White Men/2018 Plans

[@CapnJigglypuff]

How can Shaun be white if he doesn’t have any skin anymore?

[@Trint3e]

Either phrenology or the fact that skulls are white. (I like your profile pic btw)

[@Trint3e]

Hold on I just realized I asked about it somewhere else

[@CapnJigglypuff]

It's like we're connected.

[@bapabs]

bone

[@cactustree2786]

He is Xisumavoid

[@sseungvy]

"if you're someone the alt-right hates by virtue of whatever you happen to be, simply existing and being awesome is a good counterargument in and of itself" freely living my truth as best I can, Shaun. this is a really excellent video.

[@sasha-taylor]

I needed to hear that line today, I really did. Shaun is a real gem.

[@austin.luther]

As a gay transgender grandson of Puerto Rican immigrants, I think I'm doing alright. Do get bonus points for being both trans AND having a biology degree?

[@TheModdedwarfare3]

​@@austin.lutherlol. Very powerful of you

[@cereal_chick2515]

It's easy to miss because he's delivering this all in the measured, easygoing tones he always does his videos in, but this is some deep personal introspection, and it cannot have been easy to even write, let alone publish on the internet for all to see. Full respect, Shaun, and thank you for sharing your story with us.

[@deadid5561]

Found you a couple months ago, you were in the recommended while watching an Internet Comment Etiquette with Erik video. You're fucking criminally underrated dude... I'm a 38 year old in central NY state, middle of cow and corn country. Tough being an independent here.. Lotta these angsty kids and manchildren thinking they're victims of a conspiracy against white men. Industry's abandoned our shit berg over the last few decades. Education underfunded, minimum wage jobs are all that replaced middle wage factory/manufacturing work. They're angry, and don't realize it's big business and politicians on both sides they should be angry with, ones who sold us out. They've been manipulated to blame minorities, affirmative action, working woman who should be home, immigrants etc... scapegoats, basically. I respect your approach, I like the way you confront their ideologies. It's a lot like I do in real life with these kinds, and wish more people on youtube would do this. Logic, common sense, understanding, provable data, constructive criticism, and trying to open their minds to educating themselves through personal research, instead of listening to sanctimonious talking heads. ...and saving the snide remarks for only the ones beyond the reach of reason, the likes of Sargon, Milo, thunderfoot, kraut(rip hah) etc. Anyway, I appreciate what you do, hope your channel continues to grow, I've been promoting you to both like minds, and opposing minds who are more open to listen.

[@JackgarPrime]

I think I've seen you in some of these comment sections before. I'm curious how your personal interactions with those sorts of people you've described has gone. I imagine a lot of them start from being friends you have before any political discussions begin, yes? I live in Boston, so I'm surrounded by a whole lot of progressives, especially young students or people who were on the progressive side during previous movements. But there are a not-insignificant number of older guys who are just so stuck in their ways that I don't know if there's even a way to break the ice on a lot of these sorts of topics. Usually middle-aged, blue-collar sorts. Townies, more often than not. Although, being a city with some of the best, most famous colleges in the world, you do also run into people from other places who can hold some problematic views. A lot of times being from totally different cultures, at that. People like that can be very difficult to engage with, as they can be from places with radically different views. Especially when it comes to gender roles.

[@deadid5561]

JackgarPrime well, if you're dealing with someone from a rural area, or tiny rural hub city like mine.. You have to be able to empathize or sympathize with where they come from, what the job market is like, what their education system is like, what the usual political leanings are. I live in the same area, so I fully understand most of what turns angry confused young men into full grown hate flinging bigots. Interactions vary. Most are projecting their situational anger. Blue collar mostly white areas have been largely forgotten by industry and big cities where job market flourishes. They project that onto minorities and women, as they believe it's preferential treatment. Honestly, women and minorities have been just as marginalized as rural whites. No side seems to recognize we're all victims of the old ways. Show them you understand, we're all in the same boat. The bigoted/sexist ones are ... difficult, but more prone to listen to me, like shaun said, straight white males have better chance at reaching them. You can't attack them outright, that causes backlash in most cases. Be calm, ask genuine questions, if you're a smartass like me, you gotta bite your fucking tongue on that. Let them tell you why they hate _____, what their lives were like, the job market..etc. Once they see you're not going to be a dismissive dick, that you really want to understand their individual experience, it tends to open their minds up. Once they see someone who doesn't share their view doing that, instead of attacking or berating them, the smarter ones start to question their view of "leftist libtard cucks" or as an independent, I prove not everyone against their views are of that side. Which in turn, can cause them to question their bigoted views. I'm just like them, but with common sense, because my parents were on opposing sides of politics. They had to agree to disagree in a civil manner, else divorce. ..anyway If they're unreachable at the time, you can either go off on them, or what I tend to do, shake my head, agree to disagree, and carry on. Only had 2 real friends who were like this, one is completely unreachable. The NRA "librils aint gittin muh guns! race wars a coming!" propaganda is brainwashing people in rural areas, with Republican politicians' blessings.... I like guns, so they know when I talk to them about things like stricter regulation, I'm not a lefty coming for their guns, I'm just someone like them, who is concerned about the insane amount of shootings in the states. Most will surprise ya, so long as they own their guns legally, they're usually for stricter laws. Then there's the felon idiots who buy guns illegally, they're unreachable.. Apologies, my ADHD is getting the best of me, and I'm on a tablet, making it hard to check back to your questions. If you want to ask more, I'll be happy to answer, just try one or two points at a time, it's so easy for me to give more concise answers. I tend to get off track, on track, under the track back around the track... Edit. Your interest in how to approach gender roles with them. Most aren't going to use the terms you wish they would. Even I don't all the time. If they see a trans man living as a woman, they're gonna see a man. A lot of this is learned in areas that have what I call the hate churches. Churches taken over by bigots, in short. It's damn hard to change the mind of someone coming from a blind faith stance...near impossible. When you're taught from childhood that women should be submissive, and minorities are subhuman, well, that's long term learned behavior. Most of this type are lost causes, sadly. Pick your battles, and be willing to lose. I try to show them women, LGBTs, minorities, are just like them. They want the most basic level of respect. ...All sides are so often so sure they're right, that theirs is the way. Compromise is a lost art, if you're willing to accept that poor white communities have been marginalized as others, you can build on that foundation. You will hit brick walls, the just born angry and evil. Most, but not all, of these types are from entitled families, the truly privileged in the economic sense. Everyone is beneath them. They're the "elite".(Really though, they're just detached shitcunts) These are normally the trolls trying to normalize racism, stoke the flames by preaching insensitivity to less educated guys and angsty teens. Hitting comment sections with the "ok to be white" bullshit. ..like anyone ever says it's not ok. I have no patience for them, and hit them even lower than they hit.

[@deadid5561]

JackgarPrime I suppose your inquiry was more about gender roles, looking back. Admittedly, I have little experience in that. My parents both worked, common in low income communities, as one income here just isn't enough. Hell, my mom did school and work. They shared household and childcare duties. Women around here get just as down and dirty as the men. Fishing, hunting, sports, guns... etc.. There are the "men's men" of course, but women here don't take much to that kind, unless they don't mind a submissive role. My bio dad was one of these, a true wife abusing child beating monster. Fortunately, she left him when I was young, and met my adopted father. I'm used to a strong women because of that. Guess the approach to old school guys, is to make the argument about basic respect, not sex. Same as race, you gotta show them the marginalization is real, without dismissing the marginalization poor white guys are truly experiencing. Blue collar Americans of every race are angry. The middle class wage jobs our parents had, were sold overseas, and replaced with minimum wage retail and fast food. Half my community works, hard, but income is so low, they're receiving food stamps. That hurts the egos of the physical laborers, they feel it's their job to provide, but there aren't the jobs that allow them to do it. Most office and medical jobs, fields most filled by women, pay more than blue collar jobs, again, bruised egos. They see women, minorities, immigrants, getting attention and compassion, but see none for themselves. Don't dismiss their grievances outright, show them we're in the same boat. The more well off ones, they come from that place of entitlement, and are much harder to reach. As they dictate their worth by their economic status. I can't think of a good way to approach them... Most of their philosophy is based of the superiority complex of their parents. "The rich alpha males" who funnily enough, never worked for their wealth, just inherited and reinvested it. They think the poor minorities and rednecks are lazy, and women simply don't know how good they have it. They think any woman is lucky to have men like them take care of them, I guess? Detached from reality because they're sheltered. So many different reasons for why some men are this way. Some had dads who beat them, and mothers didn't or couldn't help, so they wind up resenting women. Some had horrible mothers who never gave them attention or compassion. some just are born evil. As I said earlier, you have to identify where they're coming from to know how to approach. I'm just that rare hick with good people for parents, taught me to question everything and keep an open mind, to look beyond my own narrow personal view. I was lucky. I think empathy is the key.

[@JackgarPrime]

Phew, that's quite a lot you've put out there. I do already agree or subscribe to a lot of it, but I always do like to hear what people's experiences in regards to situations that aren't mine tend to be. It really sucks about that one unreachable friend of yours. I do wonder if they are truly unreachable, or if it's something that will just take a long, long time to break through. It's very difficult to tell the difference. And, sadly, it's something that, while not impossible to do, is so difficult that effort might be best spent elsewhere. That said, there are people who I think really are unreachable. Generally, those who hold such bigoted views but don't have any sort of other reason for doing so. The people who are well-off, and don't need something to be angry at and blame their problems on. People like, well, Trump. Or at least, how Trump sells himself to his base. But those are also the sorts of people who feel no need to be sympathetic towards anyone to begin with. The class issue, I believe, is the one that needs to be taken up more and more. That's the common ground. There are way more people who suffer under the systems helmed by people of a higher economic class than would be subscribed to any other sort of demographic. Even gender ones, which would otherwise be 50/50. There's a lot more here that I'd touch on, but I don't necessarily have the time to right now. But we are in agreement here, there's no doubt.

[@deadid5561]

JackgarPrime good discussion, thanks for addressing as much of my ramble as you did. The economic area is really the common ground we've gotta build on. While racism and sexism are important fights, economic is just as important. I believe it's a fight that can unite us.

[@PhilosophyTube]

IMO this is one of the best videos I've ever seen on KZbin

[@justinmack6351]

agree 100%.

[@TheGilzam]

Listened to*

[@JamesPeach]

It presents good insight and articulates points very good, but I think you overdid it.

[@TheAgavi]

Couldn't agree more and thanks Olly for pointing me to this channel. Everything Shaun said about his young self and his political shift could have come out of my mouth. I'm going to start making videos. Thanks, Shaun.

[@6iaZkMagW7EFs]

Philosophy Tube aren't you a socialist? Time to open up the memes folder!

[@JamieSandel]

"Now, why these people chose the pill for their metaphors from a story written by two trans women in which a white internet nerd learns the truth about society from a Black man kind of escapes me, really" LITERALLY LAUGHING OUT LOUD THIS IS SO REAL

[@PokeRapper5000]

Maybe because all those identities are irrelevant to the concept.

[@DemiBirdDoes]

PokeRapper5000 it's relevant because they think they are the ones who show the truth to each other with the red pill analogy, where the analogy is originally about educating and showing the truth to the majority as a minority.

[@EimiYoshikawa]

Plus, you know, it was literally an allegory for the trans experience. Choosing the red pill was starting hormone replacement therapy. It'll never not be funny that's what they chose for their 'being a bigot is awesome is the real truth' metaphor.

[@PokeRapper5000]

@@EimiYoshikawa That sounds like revisionist history. I'm sure the Wachowskis didn't intend an allegory for hormone replacement therapy when they wrote The Matrix in the 90s.

[@Jotari]

A pill is just a general metaphor for changing anything with the intent to improve it. It's like really basic. You can throw trans ideals on it if you like, but that doesn't mean it's the intent. It's like reading the song "Let It Go" as a metaphor for homosexuality as a lot of people did, when really the "It" in Let It Go can be basically anything that's weighing on you.

[@boysenbeary]

I was going down the “anti-SJW” “gamer” path as a teenager. Luckily, I managed to grow out of that stage, and now I can watch videos like yours and help educate others who might be making the same mistake I did.

