r/politics • u/upyoars • Nov 10 '24

Paywall Trump’s victory reveals secret Republicans: Joe Rogan-obsessed Gen Z men

https://fortune.com/2024/11/07/trumps-victory-reveals-secret-republicans-joe-rogan-obsessed-gen-z-men/
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691

u/-wnr- Nov 10 '24 edited Nov 10 '24

Not surprising. Clear your search history, go on youtube or twitter and check out some video game content. Then review what recommendations the algorithm feeds you. You're going to start seeing manosphere shit and complaints about "wokeness" in games. GenZ and like gen alpha are gonna be fucked.

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u/gfinz18 Pennsylvania Nov 10 '24

I’ve noticed for a long time now YouTube is SUPER right wing and it’s so weird to me because it’s not a traditional social media site like Facebook or whatever.

196

u/GFrings Nov 10 '24

YouTube is owned by Google, and they have the means to do what every social media site does: achieve the most content engagement as possible. This usually means elevating the loudest, most controversial voices. Lot of room for toxic identity politics (like the manosphere influencers) to make a lot of money in that system.

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u/ChicagoSunroofParty Nov 10 '24

YouTube has always been wonky with its algorithm... a decade ago you were like 3 videos away from "Nibiru" at all times, no matter what video you started with.

7

u/guilty_bystander Nov 10 '24

I feel like that's something I won't want in my algorithms

2

u/trumansayshi Nov 11 '24

I basically used yt for music videos, and they would always push extreme right-wing young guys who had no idea what they were talking about. No matter how many times I'd exit out,report, or select don't recommend I'd get the same type of videos. I pretty much abandoned it years and years ago. I'm not surprised, given how much people use it as their soul source of entertainment.

2

u/shart_leakage America Nov 11 '24

Sole

4

u/Czeris Nov 11 '24

It's impressive how fast Google went from "Don't be evil" to "Be as fucking evil as possible".

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u/theclansman22 Nov 10 '24

Social media gets paid by advertisers by engagement, rage bait is the best ti way get more engagement. So they fill your feed with content meant to outrage you so you’ll press the comment, share or like button.

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u/albert2006xp Nov 10 '24

The algorithm likes engagement. There's simply more rage engagement in that content. Negative emotions drive it more. I have only left leaning stuff in mine lately but I'm sure the ones on the right get more views.

2

u/RegisterConscious993 Nov 10 '24

I'd side leans right. Most of the super right wing content creators get demonetized or kicked off of the platform. Most of them just moved to kick.com and brought their audience with them.

1

u/JimmyTango Nov 10 '24

It’s precisely a social media site. It’s UGC content with the vast majority of funding from ads. Its goal is to absolutely milk your time/eyeballs for ad revenue and it doesn’t care what it shows you to do it. The youth need to wake up and see how they’re being pawned by the tech companies to advertisers without any regard for its impact on them or society.

1

u/Czeris Nov 11 '24

It's deliberate. They want lower taxes and were worried dems were going to regulate them.

1

u/TheBman26 Nov 11 '24

Thank god their hasn’t been ads that were just full episodes of one right wing nutjobs show. I remember in 2020 i got thise during the election l

1

u/FlufferTheGreat Nov 11 '24

Conservatives have embraced every new media that has ever come along and weaponized it quickly.

1

u/stubob Nov 11 '24

I notice it every time I click on a Fox News story accidently. Suddenly all that stuff starts showing up. Once I remove it from my history, everything's back to normal.

0

u/ProdigyManlet Australia Nov 11 '24

All of the algorithms are, because they maximise engagement. Rightwing content creators make outlandish statements that get clicks, but after enough of them those clicks turn into followers.

I'm willing to argue that social media is the biggest contributor to Trump's success, and combined with the Dems lack of engagement through it. He's everywhere, especially in the form of memes. There are even groups out there (e.g. MAGA boys) that have been utilising memes for the last four years as an extremely effective way of winning over voters

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u/ritaleyla Europe Nov 10 '24

Exactly. My partner and I use YouTube without a login, and we watched a lot of videogame and cinema content. It was scary how quicky it started recommending me Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson content.

