BreadTube
"youtube, but good"
— Their slogan, from their Reddit page
"BreadTube is a place for the new wave of creators, journalists and artists making high-quality content that goes against the prevailing winds of the internet."
— Also from their reddit page
BreadTube, also known as LeftTube is a loose collective of leftists who, as the name implies, are mostly active on YouTube (post-2013) (they also have a fairly large presence on Reddit).
Origins And Summary
Breadtube has it's origins in the beginning of the culture war back in 2014 when Youtuber Libertarian Socialist Rants did a response video to then-prominant anti-SJW/Anti-feminist NateTalksToYou, laying the groundwork for later leftist youtubers. Later in 2015, male third-wave feminist geek YouTuber Harris Brewis, better known by his moniker H.Bomberguy made a series of videos mocking the strained production of "The Sarkeesian Effect" (He cites Dan Olson and his channel Folding Ideas as being his biggest inspiration and has collaborated with Dan on numerous occasions). Ever since then, more leftist YouTubers have crawled out of the woodwork. These YouTubers include Contrapoints (real name Natalie Wynn, a transwoman, and former academic philosopher. She films her videos with a combination of dark, theatrical humor, surreal atmosphere and colorful characters all played by herself), and Shaun (a British socialist, formerly a gaming channel called Shaun and Jen, who in comparison to the other BreadTubers, is rather bare-bones. Reading his response to another video over a still image of his avatar, a skull wearing sunglasses, often superimposed with videos, articles, and other images he uses to help make his point. The reason for his avatar is to "reclaim the skull" from the alt-right), and Philosophy Tube (real name Abigail Thorn; a British philosopher and actor who discusses political issues through a leftist perspective involving philosophy and, as of late, theatrics). Below is a list of a few other BreadTube channels;
- BadMouseProductions
- Bat'ko
- Chud Logic
- Claudia Brown
- Comrade Cora
- Cuck Philosophy
- cyberwitchlexi
- EssenceOfThought
- Fantano/theneedledrop
- Gutian/Pop Culture Professor
- The Humanist Report
- Innuendo Studios
- Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)
- Kat Blaque
- Let's talk about stuff. (Sarah Zedig)
- MrTARDISreviews
- Lindsay Ellis; formerly known as the Nostalgia Chick
- PIGPUNCHER/Xanderhal
- The Progressive Voice
- Riley J. Dennis
- Sarah Z
- Secular Talk
- Suris
- PoliDice
- Thought Slime
- Three Arrows
- T1J (the1janitor)
- Vaush
Their stated goal is to challenge anti-SJWs and right-wingers online and to "de-radicalize"/draw young people away from them. The name "BreadTube" comes from The Conquest of Bread, aka the "Bread Book," by anarchist writer Pyotr Kropotkin.
Why They're Rotten
- They're glorified Social Justice Warriors, or at the very least apologists for them. They bring up and reinforce the same old SJW/Regressive Left beliefs and talking points (e.g., "Gender is a social construct," "White men have all the power and privilege and don't suffer oppression," "Minority anti-SJWs are just internalized bigots or pawns" "Trump is a bigot and all his supporters are neo-nazis", "GamerGate is an alt-right hate mob and Quinn and Sarkeesian are poor little helpless victims" etc.). Unlike typical Social Justice Warriors, they have clever manipulation tactics, utilizing a combination of faux-intellectualism, straw-manning/nutpicking, and in some cases, great performance talent, SFX, and funny gags (ironically the ones they accuse the alt-right of using) to seduce and brainwash people into joining the regressive left (in other words, blue pilling them) under the guise of "de-radicalizing" them. Also, they have been at least somewhat successful in swaying some GamerGaters/anti-SJWs (mainly weak-willed individuals who would have also been just as easily swayed by genuine far-righters, but also some hardline ones such as Theryn Meyer, formerly a staunch anti-SJW and a supporter of MRAs, who now works as an assistant director, co-writer, creative assistant and sound editor on Contrapoints's videos and Dusty Smith AKA *CultOfDusty also a former staunch Anti-SJW), partially helped by the failure of “The Sarkeesian Effect” and the downfall of the anti-SJW community (though the media does exaggerate their success).
