#41

The level of harassment they get is insane, and trying to unpack why it’s happening is a long dark rabbit hole.

3 Likes
#42

I’ll watch that later

#43

That festival has a bunch of great videos. I strongly recommend the Hbomberguy one which is him giving an account of his Mermaids chairty stream and how that all came about/the way it blew up. It’s great, and extremely heartwarming.

1 Like
#44

When contrapoints deleted her social media the other month first I heard was on Instagram (because of a hashtag). Saw lots of right wing gloating, but also progressive people criticise her, one post was informing her that nb people are not to blame for the backlash against trans people, it is religious fundamentalists having moved on after losing the gay marriage battle. Fine I thought, but weird she would ever argue that in the first place, especially as her recent video was all about the validity of nb people. Traced it back to what she said, and it was just that she felt uncomfortable with announcing pronouns (but accepts it’s important for non binary people and wasn’t the practice should be stopped), thought there must have been more to it to raise that response, but there doesn’t seem to be.

It’s difficult because right wing people will pounce on anything like this, but it does seem to be a bit of a problem to me

1 Like
#45

still their best album imo

1 Like
#46

this is reminded me that a guy i work with used to work in a sandwich shop, he said someone once came in and ordered a baguette but asked him to scoop out all the bread inside the baguette and then put the sandwich filling into the hollow shell that remained

2 Likes
#47

Yeah…I think I personally usually recoil from “we’re all on the same side, let’s compromise” type arguments just from seeing this constantly from Labour Party centrists…but in this case, striving for perfection is really holding activism back.

1 Like
#48

did that customer appear to be a small monkey in a jacket?

#49

Is contra one of those channels that talks about e.g. Hollywood films from a left wing perspective ? i like dumb stuff like that that makes me feel clever

#50

I don’t think so, she explores the philosophy around progressive issues, has a good record at turning alt righters

#51

Cast of characters, good set design and production values, very funny

#52

I like Contra…but her sense of humour is the one thing I find I don’t always “get”

1 Like
#54

Find contrapoints really informative and funny, really like her a lot. Tbh it’s probably the only thing I really watch/read about left wing politics (other than this board and the echo chamber that is my Facebook feed).

#55

Okay I’ve not seen that

#56

Hbomberguy won’t top this, tbf

3 Likes
#57

Clem seems ok on Twitter

#58

Anybody (such @JaguarPirate) seen ContraPoints’ video response to the controversy last year? Its just a 100 minute ramble, but I still found it compelling. For the record, I also thought she makes an argument that aligns with my own perspective on cancelling, and it’s nice when you feel that kind of validation

2 Likes
#59

I thought this video was really good. I kind of struggle with this stuff as I used to have this perception that there are some people when it comes to progressive politics who are too extreme, though there is a bit of a mob mentality, black and white thinking, an orthodoxy with little room for different views and well meaning people being treated unfairly.

Over time I have moved away from that, in large part because of people with clearly problematic attitudes making the very same arguments I was thinking, and realising a lot of what I was thinking was based on a caricature, not direct experience but just this idea that it was happening that I was picking up through the ether without really challenging. started to think maybe it was partly a vocal minority that aren’t really representative of a wider movement, and also people on the opposite side with an agenda, either drawing attention to the worst examples or actively astroturfing and falsifying stuff, and with media outlets constantly needing content publishing think pieces and counter think pieces when it really isn’t justified.

watching this video though, it does seem really bad, guess I am still not sure whether it is real and representative of a big problem, or whether it is just very vocal people that can easily be ignored by avoiding twitter. dunno if that made sense

1 Like
#60

Aye this is pretty great.

When I was younger I was a lot quicker to post online about hating someone for doing something I thought was shitty. Now I realise that doing that was my way of trying to fit in, and, partially out of fear that if I wasn’t seen to be saying a certain thing, that I would seem to not care about that issue generally.

It’s very upsetting to see the left eat itself. Harassment in any form is not conducive to progressive politics.

Especially when a lot of these people harassing Contrapoints are doubling down. A lot of them are lacking empathy, have wild assumptions/interpretations, and seem to be doing this from a place of insecurity rather than wanting to encourage better behaviour in others. Some of them have tried to work out how much Contrapoints gets through patreon, as though, if someone earns a certain amount it’s okay to throw vitriol their way and treat them like less of a person :woman_shrugging:

Stranger still is the way that the rest of the lefty-youtubers have been pressured into cancelling Contrapoints as well. Forcing cis people to publicly cancel their trans friend is not a good look.

The people I know who have been in situations similar to cancelling (thinking of one person who had like 40,000+ tumblr followers) make it out to be a uniquely shitty experience. I think all the cancellers would genuinely think twice about it if they had been on the receiving end… which some of them are now in Contrapoints’ case. People are kicking off because she included tweets from harasses in her video, and even though she blanked their names, some people are finding them online and harassing them in retaliation, which is being used to cancel Contrapoints a second time. What a mess.

Been following this loads the past couple of days. It’s fascinating in terrible ways.

1 Like
#61

Yeah, I think the whole thing (but particularly this latest video) has really highlighted how counterproductive Twitter is when facilitating this kind of debate. I personally find it impossible to work out the truth in a scandal or spat just from tweets, and distinguishing between exaggeration and accurate facts is just as hard…which is part of the reason I respond so much better to video essays. It’d be a hard task but if there are people who, in good faith, still question the morality and motives of CP and could condense THAT into a video…then I’d watch it.

Although I’m probably overstepping the mark by trying to speak to certain marginalised groups…but I do genuinely think they need to stop expecting flawless records from influencers and be more forgiving of mistakes. The points made about how “net good” surely mitigates the missteps are correct; I think it’s undeniable that CP’s videos have helped make the world a little less hostile to LGBTQ+ people, and that should count for something.

2 Likes