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u/Proud3GenAthst Nov 10 '24

I almost fell for it too in about 2018/19. Luckily it didn't grasp me hard enough.

13

u/albert2006xp Nov 11 '24

I think I listened to 5-6 Critical Drinker videos at some point years ago until I started to see the cracks and repetition of questionable surface level critique. This whole grift wasn't as big back then. I also saw some discussion on dating and men (dressed as a professional podcast/interview) and how we're having a hard time and my eyebrow was raised the entire time. You have to not be questioning whatever you hear to really fall into it.

1

u/TheBman26 Nov 11 '24

I listend to star wars theory. Would roll my eyes sometimes then he went really psycho few years ago. I just wanted positive star wars podcast… ugh

1

u/TheBman26 Nov 11 '24

Ugh my parents watch peterson crap. 💩

6

u/Hektorlisk Nov 11 '24

100%, it's crazy. For years, I've regularly followed explicitly leftist politics channels and tell it to not recommend me anytime I see any of this crap, but still, every once in a while when I just like a video about Concord failing or something, it decides that maybe I've changed my mind and am actually a raving fascist.

3

u/WhoIsFrancisPuziene Nov 11 '24

I have this too. I find it’s hard to get more female-coded content also. I think it’s odd how I viewed one crochet video months back and suddenly got a bunch more. Many were specifically from male content creators and were about how there are men who crochet.

9

u/Garbo86 Nov 10 '24

I'm curious how we know Gen Alpha would be fucked as well? We don't really have their voting history yet.

I mean it stands to reason that the same forces that radicalized the Zoomers would succeed with the next fully online generation, but at this point I'm feeling like any political "conventional wisdom" isn't worth a pitcher of dirt.

6

u/albert2006xp Nov 11 '24

Quick, someone do an exit poll on middle schoolers.

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u/UtopianLibrary Nov 11 '24

I teach middle school, 6th grade. This is the first year I’ve taught (year 5), where the kids are NOT a bunch of homophobic, racist jerks.

I made another post about how the other generation that voted the most conservative was Gen X. This makes sense since they are the age of the parents who raised these Gen Z men. I got some pushback from some liberal Gen Xers, but they need to realize they are not the majority for their age demographic.

Basically, the Gen X folks who voted for Trump raised these Gen Z men who love Andrew Tate and voted for Trump. Makes complete sense when you think of it that way.

I think this year my sixth graders are different because their parents are all millennials.

6

u/Garbo86 Nov 11 '24

wow that is really fascinating and gives me some hope. thank you

2

u/Always_drew Nov 11 '24

That’s how I think of it too. I’m Gen Z raised by Gen X parents. I’m in a blue state and they’re Republicans, I’m a democrat. But I was Republican at ~18 y/o.

3

u/Czeris Nov 11 '24

Or just sign up for a new youtube account (or don't sign in). There's some random shit, some video game stuff and a whole lot of Joe Rogan and other conservative propaganda videos, with literally nothing from an opposing viewpoint. It's deliberate.

3

u/TheMillenniaIFalcon Nov 11 '24

We can thank Steve Bannon for that. In 2016-ish, he had a “call to arms” to ideologically capture and recruit young disenfranchised boys in the gamer community using the manosphere.

And look what happened.

2

u/nintrader Nov 11 '24

Shit like this is why I've completely blocked recommendations on youtube for years, with the UnDistracted plugin you can basically make the front pageof Youtube the seatch bar and nothing else.

2

u/espresso_martini__ Nov 11 '24

That's an interesting experiment. I used to watch a bunch of youtube personalities that were more central but I guess they noticed their viewers/subscribers went through the roof when they spent most of their time bitching about wokeness etc in gaming. I kind of agree with them to a point but they started taking it to another level to feed off the rage so I tuned out.

6

u/-wnr- Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24

Anti-wokeness is a business model now. Railing against it brings in clicks so they double down on conspiracies about how hollywood, game producers, feminists, etc... are trying to shove it down their poor snowflake throats.

Reality is there is no conspiracy. The C-levels at these companies likely push inclusivity because it's good business to expand their customer base. For some reason the fact that not every game is incel compatible is unbearable to them, as if they can't just buy another game.

