Yeah turns out the morons stopped reading newspapers and by the time the one who still read the news realized it, the online sphere was “alt right” I can’t even make ironic comments anymore because everyone reads at a 5th grade level; and if I’m sarcastic I get banned by a mod that doesn’t receive it well. And now we all have to compete with AI online, it’s time to crush all our phones and resort to local fucking activism with like one HAM radio operator per cell
and many “social media” forums leans right wing in various forms, so you might get banned very easily.
You wouldn’t know it with all of the crying they do any time a left-leaning policy position is shared online. You would think that they’re being bullied off of the internet.
“Mildly interesting” is not very close to my reaction to this at all, rather something closer to “particularly concerning”
It’s not like newspapers or television are much better. The oligarchs bought and control both of those outlets. Plenty of “opinion disguised as news” to go around these days.
It’s not like newspapers or television are much better. The oligarchs bought and control both of those outlets
You have plenty of non-profit newspapers. ProPublica. The Guardian. The Colorado Sun. Mississippi Today. The Salt Lake Tribune. Mother Jones. The Walrus. Le Devoir. La Presse. Mediapart.
Also, if a journalist writes bullshit, they lose their job. It’s career suicide.
The way to assess the credibility of a journalist is easy. Just look at their past articles. Their articles usually follow them for their entire career.
If someone on social media spreads bullshit, what happens ? Nothing.
If someone on social media spreads total bullshit, what happens ? Nothing.
Thats not true. They become president.
You have plenty of non-profit newspapers. ProPublica. The Guardian. The Colorado Sun. The Salt Lake Tribune. Mother Jones. Le Devoir. La Presse. Mediapart
And how much of the market do these networks control? Just because there are non profits available doesn’t negate their claim.
Also, if a journalist writes total bullshit, they lose their job. It’s career suicide. Their articles follow them for their entire career. So they have to be careful.
Depending on what network they are submitting their work to… It’s not like “journalists” on Fox News are being shamed for submitting fake stories.
Also, if a journalist writes total bullshit, they lose their job. It’s career suicide. Their articles follow them for their entire career.
WMDs in Iraq
We need to do better in supporting independent journalism, and journalism in general. Replacing perhaps slightly biased newspapers with influencers is not a good solution… just makes it a million times worse. False information can spread so easily nowadays because influencers don’t even bother checking anything, let alone asking experts. A lot of influencers also blatantly pander to their audience.
The act of reading highly factual, if biased and not independent, still cultivates thinking for one self. Listening to these influencers doesn’t, to the same degree.
Before online influencers, it was AM radio.
Which only reached middle aged and older men who drove a lot
Edit: I don’t get the downvotes. In AM radio’s heyday, pre-2000, women and younger people were not listening to it at all. Older men were the target demographic. Of course everyone had access to radios, but women and younger people were listening to FM, not Rush Limbaugh. And at home, AM was never on unless you were in a very rural area and an AM station was your only choice.
You know some people really show their age when they talk about the past…
Their were just as many radios as we have TVs now back in the day
Being someone from back in the day, yes, I remember. And back then the dominant demographic who tuned in to AM talk radio like Rush Limbaugh were white men driving for work. There were just as many TVs around pre-2000, too, we’re not talking about the 60s…
I submit that there are more radios than cable tvs now. Radio is still going strong. The radio shows are just as dangerous as ever.
possibly more dangerous because they’re what you turn to when you’re really out there. out where spotify doesn’t reach but you still don’t want to be alone with your thoughts. it’s like how it’s important to pay attention to what’s in the walmart discount dvd bin. for a lot of people that is what they have access to because no one else makes themselves available. having infinite connectivity has isolated us more than it connects us.
even now, i’m guilty of this. i’m outside. a honey bee polinates a sunflower. do i talk to anyone here? no they’re all busy with their own conversations and i’m just waiting for a phone call. so i let these cracks in this fractured reality remain as i go online and simulate connection with all those who see this text.
in that experiment with the baby monkey, the wire momma with the milk, and the terry cloth momma with the heater, we are all the baby monkey clinging to the falsified social experience while missing out on the nutrients we need.
the powers that be know this and manipulate it
Yeah, but the target audience for those was people (mostly men) who had long commutes or drove for a living. I don’t think I ever knew someone to leave it on in their house, it was always something to listen to in the car. I’m sure some people did but I don’t think it was typical. If you’re in the house after 2000, Fox News is your steady drip of brain rot.
Thank you for agreeing with my point. No one ever listened to AM radio at home. I don’t get why this perspective seems so controversial here after having living through it and observing this
They didn’t say back in the day, though, they said before online influencers. Which would be, at most, the mid-nineties. Realistically late aughts to early 10s.
