# I Pit Babale **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 7, 2025, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738 "2025-04-07T14:59:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/321 "2025-05-06T16:32:48Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > If I point at what such a person says, you’ll say I misunderstood. If I try to give examples of how it works in practice, you’ll say I’m nut picking and ask for 20 more examples, or say that the privileged group actually is worse and deserves it. It’s not very worthwhile from my perspective. OK, well, clearly you don’t think I’m arguing in good faith, so I’m not sure why you’re bothering to respond to me at all. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/322 "2025-05-06T16:33:22Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > This _is_ the dominant form of progressivism that young people are exposed to, and it’s _completely ineffective_ at appealing to them or even at preventing them from being captured by right wing ideology. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/323 "2025-05-06T16:33:56Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Yes, despite the fact I’ve never heard of him, if he has 3 million followers, that would be a good answer! But the wikipedia page you linked just describes him as a guy who identifies as a liberal and debates MAGAts on YouTube, and doesn’t go into any detail about his thoughts about the “pyramid of oppression” or anything else. His own home page is just a bunch of links to Instagram videos. Cite that he holds stupid opinions on this subject? To be clear, I’m not making the point that he literally believes in an oppression pyramid that he points to and talks about. I didn’t bring up an “oppression pyramid”. What Dean does is support a form of progressivism that is toxic, as exemplified by the way it torpedoed the “Unfuck American Tour”, which brought together a large number of content creators of similar caliber to Dean (although he and Parker are the largest). This guy, and the tour built around him, was supposed to be the Left’s answer to the Right’s radicalization of young white men. And it fell apart because the organizer of the PAC funding the event was supposedly “microaggressive”. I’m happy to provide cites about this, but I just want to be clear about what I’ve been arguing, because I don’t want to be accused of moving goal posts. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/324 "2025-05-06T16:36:29Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I’m happy to provide cites about this Actually, you are happy to make the claim that you could provide cites about this because, as everyone knows, claiming that cites exist is much easier than actually providing them, right? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/325 "2025-05-06T16:41:16Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > This _is_ the dominant form of progressivism that young people are exposed to This is the unsupported claim you’ve made. A single incident doesn’t support the claim that it’s the “dominant form of progressivism”. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/326 "2025-05-06T16:55:45Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > This is the unsupported claim you’ve made. A single incident doesn’t support the claim that it’s the “dominant form of progressivism” So what kind of analysis would satisfy you? If we look at the handful of biggest left aligned content creators on a handful of platforms\* and see whether they fall into this sort of behavior, is that what you’d want to see? \*Hold on, you do agree that content creators matter because that’s the way most Gen Z people consume information, including political information? Or is that a conversation we need to have first? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/327 "2025-05-06T16:56:06Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Google Babale’s “unfailingly polite” line. It’s a meme. I know it is, because people here have applied it to me when I was being sincere, just like Babale just did to LHoD. I strongly suspect it was invented because some people were frustrated their code of ethics didn’t allow them to be rude and offensive to those who were arguing politely, when they were offended by the ideas being expressed. So they made up this bullshit meme about how being polite is somehow bad and indicates disingenuousnous. > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > OK, well, clearly you don’t think I’m arguing in good faith, so I’m not sure why you’re bothering to respond to me at all. No, I don’t believe those replies represent disingenuous. They’re rationalisation, which is a normal response to having your ideas questioned. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/328 "2025-05-06T17:00:11Z")
I’d say content _consumption_ would be a better measure, though it’s probably harder to measure (and that would still only cover social media, which may be the most significant medium young people consume, but it’s not the only one). I don’t know exactly what would satisfy me – obviously a single incident (and with limited cites, if any!) isn’t enough. But you’re the one who made such a definitive claim – if you want me to accept it as anything other than just a random, unsupported opinion from a random internet person, then you need to provide more evidence. If you’re content with others treating it as such, then no need to provide any more evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/329 "2025-05-06T17:00:13Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I know it is, because people here have applied it to me when I was being sincere, just like Babale just did to LHoD. To be clear, I didn’t apply it to LHOD; I pointed out that it’s what _he_ was doing to me. Hence the “yeah yeah yeah”. And I only did _that_ because LHOD accuses others of sea lioning. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/330 "2025-05-06T17:01:55Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’d say content _consumption_ would be a better measure, though it’s probably harder to measure That’s why I said: > [@Babale](#): > > If we look at the handful of biggest left aligned content creators on a handful of platforms They’re biggest by virtue of having their content consumed the most, no? That’s _how we measure_ how big someone on a platform is, no? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/331 "2025-05-06T17:03:40Z")
