? Is it that the societal problems they criticized no longer applies to them? Is it the allure of advertising money? Is it secret CIA threats? I really do wonder.
Their rage against the machine cools off when the machine starts treating them well
Disclaimer: I’ve never watched any BreadTube in my life
I think you’re looking at BreadTube from a wrong angle. You seem to judge it as a socialist project when you should be judging it as entertainment
I could be wrong about this next part but I don’t think anybody has ever claimed that BreadTube was an educational project to further advance the working class’ struggles. Youtuber making videos and their fans voluntarily supporting them with donations isn’t a grift because the Youtuber hasn’t claimed that it will help the class struggle or help bring forth communism
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
If people wanted to do this, they would’ve already done so. I don’t think them donating to BreadTube would stop them from doing so. Not to mention the donations are so geographically distributed that if these donations did go to local grassroots orgs instead it’d probably be negligible amounts
I don’t disagree overall with your response but I’m not really sure where you’re coming from by saying that I’m approaching Breadtube as a socialist project.
I was just giving mention to the obvious criticisms of Breadtube that are already out there before moving on to my point, which is that many of the largest creators seem to accumulate a big Patreon base before basically dipping out of creating content save for a couple of videos per year.
I could be wrong about this next part but I don’t think anybody has ever claimed that BreadTube was an educational project to further advance the working class’ struggles.
I know this is gonna come off as a “look it up, bro - it’s true!!” response but it’s a really common refrain from within the hardcore fanbases of Breadtubers and streamerbros for fans to claim that “they’ve done more for the left than anyone else.” This comes up as one of the first defences of people like Vaush, Keffals, and especially Beau of the Fifth Column. With Beau, if I ever come across someone who supports him, I point out that they’re supporting a convicted human trafficker and it’s usually a 50/50 chance they’ll resort to this defence straight off the bat. They will also often repeat this refrain in their echo-chambers about how tankies are completely insignificant and how their favourite content creator has done more for the left than tankies ever have (yet simultaneously, they’ll claim tankies are so disproportionate in their influence that they’re ruining socialism for everyone else. Odd how tankies are so weak and yet so strong at the same time 🤔🤔)
I wouldn’t recommend engaging with these people but if you do then it becomes pretty obvious that it’s not just a parasocial relationship they have with their favourite YouTubers but it’s also kinda like a parapolitical or para-activist relationship they have with them as well.
If people wanted to do this, they would’ve already done so.
I wouldn’t deny it.
I don’t think them donating to BreadTube would stop them from doing so.
I’m of a different opinion here. I think with the diehard believers they really do have a sort of false consciousness and they believe that they’re funding something that’s greater than infotainment and because of that they’re less likely to put their donations towards something which is politically impactful.
Not to mention the donations are so geographically distributed that if these donations did go to local grassroots orgs instead it’d probably be negligible amounts
Maybe. But a ton of orgs run on a shoestring and even if it was only in the most populous cities in the west like New York and LA and London, if the money from places like that were going to grassroots orgs instead of Patreon I think it would make a significant difference.
But then again there’s absolutely no way of proving this claim since no-one but Patreon would have the demographic data of patrons and the amount they donate so this is pure speculation.
Sounds like your complaints are more about the audience that certain youtubers attract more so than the youtubers themselves.
but it’s a really common refrain from within the hardcore fanbases of Breadtubers and streamerbros for fans to claim that “they’ve done more for the left than anyone else.”
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?
I mean, I certainly understand the frustration that comes from these kinds of interactions. But you also need to keep in mind that people who are nuanced and put a lot of thought into their positions/opinions aren’t the people who are loudly posting their bad takes. The people who are doing that tend to be opinionated and arrogant, and as a result trying to have a discussion with them can be frustrating and feel like you’re talking to a brick wall. But that’s also the majority of opinions and argumentation that you’re going to see being shared, because that kind of axiomatic and simplistic world view is the easiest kind to share. You don’t have to lay out the ground work for why you believe something is true, you just proclaim that it is true and double down when challenged.
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.
Now, if you’re going to a place such as a dedicated discord or subreddit for a specific content creator, depending on how that community developed it’s possible that all of the reasonable people have left those communities and the only people left are the “true believers,” so to speak. But you have to keep in mind that the people who will join a community and regularly post in that community is usually a tiny fraction of the overall audience for a given content creator. And that can still end up being hundreds or thousands of people jumping into your replies when you criticize their darling content creator, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate any widely held sentiment among an audience more broadly. It just indicates that some randos on the internet have bad takes, and those randos happen to be part of those communities. Whereas the majority of a given audience is probably mostly “normal,” and don’t have their identity invested into their favorite content creator in nearly the same way.
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. Yeah, Ben Shapiro can talk down to people half his age who haven’t fully developed their political beliefs yet and make them look foolish, and yeah, we can pick out random fans of a specific content creator and talk about how bad their takes are. But neither of those things tell us anything meaningful about the larger population, and there isn’t any reason why the opinions of randos should be treated as indicating anything significant or meaningful.
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. The existence of online randos having bad takes is not itself significant or meaningful.
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, but they will be the people you encounter online the most because they are the most likely people to share their opinion and to respond to criticism. 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.
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.