How many people, realistically, got their news from AM radio after the advent of television but before the advent of online influencers?
Tens of millions of people did.
There was a time when Rush Limbaugh was one of the most politically influential voices in the country.
Not to mention the huge number of evangelical propaganda AM stations.
I think it’s safe to say that telecom deregulation and the subsequent AM radio boom is one of the core reasons why American adults above 50 are rightwing/fascist.
General “centrist” unbiased news coverage tends not to affirm right-wing beliefs so they have to retreat into fringe independent media.
“Centrist” media tends to affirm things like the results of good science and vague inclusion, so liberals are happy to listen to it. It’s only self-described socialists or other “far left” euphemisms that recognize the deference to capitalism as problematic.
General “centrist” unbiased news coverage tends not to affirm right-wing beliefs so they have to retreat into fringe independent media.
Ehhh, don’t really agree; centrist news has historically ceded a lot to right wing framing and affirmation, while being far from unbiased. If anything, they have license to overtly right wing media to go even further.
Social media was a mistake.
Social media is a tool that could just as easily be used for the betterment of humankind.
Sadly, that doesn’t make a few people lots and lots of money, so it doesn’t happen.
Agriculture was a mistake.
every technology has had positive and negative. some get weaponized by the powers that be more effectively before the people can ensure safeguards. even the wheel has been a tool of the oppressor while making our lives too comfortable. of late, the powers that be have gained more through technological advancement than the people. i want to see a world where we can invert some of this power stream. after all, it’s us, the people, who discovered these advancements, built these wonders, and now find ourselves increasingly imprisoned and controlled by violence
And its here to stay. The way kids are stuck on YouTube is like how old people are stuck on fox news.
I’ve thought about this a lot. There’s no end. If its not Facebook, YouTube, cable, etc. It will be something else. If only our daily lives where interesting in and of themselves. Escapism will always detach us from each other and we will flail on the wind forever.
Social media isn’t the problem Friendster used to exist and it was fine
The problem is putting the internet on a smartphone, because that meant that any idiot could get online now
And now the internet is 99.99% idiots
I honestly blame corporations rather than the availability to idiots.
Back in the Wild West internet days, things existed simply because people thought they were funny or hilarious, now things only exist if they garner some clout or can generate ad revenue. I don’t know how much of that is an inherently human trait, but I feel like society wasn’t so super-focused on personal success and self-image/confidence as it has been the past maybe 8 years. Or it was and I never noticed until then.
Edit: thinking more about it, availability might be a contributing factor to this, so you’re probably not wrong.
It’s availability mixed with profitability. It’s never just one single factor. If it was just availability that changed, it wouldn’t be as significant an issue as it is.
for muricans
Are you suggesting that the nearly instantaneous spread of mis/disinformation, the erosion of young peoples’ self esteem, or the damage to our attention spans is limited to people living in the United States?
no,I’m saying muricans. are mostly stupid and therefore MOSTLY susceptible
I see the same shit here in Germany. Not a US-exclusive problem.
Feels weird to include Noah and Carlson but not include Jon Stuart, Stephen Colbert, or John Oliver.
Maybe because Jon Stuart, Stephen Colbert, and John Oliver don’t currently host any “online shows”?
Jon Stewart has a podcast: https://youtube.com/@WeeklyShowPodcast
Well, I guess I’m part of the “problem” then. Haha. I watch the show (although via sources that still don’t “count”), but had no clue he has a podcast.
John Oliver’s show regularly uploads segments to YT for free viewing, though. It often hits the trending list.
Yeah, but that may not count as an “online show” since the full episodes aren’t available on the platforms they were looking at.
ThE LeFt cOntRols The nArAtiVe
Left snowflakes are treading on me snaek!
Asmongold…you have got to be shitting me. imagine getting your “news” from a guy that used a dead rat as an alarm clock, wipes the blood from his gums on his bedroom wall, used to routinely eat snacks that had maggots in them, and treats drinking water like it’s poison.
A guy who could barely play WoW and left his main account on twitch because making money from viewers on that was “too stressful” proceeds to start an alt channel where he nows grifts the right for money.
Chosen of Nurgle
I dunno who this person is… But this chart was apparently made my Media Matters according to the credits at the bottom.
All I know of him is he starts showing up on my YouTube if I dont wipe my brwser every few weeks. Haven’t watched anything of his but based off the video titles I’ve seen and his face I don’t see how anyone would want to watch them. He just looks dirty.
Shitstaingold: “Muh Superior Western Culture”
Also Shitstaingold: “I never clean my room, have roaches, and never wash my hands”
🤣
Growing up in the 90s, teachers and adults were always saying “the geek shall inherit the Earth” or shit like that. We were told we would create a progressive and peaceful tech utopia with a post-scarcity economy where no one goes without.
