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In the belly of the MrBeast

kevinmunger.substack.com

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Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#291

Post by jandrese »

mhartz wrote: post #5

> The ideal creator has no distance between themselves and their persona. They have been interpellated by audience metrics; their subjective experience already takes audience reactions into account. Isn't this sort of one of the themes from The Prestige(2006)? That certain magicians were so dedicated to their craft that they became inseparable from it. The performance never actually stopped

It reminded me of the old Vonnegut novel "Mother Night". The refrain from that work was "You are what you pretend to be."

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#292

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

RajT88 wrote: post #77
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a straight line through 70s Falwell, 90s Limbaugh, tea party, to MAGA. All fueled by a self-reinforcing rage machine.

Left leaning folks are swept up in rage machines too. Leaf through the BoingBoing BBS sometime to get a sense for it.

They aren't obstructing Congress. That has been ongoing since 1994 when rational negotiation by civic minded leaders was replaced with hostage taking to suit an ideology without regard for public benefit.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#293

Post by jandrese »

infecto wrote: post #9

Not entirely related to MrBeast but related to YouTube. I genuinely miss the older algorithm where after watching a video you would go progressively further down a hole of videos somehow related to the one you just watched. It was quite entertaining and really uncovered fascinating videos.

I hope it doesn't happen anymore, but it used to be a game to clear your history and go to a fresh Youtube page and keep clicking on the top video in the suggestion list until you hit UFOs, Flat Earth, Climate Change denial, Lizard People, Chemtrails, or some other crackpot video. It was shocking just how fast the algorithm would gravitate towards that content, sometimes after just a couple of videos. I have a theory that the YouTube algorithm is partially to blame for the explosion in conspiratorial thinking on the modern Internet.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#294

Post by Satisfy4400 »

standardUser wrote: post #282
RajT88 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't suggesting an equivalence, just that the phenomena of the rage machine exists on both sides. As an exercise, try coming up with some metric to measure it. Could be inflammatory posts, or the comment count on inflammatory posts. Compare BB BBS with some rough equivalent right-leaning place. You'll find it's worse in the right-leaning forum, no doubt. But the phenomena exists on both sides of the political spe…

You seem to have dodged the larger point that right wing rage is a mainstream phenomenon and a dominant force across television, radio, podcasts and social media, whereas comparably hateful and violent language on the left is mostly only in the margins.

The glorification of Luigi Mangione in some left-leaning circles seems to be a counterpoint to your assertion.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#295

Post by llamaimperative »

Satisfy4400 wrote: post #294
standardUser wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have dodged the larger point that right wing rage is a mainstream phenomenon and a dominant force across television, radio, podcasts and social media, whereas comparably hateful and violent language on the left is mostly only in the margins.

The glorification of Luigi Mangione in some left-leaning circles seems to be a counterpoint to your assertion.

Addressed with polling data below. There is no evidence of a significant left/right divide on this issue.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#296

Post by llamaimperative »

throaway89 wrote: post #286
llamaimperative wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theocracy is bad and neo-Nazism is bad. Trump had dinner with Nick Fuentes, who 1) is an open anti-semite, 2) praises Adolf Hitler, and 3) calls for white ethnonationalism. I don't need to write a treatise to explain why this is bad.

And is also an incel...hard for me to imagine someone that Trump would despise more than a guy who can't get laid.

Well it’s apparent at this point literally anything is acceptable so long as they flatter his sensitive ego.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#297

Post by guelo »

spokaneplumb wrote: post #154
nemo44x wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically since when cable TV came into mainstream existence.

- Huge shift in (near-total abandonment of) antitrust enforcement starting in the late 70s, driven by Chicago school assholes. Centralized economic power. - Fairness Doctrine killed in the 80s, resulting rise of partisan AM radio and, somewhat later, Fox News. - Media ownership concentration rules neutered in early ‘00s (iirc). More centralization, again in the hands of big capital. - None of those rules ever applied…

i remember when Obama took office Rush Limbaugh was worried that he would try to restore the fairness doctrine but it turned out Obama did nothing. Democrats never acted like they were in a battle while Republicans were executing on a media domination plan over decades to dismantle the propaganda safeguards put in place by post war politicians.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#298

Post by throaway89 »

llamaimperative wrote: post #296
throaway89 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And is also an incel...hard for me to imagine someone that Trump would despise more than a guy who can't get laid.

Well it’s apparent at this point literally anything is acceptable so long as they flatter his sensitive ego.

I would suggest the opposite (inverse?): anything is acceptable to Nick Fuentes as long as it increases his chances of getting laid.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#299

Post by Satisfy4400 »

llamaimperative wrote: post #209
geodel wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it is very obviously the case they are not. It not obvious and also doesn't seem true at all. Still one may continue to investigate with this assumption but then result will neither be truth or much useful.

Yeah, it really is obvious. Here's one excellent example: the dominant right wing media apparatus knowingly engaging in a conspiratorial lie that fetched them a $787 million punishment. https://apnews.com/article/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-trial-t...

It seems to me there's plenty of conspiratorial thinking on the left. The rhetoric around Project 2025 comes to mind as a recent example. Same with rhetoric around for-profit prisons (e.g., I see lots of people saying our criminal justice system is primarily profit driven).

If I had to guess, I'd say such thinking is more widespread on the right, but I find it very difficult to see these sort of things clearly since I'm generally left-leaning in my politics.

Re: In the belly of the MrBeast

#300

Post by senko »

lanternfish wrote: post #176
senko wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This presumes that MrBeast intended to create "videos with meaning" in the first place. In his defense (!?), most of what's churned out by the streaming platforms, hollywood, and the music industry, is also not very bothered by lack of meaning.

This seems an insufficient analysis. The meaning expressed by contemporary music, film media, or streaming television isn't very profound, but they at least still make a passing effort to "signify" something. The highest grossing movie of 2024 - Inside Out 2 - is not a deep text, but it does have a thesis. The "Pixar apparatus" is definitely increasingly consumed by audience demand, but they're at a minimum in a tran…

I heard a term for a specific version of this that I'm (mis)applying in all such cases: brainrot.
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