ContraPoints

The problem is the alt-right/similar groups are already out there recruiting much faster than any leftist youtuber is converting them. For every former alt-righter that watched her video and somehow miraculously came around to the conclusion that "hey, maybe non-white people do have a right to exist", there's seven more angry white boys being convinced that all their problems are the fault of Jews and women.

If her goal is to "reduce the number of our opponents", it's doomed to failure right from the get-go.

edited 21st Mar '18 5:07:24 PM by PhysicalStamina

And even then, how do we know these people are even fully converted? Yeah, they might be less shitty. Less shitty does not equal shit free.

Given how I've brought up how she's grown a fanbase of people who are happily demanding that she "trigger" people with this and are laughing at every time she lashes out at people for criticizing her, I'd say she's outright growing a bigger alt right following than converting people. Some of them are still the same, and you know why? Because she appeals to them with this bullshit.

Just a think here: not every edgy "ha ha trigger" teen or idiot is alt righter, they are more likey to atract those people but isnt the case.

In fact in my case and other i have seen enjoy Contra because she is stick against them in a way other left youtube or personaly cant, she is very self aware of their meme and way of argue and it represent a heathly counter against them.

And I think what she wants is also to warn against Centrist who are caught unaware of the alt right shittery(Really, some youtuber seen confused about Richard spencer political positions) and some lefties who sometimes are too narrow in their ways, cant said she is wrong about it.

Those edgy teens may not all be alt righters, but plenty of them are leaning in that direction or are "centrists" who say both sides are equally bad somehow.

So we just... give up?

Welp, guys, culture war's over, we lost. Guess we just have to roll over and die now.

Honestly. What sort of argument is that? What DO you want the online left as a group to do, then, if trying to convert people is pointless and we've already lost? Curl up in a ball and wait for the end?

And like... sure, just because they're less shitty doesn't mean they're great people now. I don't care. A little less shitty is still better than remaining exactly as shitty as they were before. That's a perfect solution fallacy; 'if it doesn't work 100% it's not worth doing at all'. Which just ends up in doing absolutely nothing.

edited 21st Mar '18 5:22:57 PM by LoniJay

We can certainly convert some of them but playing their game and positioning oneself as the "cool" person in appealing to them like Contra has been isn't helping. If anything, it's become counterproductive by making the alt right see her as one of their own, and the criticisms people have to this approach have been continually brushed off. Frankly, her video entitled "The Left" is sick in hindsight. It's emblematic of her entire problem: yes, we can try to sell ourselves as a collective a bit better, but the way she's done it has led to her allying and being supported by shitty people and has led to her alienating leftists while growing a following of alt righters.

Adric: Still those edgy teen arent alt right and neither those centrist, we cant join them in the same pleace, fustrating that it sounds, in part because they are edgy lefties out there and second, someone is need to lef a counter narrative.

I mean sorry but I feel a lot of people are overstimated the alt right and other into this all reaching blob monster that can be face for hear of corruption, is gettting really counter productive.

That's outright underplaying it. Most of these "centrists" who are edgelords are alt right sympathizers to some extent. They claim to hate them but will gladly back them up any chance they get.

In part because the alt right now how to play on steriotypes and misunderstanding about the left or engage in this "hde your power lever" the right learn after year of being kick off for being nazis.

I can buy that a lot of those people are sincere about disliking the alt-right but are too clueless to understand how they might be enabling them.

I'm not convinced that Contra does try and position herself as the 'cool one' to appeal to them at the detriment of the rest of the community?

I mean, she talks their language and tries to engage with them. But that's not the same thing.

She has spoken about what she sees as the flaws of the Left as a whole, but are we really going to go down the road of "any criticism of the cause is treachery, blind lockstep obedience or you're no longer one of us!" ? If you think the left has problems, it doesn't follow that you're going to swap sides, it just means you think your side could be doing things a little better.

Her using their language to engage with them is her positioning herself as the "cool one". It makes her seem like the person who's willing to play and cater to them and the backlash that has resulted has made the alt right try to make her one of their own. And no, I am not above criticizing parts of the left. I just disagree with how Contra has done so and how she continues to do so while ignoring the criticism to herself that people have offered.

