Shane Dawson and 9/11 Trutherism (Nebula and Patreon exclusive)

it's really amazing to me that ostensibly left wing and anti-capitalist critiques of power so often get misappropriated into a lot of conservative leaning conspiracy nonsense like a game of telephone. Like an elite capitalist class controls politics and media through financial influence and ownership of the mechanisms that govern our lives, but that gets translated to being some reptilian (or often just Jewish lmao) cabal that use mind control to turn everyone into illuminati satanists or whatever. A more keen eye than mine could probably even trace it to deliberate muddying of the waters to try and make the very real critiques seem inseparable and constantly compared to the crack pot nonsense. Like in a documentary about Manufacturing Consent, Noam has to respond to critics who strawman his arguments as conspiracy theories by literally saying that there doesn't HAVE to be some secret weird cabal in order for bourgeois ideology to perpetuate itself, it's just the result of capitalists saying what they need to protect their interests

johanna (gorgeous girl)

"Predictive Programming" seems to be Manufacturing Consent for fools: a concrete phenomenon turned inside out and applied indiscriminately to ghosts and shadows. Conspiracy theorists can only view real power through a funhouse mirror.

i used to love his conspiracy videos when they were about less serious stuff and the consequences of his presentation (to my knowledge) seemed to be fine/ a non-issue. 9/11 trutherism is both complex and doesn't hold up to much scrutiny but i also empathize with people who believe it. it was his flat earth video that got me really angry - that is so much easier (to my knowledge) to make a well rounded analysis about and instead he only spoke with his flat-earther brother about it. it would've been a really cool video for him to speak with various people (and his brother), maybe even have scientists and his brother talk to each other, and explore why this is a rising belief again (and the loooong history of round vs flat earth). but no, he didn't do that. even though he set up an earnestly curious vibe in the video, he wasn't. now so many impressionable kids think the earth might be flat. again, it makes me so angry. i think also because i knew he was a terribly problematic creator, but the nostalgia of him and his better image drew me back to him. i thought his character improved and assumed he was slowly attoning for his past actions, now we got to enjoy the gift of a quirky good humored guy on the internet who I became a fan of. Nope! The flat earth video woke me up to the fact that he's barely changed if at all. Instead of doing honest shadow work, he let his problems fester and even leaned into them... leaving the audience with massive amounts of Shane Dawson shit. That's worse than shit.

Glenda

oh man the ideas here fucking slap so fucking hard bro, i really hope ur able to articulate it better in a main channel video cus i think this is a really importaint idea that should be discussed more!!!

lov me a juicy bonus video! you should def explore some of these ideas in main videos, a lot of your takes here are simply too searing hot to never see a wider audience.

enby ennui

Man, this latest series of videos have been some of my favourites. Well done!

Thanks for the new video. I enjoyed it.

I am glad you talked about potentially expanding on the ideas you talked about here, I think that would be really interesting.

For me, recovering from 9/11 trutherism was strange. I knew I didn't know anything about engineering, but a part of me was still trying to argue that I knew enough to have an opinion on the plane crashes / bombs issue. (How else had I become so convinced?) I wonder how many people only watched Loose Change and just haven't been critical about the opinions they picked up from that movie. Anyway, well done.

Trace Myers

Thank you for the extra video, king

Woah, rad thumbnail art! Can’t wait to crush this vid after work!!

Zack Viper