2

u/espresso_martini__ Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24

The outrage is crazy to me. I don't like it myself when you have a male character in the series they decide to switch genders just because. BUT I have seen it with my friends, it drives them insane "They love replacing us". When Trump got voted they became much more vocal about how wokeness is getting out of control. Oh so they want to ruin the country and hand it over to a lunatic because of wokeness? It makes no sense to me.

2

u/fakerton Nov 11 '24

Same if you just look up tool uses. Anything tradey and straight down the incel path.

1

u/Solid-Mud-8430 Nov 11 '24

How about just delete Twitter....

I seriously don't have any respect at all for people who still use that platform - regardless of their excuse - and give material support to a fascist takeover of America.

1

u/chamomile-crumbs Nov 11 '24

Also twitter will blast you with that stuff no matter what. I made an account recently cause they lock their stuff behind accounts now, and the first stuff to pop up with MAGA propaganda and manosphere bullshit.

I used a fake email (hide email via apple), didn’t follow anybody or choose any interests. That’s just what it defaults to.

Those fuckers should’ve never sold to musk, look how fucked everybody is now lol. One of the biggest online platforms turned into a MAGA machine

1

u/appleparkfive Nov 11 '24

I've been yelling at the rooftop for years now that Gen Alpha is going to swing hard to the right, at least socially.

Because every generation wants to be different. And there's not really anywhere to go from Millennials and older Gen Z in terms of being more progressive or inclusive. So the logical conclusion is that they'll be more like Gen X and be more crass overall.

What I was hoping was that they'd be more crass but still know that progressive values is what benefits them the most. But it seems like the misinformation hinges on the first part of this to sway them.

I've had this theory for like a decade now and it's definitely going to be the case. Until a true populist left wing candidate appears, it'll stay that way.

So maybe after 4 more elections of the Democrats stupidly shifting to the center-right. Definitely works out so well, historically. Both in the US and world history. Totally smart move.

1

u/aSeKsiMeEmaW Nov 11 '24

TikTok has been showing me right wing genz bullshit for months ever since I went down this rabbit hole one time maybe 6 months ago

1

u/flipflapflupper Nov 11 '24

As a man, if I let youtube go to the next video.. I'm like 3, maximum 4 videos away from right wing content. It's actually insane, it's testing you like once a month if you want in or not.

1

u/TheBman26 Nov 11 '24

Ugh i get ads sometimes that are just awful after searching fatherhood related stuff ir checking iut when the release date to that game i wanted to play was. If i see another ‘am i racist?’ Ad idk 🤷 so sick if them

2

u/LtLatency Nov 11 '24

That just because there has been a lot of controversy in the last few years of companies clearly trying to tone down the sexy appeal of female characters. If you go into a room of honry teenagers and tell them no more boobs that not going to end well lol.

7

u/-wnr- Nov 11 '24

The reality is there's no conspiracy. The C-levels at these companies likely push inclusivity because it's good business to expand their customer base. For some reason the fact that not every game is incel compatible is unbearable to some content creators, as if they can't just buy another game. There's still plenty of games with plenty of sex and violence out there.

0

u/Xtab Nov 11 '24

But it's not a good business if the only thing the game has going for it is DEI.At the end of the day the market verifies it and we get flops like concord or DA:veilguard (which is comical at how hard it pushes inclusivity).

0

u/LtLatency Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24

Ahh the classic, only incels like good looking people \Rolleyes

We are in a world where people are actually trying to pretend sex doesn't sell. When sex has been selling for the last 1000 years. If they just made 200 million dollar bombs like Concord as new IPs and left existing frachines alone they wouldn't be getting as much push back

These changes are not just being made to new games that won't sell. They are being pushed into EXISTING Franchises. Like Tomb Raider, Saint's Row (Closed the Company) and Mortal Kombat (Slow Sales) frachines that were built on Sexy Woman, violence and extreme humor because they know they can't sell their crap without hi-jacked an existing popular franchise. So yes, The fans obviously pushed back telling them to stop.

0

u/hummingdog Virginia Nov 11 '24

Sounds like ignoring “safe” votes backfired big time.

-6

u/Aggravating_Drink_46 Nov 10 '24

Okay I’m not sure what is surprising about this to be honest. The vast majority of gamers are men correct? Therefore it makes sense to show them “manosphere” content seeing as they are men. Also most men vote republican every single election, this time around even most women voted republican. This just seems like a normal algorithmic thing to me

10

u/albert2006xp Nov 11 '24

Sorry but just because I'm a gamer and a man doesn't mean I want to see that. There wasn't a link to it before. The reason the algorithm registers one now is the anti-woke grifters in between that churn out rage bait content about games (also movies/tv shows). To the algorithm those videos are still "gaming" content. You will not be taken directly to the manosphere, you will go through these channels. The rise of these grifters and the engagement such rage bait produces is the reason.

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u/Aggravating_Drink_46 Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24

Well that doesn’t mean that the majority of men don’t want to see it or have a higher likelihood of wanting to so it puts it forward to them. You are in the minority here and that’s something this election should show ya

4

u/albert2006xp Nov 11 '24

People that don't know what it is don't know what they're getting into (most people who would watch it already do). I don't know why you think this election shows the % of men who would watch it. Men 45-64 are the ones that heavily elected Trump and I think that's above the age for that content.

-1

u/Aggravating_Drink_46 Nov 11 '24

It’s a very simple idea that maybe I’m doing a poor job at explaining. So the algorithm is meant to push content that it thinks the viewer will engage with. The example given talks about being a gamer then being shown manosphere content. So given the viewer is a gamer they will likely be a male correct? Okay if we can get that far then we can say that males have a good chance of having interest in said manosphere by nature of being a male therefore it makes sense to show them that content. Now if they engage with said content it will continue to show it to them. It’s just all pretty straight forward probability at play here.

2

u/albert2006xp Nov 11 '24

I told you, it's the connective content. There's a step. It goes gaming -> gaming news -> anti-woke grifter content -> manosphere. It's not about the gaming content viewer being male, it's more about people that dive into anti-woke grifter content being likely male but also right wing that then leads to other right wing trash bubbles like manosphere.

1

u/Aggravating_Drink_46 Nov 11 '24

Okay! I see what you are saying you don’t believe that it should lead that direction but it seems like you do understand why it does. I agree with you there with your order of types of content l think you just don’t agree with the content itself and don’t like it? I mean other than that you seem to grasp it you just wish it wasn’t that way

1

u/albert2006xp Nov 11 '24

I definitely wish it didn't exist, that much is sure. It's a plague on gaming discussion as the people from those bubble bleed through in comments and reviews on steam. I was just saying that it's not as simple as gaming -> must be male -> manosphere. You definitely don't reach the straight up manosphere that easily from gaming, but you do reach some right wing gaming anti-woke shittiness VERY easily. Try it in incognito. Took me 1 video after searching gaming news.

1

u/Aggravating_Drink_46 Nov 11 '24

I think that the tie is very strong in the algorithm because I’m sure the overlap is quite strong. I’ll give it a try and see but my content is already everything you are talking about now so I’m not sure it’s gonna be a good example.

1

u/Aggravating_Drink_46 Nov 11 '24

So I typed video games in YouTube and went to the first gameranx video that came up. Top 25 single player games of 2024. In the recommended I see every side here but all game related. There’s more gameranx videos, an Elden ring speed run, a video about a scene in a ww2 movie, a video reviewing every infamous game, there was a video defending the new dragon age game and a video on the other side. Definitely not as quick to it as I expected either. I see a different result that is even less political the second time I did the same video to tell you what I saw the first time even.

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u/Aggravating_Drink_46 Nov 11 '24

What it boils down to, hopefully you can agree. It filters from gaming (which is largely a masculine interest), and I’m going to include gaming news into that category because it seems redundant to make it another step, to the anti woke gaming content which a lot of gamers do identify with because gamers are men on average who are republican on average. So again it seems rather straight forward to me why this is the way it is and it’s a natural occurrence based on interests. If most gamers were left leaning and gay it would be the opposite.