Pretty much, the alt right isnt a monolith, is based in difeent motivation, some more petty and idotic than others, I have found three: the edgy teens or memers who just want to said whatever the hell they want and see everything as a game(I willing to guess they are the ones who suport Contra since she take not shit of anynobdy), the "sketpic" like Sargon who dosent share their right wing views but hate the left with a pasion that fall into thieir taking points and for last the "soft spoken nazis" like Spencer or Milo, those are the ones who Contra talk last time.

On the other hand I think a part of being "cool one" is to not be seen as another left boring guy who drone about Marxist theory and expect everyone who follow just because.

And of course I feel contra is suffering the same things as many other internet figures: it get really hard to separate good critics for just trolling.

That's a strawman archetype that I don't even think is that prevalent. Hbomberguy does a good job with his stuff and he's an outright socialist while Contra is out there mocking Ancoms. Her making herself look "cool" by doing the edgy meme shit is having an effect at backfiring because it's not changing many of these people. They're still the same and they're still out there praising her for "triggering" the left because she's positioning herself as different and more enlightened than them.

And no, this is not turning into a case of her critics being lumped into trolls. People keep bringing up shit about these trolls and I've found barely anybody actually saying anything. People claimed she was attacked before she made her autogynephilia video (even she says it in the video itself) but I've asked around and nobody remembers anything of the sort happening. That's another strawman.

And yet homberspend is last video saying he owned Paul so fucking hard(whch is true but still) with the typical smug satisfacction I would see in a sceptic tearing down a fundamentalist.

And no, she didnt said that, she made a off hand coment about sometimes can agree the left can be annoying and them if they will be in twenty or fourty minutes after the video took off.

I don't see what Hbomberguy mocking Paul Joseph Watson for again failing to understand basic research has to do with this. And yes, Contra outright said that. It's in the video. She wasn't the only person to say that, other people did as well around the net in reference to the recent controversy. They said "Oh it'll just by like the autogynephilia video controversy", which never even happened.

And that comment, again, just gives credence to the alt right that she's "one of them". You wanna criticize the left? Criticize the moderate leaning liberals who get uncomfortable as soon as something too left leaning for them is brought up (the "white moderate" as I like to call them). Criticize the leftists who are raging bigots. Criticize the tankies. Criticize the people who are too heated and radical. But for god's sake, don't further the alt right's of the left "eating itself" or fights too much because that is only giving them strength and it only makes them align with Contra more.

Also, seriously, I can't understand part of your post, could you please try and rephrase? I'm not trying to be rude here but it's hard to have a conversation when I can't make out part of what you're saying.

edited 21st Mar '18 10:25:25 PM by AdricDePsycho

I don't necessarily have a problem with Contra trying to engage the alt-right by, let's be honest, treating them like little kids who need to be talked to as kindly as possible lest they throw a temper tantrum, but stuff like hanging out with a bunch of bigots and making fun of a "culture war" is way too far in the other direction. (same goes for hbomberguy, who's present)

Yes, you can engage these kind of people in debates and not talk down to them (even if they deserve it) to try to change their minds, but don't act like you're their friend. It just sends the message of not caring if you're friends with bigots, which is both counterproductive and insults your audience whose basic human rights these people constantly mock. Contra definitely deserves flak for that, and I hope she'll listen to criticism in better faith in the future.

Contra seems to be morphing into "the cool girl". The one who hangs out with the misogynistic dude bros, watches them play their video games, listens to all their sexist jokes, and once in a while corrects them vis a vis a specific person. "Oh, Jenny isn't really that bad guys."

Only in this case the dude's she's hanging with are literally Nazis, and instead of enabling college douche sexism (which is bad enough) she's enabling neofascists and quasifascists.

I'm not sure I would go that far (and I'm not aware of any nazis she's being friendly with. I'm mostly talking about Armoured Skeptic and shoeonthehead in the picture up there, who're both run of the mill edgy bigots who like to make fun of "the sjws"), but Youtube leftists playing nice with Youtube reactionaries who are bigots is a thing that happens too often in general.