Not directly. Maybe (hypothetically) the biggest ones are on the extremes, but creators 20-1000 have a much larger audience than 1-19, and 20-1000 are much “smarter”/less extreme. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/332 "2025-05-06T17:06:56Z")
Typically the biggest creators are the popular ones and the smaller creators cluster around the big ones (they’re called “orbiters”); they start their stream a bit before the big people (a “Waiting Room”), either restream their content or stream reactions to it, and then keep streaming _after_ the big creators are done (and when a big creator ends a stream they’ll redirect their viewers to one of their “orbiters”). The smaller creators generally echo the view of the big creators they “orbit” because that’s how they get views. Individual streamers are usually part of communities of like-minded streamers, most of them smaller. It’s not a free-for-all marketplace of ideas. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/333 "2025-05-06T17:09:01Z")
In addition to the lack of cites, there’s an awful lot of language like “typically”, “a bit”, “generally”, etc., that lead me to be less than confident that this fully explains this phenomenon (and thus its accuracy as a measure for the kind of content young people are seeing). ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/334 "2025-05-06T17:11:08Z")
I’m not going to cite every sentence I make. If there are specific points you want me to cite, I’m happy to do so. But I am wary of goal post shifting. So if there’s a particular point you want to discuss, nail it down and we can argue about it. Otherwise, I’ll be spending all day looking for individual cites only to be told “sorry, that’s not what I was asking”. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/335 "2025-05-06T17:11:43Z")
Because @Babale is our self-proclaimed Zoomer expert, let’s just let him list the most powerful content creators for the progressive, liberal, centrist, conservative camps (how ever he wants to divide these) that are representative of these groups. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/336 "2025-05-06T17:11:50Z")
Totally up to you. I think you’re making a random unsupported internet claim, and so far you’ve offered nothing that would suggest anything different. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/337 "2025-05-06T17:13:28Z")
> [@Zoobi](#): > > Because @Babale is our self-proclaimed Zoomer expert, let’s just let him list the most powerful content creators for the progressive, liberal, centrist, conservative camps (how ever he wants to divide these) that are representative of these groups. He has my permission! ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/338 "2025-05-06T17:24:00Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > And I only did _that_ because LHOD accuses others of sea lioning. No. I accuse you of being an insufferable asshole whenever there’s a serious conversation to be had, with your ROFLs and your aLtErNaTe caps and your frequent but intermittent sneering condescension. I’ll be blunt and rough in conversation, but I’m not going to engage in that sort of obnoxious behavior. If my calling bullshit offends you, lemme know and I won’t say it to you. Your shittery makes conversation with you impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/339 "2025-05-06T17:28:44Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > > [@Zoobi](#): > > > > list the most powerful content creators for the progressive, liberal, centrist, conservative camps (how ever he wants to divide these) that are representative of these groups. > > He has my permission! Progressives - Brian Tyler Cohen is huge on YouTube Hasan Piker (would not describe himself as progressive but his audience certainly is) is huge on Twitch and TikTok On TikTok you had the trio of Dean Withers, Parker, and Harry Sisson, but they cut ties with Harry because he had some kind of sexting scandal. Liberals - This space is fucking dead, man. I don’t really know any big liberal content creators that are popular among young people. Centrist - Does this category actually exist, or is it all “CeNtRiStS” who say “I criticize both sides” but just happen to always criticize the Democrats? Let’s say there aren’t any major centrist voices either. CeNtRiStS - In the fake centrist category, we have Joe Rogan, obviously, he’s fucking massive including with young people. On YouTube. On Twitch, you have people like Asmongold. Conservatives - Andrew Tate and the Paul Brothers are huge with young conservative types. But note that conservatives are also watching the “CeNtRiStS”. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738/340 "2025-05-06T17:36:54Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > No. I accuse you of being an insufferable asshole whenever there’s a serious conversation to be had, with your ROFLs and your aLtErNaTe caps and your frequent but intermittent sneering condescension. > > I’ll be blunt and rough in conversation, but I’m not going to engage in that sort of obnoxious behavior. If my calling bullshit offends you, lemme know and I won’t say it to you. Your shittery makes conversation with you impossible. Got it. Things that I do that bother you are valid forms of objectively obnoxious behaviror, and make me an insufferable asshole. Things that you do that bother me, on the other hand, are a problem with the way I choose to interpret them, but you’ll do me the gracious favor of changing your behavior anyways, if I ask. No, I’m not _offended_ by you “calling bullshit”. I just think it’s bullshit of you to act like putting a rofl smiley in a post is any less offensive than calling someone dishonest to their face under a veneer of civility. The veneer _means shit to me_. What matters is the underlying action. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-babale/1016738.md?page=18)