***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[wavycrocket]

I still don’t know how he and those other streamers are so popular. I don’t understand their appeal.

Intentional dumbing down of society (and youth) Idiocoracy. And a generation of children grew up being entertained by **** like “unboxing” and idolizing YouTube content creators etc. I think we overlook just how big of an impact these streamers have had on some of the youths formative years. They’re growing with these folks. Time really is flying too. And the reward for being dumb, loud, obnoxious has always been ‘Merica…but now it’s on a totally different scale.

Blame the tech bros. Who rewarded this **** too, by providing a huge financial incentive to be literally a moron, with zero morals…on stream 24/7.

Everything is back to the PayPal mafia folks anyway. This was Prolly on rumble for real.

 

[ballinsam23]

TBH, he had a hand in the pandemic. Ignoring it in general, and having no ******* clue what to do about it (disbanded the pandemic response team had a huge impact for sure) until it got way out of hand and there was no where to go but down.

The whole dismissing Fauci saga I didnt like, but yea, brushing it off even after the world realized how serious it was

 

[osh kosh bosh]

I think i get the appeal of like Kai Cenat, Xqc, or Ishowspeed.

but I find Adin Ross's appeal baffling.

he does not seem that charismatic, talented or funny, seems like he built his entire thing on being the first to get famous rappers on stream.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Intentional dumbing down of society (and youth) Idiocoracy. And a generation of children grew up being entertained by **** like “unboxing” and idolizing YouTube content creators etc. I think we overlook just how big of an impact these streamers have had on some of the youths formative years. They’re growing with these folks. Time really is flying too. And the reward for being dumb, loud, obnoxious has always been ‘Merica…but now it’s on a totally different scale.

Blame the tech bros. Who rewarded this **** too, by providing a huge financial incentive to be literally a moron, with zero morals…on stream 24/7.

Everything is back to the PayPal mafia folks anyway. This was Prolly on rumble for real.

i think this is way too judgmental of the kids.

it's not like millennial 13 year old boys were like debating moral philosophy or something.

 

[ballinsam23]

Kids today are mostly glued to their phones. These streamers have a bigger influence than some parents.

I still dont get these presidential rounds with the social media influencers. Their followers are either too young to vote or wont vote.

 

[elpablo21]

Guess it won't matter in the end since it'll be considered an "official act"

 

[wavycrocket]

i think this is way too judgmental of the kids.

it's not like millennial 13 year old boys were like debating moral philosophy or something.

I’m not trying to be judgemental at all. Im simply pointing it out for what it is.

It’s not on the kids at all. Nothing I even said, blamed the kids . Just pointing out the reality at what has been given to them, by the powers that be. The environment they are growing up in…and what the rewards are.

Like 65% of Gen Z’s career goal is to be a content creator. They obviously grew with this. And see the potential in earnings with it. They can make money. They can get rewarded.

They’ll increasingly be rewarded for being dumb, stupid, loud, ignorant & sellouts tho. And that is just the reality of the business model

 

[IATT]

 

[dacomeup]

I think i get the appeal of like Kai Cenat, Xqc, or Ishowspeed.

but I find Adin Ross's appeal baffling.

he does not seem that charismatic, talented or funny, seems like he built his entire thing on being the first to get famous rappers on stream.

Yea, he seems like an incel

 

[elpablo21]

 

[mplsdunk]

This is why I never talk about crypto irl

 

[Belgium]

A lot of the stuff in Project 2025 sounds like theocratic dystopia fanfiction but this one is truly something.
Ban porn and imprison anyone who produces or consumes it. What a great idea. Better start building a lot more juvenile detention facilities.
Also, you should be classified as a sex offender if you've watched porn and work in education.

 

[pmatic]

Announcement expected Tuesday morning via social media video.

 

[rexanglorum]

Aaron Sorkin like “to the goon cave!”

 

[frink85]

age comes for us all

 

[cragmatic]

i think this is way too judgmental of the kids.

it's not like millennial 13 year old boys were like debating moral philosophy or something.