Well, we did inherit the earth. And all that happened was hateful fucking dirtbags like Asmongold getting paid to play video games and wormtongue their far right incel bullshit into our kid’s ears.
I don’t get why people dislike him so much. You don’t have to agree with everything he says, and he presents stuff pretty honestly. If you don’t like it, just don’t watch it
why follow someone that looks like homeless person, and never showered. people who dont like him arnt agreeing with him at all. and his recent drama with other influencers is quite stupid on his point.
I don’t watch him, and neither should you. He’s a con artist. It’s painfully obvious he’s grifting his viewer base with his “hot takes”. He doesn’t present jack shit honestly. Remember when he called the Palestinian people “inferior”? He discovered he could milk people like you for money by saying the most dumb shit and you eat it up like pigs eating shit.
Idk, his reaction content just comes up on my second monitor once in a while. I’ve never given him anything. I think it’s healthy to take in opinions other than my own, and I don’t get brainwashed by media personalities, but then again, I’m not American
The man is a biohazard that I can smell through the monitor.
You need to take a hard look at your life, and maybe seek some therapy
Alright buddy
deleted by creator
Lying is easy and takes less time. Real news requires going places, interviewing people, fact checking, and presenting it in a professional manner.
It’s no wonder the right wing media ecosystem is bigger.
and also propaganda is easy to digest on the right too.
Lying is easy and takes less time.
A lot of these shows go hand-in-glove with traditional media. The police-blotter style coverage of local news, wherein a handful of old white people bemoan the latest string of young black man violent crimes gets picked up and fed into the Podcast Racism Engine and spat out as the show’s Two-Minute Hate of the day.
Then you have a congo-line of ex-military blowhards telling you how they got rich trading in their service pensions for crypto futures. You have the usual suspects lineup of incel sex pests complaining that America’s Newest Supermodel isn’t hot enough or isn’t Trad Enough, in between reading sponsor copy for whatever PR company paid them to say said Supermodel’s name twenty times in a given episode. You have interviews with C-list politicians who come on the show to cry about how you can’t say the N-word anymore, on account of the Woke. You have middling athletes at the end of their careers complain about how Transgender high schoolers are ruining the sport. You have middling songwriters at the end of their careers complain about how they pay too much in taxes and hate all three of their ex-wives. You have middling screenwriters demo a pilot episode of a cartoon series about Real Americans forced to use pronouns at gunpoint, then point you to the conservative version of Kickstarter with the promise of a full series that’ll never get produced once they have your money. And holy shit will you get an earful about Jesus.
All this takes a bunch of time and networking and tons of money to grease the wheels. Charlie Kirk ain’t doing this shit for free. But it’s stacked up like any classic MLM, with the kingpins racking in disproportionately more than any of their minions or guests.
It’s short-sighted to say these operations are just faster than traditional journalism, though. Lots of the names on that board have been bouncing around for decades. This is a long term, heavily financed, hugely lucrative propaganda machine. It dates back to the Nixon Era (arguably earlier) and quite a few folks have gone to their graves helping to build it.
Man it’s fucking wild seeing the US become split over political sides like they are sports teams.
they have been for decades, when i was in IR class in college, the professor, indian knows how partisan things are compared to other countries. although he dint at the time realize it was because of russia though. we were discussing various forms of govt in that class of different countries. (it was interesting class, but i dint want to stay in it.)
Yeah I’m sure it has but it’s reached a level that’s nonsensical and everything X does is bad because I believe in Y.
Would be interesting to see a funding source overlay on this
I find it interesting - and a little concerning - that there are so many more right-leaning voices than left. I have to ask a simple question - why has the left not produced more strident voices and more people able to make popular content?
The left doesn’t need their opinions constantly validated by personalities. The left enjoys (and understands) satire more. Voices like Colbert, and Jon Stewart, and John Oliver.
Are my eyes failing me, or are they not in the chart?
Having a hard time pre-deciding who and what content I think should appear in such a chart. Vlog brothers? e-newspapers?
Josh Jonson Taylor Tomlinson hell 60% of the standup comedians easily. The picture would be much different with them in. Colbert alone would blow rogan out the water.
In that case, I think this chart is probably saying more about what kinds of media people with different leanings consume, not so much about deep pockets or a generational shift.
Late Show with Colbert has 10.1mil subscribers on Youtube, so yeah it should be on there.
If you expand to network TV for this chart — which I think you should, cuz all network TV has a digital presence too these days — it had an average of 2.42mil viewers per episode on TV through Q2.
Joe Rogan, for comparison, boasts 11mil listeners per episode.
So even just based on equating to network TV viewership, he’d probably be somewhere between MeidasTouch and The Breakfast Club.
There’s probably some truth to this, but it also leans into the “MSM is lying to you” narrative that’s pervasive in far right (and far left) circles. A production with [the appearance of] a low budget is associated with “genuineness” by most people. You can’t be paid off by the big corpos if you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart…or so the reasoning goes.
I frequently see people on the left commenting “I don’t recognize this as a trusted source.” Or “Is this just someone’s blog?” Or, “I’m not seeing this published anywhere else.”
There is a lot of astroturfing, garbage, and propaganda that gets published online and on TV. I wish people would look into things more before believing everything they see on tv or read. People’s critical reading skills have definitely gone out the window, and it is totally being taken advantage of.
It’s not just politics either. Lots of fake product reviews, medical misinformation, etc. constantly showing up in search results, YouTube ads, TikTok videos, etc. And influencers are just the new “As Seen On TV” pitchmen of this century.
You don’t see Colbert or Stewart, or Oliver trying to sell you timeshares, or snake oil, or get rich quick schemes. Quite the opposite.
that sounds alot more like right wingers pretending to be on the left, to stok anger division, i dont pay attention to those posts.
I am guessing here, but right wing shows seem to have more finances. They are run by wealthy people, playing power games, who have sociopathic motivations.
Left wing shows are more run on a minimal budget, more for selfless reasons, by people who have a day job too.
I mean personally my beliefs are really straight forward. I don’t need influencers it’s only complicated when you’re internally dishonest and insecure.
I’m left leaning, however the only time I’ve watched Brian Taylor Cohen or Midastouch was because I got click-bated into watching what became a hyperbolic video subject.
After the first 5 minutes, when the facts become opinions, I immediately switch off. I simply hate fake shit.
those are what you call RESISTANCE grifters, they depend on outrage or clickbait and pretending that they are exposing something against or criticizing the right, but offer no real solution. I get enough fill on them from reddit posts of thier SC posts, so i dont watch thier actual videos.
Because most of these people make cheap potshots, even the ones with evidence to back themselves up. Just look at John Stewart, he can be incredibly insightful… but the majority of his comments during interviews are sarcastic cracks about how things aren’t working as they should be.
The basis of a lot of left-leaning philosophies are abstract and complicated. That makes it hard to sum them up in convenient sound bites that are easy for mass audiences to consume. It also means that it can be very fractious, as the complicated nature of these philosophies lead to a wide variety of nearly-the-same-but-not-quite conclusions. Considering the very black and white, good versus bad, mentality that has been most prevalent at least since the WWII (if not earlier), this generally leads to people being unwilling to work with people whom they agree with 95% of the time… and that last 5% ends up being the most important to them.
Voices need an audience and leftists are shit at organizing right now
Plus what are they going to campaign on? Even more corporate welfare?
The left had a ton of progressive voices and the DNC spends a fucktonne of money making sure they never ever get an audience.
Bernie would have saved us from Trump twice and the DNC shitcanned him for fear of losing their corporate gravy train
You can find lots of left leaning online personalities, but left leaning voters don’t generally get their news from Vlogs and don’t really care about meaningless statements without data or by people with no real power to affect.
Because the left doesn’t have oligarchs with functionally infinite money funding them.
Is this graph supposed to be useful in any way? It excludes a huge number of voices from the left and also have a bunch of circles without names and just some random 1.1m or 2m NR on them but without any indication of who they represent more than their color.
I don’t understand why bubbles with seemingly random positions was chosen to represent this data.
is whyElmo how could you! How dare you display data on a format that poorly communicated the data! You were supposed to be better than this!
I still can’t believe we’re going back to the days of muppet robber barons, beating up schoolchildren for enough lunch money to “respool their bobbins” (elmo made me censor that)
Reagan was President when I was a kid. America is right-wing as Hell and always has been.
This is less indicative of the political leanings of the population and more the result of a precise planned and serious effort of the right and rich political machine to spread their message. This is why Trump won 2025 in such a big way.
Edit: but your statement is also true
They get funding, that much is obvious. It was the same story with the Nazis who got massive support from obvious sources.
Yep. “influencers” make their content free. Big newspapers with national reach just refuse to be read online, they want subscriptions.
There’s some good community papers but they don’t get much reach because the Internet doesn’t necessarily show you local stuff
Most of the ones labeled “left” here are pushing center right talking points at best.
The actual leftist online sources, like African Stream, are straight up banned from the platforms. The right wing sources dominate because they don’t challenge corporate interests, and are not subject to censorship.
