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  • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    16·
    6 days ago

    Ethan was never a good gateway to the left. People are just obsessed with racist white men being redeemed.

    And yes, plenty of people considered him part of the left-wing pipeline because he made fun of people like Ben Shapiro.

    • merthyr1831@lemmy.mlEnglish
      16·
      6 days ago

      He wasn’t really ever a political guy to me, he seemed like one of those reaction/drama YouTubers who inevitably started talking about his dog shit politics because people pay more for that shit

      • bumpusoot [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        11·
        6 days ago

        Agreed. I liked his early comedy / Youtub drama videos, and that was it.

        Though he never had good politics, even by liberal standards, at least he used to just not talk about it. He then just waded into it and wobbles thoughtlessly in every political direction without a single bit of cohesive thought behind anything he says. I still have genuinely zero idea why anyone likes it.

        I stopped watching when he started the podcast (especially given one of the earliest episodes had Jordan Peterson on and was just them fawning at his super massive intellect).

    • goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org
      5·
      6 days ago

      I only or learned of him because of hasan and Sam seder. I don’t understand his appeal without either of them

      • ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        4·
        5 days ago

        Counter-counterpoint: I found out about Jordan Peterson through their podcast and it gave me a little detour in the wrong direction, at the time in my life where his pseudo intellectual slop was very appealing to my young idiot cis het dude brain. The fact that they seemed relatively progressive really massaged his image for me. I don’t see this mentioned often, but I can’t be the only one.

        They seemed in awe of having him in the studio, he took a big vape hit insisting that “rituals are important”, probably called himself a Classic British Liberal™. Amazing PR move. Coming from a very conservative culture I don’t think I realized how much of a reactionary he was, but to be fair to me, I totally think he was holding it back on purpose during that time. I think I moved away from him well before he went fully mask off, but I distinctly remember a conversation where I was arguing with a relative that he wasn’t that right wing. The same relative who no longer talks to me after a different argument where I didn’t insist transgendery stuff was the death of society. Fun. I love how the US exports bullshit culture war talking points to fuck up the little things too, love dealing with that.

        And yes, one thing I liked was the biblical stuff, it was very appealing how he ostensibly discussed these old stories from a cultural perspective. I still think I’d like that from someone who isn’t fucking evil. “These old myths have shaped a lot of archetypal narratives within our culture" still seems cool to me, I don’t know. I don’t want the worst people to have a monopoly on that.

        Funnily enough in the context of this post, I always found it interesting that these two moved from Israel to the US. I’m from (and in) Lebanon and I quite liked how much they said things along the lines of “Yeah we get lied to about how good living there is, it was a rough few years, more people should move out”. A sort of validation from the other side that the whole apartheid experiment is undercooked and not even worth it for the people it’s supposed to be “helping”. And they were just putting it out there as good advice. You may not be surprised that most people around me who can fathom an end to Zionism don’t picture it this way, I’m not sure how to explain to a mainly Western forum how refreshing it was to hear them say that. It was a big part of the appeal.

        I stopped watching them long ago but this whole arc has been unfortunate, but not all surprising. Didn’t really expect them to move leftward like I did, but seeing how popular the show became, I do wish they did.

        • sewer_rat_420 [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
          3·
          4 days ago

          I wasnt listening in those days and didnt see that episode but yeah…its not a black and white thing at all. Unfortunately he is now probably going to introduce people to more right wingers with his new MAGA friends, in addition to the pervasive anti-left, zionist, and islamophobic/anti-arab shit he is spewing on a daily basis now.

          Im disappointed because his humor really gotten to me and the show was overall in a good place with the rest of the crew participating a ton, before he decided to just implode it

        • NewDark [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          6·
          6 days ago

          I’m included in that list. Or rather, I had a vague notion of Hasan existing as a loud streamer guy and now watch him because of leftovers.

        • sewer_rat_420 [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
          4·
          6 days ago

          I tend to think of it less like “H3 converted me to leftism” and more like I have been radicalizing because of a diversity of life experiences, and finding Hasan was just a small part of that but nonetheless part, and I don’t feel I am alone based on how other Hasan chatters or h3 snark posters discuss it.

          Otherwise, you would also have to consider being hyperfixated on the fediverse to be the pipeline to the left - that is how I found hexbear which has also been part of my radicalization. As have dozens of other people in real life, situations in real life, and other content creators.