Yeah, he's got a lot of toxic idea that 'feel true' to his audience, and a lot of kids who are utterly disconnected from any real queer history get caught up in his constant 'them versus us' BS
Yeah, I can both see how that would happen, and see how I was not the target audience, and probably wouldn't have gotten sucked in. What a nasty piece of shit.
Hahaha, too bad I didn't read your title before clicking this video, or I might have been sufficiently warned off! I've never heard of any of these youtubers before, but deffff just spent my entire lunch break listening to most of this on 2x speed. Welp, back to work! 😂
At least it was the 2 hour one and not HBomberguy's 4 hour one! Which is a good watch, if you've got the time.
Todd is mostly a music reviewer, and crucially he talks a lot of the context of songs and why they are popular. I mostly enjoy his videos on one hit wonders.
It's 1AM and I'll let you guess what other video I tried to watch in whole this evening. Gonna cut my losses at this point and start back up in the morning. You have certainly ✨transformed✨ my day. 🖤
Oh, no. I'm sorry. But if you are new to HBomberguy and want to watch him take another big career-ending swing at people taking credit for other people's work, his Oof video is a doozy. Eventually, when you have time.
Haha, I once a couple years ago finally hit upon Contrapoints and binged an essay of hers and thought "That's it now I'm a fan and will watch all of her videos!" but the truth is I just don't watch Youtube except as a novelty once in a while so that glorious watching of more essays never happened, so I'd wager I'm safe from crawling further down Hbomberguy's rabbit hole. It's great fun for the moment though! Thanks for the original pointer that got me started :D
(Edit: I realize this comment is very "famous last words" territory. Anyway, I just officially finished watching the essay. 🎉 A 10/10 experience.)
Understandable! I would probably be more "into" video essays if my eyes could take staring MORE at a screen up close and personal after painting all day on the regular. I kept trying to simply listen to these guys, but alas I LIKE the visuals. 😂 It's almost like there's a reason they're making vids instead of podcasts and care about delivering on that aspect...
Well, we certainly all see the importance of being careful with that after this weekend, eh?
Oh yeah, and I should look at screens less myself! Which is why I was out in the atmospheric river of rain tonight :)
I did watch a bit of a Somerton video a while back, but my reaction was to be baffled and start asking around what was up with the guy. Then I got a bunch of replies saying he was a plagiarist and his video jumping around was probably from him reading a couple different bits of other's writing without understand it, and yeah, that was probably the case. The video I saw was one taken down even before HBomb started looking into him.
Todd's video was so satisfying. I've heard some of those ideas from queer kids and just... fuck, that video was good. I'm glad it's at 1m views already
I didn't even realize how many of these bafflingly bizarre claims that I've seen trotted out in replies on tumblr can all be sourced to this ONE ASSHOLE making shit up. Because I HAVE seen a lot of people confidently, wrongly asserting some of these claims and I just had no idea where the ideas were coming from.
Yup, he had a wide reach. It's kinda hard to see now because he re-uploaded his biggest vids a few times, but you can even see in one of Hbomberguy's screencaps that some of his videos were in the millions of views. He was a massive influence and spread toxic ideas.
There was already an existing problem of queer kids not knowing history or just not caring about stuff older queers did. They viewed any queers older than them to be centrist, assimilationist and basically the reason why their life sucks. He didn't create this divide, but he fed it and monetized it. <- this is the basis of the post I am eventually going to make. I keep seeing people being all 'don't kids know about The Celluloid Closet?' No, man of them don't. They don't think there are any good, foundational texts or that there has been any good activism. They were brought up on tumblr queer theory which was fact-free, based on feels and a lot of them are deep in basically their own weird reality.
Yeah, how often he took things down or reuploaded them definitely obscured some of the total view counts and such, but he DID have really massive reach. I know that people linked me his videos a couple times, and I'm not sad that they mostly languished in my unwatched recs. His videos were the kind of thing that theoretically would have been very up my alley - media crit through a queer history lens? SIGN ME UP! - but I didn't like his style and found him grating in the couple videos I did watch. I thought a lot of it seemed like stuff I'd heard/read before... and I didn't realize that was because it was literally fucking plagiarized.