- Like regular SJWs, they tend to be very biased against conservatives, MRAs, anti-feminists, critics of Islam, and even centrists/classical liberals (with some, such as Contrapoints, taking somewhat of a "with us or against us" attitude towards them, saying their neutrality enables fascists) and are probably the reason why YouTube is also becoming biased against those groups.
- Many of them are far-leftists like anarchists, communists, and even tankies (their name even comes from the writings of an anarcho-communist).
- Also, some of them, such as BadMouseProductions, apologize for communist regimes and insist that capitalism has caused more deaths, even in parts of the world where it is barely active.
- And they sometimes even blame capitalism for things like flat earth belief (which has been around LONG BEFORE the modern capitalist system).
- Also, some of them, such as BadMouseProductions, apologize for communist regimes and insist that capitalism has caused more deaths, even in parts of the world where it is barely active.
- As mentioned above, they are Anti-GamerGate and extremely defensive of Anita Sarkeesian, Zoë Quinn, and others.
- Many of their styles aren't that original. Shaun, for example, is an almost complete pastiche of TL;DR, while Gutian is a more edgy-sounding Sargon of Akkad.
- Many of them seem ignorant, willfully or not, of their side's toxicity. For example, H.Bomberguy made a video mocking the idea that White Knights only defend women in return for sex. He ignores the numerous male feminists and white knights who were exposed as hypocrites who abused their position to either get close to women and sexually harass them or to commit/cover up some other form of sexual misdemeanor.
- Even those who do seem to be aware of their side's toxicity downplay it greatly.
- As typical of Social Justice Warriors and regressive far-leftists, they also dismiss/downplay any issues with modern feminism, the fat acceptance movement, Anti-GG, radical Islam, ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter, political correctness or identity politics and thereby ensure these issues go unresolved.
- As mentioned above, many of them engage in straw-manning;
- At least three of contrapoints' characters are strawman parodies such as Jackie Jackson (a parody of Dave Rubin), Justine (a strawman of left-leaning centrists, portrayed as being easily misled by fascists) and Tiffany Tumbles (a scathing caricature of Blaire White and other trans anti-SJWs, presented as an alcoholic, internalized transphobe who bullies other trans people).
- Ian Danskin/Innuendo Studios is another prominent example who regularly strawman's his opponents with his most (in)famous example "Angry Jack", a strawman of Gamergators (& Anti-SJWs in general) depicted as a perpetually angry, cis-white male who's secretly afraid of losing his privilege and is willing to ally with "psychopaths" to keep it.
- In this Kat Blaque video (with commentary by Joshua Powell) which starts as a thinly-veiled parody of Laci Green's Red Pill video. She then spends the rest of the video misrepresenting anti-SJW and anti-Feminist arguments while creating thinly-veiled parodies of Armoured Skeptic, Shoe0nhead, Some Black Guy, and Blaire White and claims anti-SJWs and anti-feminists, who happen to be women or minorities, are just in it for the money.
- Another example is when MrTARDISreviews claimed that UK TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson was a holocaust denier simply because he voiced a critical opinion of the new female Doctor Who. In reality, all Clarkson said in the review was that Holocaust denial wasn't a serious issue as fringe nutjobs only believe it. A debatable statement, but hardly the same as actually being a holocaust denier.
- Another example is in this video by Suris in which he is critiquing No Bullshit on the subject of Pokémon. While Suris does provide fair and valid rebuttals to No Bullshit’s arguments through most of the video, near the end where No BS mentions the SJWs bigotry towards white people and erasure of white characters in media in favor of non-whites, Suris for some reason compares this line of thought to the Great Replacement, even though what he said was that SJWs have bigotry towards whites. Which. They. Very. Clearly. Do.
- Nutpicking: when attacking GamerGaters/anti-SJWs, they tend to go after the worst examples (e.g., Milo Yianuopolis, Black Pigeon Speaks, No Bullshit, and other extreme conservatives) and present them as being typical of GamerGaters/anti-SJWs or criticize the worst moments of certain individuals who otherwise make valid points (e.g., Sargon of Akkad) in order to distract people from the stupidity on their side.