There's a difference between engaging a bigot in a polite discussion to make them change their toxic views and sitting down with them to have a friendly lunch. If you're a popular Youtuber who acts buddy-buddy with a bigot who constantly ridicules and belittles your audience, then what do you even expect? Contra complaining about people taking it too seriously and making fun of the whole thing afterwards was the icing on the cake. Lindsay Ellis did the same thing. They're both terrible with criticism and need to acknowledge when they screw up more. Glad Contra at least did that with the latest controversy.

I'm not glad whenever I see the likes of Shoe on Contra's posts and seeing them talk to each other like they're friends, when you can expect Shoe to say something misogynistic or see her defending a white supremacist.basically every single day on her twitter. Popular leftists really need to get their shit together about this and draw a line somewhere.

At least with Ellis she hasn't done that as of late and focuses mostly on film analysis. Dan Olson and Hbomberguy haven't either. Especially not Dan, he didn't even seem happy about that photo. I know Hbomberguy has engaged with Shoe in the past but never in a friendly manner, mostly it's to disagree with her (and even then I don't know how often, I only know of one case where he called her out on defending white people's free speech but not anyone who isn't white). Contra meanwhile has pushed it to levels of engaging several times with Shoe, Jesse Stingel (who is not alt right but who is a TERF), and Theryn Meyer, and has gotten support from Laci Green of all people (another goddamn TERF).

I don't disagree that the photo was bad or that it was a mistake and Ellis's reaction wasn't good, but Contra has pushed it worse than all of them by consistently doing this at a regular pace and ignoring people who criticized her for it. Even with her acknowledging the controversy, she was admitting that yeah, she does the whole edgy bullshit to appeal to them. This doesn't help to convert alt righters, it makes them see her as one of their own. Again, when there's numerous people flocking to her and laughing at her "triggering" people or laughing at the left "eating itself", it's a damn problem. I've never seen it with Ellis, Olson, or Hbomb, but I've seen it plenty with Contra.

I think Contra definitely needs to at least condemn the alt-righters/anti-sjws who get on her twitter posts and make fun of her fans for being "triggered" by this, like you said. With Shoe, at least Contra barely ever acknowledges her responses even though Shoe constantly replies to her posts (it's almost sad, really ).

Contra's videos themselves have been consistently good in my opinion, but the way she treats criticism is concerning. It's true that some people overreact and give her too much hate, but that's literally everyone's experiences on the internet. It's just what people are like, political views notwithstanding. I'm not excusing the hate she gets, but she can't dismiss all criticism she gets just because some people are jerks.

" It's true that some people overreact and give her too much hate, but that's literally everyone's experiences on the internet. It's just what people are like, political views notwithstanding. I'm not excusing the hate she gets, but she can't dismiss all criticism she gets just because some people are jerks."

To be fair this happen a lot in the internet, it become harder and harder to separate good critism from the bad guy at times.

"Contra seems to be morphing into "the cool girl". The one who hangs out with the misogynistic dude bros, watches them play their video games, listens to all their sexist jokes, and once in a while corrects them vis a vis a specific person. "Oh, Jenny isn't really that bad guys." "

.....And this is outright insulting, cmon a facist enabler?REALLY? ughhh...

Y'all need to stop projecting your imagination unto the situation.

"For every former alt-righter that watched her video and somehow miraculously came around to the conclusion that "hey, maybe non-white people do have a right to exist", there's seven more angry white boys being convinced that all their problems are the fault of Jews and women."

I prefer that the Alt Right's net gain be six people rather than seven, thank you very much.

edited 22nd Mar '18 11:43:32 AM by TheHandle

I prefer their gain be nil. And saying everyone is just projecting is a strawman.

edited 22nd Mar '18 11:58:17 AM by AdricDePsycho

Pointing to one or two people who've said "watching Contra deprogrammed me" doesn't tell the whole story, because it leaves out the number of people, whoever and however many they are, who saw her get friendly with the likes of Shoe and decided that Shoe must therefore be worth listening to.

edited 22nd Mar '18 12:11:10 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar