Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

They exist in such a weird space. Making bank on Patreon but they have essentially no reach beyond that aside from people delighting when they're miserable or owned.

really liked the last CTH w the guy from E1 who was a nurse throughout the pandemic and just recently quit.

RPG eps actually listenable without Virgil

also someone should do a lefty pod thraed that’s not so umm sullied by the this title. last two non-Patreon Know Your Enemy eps have been really good imo

There’s also just the “podcasts” thread too if need be

also a Political/History podcasts thread

Feel like the decision to put the microphone inside felix’s mouth when they recorded the new episode was a mistake

You don’t find a close-miced vape soothing?

What’s a good, horridly punning name for a leftpod thread?

Commpodity Fetishism

Das haFX

know your comrades

Stuff You Should Overthrow

My Dad Wrote a Manifesto

Any more?

Dogshit take on the Rogan/Spotify thing on Chapo, I hear?

Chapo guys have never been so gung ho about deplatforming, for understandable reasons I think

Felix basically arguing that Rogan spreading anti-vaxx propaganda is comparable to Hip-Hop records he listens to glorifying criminality is very weak tho, feels like accepting PMRC-level reasoning but from the other side.

Felix didn’t say that, though. They locate the anti-Rogan sentiment as being about ‘Rogan is a bad guy’ rather than combating the spread of anti-vax talking points (because taking Rogan off Spotify wouldn’t do anything about that).

Wouldn't it tho?

hard to say what deplatforming rogan would definitely do but i'm willing to try and see what happens

I'd say it's less about the platforming and more about the promotion. Neil Young is almost contributing at this point, no such thing as bad publicity. Half of the discussion on 'serious' English-speaking internet is about this crapola rn.

How about Finnish Internet?

No, it wouldn’t do anything - it’s not ‘deplatforming’ him. Spotify limits his reach if anything, lose his deal and he puts up an RSS feed accessible by every podcast app instead of one and he’d be back on YouTube. Fucking with Rogan might be personally satisfying but it’s not combating anti-vax propaganda.

xp
they're discussing if Joe Rogan should be allowed to masturbate in front of a baby

None of that on yer finish internet

https://www.theverge.com/22632213/joe-rogan-experience-spotify-exclusive-audience-reach

how do you deplatform someone who had a greater reach before they were on a platform?

hopefully he just loses a lot of fans with the fuss i dunno.

oh yeah i guess you do have a point there, idk

could say that YouTube shouldn't allow his stuff back but that would disqualify a large chunk of YouTube...... hmm....... let's do it

Rogan's worst effects were because of the Youtube algorithm - the Rogan fitness grifter to Ben Shapiro to open fascist channel pipeline.

Spotify limiting his reach? Is there numbers to demonstrate that?

Lots of data in that link from The Verge above.

Didn't realize he was exclusive to Spotify now (which explains a lot).

I don't think taking stances in a culture war is a bad thing per se, maybe Neil Young's actions won't do anything to combat anti-vaxx sentiments. Sometimes you just don't feel like sharing a platform with a Joe Rogan and that's okay too I guess. Or maybe he thought it was the right thing to do to combat anti-vaxx sentiment and if it isn't the best way that's okay too!

No one on the episode criticized Young (or defended Rogan), Felix just pointed out that there a lot of bad people on Spotify and his own complicity in patronizing them there (King Von).

I love my boys but whenever Felix starts talking about rap music, get out of the way

No, it wouldn’t do anything - it’s not ‘deplatforming’ him. Spotify limits his reach if anything, lose his deal and he puts up an RSS feed accessible by every podcast app instead of one and he’d be back on YouTube. Fucking with Rogan might be personally satisfying but it’s not combating anti-vax propaganda.

That's assuming the audience he comes back to is the same size as the audience he left, which I don't think has to follow - he's receiving the most scrutiny he ever has outside of left spaces. That might not do much but I don't think you can take it as a given either way.

Regardless of how that pans out, though, Rogan chose to go with Spotify and forsake a larger audience because it's of greater benefit to him financially. So what this is doing as well is telling Rogan, and others in the same sphere/grift, that having anti-vaxx people on is a bad business decision. That will influence spread more than listening figures.

At the very least, it guarantees that the next time Rogan has some anti-vaxx person on, his listeners will be reminded "oh yeah wasn't there some stink about that? is this the guy I should be listening to on this issue?". And yeah sure plenty will go "hell yeah the mainstreem media tried to censor the truth!", but as you've said Rogan is a gateway drug, so plenty will take a step back, too.

As for all this "Rogan is a bad person" bullshit...a group of scientists didn't call on Spotify to stop working with Rogan because he's a bad person. Do some ppl have more emotional and less thought through reasons to support the idea? Sure. I can point you to some ppl with pretty dumb reasons for having voted Corbyn too, who gives a fuck? It's what happens in any movement. It's a clearly articulated intiative with concrete demands.

Very much otm. Also yeah he may have gotten more promotion through YouTube when he was mainly just pimping the leading lights of the dark enlightenment etc but Spotify not actively promoting his current crop of murderous lies would no doubt put a dent in his audience.

His audience would be larger if the lib'rul elites persecuted him off of Spotify, making him even more of a cause celebre for reactionaries - this is already happening to some extent but actual "cancellation" would kick it into overdrive when he was back on platforms that don't limit his reach.

At the very least, it guarantees that the next time Rogan has some anti-vaxx person on, his listeners will be reminded "oh yeah wasn't there some stink about that? is this the guy I should be listening to on this issue?".

Whaaaa? No it won't, his listeners will be more excited to hear these rule-breakers and truth-tellers because the people they don't like told them it was bad to listen to them.

As for all this "Rogan is a bad person" bullshit...a group of scientists didn't call on Spotify to stop working with Rogan because he's a bad person.

That is, however, the driving force - because kicking Rogan off Spotify doesn't serve any purpose in combating anti-vax propaganda. You cannot make him shut up - there's no actual way to do that. It's driven by personal satisfaction (with being right) and personal distaste (for Rogan and those who are wrong). Which is fine, I cancelled my Spotify account because I don't want to give them money, but it was not in any way a meaningful act aside from how I feel about where my money goes.

That's super reductive. I'd acknowledged in my last post that some listeners would indeed react in the way you describe, but not every Rogan listener is a fully paid up True Believer, his appeal is far wider than that.

Assuming that just because you think it wouldn't work everyone else also secretly believes the same thing and is therefore acting because they think Rogan's a bad person...that's some real making up a guy to get mad at shit.

His audience would be larger if the lib'rul elites persecuted him off of Spotify, making him even more of a cause celebre for reactionaries

It's true! Look how well it worked out for Milo Yiannopolous! Why, he's unavoidable!

think i was right to find this argument exhausting but i lost the moment i engaged with it

The whole reactionary echo chamber 2.0 is basically maxxed out at this point. Sure there are few unaffiliated dimwits they can scrape off the bottom of the info-highway ecosphere but I don’t think there’s much genuine growth left in the ‘owning the libs’ market. Unless they find some new even more scary boogeyman to hunt for.

Although as a newbie to world of Chapo there seem to be a few horseshoe theory tones in the mix that give me some pause.

It's true! Look how well it worked out for Milo Yiannopolous! Why, he's unavoidable!

It's really unlikely Rogan will be banned from all major platforms the way Milo, Alex Jones and others are.

Also Milo didn’t have the biggest podcast in the world. Good luck banning Rogan from all hosting for an RSS feed.

Assuming that just because you think it wouldn't work everyone else also secretly believes the same thing and is therefore acting because they think Rogan's a bad person...

Getting Rogan kicked off Spotify does nothing to combat anti-vax propaganda, so what’s it about? Punishing Spotify for hosting bad actors and Rogan for being a bad actor. But even that’s not the end result for Rogan, it wouldn’t hurt him.

He’d get a payout from Spotify and hop right back on his old platforms with an increased audience and a new martyrdom to exploit.

Which, going back to what started this, if punishing bad actors is the point then Felix is completely justified in pointing to all the other bad actors you can access on Spotify when you’re deciding whether or not to patronize Spotify, punish them, or simply not care too much.

Yeah dude, as stated previously, I don't accept your premise that it does nothing to combat anti-vax propaganda and I don't think most ppl participating in the boycott accept it, either. You're assuming that this is some shared assumption and theorizing based off that.

who are the other bad actors who have exclusive mega million $ deals with Spotify? Are we talking about R.Kelly music being on the service?

xpost

RSS is a pain in the butt and for most people, podcasts that aren’t automatically delivered on a convenient platform like Spotify are a pain in the ass too. The primary mainstream alternative would be returning to YouTube.

It’s conceivable if he keeps doubling down on both covidiocy and “race realism” crap that all major platforms could be pressured to take him down. And it could possibly lead to stricter policies in general, I’d say especially with issues of medical misinformation which could pose a direct liability to the corporations.

Isn’t this mainly a intended discussion based in democratic socialism? Is throwing our hands up at the proliferation of unregulated toxic industries typically an effective approach?

There are similar issues with the regulation of widespread environmental pollution, but the harm from those industries has been demonstrated much more thoroughly. They also have substantially more political clout than Spotify — just wait til we get a Secretary of State who used to be the CEO of YouTube.

If Rogan were to be banned on Youtube, it would mean banning a million of Youtube's most popular channels as well.