- Many also lump all Anti-SJWs as being Far Right/Alt-Right and part of the "radicalization pipeline" that radicalizes people to the alt-right, despite the fact that there are many Anti-SJWs who are very left-leaning such as Chris Ray Gun, Armoured Skeptic, Shoe0nHead, Thunderf00t, Angry Foreigner, Battening, Burrunjor and even pre-2018 Sargon of Akkad who have also criticized popular right-wing figures and right wing Anti-SJWs as well as the alt-right as a whole.
- Like regular SJWs, they have an intense hatred of PewDiePie, claiming he's the equivalent of a gateway drug to the alt-right.
- Many have also joined in on the hate train against JK Rowling after she made some controversial comments.
- Like typical SJWs and regressive leftists, they greatly overestimate the threat the far-right/alt-right poses to society.
- Just as they defend SJW beliefs, some of them also defend SJW and feminazi terminology. For example, PIGPUNCHER/Xanderhal and Suris have both defended the term "Toxic Masculinity", Suris doing so on at least two occasions.
- While at least some of the people they’ve supposedly "de-radicalized" genuinely were far-right, what they are "de-radicalized" into isn’t always a suitable alternative. For example, Micah Loewinger and Evan Heimbaugh, one formerly a neo-nazi, the other a right-leaning libertarian. After being "de-radicalized" by Contrapoints, Lindsay Ellis and Philosophy Tube, they became anarchists.
- Also, they treat this as being perfectly okay (some such as Ian Danskin/Innuendo Studios even admit to wanting to "reradicalize" to the far-left rather than de-radicalize), as if being far-left is better than being far-right (because the far-left has never done anything wrong, right?)
- On the other hand, there have been a few cases where some of the Alt-Righters and Anti-SJWs who claim to have been converted by BreadTube (such as Faraday Speaks) is accused of being still being alt-right/anti-SJW secretly and are lying about being "de-radicalized" to troll breadtube which calls into question just how successful their "de-radicalizing" has really been.
- And some such as Ian Danskin/Innuendo Studios don't even practice what they preach and instead regularly block those who disagree with and/or criticize their content (Ian in particular even admits his block button is "self-care").
- Many of them, like H.Bomberguy and Shaun, can be rather smug and condescending.
- Many of them present themselves as being honest, intellectual people who produce "high-quality, well-researched work" and calmly debunk "alt-right bullshit". In reality, many aren't as smart as they or their fans think they are. They will also engage in the same dishonest tactics used by the mainstream media (deliberate misinterpretation, taking things out of context, cherry-picking information while omitting important details, and even outright lying) and hypocritically, will accuse/criticize their opponents for using the same tactics. Shaun & Ian Danskin/Innuendo Studios are infamous examples, as can be seen from the numerous videos below.
- They will sometimes go to desperate lengths to attack/discredit anti-SJWs. For example, Shaun took Sargon's satirical #Feminists4Autism video and treated it as if it was serious.
- And some of them, like PIGPUNCHER/Xanderhal, cyberwitchlexi, and Chud Logic, act no better than typical SJWs and Regressive Left pundits. They get triggered at things they don't like or find offensive, throw loaded terms and petty insults like Nazi, Fascist, Boomer, Incel, etc. at people and groups they don't like and tar gamers and nerdsas racists and sexists.
- In addition, the aforementioned Breadtubers, as well as Vaush and other members of the "dirtbag left" often make attempts to be edgy which comes off as cringeworthy at best. For example, Vaush once said that the LGBT community is complete cancer.
- Since they reinforce regressive left propaganda (and have done somewhat successfully), they are fully endorsed by the mainstream media and pro-SJW journalists, who have done numerous puff pieces on them and exaggerate their success and influence.
- They even rip off Anti-SJWs wholesale, using terminology commonly associated with them or making similar-sounding terms (Virtue Signalling, Breadpill/Breadpilling, etc.) and making cringe compilations.
- In ContraPoints' video entitled "Cringe", she gets mad at a trans woman for being "masculine", despite that Natalie is trans herself. Let people present how they want to present, you don't control their lives.
- They have some outright atrocious YouTubers and people among their ranks such as Dan Olson, Peter Coffin, and Lily Orchard.
