Contrapoints on taking the trolls seriously

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2019

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

YouTube is where tomorrow’s politics are happening today. If you’re over 30, and you don’t spend much time on the platform, it’s almost impossible to explain how central it is to young people’s media consumption. YouTube far outranks television in terms of where teens spend their time. It’s foundational to how young people — and plenty of not-so-young people — form their politics. And it features a political divide that’s different than what we see in Washington, but that I think predicts what we’re going to see in Washington. Natalie Wynn, of the channel Contrapoints, is one of YouTube’s political stars. The former philosophy PhD student dropped out and found her calling producing idea-dense and aesthetically rich explanations of everything from capitalism to Jordan Peterson to incels to “the West.” In this conversation, we talk about the political divides on YouTube, how the YouTube right differs from the YouTube left, why obscure ideological movements are making comebacks online, her experience transitioning gender while in the public eye, why you need to take trollish questions seriously, and the anxieties of modern masculinity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	A lot of ways people on YouTube are more honest.
0:02.8	So in some ways, the reason I think I sort of succeeded as a commentator early on
0:09.8	is basically I had a very simple idea, which is that when people leave YouTube comments,
0:15.2	they're saying what they really think.
0:16.7	Hello, welcome to Mr. Client Show on the Vox Media podcast network.
0:31.4	I'm very excited about today's show and guest.
0:34.0	It is Natalie Winn, who is a proprietor, the creator of the ContraPoints channel on YouTube,
0:38.6	which is one of the most fascinating explanatory political projects that I've seen.
0:43.9	She does these really remarkable videos that are looking at things like in cells and
0:50.2	transgender issues and Jordan Peterson and identity politics and dozens of other things
0:56.0	that are the foundational cleavages in YouTube politics.
0:59.3	And she's able to build out this both aesthetic and approach this openness, this ability to
1:04.8	explain things in a way that is both sophisticated theory and really approachable that is something
1:10.6	genuinely new out there on the field.
1:14.1	But the other reason I'm excited about it is I think YouTube is probably the most important
1:17.2	political platform going today.
1:18.7	And it's one that people over 35 don't pay nearly enough attention to.
1:22.7	Politics on YouTube are different.
1:23.9	They are split by different things, but they are where people who are under 18 or under
1:28.2	25 are getting their politics.
1:30.6	And so what you see happening on YouTube, I think, is what politics in America are going
1:35.5	to look like 20 years from now.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Vox Media Podcast Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Vox Media Podcast Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.