[@drakeafletcher]

Same. I was in a scary place even into my early 20s. Like listening to Ben Shapiro bad. I got woken up one day when Shapiro was just blindly complaining about Palestine and I realized it was bullshit and he was just racist. Then, I saw Bernie on Rogan. Cut to a year later and I’m binging Shaun and Hbomberguy

[@eliasalbarracin5549]

@@drakeafletcher Every time I think about Ben Shapiro, his little whiny voice always pops up in my head saying "let's say, hypothetically, that..." and then blah blah blah some fucked up bullshit, etc. I was never really a fan of his, but a couple of my friends were and luckily they've grown out of it. I'm also glad to have found a fellow Harris Head. Hello there, comrade!

[@j-wizzy]

Same, thank god for blm or i might notve found any of this

[@drakeafletcher]

@@eliasalbarracin5549 remember, Nutella is a sometimes food

[@billieeisenhower406]

it's insane how deep that rabbit hole goes

[@The_Kenster]

6:06 wow, shaun back when he still had all of his skin.

[@Andizottel]

That actually took me a while, but then I lol'ed - well done

[@Trint3e]

He looks like the result of Dan Avidan and Bill Wurtz doing a Fusion Dance.

[@AccurateThings]

Wtf that’s a fake face reveal he’s a skeleton.

[@eancycler1112]

Clever

[@fulcrum2951]

That's shaun? I thought he's like a floating skull akin to that imperium skull drone thing

[@wilforddraper1894]

Well then the only thing I can say after months of veiwing your content is that I fell for your plan hook line and sinker. I don't think I could be more grateful to you. My parents were the complete stereotypical Republicans who were antivax(despite my mom being a nurse), thought racism was over, etc. And without you I never would have been able to help both my sisters come out. The ideas of pansexual and aromantic were so bizarre to my parents that they thought that society had "pressured" them into identifying that way. Without people like you I would never have had the kind of nuanced explanations needed to talk to them about it. In the end my parents went from thinking social contracts don't exist to feeling sorry that they were like that, and realise how much harm they've done by denying their daughters very identities. It was the best improvement in the right direction for a falling apart family. I used to be the one who would tell my siblings that covid was being overexagerated. And now I'm preparing to tell my right Liberitarian dad that his favorite Utopian space society is actually a communist society (Star Trek). Its going to be difficult ride but its definetely for the better. THANK YOU.

[@MFMegaZeroX7]

I actually used to be be an anti-feminist 4 years ago. What caused me to change were multiple things over many years: 1) As a fan of Thunderf00t, I noticed some weak arguments in his video (one example: discrediting a study because 70 people was "too small" despite it having a good p-value) 2) Realizing the wage gap was real via the John vs Jennifer study 3) Joining a college anime club, realizing that it was all female, and feeling uncomfortable "Oh, THIS is what it feels like to be a minority. But forever." 4) Having people I respect make videos about the entire Gamer Gate fiasco (Mr. Btongue, for example) 5) Eventually discover Hbomberguy through his Fallout 3 video, and from him discovering Shaun and Contrapoints

[@YeTism]

MegaZeroX7 John vs Jennifer study has been debunked.

[@YeTism]

MegaZeroX7 women are a minority? 51% of the US population is female.

[@MFMegaZeroX7]

No, the study hasn't been debunked. There was a study with a different finding, but the methodology was sketchy. The authors' response to the criticism was also pretty terrible. Rather than address the methodological concerns, they just acted like victims.

[@Kriscuit_Bonkin]

mercurial magic Minority in a since that they do not have power in the system. The systems are ran by whites, straights, males and Christians.

[@Kriscuit_Bonkin]

Many Ex-Anti-SJWs talk a lot about real life interactions that made them open their minds. The issue is since the right takes a lot of their time to social media, (which is what many people do in this and day age) and then there are social interactions that are missed, causing distorted views. I can’t help but feel some of the Right has some hidden or subtle bigotry to them. You can look at the comments of Right wing videos, full of bigoted comments and ideas. Smh

[@freezepeach74]

Shaun is so calm. I love his voice.

[@safir2241]

I want him to teach me politics for hours

[@davidz2562]

He's patronising & has an awful accent.

[@hoagielamp6543]

@@davidz2562 The patronizing is very intentional, online white boys are pretty fragile.

[@davidz2562]

@@hoagielamp6543 I bet he speaks like that most of the time in person as well. Talking down to people is a bad idea for someone who's trying to become popular.

[@St1ckyGrape]

@@davidz2562 as someone who has shaun's videos playing in the background all the time, sometimes when i'm going to sleep, this is the worst take i've seen in any of shaun's comment sections (and i've seen plenty of actual fascists lurking in replies, lmao). his voice is so calming, he's very well spoken and easy to follow along with, and the occasional bit of dry humor blindsides me. so many quotes of his live in my head rent free: "the most horrifying sex a woman can have - sex that's not with me."

[@elliel.5915]

It's really interesting how the first step for you was realizing that women can be intelligent and thoughtful, sometimes more so than yourself, because in a way, my experience somewhat mirrors that. I thought of myself as intelligent growing up (lol), and I got into anti-feminist and atheist spaces online because I liked feeling smarter than others. Initially, I didn't feel like I was being treated differently as a girl (largely because I mostly stayed on channels of people who thought of themselves as liberals and egalitarians). My first step to getting out was finding people who explicitly treated me differently, told me my gender mattered and advised me that the best course of action would be to get married, have children, and for God's sake stay out of STEM. People like Sargon, Jordan Peterson and Lauren Southern. There was this god-awful video on Sargon's channel done by some other random British guy, where he explained that there are more male than female geniuses according to IQ stats, and we should therefore "flood STEM courses with bright young men". So all in all, I got out by realizing that "my side" was treating me as inferior.

[@honeybellebuzlucay5867]

Ooof it always saddens me when they say women are less smarter, as a girl studying in stem field 😞 I know it is not true from my experience but still. And jordan peterson always makes me mad like dude, I don't think you know anything about stem since you studied social sciences and you tell me, who devoted all of her life to science that I am not good at it just because I am a different gender, dude pls. 🤦🙄

[@thesaltybeard1793]

Same. But I went too far with it I think. I saw women were often smarter. So I became one. Now, it did immediately give me a giga boost to my grey matter. However that's only impressive around men. I'm a brainlet around other women. My next step will have to be hrt. Perhaps the hormones need to be in line as well... Or maybe I just need more thigh highs leggings...

[@BigMikeMcBastard]

Not female but realizing the "online atheist community" as it were was actually quite conservative/right-wing is what got me out of that aspect of my teenage years as well. The whole Rebecca Watson incident and the fallout from it made it pretty clear I, as a progressive who'd one day find out he's a leftist, had nothing in common with most online atheists apart from our lack of belief in divine beings. Aka. nothing in common at all basically.

[@BigMikeMcBastard]

@@thesaltybeard1793 Jesus, don't strain yourself. Just do the "I identify as an attack helicopter" routine and save everyone the trouble.

[@eduardomarques91]

Same here, but as a gay person.

[@pseudoriginal3839]

Neat superhero origin story.

[@phaedrus4931]

Agreed. Honest, personal reflection, all aimed at making the world a better place and gently nudging humans on down a less harmful path.

[@PoIapopo]

"I can't imagine a scarier scenario for a fragile young man than to be a fly on the wall as a group of women discuss male shortcomings" 😂😂

[@MF-R]

Shaun: "That's the problem with people who conscider themselves intelligent; they have to wait awhile to con themselves into thinking they changed their own mind." Boy howdy... that sentence speaks pure truth.

[@FlunderingChipper]

You remind me of why the word "unlearning" is so useful and totally worthy of a spot in ye olde dictionary. Four years ago, I strongly identified as anti-feminist, irrespective of how counter-intuitive that positionality was to my well-being. The Amazing Atheist was basically the entirety of my reading list of social justice, politics, and philosophy, and his opinions were perfectly synchronized with what my hyper-conservative, lower-middle class parents had been mindlessly spewing around me since a young age. University forced me to contend with my own ignorance, other people's opinions, facts, and in the end, face up to the shit that was really bothering me. Being an arrogant bitch and claiming I didn't need an advocate and therefore no one else should need one either wasn't helping me heal from hardship. Having the right to vote wasn't keeping men from touching me inappropriately, it wasn't protecting my friends from racism, and it wasn't making my parents' finances any easier. The process of learning to articulate what I think I've always known deep-down was, in and of itself, the reverse of my processes up until post-secondary. I had to unlearn shitty behaviour as I was learning compassion and nuance.

[@PoliticalEconomy101]

Good job, glad you are no longer a dumb and arrogant conservatard

[@jblue1622]

Learn Socialist Justice I don't think using the same tactics as your opposition will help you, but someday I hope I can say congrats on no longer falling so swiftly to fallacies and treating a group of people as a bad thing or insulting them for who they are, but I dunno I guess social justice is only good for the certain groups we like

[@guybrushthreepwood503]

I now understand why a majority of Republicans think the impact of universities and higher education institutes in the USA is overall negative

[@doyleharken3477]

jblue1622 A word of caution, "Learn Socialist Justice" is under suspicion to be one of those RWers who adopt a fake leftist identity and act like utter douches to make the other side look bad. There may be a term for this, but I don't recall it now.

[@ktg619]

Doyle Harken I think the word is “poe”

[@aboot2754]

Love the idea of white men stepping up to reach out to other white men instead of putting the burden on women and minorities to have to plead for their own rights and decent treatment as it often is the case. Keep it up Shaun, you've definitely grown into a good person from where you started and we're all glad for it, hope your channel continues to grow.

[@damianziokowski8421]

Internet trolls are voters if not rigt now than in a couple of years. Internet trolls are members of communities, coworkers, employers and emplyees if not right now than in the future. Behaviour of those internet trolls, their beliefs and actions will affect lots of other people in one way or another. Trying to reason with them is pleading for the right to no be treated as a second rate citizen because of your gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Arguing for the right to have an abortion or euthanasia.You know, shit like that.

[@dundidit4800]

AugustusPugin you're absolutely right. The entirety of modern leftism is about kicking white men in the shins, rather than building anybody up, they're quite content with breaking people down. Diversity means less white people, and racism means being mean to nonwhite people. If you contest any of those functional definitions, you are a racist.

[@1111Tactical]

A boot Women and minorities are *either* strong *or* they need someon else to rescue them. I think the former, guess you don't.

[@Gameinema]

dun didit The oppressed reacting negatively to their oppressors is not the same thing.

[@1111Tactical]

They aren't oppressed, they have simply been convinced they are.

[@phyrinx3740]

Symptoms that your son is in puberty: -Voice changes -becomes more of a rebel -develops acne -becomes an anti-SJW

[@CDexie]

Shame that being a rebel isn't IMMEDIATELY connected with the left. You know, the one with the Revolution culture?

[@Sesshounamaru7]

Mmmmm i would like to know your views on what it generates it on the first place? im kinda a book description of a millennial in terms of been sensitive and empathic as fuck and the right wind views never ever clicked on me, so im still struggling to understand why it happens on the first place (im trans so perhaps that has a lot of weight to why i never consider the right as a club to join)

[@305oma]

Sesshounamaru When you’re first interaction of politics is some guy on the internet slamming you with out of context statistics and facts, along with videos big scary foreign invading brown men into our precious and delicate western societies, they instill a fear in you that helps manipulate the very way you look at a person of another color. It doesn’t help that you lack any sort of critical thinking skills as a young person, so it’s easy to believe the hateful rhetoric spewed by what is to be believed as the “suppressed” and “cold hard truth” point of view. I’ve grown out of it, but many of my friends haven’t, and they continue to consume hateful bullshit rhetoric, such as the great replacement theory or that democratic votes come from dead and illegal people. It’s simply fear turned into hate, like how most fascists and Nazis rise to power.

[@disappointingperson9162]

@@CDexie well sadly, the right portrays themselves as the revolution against the left, somehow.

