ICYMI | Viral Debates: Crossing the Aisle or Clickbait?

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On today’s episode, hosts Candice Lim and Kate Lindsay are joined by Slate staff writer Aymann Ismail to discuss the controversial YouTube channel, Jubilee. A video of political commentator Mehdi Hasan debating 20 far-right republicans has gone viral, but as Ismail argues in his piece for Slate, it also crossed a line. When political disagreement becomes content and extremism is rewarded with clicks, everybody loses. Get more of ICYMI with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of ICYMI and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the ICYMI show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/icymiplus for access wherever you listen. This podcast is produced by Daisy Rosario, Vic Whitley-Berry, Candice Lim, and Kate Lindsay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm Candice Lem.
0:14.8	And I'm Kate Lindsay.
0:16.4	And you're listening to I see why am I.
0:18.4	In case you missed it.
0:20.0	Slate's podcast about internet culture.
0:22.1	And Candace, I don't think you nor I are marked safe from the plague that is Jubilee.
0:29.1	No, no, no, no, no.
0:31.3	No, I mean, they are at every other TikTok on my For You page.
0:36.3	When I was on Twitter, the videos were being shared around.
0:40.7	It is like, it is the new, the new upworthy, the new dodo.
0:46.1	The new monoculture internet rage bait.
0:49.4	It's everywhere.
1:00.7	But these past few weeks, Jubilee has been going viral, like crazy viral, even by Jubilee standards for a video that they posted on July 20th, and that video is titled, One Progressive
1:07.7	versus 20 far-right conservatives in parentheses featuring Medi Hassan.
1:13.3	That video has had 10 million views in two weeks. And like for context, they have videos in
1:18.7	their most popular that have been up for months that have about the same amount. And so it's
1:22.4	popping off. And not only is the video crazy, but sort of the ripple effect it's had is also wild. So
1:28.7	one of these 20 far-right conservatives is a 24-year-old named Connor Estelle. He actually
1:33.8	lost his job from some of the heinous things that he said in the video and then immediately
1:39.5	managed to turn it into a crowdfunding campaign that at the time of recording has $39,000.
1:45.9	Candace, did you watch this video?
1:50.8	Watched as a, yeah, that's too passive a word for what it did to my body.
	...

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