We were playing Madden and Halo and 2k lol

 

[trappedintime]

We were playing Madden and Halo and 2k lol

Now they’re watching people play it too. Let’s not pump up the demographic that was playing halo and crushing keystones in college 20 years ago as being any smarter. It’s old man syndrome

 

[wavycrocket]

Now they’re watching people play it too. Let’s not pump up the demographic that was playing halo and crushing keystones in college 20 years ago as being any smarter. It’s old man syndrome

True….but we know for a fact that there has been a concerted, decades long push by Steve Bannon (Gamergate) and the right wing ecosystem etc to court young gamers/online folks…and radicalize them. Which was a stark contrast themselves (blaming video games for society’s ills) now cynically using entryism to court children.



I think that is a stark difference from the environment the prior generation grew up in.

 

[trappedintime]

True….but we know for a fact that there has been a concerted, decades long push by Steve Bannon (Gamergate) and the right wing ecosystem etc to court young gamers/online folks…and radicalize them. Which was a stark contrast themselves (blaming video games for society’s ills) now cynically using entryism to court children.



I think that is a stark difference from the environment the prior generation grew up in.

Gaming, and FPSs in particular, has been political since Columbine. But Bannon has talked about activating all kinds of demographics that he hasn’t achieved much success with over the years. His best activation was grifting wall lovers into buying him a yacht.

 

[MakeNTGreatAgain]

this is weird

 

[HIM]

Kids today are mostly glued to their phones. These streamers have a bigger influence than some parents.

I still dont get these presidential rounds with the social media influencers. Their followers are either too young to vote or wont vote.

I came across one of these “street interview” tik tok videos the other day. They asked some teens what their favorite shows were and a couple of them said they only watch streamers

Blew my mind

 

[Belgium]

Idk about y'all but personally I'm 30 and I feel like I grew up with gaming, youtube and livestreaming.
I was a decent Halo 3 player back in the day and had good connections in the rising Halo 3 community on Twitch, which was still "JustinTV" back then as the Amazon takeover only came in around ~2014.
Back then the Halo community was quite small but it was fun chilling with other top tier players in the chat. I was never a TOP tier player for the record but I frequently played with various top tier players and my name was well known in the community for various reasons.

Nowadays as a 30 year old, on Twitch I almost exclusively chill in certain Mortal Kombat streams the past few years, where there's pretty much always homies in the chat. If I'm working from home I usually set up a second monitor with some youtube vid running.If I'm sick, like after today's really bad epilepsy attack, I can't really move around much due to the muscle stiffness so that's when my streaming viewer hours spike up. Twitch has helped me get to know a lot of online people that I genuinely value. Mortal Kombat was one of the first games I ever played besides Doom so it's cool to me to just hop on Twitch and casually chat with some of the best players to ever play MK.

I don't think this streamer thing is only a Gen Z thing, streaming and youtube were just waaaaay different back in my experience. The most successful streamer back in the day was the best (insert hard game here), someone like Shroud for example. He's still a huge streamer for the record.
When Fortnite came out and streamers hopped on that wave, that was a massive change in the livestreaming landscape. This caused the already strongly increasing younger audience to spike dramatically.
Kids love loud, erratic IRL content, and Adin Ross, iShowSpeed (to some extent, mostly his earlier days) and to some lesser extent Kai Cenat all follow that playbook. Kai being the exception because he's clearly targeting a slightly older audience aside from often being obnoxiously loud.

 

[frink85]

Maybe I’m out of touch but I can’t see the point of watching other people play video games. Except for like strategy help.

 

[Belgium]

Maybe I’m out of touch but I can’t see the point of watching other people play video games. Except for like strategy help.

I can't speak for others but I'm generally doing something else while having a stream open, like playing Elden Ring or something. I don't really just sit back and watch a stream as a sole activity.
To me it's primerily about the community and the chat, unless it's a stream of a fighting game tournament like EVO. If a streamer's community becomes too big where it becomes damn near impossible to follow the chat messages and chill with homies in the chat, I just don't bother. Hence why I normally watch those big Mortal Kombat tournaments through someone I follow restreaming it and adding his own commentary.
I think around 50-300 viewers is the ideal experience as a chatter. You get to know the regulars, meet cool people, ...

 

[heelsandeers]