- While they are usually open to debating their opposition unlike regular SJWs, sometimes they will act like stereotypical SJWs and refuse to debate the opposing party and/or get triggered when one of their own debates the opposition. For example, recently Peter Coffin announced he would have a "friendly chat" with Milo Yiannopolis during the DNC which pissed off many on the bread tube subreddit.
- In light of the death of George Floyd and the resulting riots, some such as Ian Danskin/Innuendo Studios and Thoughtslime have voiced support for the destruction of statues and burning of flags.
- Being a group that panders to, and reinforces SJW beliefs, their fanbases, unsurprisingly, consist mostly of Social Justice Warriors and Radical Feminists. Their fanbase has made many of them almost-untouchable, but has inevitably backfired on some of them and led to many needless dramas and infighting in the community:
- Contrapoints' fanbase and other SJWs have attacked her over various reasons, such as her playing to negative transgender stereotypes for cheap laughs, sharing photos of herself with a couple of anti-SJW YouTubers, interviewing noted TERF, Jesse Singal, her character Justine being portrayed in a sympathetic light in one video, one of her characters, Tabby, being a parody of far-left Antifa activists and biggest of all, two major controversies involving her and the "non-binary" community. The first being spurred by her criticism of the practice of transpeople giving their preferred pronouns while introducing themselves in August 2019, which caused a major shitstorm on Twitter so bad that she briefly deactivated her account and put her channel on hiatus. Two months later on October 2nd, she returned to Twitter and 10 days later released a video titled "Opulence". She then received another wave of online criticism and harassment by her own fans and various other SJWs for what they perceived to be her dissing "non-binaries" as being envious of her and for featuring controversial trans-medicalist Buck Angel as a voice actor. The harassment being so bad it took a toll on her mental health and on November 6th, she left Twitter again for a long period of time and put her channel on hiatus again until January.
- And to make matters worse, some other BreadTubers practically threw her under the bus during the second of these two Twitter Dramas.
- Even her video following her second hiatus, Canceling did little to sway her detractors.
- Due to these dramas and other incidents, most of the SJW community on Twitter have turned against BreadTube.
- Kat Blaque also experienced similar hostility for similar reasons (having Buck Angel as a guest star). In this case, however, it was from a video made Five Years Ago.
- Even Shaun and Hbomberguy have also come under fire for using offensive terms.
- Many of them have also gotten into fights over whether or not to continue supporting Joe Biden (they had praised him before).
- Another recent incident (and what can be considered an aftershock of the above-mentioned Contrapoints dramas) is the newly developed antagonism between Xanderhal and Essence of Thought. It first began in January after EoT critiqued Contrapoints's canceling video, deeming that it was a weak apology for her actions. In response, Xanderhal made a video defending Contra and saying EoT's criticism is "made in bad faith" for which he received some criticism. Two months later, EoT did a Livestream accusing Xanderhal of transphobia (despite the latter being a staunch supporter of trans people, including the non-binary and criticizing prominent online transphobes and TERFs). Xander had then did a Livestream himself in response in which he called EoT "a Weasely little liar". All this sets the stage for another online drama that'll likely sour BreadTube's image.
- In addition to the above infighting, it would seem that the same forces of political correctness and identity politics that destroyed the New Atheist community (and the same forces that they downplayed or denied even existed) are destroying BreadTube in the same way.
- Some such as T1J, CultofDusty and Badmous have even flat out given up on BreadTube due to how toxic it is becoming.
- Contrapoints' fanbase and other SJWs have attacked her over various reasons, such as her playing to negative transgender stereotypes for cheap laughs, sharing photos of herself with a couple of anti-SJW YouTubers, interviewing noted TERF, Jesse Singal, her character Justine being portrayed in a sympathetic light in one video, one of her characters, Tabby, being a parody of far-left Antifa activists and biggest of all, two major controversies involving her and the "non-binary" community. The first being spurred by her criticism of the practice of transpeople giving their preferred pronouns while introducing themselves in August 2019, which caused a major shitstorm on Twitter so bad that she briefly deactivated her account and put her channel on hiatus. Two months later on October 2nd, she returned to Twitter and 10 days later released a video titled "Opulence". She then received another wave of online criticism and harassment by her own fans and various other SJWs for what they perceived to be her dissing "non-binaries" as being envious of her and for featuring controversial trans-medicalist Buck Angel as a voice actor. The harassment being so bad it took a toll on her mental health and on November 6th, she left Twitter again for a long period of time and put her channel on hiatus again until January.
- In addition to the above, the unofficial founder of BreadTube, Libertarian Socialist Rants, has become a standard woke twitter user and drug addict who has become mixed up with university anarchists as well.
- They also seem to have failed in their mission since even in the current year, their video view and subscriber count don't come anywhere near those of popular Anti-SJWs & worse yet, there are still people in the Anti-SJW community who haven't even heard of BreadTube.
- They have recently gotten triggered at the teaser trailer for Call of Duty:Cold War for its anti-socialist stance & featuring an interview with former KGB agent & soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov, accusing it of spreading the "cultural Marxist conspiracy theory" & calling Yuri a "far-right activist" when all he did was a defect from & oppose the Soviet Union & communism for its totalitarian nature which shows how far-left Breadtube has become.
Redeeming Qualities
- They make valid criticisms of unchecked capitalism, the Alt-Right, the Manosphere/MGTOW and extreme conservatives/Obsessive Anti-SJWs.
- They’re supportive of more reasonable socialist and left-wing concepts like free tuition and same-sex marriage.
- Some of them, like H.Bomberguy, Contrapoints, Philosophy Tube and Lindsay Ellis, have great talent and can be entertaining to watch.
- Also, they produce thoughtful essays on certain subjects.
- At least some of them do have a grasp on how toxic their side is and do show common sense. Kyle Kulinski a.k.a. Secular Talk admits that regressive leftists can exist and has stated he dislikes SJWs (though he's rather biased towards MRAs, calling them "stupid" and "whiny"). Anthony Fantano is also highly critical of SJWs (even though he can be quite biased and hypocritical himself at times). Lindsay Ellis has criticized woke culture. Two of Contrapoints' characters mock far-leftists (such as Tabby, who is a satire on Antifa, and Abigail Cockbane, who is a stereotypical pink-haired radical feminist who hates BDSM and other kinks and is also Trans-Exclusionary).
- Contrapoints, in particular, seems to be waking up more to her side's toxicity with her critique of cancel culture.
- In addition, some of them are even willing to criticize other breadtubers. PIGPUNCHER/Xanderhal for example has criticized Lily Orchard and Essence of Thought (though only because they criticized Contrapoints). Vaush has also criticized Lily Orchard (Though again, only because she criticized Contrapoints).
- Not all of them are necessarily horrible people, just misguided and seemingly unaware/ignorant (or not fully aware) of the toxicity of their side, or can still do some good deeds;
- Unlike standard SJWs, some of them, such as Contrapoints, are willing to engage in civilized debate with those whom they disagree. Though as mentioned above, there are exceptions.
- As mentioned above, at least some of the people they've supposedly "de-radicalized" genuinely were far-right.
- Also as mentioned, they are against the Far-Right/Alt-Right and genuinely crazy groups such as Christian fundamentalists, TERFs, neo-Nazis, holocaust deniers, Flat-Earthers and climate change deniers.
Gallery
Videos
Note: due to performance issues, all videos will be displayed in BreadTube/Videos.
See Also
References
- https://kiwifarms.net/threads/breadtube.54697/
- https://kiwifarms.net/threads/ian-crosby-danskin-innuendo-studios.70221/
- http://archive.md/95qm5
- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebVideo/HBomberguy
- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebVideo/ContraPoints
- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebVideo/Shaun
- https://humanevents.com/2019/11/05/contrapoints-vs-non-binary-nonsense
- https://arcdigital.media/contrapoints-and-the-scandal-that-shouldnt-be-15ac97f330d4
- https://medium.com/mos-home-for-treatises-and-hot-takes/holy-shit-contra-said-a-thing-well-guess-i-better-singlehandedly-solve-breadtube-e84b3bfeeaed
- https://burrunjor.com/2019/03/14/sjws-dont-like-female-heroes/
- https://archive.vn/vyz3o
- https://archive.vn/oX7rM
- https://archive.vn/tSHqT
- https://archive.vn/m1hd1
- https://archive.vn/nLdam
- https://archive.vn/s2H0p
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