[@tshred666]

Sesshounamaru it’s because for cishet white guys the narrative of victim hood is appealing. This is speaking as a white guy who’s been a statistical minority wherever I’ve been (I grew up in a predominantly mexican American town and when I was in the navy I served alongside mostly black and Filipino people) this kind of narrative is very appealing. I was partially sucked into it myself for a minute. My saving grace was me being bi, my brother and sister being gay, and my best friend being trans, so full on fascism was never an option in my mind.

[@commandershepard6875]

Ugh. My anti-trans statements I've made in my past have haunted me and have me cringing like a mofo. I once was saying shit *to* a friend of mine that later came out as trans. UUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!!! And I'm bisexual and black. I'm so glad I got out of that scene.

[@abi3268]

Commander Shepard oh god I can relate. I'm a bisexual hispanic female and I went through an awful anti-sjw phase. I never talked much about my beliefs but I indulged in watching all the popular anti-feminist KZbinrs and agreed with much of what they said. At the peak of this phase I had an awful victim blaming mentality and I feel so ashamed about it. Fortunately, after that it started to get better and I was able to recognize the bullshit

[@gibberishtwist]

Every night around 2 AM, I'm haunted by the ghost of all the horrifically racist "jokes" I used to tell. Change is good.

[@stephenmarco2927]

I don't think I ever identified as anti trans but in the past I used to think some embarrassing things like they were just extreme gays and wondered why some trans women dated cis women thank god I didn't post back then. I had a brief anti feminist phase but it was ended pretty quickly when I noticed skeptics defending trump and the alt right

[@doriangray5750]

What 'anti-trans' statements did you make?

[@MadJackChurchill1312]

Yo. Is this confession space? Cool. White cis man. Defended a man that was saying there shouldn’t be gender neutral bathrooms. Claimed it on the vacuous ‘free speech’ shit. Never engaged or listened to trans people talking about it, just blocked everything for the status quo, which is harmful. Never again. But of course, I may slip up. Hope I have enough self-awareness for when that time comes.

[@paulssss5463]

Can't believe I used to be part of that crowd. I can thank my sister (who is a feminist) for getting me out of this mess.

[@paulssss5463]

Somniferous Almond She rly is 😂

[@martynkerslake8118]

MostMercifulMoose I was too all started when I became a father to my daughter

[@TheoneandonlyDrops]

Speed Nova If I'd said that, one of my sisters would probably have beat me up XD

[@akaashnidhiss9433]

I had a mental illness and eventually, ​I got around to feminism due to me staying at home and becoming closer to my sister.

[@Prnnce]

I'm still on the gamergate blocklist for the cringy garbage I posted when I was 16

[@phoenixheart79]

"From a story written by two transwomen in which a white internet nerd learns the truth about society from a black man" - congratulations, I sprayed tea everywhere.

[@spenceredwardmullen5957]

Why has Sargon repeatedly claimed to not be a Trump supporter? He literally defends Trump and attacks his opponents in every video.

[@matthiase3287]

+Spencer Edward Mullen 1. He is a brit. 2. He doesnt like trump, he mearly likes the bad parts of the media less.

[@pendejo6466]

What's wrong with supporting Trump?

[@blue3895]

@Pendejo ...Pretty much everything...

[@pendejo6466]

Like what?

[@blue3895]

@@pendejo6466 I think that supporting a man who denies climate change and actively tries to further it's negative effects is extremely harmful. I think that supporting a man who tries his best to divide us and create a toxic political environment is extremely harmful. I think calling nazis "fine people" is extremely harmful. I think refusing to disavow from the KKK is extremely harmful. I think shoving kids into cages is extremely harmful. I think his insistence on censoring the freedom of the press is extremely harmful. I think that Trump's tariffs are extremely harmful. I think his views on Muslims and immigrants are extremely harmful. I think that attempting to militarize space is extremely harmful. I think his vocabulary and way of leading is extremely cowardly, and you guessed it, harmful. In general I think Trump's policies are terrible and entirely anti-American. Say what you will about Obama, but he did good to keep our political discussion as civilized and respectful as possible. Trump's dismissive terms such as "the blacks, the mexicans, the dems" are simply ridiculous. A president who blames entire groups and parties of people for his notoriety and shortcomings is a weak one, especially when he has all the assets one could need in his position.

[@pitster1105]

Holy shit i never saw the social justice message in the Matrix. The Matrix is written by two trans women and the story is about a white computer nerd learning about the real world from a black guy and a women 0_o

[@djangofett4879]

The cast of all three films is also multicultural and the agents are all white men. How have the anti-SJWs not blabbed endlessly about how the Matrix is "anti-white male"?

[@pitster1105]

I feel dumber than a Trump supporter for not getting that message after watching the movies all these years.

[@starmaker75]

Because any form of media that made post 2013 that diverse ethnics is anti male and anti white because of some random stupid crazy leftist they saw when they were really bored in the internet or something like that.

[@G14N14RI12]

I'm pretty the Zion scenes were specifically designed to have far more diversity than scenes inside the Matrix.

[@cleo512]

oh keanu reeves is actually part hawaiian i'm pretty sure !!

[@Captain-Sum.Ting-Wong]

To be honest, I fell for this nonsense for about a year or so. I'm not even a kid, but I just got caught up in all of it and genuinely believed in many alt right talking points, and it was actually this channel that saved me from it. It's disgusting to think that only 8 months or so ago I actually believed all of that.

[@AzaleaJane]

These comments give me life

[@alanbrad4564]

I feel the same way. I've been fluctuating on the political spectrum from late 2016 to mid 2018, learning so many different things about both sides, and thanks to this channel (and a few others), I learned that it's not as simple as stating a fact to make your case. It's about giving an in-depth analysis on something to not only make your case, but to give more perspective and persuasion to the other side.

[@Rumplefrumple]

your mind must be extremely malleable

[@alanbrad4564]

@@Rumplefrumple Not really, considering how most right wing/anti-SJW channels are echo chambers with no thinking being used in their comment sections.

[@Rumplefrumple]

@@alanbrad4564 whats your opinion on evergreen and peter boghossian?

[@zillafire101]

I think I was basically the same. I was always a liberal, and believed in equality with gays and women, but fell for The Amazing Atheist and Sargon's videos. I thought I should become all moderate, and not go to far to the left and right. This stopped after I wandered onto Rationalwiki and saw the terrible things TAA and SOA did, and made it Garrett's videos on Carlgon. I was amazed a Feminist could be so intelligent, and that Sargon was acting like an idiot. From there I got to you, Hbomberguy and Contrapoints and Destiny and became the greatest Soy Boy.

[@MCarlos15]

zillafire101 Do you really believe what rationalwiki says?

[@MCarlos15]

ZERO U I do not. But don't respond to a question with another question, please.

[@basilofgoodwishes4138]

Carlos S. They are mostly accurate and don't go around and shout that Ramesses II is an incarnation of evil. Rationalwiki is like most SJW's rational and logical, its even it's name.

[@MCarlos15]

The Rising Theurge I disagree. The article about ShoeOnHead, for example, was completely stupid. PD: I like how ZERO U deleted his/her comment three days after writing it.

[@zillafire101]

Carlos S. After I cross reference their sources and look at other articles. They're not perfect, but they're not these rational skeptic idiots.

[@TalenLee]

Having come from a death cult background, the thing that started my path from apocalyptic conservatism was being able to recognise the humanity of the people I mistakenly believed were evil/demonic/the other. Ironically, having useful tools for dismantling my own creationist background was super useful and spurred an interest in examining base assumptions and cultural 'facts.' This led me to, when I was presented with the idea 'gender is more complicated than a simple binary' was to take those same critical tools and examine them and come out of it realising that it was all more interesting and thoughtful than I had ever conceived. Basically, humanising and empathising with the reality of people is a powerful route out of blind hatred cycleboxes.

[@Mrwhite-u3g]

Mr. I think he's referring to the one where they symbolically cannibalize their deity every Sunday.

[@MopedOfJustice]

@@Mrwhite-u3g And worship the device that that deity was killed with, to say nothing of the extensive, literal doomsday content that that religion actually has.

[@lartoe3574]

@@notchickens2530 And the cult also steals us Germans our money via church taxes!

[@Clara-nj4mn]

Over a year later I'm back here. Not as an edgy teenage boy but now a communist punk lesbian. How things change

[@Arrakiz666]

Damn, went from a boy to a lesbian? Good on you, this must have required some real soul-searching.

[@CoolKid-ym3vo]

I can't tell if this is ironic

[@DeathnoteBB]

Cool Kid I assume it’s not. People change. (I’m agender, for example)

[@yeahwitda]

DeathnoteBB okay I have a question, what exactly does agender mean? My understanding is that it’s just another name for non-binary. Are they different?

[@58209]

@@yeahwitda this is the part where you google basic concepts instead of expecting someone to stop what they're doing to give you the 101. make a habit of looking these things up yourself before you interrupt someone in real life to waste their time and energy on something simple you could have learned yourself.

[@guypersson9981]

If feminism isn't a monolith, then how come in a classic film, it mysteriously appears on earth and has early hominids worship it before they discover tools, which they promptly use for murder?

[@pierrecourtois5167]

I think it was because Kubrick had to include women for quota /s

[@alistairmackintosh9412]

Try watching it while not on drugs.

[@algi1]

When Shaun says "Hello everyone", I always yell at the screen: "Hello, Shaun!"

[@thatsterroristsbro7855]

I thought I was special too

[@puffdufftv1904]

I want to take this moment to thank my sister for really getting my out of the alt right pipeline. I was really into Ben Shapiro and Steven crowder when I was younger and the only reason I can see for me getting out of that is my sister.

[@ike_uwu]

I'm really glad she was able to help you, my brother has already gone down it and I can't.help.him I hope you're doing good!

[@puffdufftv1904]

@@ike_uwu just keep at it, don't give in and don't start by trying to tell him about your most "extreme" thoughts, start moderately and dont give in. He'll get it sooner or later. Go and plant the seeds.

[@lisasimpson896]

holy cow shaun your story is so relatable. i was a massive brocialist and r/atheism edgelord, veering into proto-alt right territority when bernie sanders came around. i got really into it, but didn't get "pinkpilled" until spending time on the campaign slack page. "Other people are just as complex, if not more, than you" is a very hard realization for a cishet white teenage boy to make.

[@lumen8341]

How have I not heard "brocialist" before? I promise not to overuse it, but that's stellar.

[@lisasimpson896]

I used to think it was some insult made up by rich liberals, but I got quite the lecture from socialist feminists.

[@PermianExtinction]

As far as I've heard, it IS an insult made up by rich liberals, specifically stemming from the Clinton campaign? Mostly slung against the Bernie Sanders supporters. I think there are definitely leftist/socialist-identifying men out there who don't listen to feminist voices but established socialist organizations really do center feminism in their platforms. IMO "brocialist" isn't a term made up by socialists to critique their movement but a term made by anti-socialist liberals to discredit socialists in general.

[@eb7446]

I couldn't say where the term came from initially but I think it's been used by both socialists and liberals but for somewhat different reasons. I know socialist do use it when referring to white men(I suppose) who seem to support economic issues/anti capitalism but hate feminism and hold some racist ideas as well.

[@kalla6674]

No, it was coined in 2013 on reddit during debates about the British Socialist Workers Party covering up sexual assault/harassment allegations. Clinton supporters absolutely used it in the way you describe, essentially co-opting the term and using it to describe Sanders supporters who were generally not socialists and often not even sexist.

[@LordJuzzie]

I have to say our journeys are not that different. Thought the trigger for my change was going to University. I was confronted by lecturers and class mates on my views. I studied Modern History, and I remember in particular having a lecturer discuss the history of masculinity and femininity. I think it was hearing that many feminists were just as concerned about the negative effects of certain views of gender on men, that rapidly got me to realise they were not man hating crazies.

[@andy6100]

I love this video. The first Shaun video I've seen in full. So much of your journey reflects my own. Unfortunately, I have in the past caused a great deal of harm to many people with my horrendous attitudes and actions. Especially women. I'm so ashamed of myself. I'm trying to make amends, but it's not easy. I think a good way of countering young angry straight cis white men's fragility and sense of victimhood is asking them to outline what barriers they have to happiness and prosperity. And see if any of these barriers relate to them being straight cis white men. And then try and explain the rational barriers that People of Colour, women and trans folk may face, and from there perhaps that seed can start to germinate. That's what worked for me, when I made the pretty obvious conclusion that *nothing* about how I identified was in any way a barrier to my happiness and prosperity.

[@5trafficcone921]

I almost fell in the trap too, just much more recently. I have no idea how I avoided becoming a jackass, but I am so glad I did.

[@alex_roivas333]

yay ^_^

[@atlas8827]

which trap?

[@Warpig9]

Seriously this whole video is cringe. It is child’s play for the alt/dissident right.

[@atlas8827]

Here comes the alt-right nutjobs

[@Rumplefrumple]

what do you think about evergreen college and the findings of peter boghossian and co.?

[@talhunter4391]

I can relate to this pretty strongly. During highschool I too fit into the box of straight white guy. I made racist jokes, sexist jokes, and rape jokes. Like most 16 year old high school kids. I'm not certain where the change came, possibly a wider scope and world view when actually meeting and frequently talking with people that were not in the straight white guy box. I became friends with a few trans folk, people living with disabilities and people from the LGBT+ community. I can honestly just thank the pass of time and the people around me for bringing me out of the horrible path I was on

[@Mariomario-gt4oy]

Tal Hunter yeah dont make jokes. Its sexist.

[@PBDNR]

I'm not white, but i was a pretty big fan of lots of people in the 'skeptic' atheist community. So when it shifted to bashing feminism I kind of went along with it, although i can't say i ever really built up the same level of hatred for the sjws that a lot of that community had. After a while I started to become disillusioned with that community as i felt they were often misrepresenting or ignoring the arguments they were supposedly debunking, and just screaming insults the people making them. but i have to say that it was mostly comments on the videos that made me see how bad it was getting, especially on sargon's videos, actual racism and transphobia was highly supported there. Trump was the final nail in the coffin, he made me see just how crazy some of the community has gotten, and caused me to re evaluate the types of people I wanted to associate with. Since then I've been open to some ideas that i used to just dismiss. like maybe sexism and racism didn't end once we got into the 21st century, and maybe the past still has effects on society today. Maybe it also has something to do with me growing up a bit, and no longer thinking being an asshole is entertaining. Its nice that i found people like Shaun to express these things on youtube.

[@Mariomario-gt4oy]

Princess Bubblegum did nothing wrong you do realize both sides do this right?

[@talhunter4391]

Princess Bubblegum did nothing wrong I totally agree! Hbomb, contra, Shaun. More left leaning youtubers really helped me come to terms with just how bad it was. Sure I had moved past that part of my life but a lot of it I dismissed as being young. It wasn’t until I started actively seeking out left leaning people of influence that I came to my own and felt valid in the change. It felt a lot like it was superficial and not genuine, but as I realised just how bad people on the right (and the left yes) could be, and that change was possible

[@lumen8341]

Just finding friends who aren't exactly like you, friends that are patient and can tell you where your worldview has gaps, makes all the difference in the world. It's very easy, and it's the first step to sharing your toys (and making the world a teensy bit better).

[@realKRRZ]

I was exactly this little Shaun before I went to art college. Then in third semester I started watching the Akkad guy's videos, his points didn't make to much sense to me and voilà: Shauns videos got recommended to me! Shaun, you are great, debunking conservative and racist videos left and right and you played a big role in hardening my political beliefs and I believe, I am not the only one :) Edit: spelling

[@amaka637]

"Intersectionality is really important. Where the alt-right break people into small groups, we should bring them together." - Shaun ❤

[@impersonal6959]

A united front! Inspiring goosebump phrase right there.

[@dagruneson8308]

Intersectionality is not important, but another false god that will be destroyed when misanthropy wins!

[@The_Mighty_Fiction]

o_o...I honestly can' t tell if this is sarcasm. 'Where the alt right break people into groups, ... _intersectionality_ ... will bring them together.' ... I mean, he _can't_ be that stupid, right?

[@Scoring57]

The Mighty Fiction Pointing out how people can have a different experience than you because of their identity and remembering to include them in conversations about rights violations is a bad thing? Or should we pretend everyone is treated the same?

[@ジョジョさま]

Intersectionality literally seperates people based on individual characteristics, based on oppression points.

[@richardbritten492]

Shaun, ContraPoints (swoon) and hbomberguy are the Triad of Hope in the internet of hate.

[@jamiel6005]

Abigail Thorn at Philosophy Tube is up there, too.

[@nekozombie]

I swoon at Shaun, thank you very much

[@crypt5129]

Twitter Shaun moment

[@jamescarr1265]

they still are

[@pjay4417]

It's actually scary how much I recognize myself in that video. In my early 20s I was very similar in many ways. I considered myself much smarter than I actually was and I liked watching those early atheist videos to see them debunk religion. It made me feel smart and confirmed my world view. I also liked memes about feminism, crazy SJWs and crazy lefties in general and I started watching youtube videos about this stuff, which eventually lead to watching alt-right youtubers thanks to the recommended videos. lucky for me I was rather uninterested in politics in general, but in retrospective I can easily see myself going further down the rabbit hole and today I would've probably be fully redpilled and be marching together with the nazis like in Charlottesville, which is really scary to think about now. However, luckily that didn't happen. over the years as I got a little bit older and more mature I started to look deeper into some topics and educated myself about the left, feminists, etc. and what their actual political positions are beyond the memes. also, youtubers like you and some others helped alot to get a better understanding of the topics and made me realize that I wasn't as smart as I thought I was helped me to understand that there is a lot more nuance to those topics. I think what you and others are doing is incredibly good and valuable for the next generation. I know this video is 9 months old and I'm a little bit late for the party but I still wanna thank you for your work and hope you will make a lot more people like me reconsider their position or at least start to think more critically about those topics

[@oof-rr5nf]

Thanks for sharing! 🌻

[@EnhancedNightmare]

Maybe in 20 years you will be writing similar comment how stupid you were now lol

[@bee4590]

@@EnhancedNightmare i hope to see you back here in a few years buddy. people can change

[@pushinguproses]

Thank you for your candor. I think your experience and revelation will help people, and more importantly help them to realize that it is okay for them to question their own behavior. I used to be "neutral" about feminism - a rather shallow supporter but not doing anything particularly active, or even feeling passionate about it. That has since changed over the time I've been doing KZbin videos.

[@Iggsy81]

You watch Shaun!? Dude that's awesome, love your channel! : )

[@EwanMakeMovies]

PushingUpRoses I love your work! 😀

[@The_Mighty_Fiction]

+PushingUpRoses Well, I try to explain my problem with feminism thusly; it's an ideology that doesn't actually have anything to do with the concept of women's rights. Hang with me. This is going to be a long one. There seems to be a lot of squabbling over the definition of feminism, and all sorts of dividing and sub-dividing schools of thought engendering different (even contradicting) theories have muddied the waters over the years. However, the true definition of feminism as far as I see it is actually very simple since from the start, there is and always has been a single bedrock theory, a core defining principle that can be drilled down to and that underpins all feminisms; male domination. The hypothesis that men, since the dawn of civilization, have been building societies for the express purpose of benefitting themselves and oppressing women. This tenet is known these days as patriarchy theory, but goes as far back as Seneca Falls. It doesn't matter what other kinds of insanity you espouse, that men need to be reduced to 10% of the world's population, that men are 'walking abortions', that misandry is the 'political act' of the oppressed woman, as long as you hold to that article of faith, you can legitimately call yourself a feminist. Not only that, even if you consider yourself simply a moderate women's rights advocate, you _can't_ call yourself a feminist _without_ signalling a belief in patriarchy; there's no getting away from that. The label is indivisible from the theory. Here, I'd like to pause and state that I think this belief is not only nonsense, but the very kind of repulsive bigotry that marks feminism out as the philosophy of legitimized hate I believe it to be. Looking back to the latter part of the nineteenth and the first half (and some change) of the twentieth centuries, they saw the growth of burgeoning civil rights movements that more or less started with the Chartists and broadened to encompass other concerns like ethnic minorities, women and those of different sexualities, but it began from the working classes to whom many of those people belonged. Now, as I see it, feminism had little or nothing to do with these movements until the Sixties when it rose up through academia and popular culture, and since then, the aim of feminism has been manufacturing history in three ways; -by appropriating the entire history of the civil rights movement (and thereby the voices of the working classes and minorities it originally served to provide the middle class white women who always made up the majority of the feminist and proto-feminist movements with careers),... -by branding the entire history of women 'feminist,' even those long-dead women who wouldn't have described themselves as such, and finally... -....by rendering the entire history of men as 'patriarchy,' even so far as reducing or redacting their contributions to the civil right movements and circulating garbage myths like the 'rule of thumb.' I think this is an entirely false narrative that has been circulated for the past six decades at least and needs urgently toe challenged. All of these are the reasons why, even though I consider myself a proponent of equal rights and opportunities (that is, an egalitarian), I do not and will never label myself a feminist But then again, I might just be mansplaining. !D

[@Iggsy81]

Holy Jesus, piss on my piss, you sure weren't kidding when you said that was gonna be a long one

[@The_Mighty_Fiction]

Long it might be, but it stands up firm right to the end.

[@zianitori1565]

I really want to get into KZbin as a leftist, but I recently came to terms with being trans (I blame anime) so I'm fairly uncomfortable with my voice at the moment. I'm really hoping to get comfortable with how I sound so I can do my best to contribute to the discussion

[@ace97101]

Zia West aw don't be afraid to dive right in :) the world needs more voices like yours

[@lumen8341]

I hope you find the courage to share your voice, no matter how you decide to do it.

[@hellopuppykillz123]

However long it takes, good luck. No rush but also try not to be afraid :p (Also Yui a best)

[@Jaqen-HGhar]

hope it's going well

[@alex-sv8ru]

Accept yourself. It's your voice

[@ickeldi]

i feel like younger shaun would have been a cinema sins fan

[@dood3530]

It always bothers me to see fellow leftists refusing to engage with right wingers, claiming that they're lost causes, when it's clear that so many of us (like Shaun and myself) used to be in the same position as them. It's amazing how much people can change, even if they're intolerable right now. I totally understand if someone doesn't have the energy or patience to deal with them, but someone has to do it. Unfortunately, they're growing in influence, and if left unchecked, it's going to get ugly. Most of them CAN have their minds changed, and we DO need them on our side.

[@starmaker75]

Well has they said: being respectful/good to a person you potical disagree is hard.

[@cortanathelawless1848]

dood3530 this is why I cut out plenty of radical leftists out of my circle because of this, I still consider myself one but I want our ideas to be spread first before we use our activism

[@marshsticks992]

Unfortunately for many it's the path of least resistance- it feels like a quick win to declare that the other side is incapable of change or unable to understand your point of view and just avoid the debate. Unfortunately, it also comes with another assumption- that the left is correct, that your given argument is stronger than the opposing one and that you needn't let it come under fire to prove itself. For me, the risk isn't that by failing to engage in debate, some people won't be convinced who otherwise could be, it's that if we don't engage in debate, we ourselves can't know that our ideas are best. So our position becomes dogmatic, and if we don't practice using our reasoning, our reasoning skills will atrophy from lack of practice and we ourselves will be susceptible to the abuse of evidence, because of course it would be naive to believe that there aren't some left wingers every bit as manipulative as some on the right... I want right wingers to try to convince me, I want left wingers to try to convince me and I want the ensuing debate to allow people to come to informed conclusions.

[@trunkulent]

Yeah, it makes the term "progressive" so tragically ironic; people that profess their desire to change the world for the better, but cast aside the idea that people themselves can change.

[@kinoko5566]

What of were just so tired of it?

[@ShampooedSquirrel]

I really I have to say I love your support for Transgender people. It makes me feel welcome in your community. Thank you for being a good ally. 😁

[@jeeology8574]

You are valid and loved. I know it can feel like a tough world filled with hateful people but there are good, loving people out there and I'm glad you feel welcome! ♥️

[@waspoppin4784]

Yee

[@aidancoll919]

@@furiat5981 jesus

[@tours7325]

@@furiat5981 lmfao

[@FinnbarrGoesFast]

ally gang ally gang

[@InconspicuousBosch]

I was never to a point where I was fully radicalized, but I did rub shoulders and swap ideas with anti-feminist, SJW-hating, oppressed gamers. I had this idea exactly as you laid it out, where I couldn't possibly be privileged because I didn't truly understand what privilege is. The MeToo movement is what finally opened the door for me to second guess and scrutinize the kind of person I was, the way I behaved, and how toxic masculinity had (and continues to) let me down. Not long after that I started realizing all of this anger I'd had towards SJWs was actually anger at capitalism, and now I dream of Bezos being guillotined on his magnificently appointed summer home lawn on national TV. I just wanted to say, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who used to not know better.

[@KewlBeansGuy93]

i have to say, i learned how to be a better person to women and to society in general because of their discourse on the internet. SJWs are a gift to society.

[@jblue1622]

Asim Mehta some SJWs** not all people or any one group are all bad or all good, there's always potentially bad apples and I think most often people in support of a group are selective as Shaun says to show that the group they support is all good

[@escapedscienceexperiement9824]

jblue1622 SJWs aren't a group. They're a strawman concept made up by white nationalists on 4chan picked up by insecure right-leaning groups on the internet. It's basically implying that feminists are a jewish conspiracy to deport white men to gulags or whatever.

[@KewlBeansGuy93]

I used sjws ironically

[@Loswiwi]

Yeah same, I used to be a real shithead years ago who'd probably be an alt righter by now if I didn't try to listen to people who live different lives than me.

[@RazFyfe]

Mothman, I love your username and Identify with your history. We share a boat. Pleasure having you on board.

[@darkymcsoulface7057]

What "Saved" me from being the standard young white man was, funnily, Hbombs Fallout video. Back then, I was cleaning the House every Saturday and liked to listen to KZbin Videos while doing so. I found all these Creationism Debunking videos, and as you said, they made me feel smart. Luckily, before I found Sargon, I stumbled upon Hbombs Fallout 3 Video, and I was instantly in love with his charming personality. I started watching his other videos and slowly but surely, my Opinions started to change. I realized that a lot if my Ideas were wrong, and while I still cringe a lot at my younger self, I'm glad that I managed to escape the rabbit hole.

[@lumen8341]

This is why I read the comments on Shaun, Contra, and Hbomb videos -- for the young folks saying they have come around and started thinking more because of these three in particular (as well as Destiny). It reaffirms that my faith in them is totally justified.

Just had a discussion with a Destiny fan who basically argued that he was the only one on youtube moving people to the left. The problem with that is Destiny is far from a leftist. He isn't even a little bit anti-capitalist and I've heard him say that "everyone" agrees that illegal immigrants in the US should be deported and assent to the claim that sub-Saharan Africans are less intelligent than other races/groups of people. Destiny's smart but he has a very unsophisticated and untextured analysis.

[@julinha3977]

Radle Grebdron Nice theory, you’re wrong though. curiouscat.me/Hbomberguy/post/101330106 curiouscat.me/Hbomberguy/post/293064014

[@progressivetalkradio3219]

Shaun, I just wanted to let you know how much your content is appreciated. I doubt you'll ever see this, but you and many others inspired my channel attempting to reach out to misled conservatives. Thank you.

[@FritangaPlays]

Stop making such good videos that put the skeptic channels to shame! You keep changing my perception of the left to something positive and I’m scared ! Dis is not dewey

[@hola542]

FACE YOUR FEARS

[@unassumingaccount395]

Down the drain you go...

[@Jason-ef8re]

disgusting

[@RedbadofFrisia]

If you haven't noticed the skeptic™ channels are kinda imploding right now. There is a shift happening and it is not to the left.

[@lixquicks]

@redbad of Frisia Can you elaborate?

[@bigburd875]

I was basically standing on the edge of the volcano with the white nationalism thing, I just dident know it, but as soon as I saw Knowing Betters video on dogwistles, I instantly turned back and ran, not knowing that you were about to jump down the pit of white nationalism and suddenly having the bag on your head removed and seeing the evil your about to immerse yourself in was terrifying, and It scared me straight

[@nico6143]

Whew. You got really lucky there Teddy. Good on you for running the second you realized what you were getting yourself into.

[@mikedelhoo]

Teddy Roosevelt Just for clarity, are you referring to KB's "Subverting the Narrative | Holocaust Denial and the Lost Cause" or another one?

[@MrDean]

@@mikedelhoo I think he's referring to the one on Jordan Peterson and his dogwhistles, e.g. in his lectures.

[@aliisakalma8245]

This video is something i keep coming back to, its the radical honesty about why he used to be so afraid of women. Most of my traumas have been because of people who are terrified of women. It helps to know its not about me, so the hatred doesn't turn inwards forever. The constant casual gaslighting and cockyness really destroys a persons self image and I always have a feeling its a matter of pride when my male friends just oddly take my insight as water off the ducks back, somehow the idea isnt getting in because im probably missing something. Or i get scared off of a comment section with creepy aggressive comments and then.. i just can't take a joke. "Intelligence" (or at least the aesthetics of it) is extremely important to masculinity, it's overlooked.

[@Xexizy]

I relate a lot to the journey you laid out of your politics, thanks for sharing it. And yea, we need more leftist youtubers now more than ever so we can be ready for when online politics shifts it's focus onto us. Only in the last two years we've gone from basically nothing to a number of prominent voices.

[@levvy3006]

Muke!

[@ABPHistory]

delet yourself please

[@mikuhatsunegoshujin]

anti-xexizy GANG

[@kali7989]

GANG

[@dedg0st]

love it. starting a podcast a channel this year. the left is on the rise. goodnight, alt right..

[@axes3562]

Honestly I was an alt-right guy in the making, I browsed kotakuinaction and regularly felt that feminists and progressives and "SJWs" were invading not only video games, but American politics. I think what disillusioned me was the way that other posters would frame any situation as a smaller struggle in a large battle for vague concepts like "ethics in videogame journalism" or free speech, yet there was never really any progress made to defend these concepts other than whining on message boards day after day, week after week. So gradually I lost interest and came to understand that actually seeing a hard-fought political battle between figureheads (that is, Sargon and crew vs. random internet feminists who would draw Gamergate's ire) was ludicrous. It's hard to admit that you're wrong, but eventually I came to the conclusion that Gamergate (and similarly anti-social justice political views) were silly and that I was silly to believe them. Drawing from my own experience, I'd say that I grew up. I read experimental books, I learned about world history and politics, most of all I grew to love punk rock which is an incredibly politically progressive genre. So gradually, I think I educated myself and grew interested in social justice through my own sense of curiosity and at the end of the day, anyone who wants to leave the alt-right will always have to do just that.

[@patched8789]

Axes would you think the alignment of most anti-SJWs with the right wing have an effect on you?

[@justinhanna9152]

Axes same here I think even Shaun used to be one of these guys

[@JackgarPrime]

You mention a good point here. For all their bitching and moaning, there doesn't seem to really be an answer to "Well, what are you going to do about it, then?" You'll find they either have no real response besides recycling what they already said, or they'll provide a "solution" that's so obviously malicious that the mask of civility cracks away, and it becomes clear there's a more malicious intent. Or I guess nowadays they'll say something about believing in Trump to do the "right thing" or some other meaningless nonsense.

[@purpleblah2]

I also used to drop into the TumblrinAction subreddit and even a Sargon video in a neutral sort of manner, but I eventually stopped when I started identifying more with the ideas of the people being made fun of than the people uploading the content

[@axes3562]

Patched 87 Oh for sure, 100%. I fell into a strange trap where I felt that I was actually neutral or a centrist, but I was constantly being exposed to belligerent, right-wing rhetoric that I took in and believed. Only afterwards did I realize how conservative some of my views were.

[@that_one_doggo8391]

This is how my brother was. He died before he got the chance to change.

[@Folkmoot]

Sorry to hear that, RIP to your brother

[@take_marsh]

I was dumb when I found your channel. I'm slightly less dumb now. Watching vids from you, ContraPoints, Destiny, and HBomb has been both entertaining and enlightening. I'd like to be able to contribute as you do, but I don't feel I'm up to the task. I'm somewhat of a dumb dumb and I'm terrible at articulating myself at almost every turn. Keep up the good work. Cool credits, btw.

[@GuerillaBunny]

How is Destiny these days? I think the last conversation of his I watched was when he defended the use of "autist" as basically an insult, because it's understood in the gaming community, because it is a negative trait, or something to that effect. I also tried watching, er, something of his where he was becoming increasingly frustrated, to the point where he was completely incoherent and impossible to watch. I decided that he needed time to mature before I could watch him again.

[@bobloblaw418]

HBomb should keep to media analysis in my opinion. Saw one of his livestreams and learned he's a bit of a middle class berk

I'm repeating myself, but Destiny, while smart, has a pretty undeveloped and unsophisticated analysis. He has a boy scout's faith in capitalism and mouths silly platitudes in support of free trade. He's so mezmerized by winning the debate that he doesn't contest arguments that need to be contested because doing so would be more difficult than it would if he made concessions to his opponent (that's the charitable take, at least). I've heard him say that "everybody" believes that illegal immigrants in the US should be deported and assent to the claim that sub-Saharan Africans are less intelligent than other groups/races. He's a smart guy but not a friend of those of us who stand opposed to the capitalist status quo.

[@GuerillaBunny]

Thanks for the analysis. He started his journey like 3 years ago, so maybe he'll become more nuanced with time. Maybe not. Time will tell.

[@ephixel]

shaun i love u. thank u. also the bit at the end about simply existing when you don't have the energy to fight made me very emotional. i'm physically + mentally disabled - due to a unfortunate series of events a few years back, i basically became housebound - and i beat myself up a lot to an extreme level because i'm not able to be an activist who "does stuff", but hearing people who are active say that it's okay to just... be, means a lot to me.

[@patrickderp1044]

its ok to be white shinji

[@ephixel]

i'm talking about the fact that i'm physically disabled and was raped and am housebound, but thanks youtube funnyman patrick harp

[@erichimes5042]

Hannah Arendt herself said that isolation and feelings of impotence were the most significant factors in the rise if totalitarianism, so any sort of healthy intersectionality from the Left is definitely needed right now. Great video, I can definitely relate to the "teenage knowitall" thing that you described so well.

[@AtheistAlias]

"healthy intersectionality" Impossibility. That's what lead to the isolation and feelings of impotence in the last election in the first place. Intersectionality perceives white men to be on top, so the only thing it can do is tear them down. Why would white men not say no thanks to that? "It's ok to be white" was deemed as unhealthy by the current Left, if you need an example.

[@rafmeinster]

@@AtheistAlias Didn't you watch the video?

[@Arrakiz666]

@@AtheistAlias No. Your alienation in a capitalist system was what led to 2016's elections. What you think is intersectionality (and actually isn't) was just a convenient scapegoat that you were very eager to be made afraid of.

[@Hope9151]

Shaun... You described me, almost exactly one year ago. It cuts deep. One notable difference being he timescale. I changed views within the span of two weeks, and I still have whiplash. I find myself questioning every first reaction, checking that what I think is what I truly do think, not something someone else told me to think. Terry Pratchett once said, "that's the problem with having an open mind; eventually someone will come along and try to put something in it."

[@steampunker7]

Don't suppose you have a link to those "FBI 2015 stats" you'd be willing to share do you? Something that also backs up that "Jews have been measured to have a higher IQ than whites" statement would be nice too. And just so we can be clear on something no, "look it up yourself" isn't correct answer. You want to cite figures so be it. Now you're being asked to provide exactly where you got those figures from before further discourse on the matter continues.

[@coldestshark4310]

Same, I distanced myself from their videos over time but never really confronted my own personal views until really recently, I’d say taking a year of AP US history helped me open up to different ideas and hbomberguys video on climate change (really recent I know) is what broke me out and caused a massive shift in my political views in a few weeks

[@annakox9427]

I had a discussion about this just a few days ago with a friend of mine who currently lives in an area where a lot of people are in favor of nationalism. He is convinced that there is no way to convince them of left or even liberal ideas again. I will show him this video. Also, I really want to pay you respect for the bit where you talked about yourself. It takes a lot of courage to put this out there and your ability to self-reflect is really impressive to me. I think you proved to be a smart person indeed with this. You are a big role model to me. Thank you so much. Update: I linked your video to him and he went completely nuts because he "is tired of these pretentious KZbin philosophers like Kraut and Tea and ArmouredSceptic" and it was the funniest thing ever because I had to explain to him that you're literally the opposite but his initial reaction was hilarious.

[@anactualjoke]

You're correct about being less reaction based and being more proactive with our politics. I'm going to start doing that. Thanks, Shaun :)

[@aceman0000099]

Echochamber

[@dedg0st]

echo chamber? have you ever seen leftist disagreements? there’s plenty of debate, arguments, etc... accepting facts and working together against dangerous politics is an echo chamber...? jfc

[@detrean]

Pat Black You have internal purges. That isn't the same thing as engaging people who disagree with you on a basic level. The only tactic the left has for that type of person is censorship and violence.

[@Owfore1]

Far right people are constantly trying to manipulate people, particularly young insecure men, to their way of thinking. He's talking about trying to prevent that. He's not exactly sermonizing

[@butterscotchwm]

Idk I feel like even wise people can be certain that white nationalism isn't good. Because that's what he's ACTUALLY talking about: re-educate the white nationalists. Not necessarily conservatives or whatever.

[@ZILtoid1991]

My recommendation is to leave the body shaming, prejudices, etc out when trying to argue with these kinds of people. When I used to be anti-feminist, I pretty much failed at achieving the hegemonic masculinity. I started gain weight after I was on my antiepileptic medication, poor as fuck, not old enough to date with girls of my age - Hungary has a fucked up AoC law and social relations to it ("it's not pedophillia, he's only 19, it's only four years of age gap") - , were extremely awkward in social situations (I wasn't diagnosed with autism at that point and I rejected that diagnosis due to the Chris-chan controversy at that time and its "incurability" which went against my then held political views) and my health status made getting a driving license unobtainable. My only exposure to feminism were far-right places, and women's magazines filled with pseudoscience and male ideals that were unreachable to me. Every time I tried to ask for help, I was often just called as a horny teenager who wants nothing but sex, but in reality I wanted much more and even could wait with that a few years. If I got any help, the only thing I got is that time will fix everything (I'm still single) and if I'm older I should take advantage of the fucked up AoC law and social relations to it (exploiting it would have meant that I should have been also "cooler" than the age group, usually by owning a motorized vehicle - or at least that was most 14yo girls said why they wouldn't date with their own age group), not to mention some very "rapey" dating advice (which either noticed right on even then, or just was too "coward" to follow them). I left anti-feminism slowly alongside my whole far-right beliefs. Up until 2008, I was a hardcore anti-Semite, who blamed every happenings in economics on the Jews (since I didn't have any better explanation on why they happen), until I watched my first anime after a while (they got pulled off air due to concerned parents thinking everything animated must be suited for two year olds too) called Spice and Wolf. This introduced me to economics and a much better explanation to economics rather than the "Jewsdidit" side of conspiraciy theories. Ironically this was also my first milestone in becoming a feminist: The romance had a very different dynamics to it than in many other romantic stories. Then I started to think: what if this system, where I have to provide for a family is made up by humans and not something hardwired into us? If I gave up some of my privileges and expectations, I could also be freed from what we call hegemonic masculinity. By the end of the 2010, I was a feminist, but even today I still have to learn a lot. I'm also much less of a white knight, as I learned to see women more than "potential girlfriends", even if I prefer relationships where the two parties are on equal footings instead of the classic patriarchal one. I probably will eventually leave software engineering behind, and become a comic artist/writer instead.

[@starmaker75]

Well I glad you learn and let go of self consciousness and become a true man. For me even when I was in anti-sjw mode I was still leftist, progressive and feminist ally at heart, it just that I was ashamed to admit it because I was frustrated with leftist/feminist being dumb at times and didn’t wanted to affiliate with them. But thankfully the back of my head and looking at outside the internet sources made realize I just need to stop being a sour puss and keep learning until you good clousre.

[@mohammedjalloh7658]

Wow that’s such an unusual tale Also, a hungarian that speaks english, also amazing 😉

[@anne-zh2kd]

Ableism is also a huge problem. And you can experience feminists and leftists who come off as almost alt-right when you bring it up. Alt-right is cruel, morally debased, but with ableism you can see what internalized predujice does to even leftist people. "Idi*t", "st*pid", "ret*rd","basementdweller, autistic(I'm an autistic woman), "cr*zy" are slurs not even questioned by most people, and the bigoted attitudes even less so. Same with fat-shaming, whick is bigoted but overlooked by many so-called progressives.

[@kjj26k]

What an incredible journey!

[@flickawhite]

good luck on your comics or writing career!!!

[@ravenwarjoy]

Well, your strategy worked. 5 years later I guess. I figured "I've heard about this Shaun guy being bad, but PragerU is an easy target, let's see how he deals with that", and then I started watching the rest of your stuff.

[@thecrazything95]

It's scary how many of us were on this horrible path. Both I and one of my closest friends were heading down that path. If it wasn't for our women friends and how open they were about talking about their problems. That combines with early breadtube, made a huge difference.

[@elliotttender]

Thanks for your insights, I totally agree with most on it and it certainly gave me some thoughts on tactics I might apply as well. I'm a german leftist creator advocating for mental health and intersectionality. Just until a few months ago I made videos that I would vaguely describe as "buzzfeed extended" where you bring up an idea but you don't go much into detail, leaving a somewhat angry audience of people who can't really follow those ideas 'cause they aren't familiar with the concepts behind. That's of many reasons why I recently decided to settle more on long-form video essays to get more into detail and explain different nuances. Something the german youtube community really seems to need, 'cause there aren't many leftist creators out there right now.

[@sircastic959]

Oh, aber hallo da, Finkelstein lässt grüßen. Wie geht´s deinem Baseballschläger? Frohes neues Jahr! Diesmal blieb Silvester sogar ohne Taharrusch...

[@dundidit4800]

xenon I hope you're not talking about me, i'm as alt-left as they come

[@paulstenberg3915]

FoxSkyline Skylin Was hast du gegen ihn

[@bananian]

Suiseisexy People like you are exactly why video makers like the OP need to exist.

[@Rumplefrumple]

what about the nuance of evergreen college and peter boghossian?

[@amaka637]

"Belligerent little shits." 😂😂😂

[@1111Tactical]

Ciara Majesty Antifa

[@Suiseisexy]

"I have to make out all my enemies to be white nationalists or I'll lose control of the narrative." Jill Stein voter here to remind you that making little voodoo dolls of libertarians isn't going to make us go away. If you want to take away people's personal freedoms and make opinions that are inconvenient for the state illegal you're going to have to fight us until we're goddamn dead. Belligerent is not a strong enough word.

[@Suiseisexy]

I actually agree somewhat, but in terms of choices realism is how the office would shape them. I was in favor of Jill and even Bernie because I wanted to see the establishment deal with their policies, in this same vein I am enjoying seeing the world deal with Trump. That our propaganda would have you believe him a total fool when the opposite is precisely their problem is just amazing, I want very much for the economic demand for truth to kill the US's blatantly (on both sides) partisan system of media coverage. Real CNN needs to exist, old BBC needs to come back, as an american I genuinely miss our media not being in someone's pocket and just starting up realshit.jpg like they're Piper from Fallout 4.

[@OsefKincaid]

Out of curiosity, since I agree that making little voodoo dolls isn't going to get us rid of libertarians, could you let us know the actual way to get rid of libertarians so that we can implement it immediately?

[@Rilly294]

I went down that youtube recommended path. It's terrible and it preys on vulnerable and lost young men bleh. On a positive note it led to a breakdown, which led to me realizing how wrong it all was and now i've been able to accept myself as trans and more! I feel lucky that I got out of that mindset.

[@dooby5833]

Congratulations!! I hope ur happier now :)

[@Sanguicat]

Eyyo! Peace, from another trans individual 😸

[@Peter]

Well done, enjoyed it. Particularly the "why you don't identify yourself as a feminist," because I hold nearly the exact same belief.

[@PoliticalEconomy101]

How about SJW or socialist? I consider myself a socialist identitarian

[@doyleharken3477]

I don't use labels to describe myself anymore for much the same reason. Reactionaries have their audiences trained to dismiss arguments and ideas out of hand if they carry popular labels. Ian Danskin from Innuendo Studios would call that "putting you into a box." If they can put me into, for example, the "progressive" box it's like trying to talk to a wall. If you talk to them as Doyle, Peter or whoever, the blank paper person, they can open up to dialog surprisingly easy. You have to make sure that if the convo takes place in a public space, online or offline, it doesn't become a performance where good faith discussion is replaced by dunking on the cringey SJW.

[@luismarioguerrerosanchez4747]

I labeled myself as a socialist because in a society where everybody is equal you don't need feminism nor any other of those lol

[@justinmack6351]

so i just clicked your channel and basically all of you videos line up with current subs but this is the first I have seen of it. wtf youtube

[@djangofett4879]

Peter has some great content.

[@themagictheatre2965]

Nice work here, Smiley Skull-Face Man. I'm glad you're out here doing what I'm not able to anymore.

[@PoliticalEconomy101]

Why did you quit bro? You should grow a thicker skin and keep plugging away for yourself.

[@oftinuvielskin9020]

You can still make a valuable contribution to the struggle you know, even if you want to limit your content to media analysis. One of the reasons why I softened to feminism was because of H.Bomb's amazing "Sherlock is Garbage and Here's Why" video, and because I discovered youtubers like Lindsay Ellis and Pop Culture Detective who criticise movies from a sociological perspective.

[@Crlarl]

It's awesome to see you making new videos!

[@Andizottel]

Oh I thought you didn't want to anymore (which is totally OK, while sad), didn't know you aren't *able* anymore - would love to know why ... and of course if there's any chance we get your voice back someday for social issues.

[@acw215079]

Lets be real here, all skulls are smiling. Skeletons are just happy motherfuckers. It's definitely not due to the lack of a mouth or anything.

[@gliiitched4429]

I was the same exact way. However, I never knew what I was looking at. I never looked into it and gave it genuine thought. I just accepted it and spouted it out. Being 14, socially awkward, nervous, traumatized and terrible with women meant I needed acceptance. I never did it because it aligned with my values, I did it to appease my hyper conservative abusive parents and people I met online. Ironically, all it did was destroy the connection between my feminist friends and I because I viewed them as screeching babies and would judge them based on their ideology, when in reality, I was the screeching baby. I would take political compass tests to try to go farther and farther right, to the point where I would look up quotes such as “From each according to his ability,” just to find out that Marx said it and I could select “Strongly Disagree.” I really needed a video like this as a kid, even if I would have dismissed it.

[@Fenjamaus40]

You are here now, tho. And we're happy to have you here! Welcome ❤

[@tenfivesmiths7802]

My problem is that there are many male feminists & allies who, while agreeing to every premise, never EVER apply the same criticisms to themselves and what's even worse, you cannot even call out their microaggression bc they become super defensive and think you're just "being ungrateful" that they're even allies.... .... ...

[@HJ_Extravaganza]

They're basically like the "white moderates" that MLK described.

[@tenfivesmiths7802]

Yes! Something like that! Thanks :)

[@discountchocolate4577]

Those people don't sound like allies at all, they sound like bandwagon-riders trying to perform wokeness to get laid or feel good about themselves.

[@jimmyseaver3647]

There are no male feminists or "allies." Anyone who describes themselves as such is usually hiding some dirty little secret.

[@constance6198]

Thanks hbomb and Folding Ideas for making me not as stupid.

[@JackgarPrime]

While I always was fairly progressive in general, I know ContraPoints was a channel that has helped me be able to better vocalize and get across said views, along with hbomb and Shaun. Not familiar with Folding Ideas, though.

[@ancomfin4270]

He doesn't do political videos. He's media critic, but he does have associations with hbomb, and does streams with him, and sometimes others like Shaun on Twitch

[@zillafire101]

Eric Olsen Garret helped me break out of the funk. I miss that dude.

[@1080TJ]

Folding Ideas' analysis of Fight Club is the best I've ever seen

[@ariyuril]

This video made me subscribe to you. My baby brother identifies as a gamer, he’s absolutely obsessed with it, to the point that it’s affected his studies and made him drop out of school. Right now he’s in a vulnerable, lonely, and unpredictable state, where if we try to push him into doing activities outside of gaming like working in the farm or going with us on a family vacation, he becomes temperamental. He calls us “normies”, he gets angry at “sjws”, and I think he’s a few steps away into sinking in the kind of unsavory mentality that progress for lgbt/women’s rights == men are being oppressed. The weird thing is he’s not even American, we don’t even live in America, but the reach of those frog men trolls is global and I don’t want him to fall to their clutches.

Sounds like your baby brother needs to get kicked out of the house and learn to support himself. In lieu of an extrinsic jolt, he could coast along like this for years.

[@thebreeoche]

I was assigned female at birth. When I was around 14, I was very anti feminist because I believed all "crazy" feminists were representative of feminism and were giving a bad name to women, and when presented with "moderate" feminists I still felt like I wasn't like them because my own experiences didn't align with theirs. Typical "I'm different from other girls" mentality. I say I was assigned female at birth because I'm trans, I now identify as a man and I'm much happier, and I think my attitude towards feminism and women in general may have been rooted in my hatred of being treated as one. Of course this is only my experience, but I still feel like it's an interesting thing to think about.

[@ilexdiapason]

joke's on them - you "weren't like other girls" because you weren't a girl

[@lexnight]

I had some views that aligned with feminism but yeah, as a trans masc GQ person a lot of stuff around feminism was pretty triggering to dysphoria for me growing up before I got hormones, and I had some pretty shitty opinions as a teen and while I moderated some naturally with age nothing helped my aleigence to feminism quite like finally getting on t and having the dysphoria stop. (Whereupon I discovered I'm GQ, because hormones are weird fuckers and girl hormone mean I Am A Man, and boy hormones apparently mean "fuck gender, imma fuck all the stereotypes on all sides.") When I see (the small minority of) antifeminist transmen I can't help but remember how severely talking about feminism or dealing with feminist issues affected my dysphoria and triggered suicidality, and hope they reach a place where they're able to move beyond that peculiar kind of pain and bias.

[@lydia8226]

That’s great! I’m a trans girl myself and oddly enough went through a sorta similar anti-feminist phase myself. I wonder why a lot of us happened to share that experience

[@Reine_Marina]

@@lydia8226 Same.

[@pruiz8432]

your chromosomes say female but your brain says male ill just take that for now

[@lesliefluette1784]

This was a really great analysis...I can relate to this even as a cis white woman. I went through the stage of thinking feminism was ridiculous (in fact that was the majority of my early 20s) and really bought into the “feminists just play the victim” narrative. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I came across A Privileged Vegan’s channel that I really began to question my assumptions and boy was I shocked at my ignorance. Anyway, you never know what little thing may plant a seed in someone’s mind

[@doriangray5750]

Mad Blender it's your duty now to tackle head-on the toxicity within the feminist movement. If you don't, then I don't need to tell you what will happen to the movement. Be part of a 4th wave of something, and really engage with ideas people have contrary to your own. Intelligent conversations two groups, respect and learning from each other is NOT what the elites want us to do. We have a lot in common (although I'm not a feminist). But first, destroy the rabid infiltrators that infest this movement. If you fail, you're doomed.

[@dumbsquaredgirl5709]

Me too, I just hated the thought that the society we live in is sexist or racist. That means that as a black girl it would be hard for me to do what I want. I was such an edgy kid that I would be an asshole and blame the person for being so “triggered”. Then my English introduce critical theory and I started reading articles and began to write understand the topics. I remember calling her a feminazi or a cringey sjw now I feel so embarrassed.

[@Turtleproof]

Cis woman? That's redundant, there's a word already, "woman."

[@AzaleaJane]

You have an excellent point about how a lot of women buy into the "I don't need feminism" narrative. My mother laid some basic feminist groundwork for me that inculcated me from the whole "feminism isn't needed anymore" idea, and I'm quite curious to hear more from women who changed their mind in a similar way to Shaun, and see how much their experiences overlap with his and where they differ. I'm sure there's a fair bit of both.

[@MirandaAdriaYT]

I know this comment was posted a year ago, and well, you may have changed your view since then, but... no, cis and woman are not synonyms. Trans women exist, and yes, they ARE women.

[@Alex-rd2ur]

When I was in my early twenties I hated feminists too and I bought into much of that retoric, except for the racist parts. What got me to change was actually listening to women and not listen to other men talk about women. Hearing about the creepy stuff men do towards women, creepy messages, strange men getting of the bus at the same time as them and following them home, randomly touching them, the list goes on, just made me understand the kind of shit they have to go through and I can empathize with how that must make them feel unsafe a lot of the time where I as a cis man would get to feel safe. While I stand for unity and equality I fully understand that some women turn to hatred towards men.

[@neilrusling3438]

@Glenna Smith Delusional crap!....If anything its the other way...So 18 month back after a work Christmas party a few of us carried on the party at a bar, so I was kissed by a woman I work with, lasted 10 seconds. No problem for a few days and we laughed about it, but her friends knew and were not discrete and the boyfriend finds out where upon she panics and claims its my fault i kissed her, she didnt want me to kiss her and even though this was not at work when it happened management get involved. So are we both or neither put on leave? NO of course not, just me. So shes believed no question, but not me im called in for interviews where i tell my side but am i believed? no. Im told that shes so upset she wont work with me and although ive done nothing wrong criminally my behavior left them open to a law suit if they forced us to work together, im told it would be helpful to them if i chose to go to work at an other office in the next town which would be an hour extra commute each day, I said no. Any of this sounding fair?. I had to tell them I would get a lawyer if they took action only against myself and not her and that if they didnt let me contact people we both work with who could be witnesses about this incident i would take legal action, this has forced them to back down but ive had to move departments which im now finding is a very bad career move, not to mention the sensitivity training and healthy work environment courses im having to do, but not her, nothing bad for her, i cant even look at her ive been told as this could be construed as threatening. Women have it so bad?...no...no you dont...Your believed and protected even if you lie. My career is looking damaged and all because of a kiss that lasted less than 10 seconds that we both laughed about the day after it occured, it may have been like you say 20 years ago but not in 2020 and i think you know it.

[@mrmoth26]

Men also experience horrible things, and there are female anti feminists (Shoe0nHead for example). But when men get harrased or raped everyone laughs and they don't get help.

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

I have always grown up with a leftist viewpoint, with my Mom being a Social Worker and my Dad being an ER Nurse I sort of heard about people's issues all the time. But it still strikes me when I was in a college class and my teacher asked how many people have thought about the possibility of getting raped in the past day. Every woman raised their hand and many detailed how they have had to and how they go about protecting themselves. And this was a Social Work class so there were roughly 4 male students to 23 female students and our teacher was a gay guy (not sure how relevant that is but hearing him talk about Homophobic clients unable to tell certainly was interesting.) None of the males raised their hand yet one of the guys got annoyed because he said he gets scared of being mugged and was basically trying to 1-up the women in what he has to fear on the daily. That whole class day is gonna stick with me for a while, I never once have had any concern like that much less had a serious fear of it for days or years.

[@Pohlmaster]

neil rusling your Story is important. Not believing the victim is a Problem on both sides: not believing or blaming women for being raped „she schouldnt go out at night. She just wants attention. She was wearing a really short dress. She wanted it“ etc. Not believing or blaming a men for being raped „that‘s not possible, a man can not be raped by a women. He could just have punched her, so he’s a pussy. I would love being raped by a women, he must have enjoyed it.“ It‘s these gender roles, „allowing“ us as a Society to think that way: „Women are hysterical and over emotional, they are overexaggerate, they might not have enjoyed the sex, but it wasn‘t rape.“ „Women have sexual power over men, if they smile and show much skin, a man can not resist, they know that and are using this advantage, so she asked for being raped.“ „Men are strong, much stronger than women (emotionally and physically), so they cant be raped by women“ „Men should never punch a women“ „Men always want sex, so he Must have enjoyed it“ „Men don‘t cry, showing emotions is a sign of weakness“ There are Many of these toxic examples. It is a feminist issue, these gender roles are harmfull for Men and women.

[@1080TJ]

If I had to recommend one thing to send to any of the "frog people" in your life it'd be J.T. Sexkik's video "Why I Left 4chan: A Tale of Suspense". It's a really well-done, relatively apolitical video presented in a way that's likely to resonate with a lot of these guys on a personal level, even if the place they meet up online isn't necessarily 4chan. I (also a straight white cis male) used to post on /mu/ pretty regularly from 8th grade through sophomore year of high school. And while it did help expand my music taste (something I'm still happy about) and the environment wasn't quite as overtly toxic as other boards, it was still prone to a lot of the inherent issues you get on a place like 4chan - especially casual racism, misogyny, superiority complex, and the "nice guy"/incel mentality. It just wasn't a healthy place to spend my adolescence, and I'm glad I realized this and got out early. I'm 20 now, but there are definitely some deeply rooted problems in the way I think that I'm still working through as a result of going there so much during a crucial time in my development. While I came across Sexkik's video later on, it reminded me a lot of my own experiences and would probably make a good starting point in helping a lot of guys break away from these toxic online communities.

[@aaronhulsey3111]

TJ Hastie What is Nice guy/uncle mentality

[@drc77777]

Aaron Hulsey The nice guy mentality is guys thinking they are owed sex/affection for showing women basic courtesy. Incels are what happens when you leave nice guys in an echochamber for too long. They become far more extreme and begin advocating in some cases for things like forced marriages. r/niceguys is a good place to see this sort of mentality. There was an incel subreddit but it got banned a month or two ago.

[@mykneecapshurt]

TJ Hastie jeez, you sound exactly like me. /mu/ has unfortunately gotten a lot worse with the passage of time. a shame, cuz like you said, even though it could be pretty shitty politically, it was still one of the better boards.

[@DocFlamingo]

Who, exactly, do you think the "frog people' are, TJ? I'd bet a fair sum you have a pretty warped idea of what that whole thing is about.

[@Turtleproof]

"Cis male." Oh, so you're male.

[@studiojournal9436]

Shaun, once again some of the most cogent, precise observations and suggestions. Keep up the good work!

[@isaacthomas6544]

Thanks for the video. I get into disagreements with a lot of other leftists about this, but I totally agree with you. I'm a white gay trans man, but in high school I was identifying as a conservative Christian, and I didn't realize yet that I was gay and trans, so I got super wrapped up in anti-SJ people. This was a number of years ago, so anti-SJ KZbin wasn't really around yet minus some anti-feminism videos, but I was definitely saying and supporting harmful things. It took me a few years to change, only helped out when I realized I wasn't cisgender or straight. I don't give up hope on people for that reason, although it's so easy to let them frustrate you and bait you into behaving badly. I think everything you said in this video is spot on when it comes to swaying those who are falling for white nationalist rhetoric.

[@Aconitum_napellus]

I always love the irony of the term 'red pill', I mean do they never realise where that term is from?

[@hyacinth1320]

The said thing that I realized, is that they do. They just literally see and hear what they want to. It's astonishing.

[@Dane-7]

You're confused. The red pill represents harsh reality while its the blue pill that represents blissful ignorance.

[@archdukefranzferdinand567]

@@Dane-7 If anything it's the opposite. Believing that a single group of people is responsible for all of the worlds problems is pretty ignorant

[@mrmoth26]

@@Dane-7 Isn't the blue pill used to make the mushroom stiff?

[@Purpleturtlehurtler]

@@rainingcomplete3018 breaking free of society's pressures. To keep perpetuating a system of servitude and ignorance or free yourself from the chains that bind us and simply be. A trans person fulfilling their need to be themselves is the most "red pill" thing.

[@masterplusmargarita]

Your story of the way you were when you were young shook me, because up until you started talking about Something Awful, it was exactly my story. I was a broke straight white cis dude who hated being told he was privileged, took solace in thinking he was at least smarter than everyone around him (because I was worse at basically everything else) and enjoyed debunking creationists. I went down that KZbin rabbithole. Thankfully right around the time Sargon transitioned from GamerGate stuff into anti-immigration stuff I was struggling terribly to not fail out of university. It was a horrible time and led me to very dark places mentally since suddenly I didn't have the one redeeming factor of being smart anymore to anchor my self-esteem to, but it also got me to not assume I was a genius and therefore all my opinions were right by default, and I started thinking critically and realizing Sargon often didn't make sense, at which point I started being less of a shit human.

[@mitchellkramer]

It's crazy how much your trajectory towards feminism parallels mine. I was afraid that my journey was too rare and unable to be repeated because of how it takes a lot of time, patience, and willingness to admit you're wrong. My introduction to feminism happened in the Peace Corps where I was surrounded by strong, female voices uninterrupted by men.

[@lpvrooom6714]

Your channel was my saviour lol. Wasn’t too far gone but heading the wrong way

[@DevinSmith56]

Wow, that point around 8:20 really hit home... I'm glad I'm not caught in that trap anymore. Great video Shaun!

[@spencerdougan1113]

This video is probably the single most hopeful thing I’ve seen in a while, the conversion stories are all quite touching, god bless, carry on boys

[@lucyseverine9907]

In ten years, you don't just have different opinions, you also look super different as well! Positives: The new sunglasses, they're really cool. Negatives: You've lost the curly hair/in fact all the hair/and also all of your skin has sloughed off and you're just a skull now huh want to talk about those changes?

[@carysbebard3690]

Luka Saracen those don't really sound like negatives to me ;)

[@maurodriguesxr]

He seems pretty happy to me - look at his smile! If he's happy, who am I to judge?

[@lauraanderson8785]

I relate to this a lot, even as a white bisexual cis woman. I fell down the anti-feminist, anti-immigration, anti-LGBT alt-right rabbithole around 2015-2017. I prided myself in my intelligence too, which is ironic considering the mental gymnastics I was doing as a female, LGBT immigrant in USA. I was full of self-loathing, in retrospect. I was ashamed by my bisexuality and I struggled with internalised misogyny so I put down other women to feel better about myself. Yeah, so intelligent. Thank God I got out of that. The only good that came out of it is that I now understand the inner workings of the alt-right mindset much better and can sympathise with people who are trying to fight themselves free from it. Also I became an avid supporter of men's rights but now I support them as a feminist, along with women's rights. It's crazy in hindsight how I could ignore the sexism and homophobia I had experienced. Sometimes I feel really ashamed of that phase of mine, but it's comforting to know that a lot of other people went through it too and came out on the other side as leftists.

[@LogicGated]

I was flirting with the alt right when i was younger. Greatful for channels like shaun for pulling me out of that.

[@paulkerrigan9857]

Did you upload this at 5AM? 🌝 I used to listen to people like Sargon, Milo, Thunderf00t, Undoomed, Computing Forever and so-on. But there were a few things that changed my mind: Kristi Winters vs. Sargon debate. Hbomberguy, Contrapoints and yourself. Seeing the world from another perspective, via everydaysexism.com. Most importantly, I work for a couple of huge social-justice supporters who always have a straightforward and clear explanation for any progressive ideas they hold. They’re nothing like the irrational so-called SJWs discussed in videos. They wore me down with sensible arguments.

[@martynkerslake8118]

Paul Kerrigan same here a personal experience with sargon and his fans around the time he was attacking lush Cardiff was kind of in limbo for months and months til I found Shaun and the others you named who I only started watching back in October

[@lumen8341]

I'm as annoyingly SJW-y as you can probably get but I watched Thunderf00t before the #gamergate thing made him turn on that weird woman-hating dime. It was weird watching the atheism community shift. P.Z. Meyers and the forerunners didn't change much (excepting Dawkins) but ...yeah. Weird shift.

[@raiford5082]

Banana Teleporter thunderfoot has never made any alt right or racist claims though, I have always watched his content and his debunk videos while aren't always perfect tend to stem from a point of logic, he also never limits himself to only debunking "SJWs". He was never trying to advocate for ridiculous alt righters. Your entire comment here reeks of he made fun of or criticized what a believe therefore he is not good.

[@drunkenhobo8020]

Banana Teleporter - Unfair on Thunderf00t, he shouldn't be criticised for stepping away from the precipice of white supremacism. Sure it took him a while to realise where this was going, but he got there in the end. It should never be seen as too late to change. His earlier anti-radical feminism stuff was fairly accurate too. Critiquing blatant lies and hypocrisy from the likes of Anita Sarkeesian, when she was seen as relevant.

[@kaziislam2785]

Paul Kerrigan I know that it’s been 9 months since you’ve posted this, but have you also seen the KZbinr “Three Arrows” He’s also an intellectual left-leaner who counters right winger and alt-right ideas.

[@breadtubediet1524]

Middle of highschool I almost fell down the anti-feminism path via "men's rights activism" where men bemoaned unfair divorce rulings, prison sentencing, and other places where we perceived men were actually (aCkshUalLy) discriminated *against*, not privileged. It let me ignore all of the instances where men were privileged over women while simultaneously letting me feed my sense of fairness, which I have had a strong compass for since I was a child playing little league soccer. What broke me out of that path was two fold. Firstly, it was realizing that feminism does fight for those issues, at least the "right end" of feminism. It's feminists, not conservative men, who don't want me, a male, to be disadvantaged at divorce court, or seen as a creep if I take my children to the park. The second thing was a shift away from gender or race identity toward class identity. I grew up poor but fortunate to go to a private school on scholarship, and as I became more self aware of the income gap between me and my peers, I began to care much more about the working poor as a class (especially after my first job nearly drove me to suicide), which helped insulate me against conservative rhetoric on other topics. Eventually I grew out of my class-reductionist position to embrace more intersectionality and broader leftist thinking, although I still tend to see class struggle specifically as my focus for personal efforts Edit: typos from phone

[@thegingereditor9223]

I know that most of the comments say the same thing but i need to say it. I was the exact same person who stoked my entire personality on being smarter and morally better than everybody around me. I do look back on those times and cringe. I am glad that i have gotten past a lot of that. This video hits home very much.

[@bluebana2280]

i remember watching Amazing Atheist once in a while couple of years ago, and thinking he's entertaining and informative. Than i stopped watching him for some time and when i came back, the first video i clicked gave me a headache (the one about milo, transgender guy). Listening to him shouting like a crazy person, saying really racist shit, made me realize that there's nothing "rational" about this anti-sjw crowd.

[@bananateleporter5696]

I always had disagreements with the guy but I kept watching him right up until the moment he endorsed Trump in 2016. He's sort of backtracked on it at this point but the damage is done. I'm like you. I gave it a break for a while and then I came back to see if he'd improved. He was saying nice things about Paul Joseph Watson. Yeah, so TJ is a lost cause I guess. I've always believed that British people can say really stupid shit and be taken seriously by people like TJ because of their accent. Not talking about Shaun obviously ♡ TJ was a valuable asset for people like me who lived in the religious southern US and needed an online resource to tell us that our atheism was okay and nothing to be ashamed of. I appreciate that he made me feel better about myself back when I was a teenager. But I can't abide someone who tells teeenage white boys to vote for Trump because "both candidates are the same" or "Hillary is even worse" or whatever bullshit these KZbin carnival barkers like to say.

[@dataportdoll7918]

What's really sad, if you watched him allllll the way back to his Distressed Watcher days, TJ was actually really coming along. He acknowledged his own fallibility many times, he made a SCATHING video about the way Trayvon Martin was handled by society, and even backtracked and publicly apologized for much of his early transphobic humor. I even remember a Q&A way back when when he spoke about how people agreeing with "everything he said" made him uncomfortable, because he was never 100% certain the opinions he voiced would ultimately be right, he was always questioning them. Then Gamergate came and, well, I'm sure the bump in dollar signs changed a good man.

[@alanandrianov236]

Banana Teleporter what’s wrong with trump?

[@princesseuphemia1007]

I agree. TJs atheism videos are excellent and I really liked him back when I was a teenager who had just come out as an atheist. Some of his SJW videos are good too but 90% of them are absolute garbage that come across as bullying more than anything. Even the ones where he actually complains about SJW causes that are stupid are causes that most SJWs themselves don't agree with, so he's basically arguing with an opponent that doesn't exist and convincing his fans that the enemy is actually real. In other words he's acting like the same religious nuts he used to be so good at tearing down. Just sad.

[@yungsouichi2317]

It's rational self-interest, they're filling a market demand of reactionary white dudes who need an avatar for their own thoughts.

[@psyche_1297]

I realize how close I got to the edge, I'm glad a found you an Hbomberguy, you helped a lot

[@dantheman4838]

It's a new dawn, a new day, a new life for KZbin, and I'm feeling good.

[@oof-rr5nf]

BIG MOOD

[@vincentheartland2088]

It’s shocking how much our stories line up in some ways but are completely different in others. I took enormous pride in watching Tf00t’s wdplac series, but I also had Aron Ra to remind me to try and be humble about things I didn’t know as well. I was outraged about feminism, but it was always only the people claiming “Your words can rape me”, not people who were advocating against genital mutilation that bothered me. On the whole, my views are pretty much the same now as then, it’s the banners and proportions that have changed. A-grade video!

[@aviendha1154]

This is actually really helpful to young women who don’t necessarily feel included in feminism too. I watched and still do watch both left and right leading videos. But I’m always reminded that the left has the actual facts and logic on their side when I find content like this. It can be very hard to keep identifying as a feminist when it feels like every man/boy and his brother either mocks, actively attacks or makes you feel guilty for ideas which you yourself are still forming. So thanks so much Shawn, and others like you for helping to keep my ideas evolving/not sliding back into mra style disarray.

[@a_Lemming]

Are you doing a video on the libertarian-to-alt-right pipeline? You touched on it here, but it's a larger phenomenon than a minute or two of a video can make an accurate analysis of.

[@lumen8341]

I would enjoy this as a Shaun topic.

[@Rumplefrumple]

he should do a video on evergreen college and peter boghossian

[@lukassebold4851]

I used to listen quite a lot to Sargon about 5 years ago. Just started university, was single, and had never encountered a feminist argument made by a feminist. So I didn't see Sargon's strawman as what it was. Then he made that "Equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome" (something like that) video. And it was terrible. I had read a bit of philosophy (Sandel's "Justice") and was confused that he couldn't understand the points made by the people he quoted. Which led to the uncomfortable process of questioning myself. If I disagree with him there, on something I've read about, why do I agree with him on something I haven't? I still believed his strawman, but once I encountered you and hbomb, I guess I was more open to critisizm of Sargon.

[@ascenscionstallion2993]

I will keep existing and being awesome. Thank you Shaun

[@salokin3087]

Inb4 "cuck!" comments

[@BlackBirdSweep]

it sounds kind of like what a deaf chicken would say

[@user-qb3jg8ep9t]

It's OK to be cucked

[@jblue1622]

ww wifi if anyone has ever watched research videos on xhamster or any website like it, congrats you've been cucked

[@SSelkie3]

its a voyuer fetish that is all :)

[@Bluehawk2008]

It's not voyeurism if she's doing it behind your back.

[@ThePyrosirys]

I used to be a frog man, but in part thanks to you Shaun, I'm not a woke AF soyboi and proud of it.

[@Warpig9]

Lol

[@whywyatt376]

holy shit congrats

[@wisecontragio172]

Quite Dank proud soyboi...great

[@TheSm1thers]

Wisecontra Gio hey what's your problem with soyboys dude?