This definitely makes the "where the fuck are queer kids GETTING this shit info from?" make a lot more sense. Like... generational divides certainly exist everywhere, and "don't trust anyone over 30!" has been a cultural meme since the 60s for a reason and all. But he absolutely preyed upon it to position himself as the "I'm the COOL older queer, but not like, TOO old which would be gross and lame, but I'm older than you so I'm an authority." He did a lot to look and sound like a knowledgeable authority, while also doing a lot to confirm some of the worst biases of his target audience ("all the cool old queers died, and all the living ones are boring normies, so you're right; no one understands you," or the misogyny veiled by saying the yucky women in question are straight or white or both, or even just trying to really ramp up the idea that everyone else is out to get you. (And there's WAY enough of that without lying about it.) It's easy and common manipulation tactics, though I think we all see it more on the political right.
It remains SUCH a frustration to see an awful lot of queer kids who are in a lot of ways crying out for a connection to a history that feels like it belongs to them - to the point of making up ahistorical bullshit in order to manufacture a history that "feels" right or meaningful - and ignoring the genuine, real history that actually exists. Some things are hard to find, others are just a matter of... reading a book, or watching a documentary, or talking to an actual person.
He was the cool older queer, the only one who knew, the only one who gets it. He's the only one who cares if there are queer themes in that TV show Arthur.... Merlin... he doesn't know because he didn't watch it! He doesn't get show or character names right, it's so pathetic.
And like, everything else aside, some people are just not susceptible to HIV even if exposed. I mean, the implications about asexual people are just gross, a lot about it is gross.
There has been a lot of denialism of the real history, and they've been lost in piles of bullshit. But, all believing the same bullshit has the the basis of feeling connected for some of them. It's such a mess.
Yup. He's just the ~only~ one *brave* enough to talk about any of these subjects. No one else has ever noticed or cared or talked about it. (And god, painful to watch him say the wrong fucking title multiple times. What a fucking expert!)
SO MUCH of what he had to say was super gross. The idea that the ONLY valuable or worthwhile way to be queer is by sleeping around is extremely gross. Sex is fine! But neither having a lot of it nor having none of it is a mark of value. The rampant misogyny, the transphobia of deliberately misgendering multiple nonbinary or transmasc creators in order to claim that only women get to tell stories, denial of all sorts of queer identities if he wanted to use the person as an example...
It's a huge mess, and it's the sort of thing that I think will STILL be causing problems for a long time, as people repeat lies they heard from him, or lies several incarnations down from him in a game of misinformation telephone... A lot of it IS tied up emotionally for the people in his audience, and sometimes that "I want to believe" feeling outweighs any debunking you can show.
Yeah, so many people are deep in confirmation bias. This is going to leave a long shadow. I really hope some decent queer media youtubers pop up. I know CJ the X is on HBomb's list but he very much did a video on Stranger Things because it was popular, he didn't even get basic story beats right. I think he even said he didn't like the show. Why is this all so hard? (And why is every Stranger Things video or podcast just... objectively wrong about everything?)
Same, in that I hope we get some decent people rise up to fill the void. I definitely haven't watched everyone on the list, but that's discouraging about him. I hate when it's obvious that a video (or whatever) is there to capitalize on the popularity... of something the creator doesn't know or care about. That is one of the most frustrating things about looking for decent media crit... when so much of what you find is just objectively WRONG. Like, I'm all for varying interpretations or whatever, but sometimes there's shit that's just... not interpretation, it's just completely not true about the literal canon.
The road to success on youtube and also how to become a good media critic seem mostly incompatible. Even Matt Baume with his massive amount of experience and research stays mostly in his lane, flourishing. He doesn't trend chase, he's just been at this forever.
I keep hearing very good things about Matt Baume, and I need to actually watch his stuff.
But yes, the way that youtube's algorithm works really DOES mean that it's nearly impossible to please it enough to be successful AND be genuinely good and knowledgeable and thoughtful about media crit. Sure, there are people who are making really good videoessays and put out consistently good work, and some of them really are extremely popular... but they generally can't hope to compete with the viewership of the content mill stuff.
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chiming
no subject
Date: 2023-12-04 07:46 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-05 05:34 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-05 03:15 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-04 06:57 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-05 05:36 am (UTC)From:Todd is mostly a music reviewer, and crucially he talks a lot of the context of songs and why they are popular. I mostly enjoy his videos on one hit wonders.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-05 06:22 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-05 10:45 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-05 04:06 pm (UTC)From:(Edit: I realize this comment is very "famous last words" territory. Anyway, I just officially finished watching the essay. 🎉 A 10/10 experience.)
no subject
Date: 2023-12-06 12:04 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-06 04:15 am (UTC)From:Well, we certainly all see the importance of being careful with that after this weekend, eh?
no subject
Date: 2023-12-06 11:10 am (UTC)From:I did watch a bit of a Somerton video a while back, but my reaction was to be baffled and start asking around what was up with the guy. Then I got a bunch of replies saying he was a plagiarist and his video jumping around was probably from him reading a couple different bits of other's writing without understand it, and yeah, that was probably the case. The video I saw was one taken down even before HBomb started looking into him.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-06 04:40 am (UTC)From:(Though having Todd's video come up was a delightful surprise.)
no subject
Date: 2023-12-06 11:07 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-07 02:49 am (UTC)From:I didn't even realize how many of these bafflingly bizarre claims that I've seen trotted out in replies on tumblr can all be sourced to this ONE ASSHOLE making shit up. Because I HAVE seen a lot of people confidently, wrongly asserting some of these claims and I just had no idea where the ideas were coming from.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-07 10:43 pm (UTC)From:There was already an existing problem of queer kids not knowing history or just not caring about stuff older queers did. They viewed any queers older than them to be centrist, assimilationist and basically the reason why their life sucks. He didn't create this divide, but he fed it and monetized it. <- this is the basis of the post I am eventually going to make. I keep seeing people being all 'don't kids know about The Celluloid Closet?' No, man of them don't. They don't think there are any good, foundational texts or that there has been any good activism. They were brought up on tumblr queer theory which was fact-free, based on feels and a lot of them are deep in basically their own weird reality.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-08 03:48 am (UTC)From:This definitely makes the "where the fuck are queer kids GETTING this shit info from?" make a lot more sense. Like... generational divides certainly exist everywhere, and "don't trust anyone over 30!" has been a cultural meme since the 60s for a reason and all. But he absolutely preyed upon it to position himself as the "I'm the COOL older queer, but not like, TOO old which would be gross and lame, but I'm older than you so I'm an authority." He did a lot to look and sound like a knowledgeable authority, while also doing a lot to confirm some of the worst biases of his target audience ("all the cool old queers died, and all the living ones are boring normies, so you're right; no one understands you," or the misogyny veiled by saying the yucky women in question are straight or white or both, or even just trying to really ramp up the idea that everyone else is out to get you. (And there's WAY enough of that without lying about it.) It's easy and common manipulation tactics, though I think we all see it more on the political right.
It remains SUCH a frustration to see an awful lot of queer kids who are in a lot of ways crying out for a connection to a history that feels like it belongs to them - to the point of making up ahistorical bullshit in order to manufacture a history that "feels" right or meaningful - and ignoring the genuine, real history that actually exists. Some things are hard to find, others are just a matter of... reading a book, or watching a documentary, or talking to an actual person.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-08 11:25 pm (UTC)From:And like, everything else aside, some people are just not susceptible to HIV even if exposed. I mean, the implications about asexual people are just gross, a lot about it is gross.
There has been a lot of denialism of the real history, and they've been lost in piles of bullshit. But, all believing the same bullshit has the the basis of feeling connected for some of them. It's such a mess.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-09 02:20 am (UTC)From:SO MUCH of what he had to say was super gross. The idea that the ONLY valuable or worthwhile way to be queer is by sleeping around is extremely gross. Sex is fine! But neither having a lot of it nor having none of it is a mark of value. The rampant misogyny, the transphobia of deliberately misgendering multiple nonbinary or transmasc creators in order to claim that only women get to tell stories, denial of all sorts of queer identities if he wanted to use the person as an example...
It's a huge mess, and it's the sort of thing that I think will STILL be causing problems for a long time, as people repeat lies they heard from him, or lies several incarnations down from him in a game of misinformation telephone... A lot of it IS tied up emotionally for the people in his audience, and sometimes that "I want to believe" feeling outweighs any debunking you can show.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-10 11:25 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-14 03:44 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-14 11:03 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-15 04:43 am (UTC)From:But yes, the way that youtube's algorithm works really DOES mean that it's nearly impossible to please it enough to be successful AND be genuinely good and knowledgeable and thoughtful about media crit. Sure, there are people who are making really good videoessays and put out consistently good work, and some of them really are extremely popular... but they generally can't hope to compete with the viewership of the content mill stuff.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-15 10:12 pm (UTC)From: