For those who haven’t heard the news, here’s a short recap:
Comedian Steven Crowder (louderwithcrowder.com) makes comedy videos, some of which are critical of Vox’s Carlos Mazas’ take on various political issues. In some of Crowders’ videos, language is included which calls Maza “lispy” and a “queer”, among other things. Maza then cut and edited these videos to make it seem as if Steven Crowder exudes homophobia and racism towards homosexuals and Latinx individuals; Maza demanded YouTube deplatform/ban Steven Crowder, describing Crowder as hateful. YouTube, upon inspection of Crowder’s videos, found no violation of their Terms of Service in the videos – however they demonetized Steven Crowder and removed him entirely from the Partner Program on YouTube so that he can no longer make money directly from YouTube for his YouTube videos.
In the aftermath, Vox’ Carlos Maza, unsatisfied with a mere demonetization of Crowder rather than an outright ban from YouTube, demanded YouTube deplatform more people – basically anyone with an ideology different from Maza’s own far-Left perspective. YouTube, in an effort to “combat hate”, then proceeded to ban thousands of videos, channels, content creators, mostly with a focus on anything far-Right such as white supremacy or Nazism, etc. Several educational channels, including a Romanian teacher named Scott Allsop, who ran Mr. Allsop History, a YouTube channel which included archival footage of Adolf Hitler’s speeches, were included among the banned channels. It is noteworthy that many channels promoting communism and far-Left ideologies, including those which advocate for violent overthrow of the United States government, killing capitalists or white people, were largely untouched by the ban.
Naturally, political and news commentators such as Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Philip DeFranco (and others) made videos about the censorious situation and YouTube’s encroaching ideological bias; many others also made one or several videos about the situation.
But therein lies the problem. For those of us who know how ‘the news’ works, we realize that the public at-large only has room for anywhere from 1 to 3 major stories at any one time. Lesser news stories, like those about:
-gun rights (national issue)
-crime (local issue, mostly)
-abortion (national and state issue)
-marijuana laws (national and state issue)
-terrorism (international and national issue)
among other subjects, largely remain focused on by their respective interest and advocacy groups in their respective domains (state and local issues receive minimal national coverage). Basically, people pay attention to what matters to them.
So, what happens when suddenly, people like Steven Crowder, or Tim Pool, or Felix Kjellberg (AKA PewDiePie), or Lauren Chen, or Philip DeFranco, or Joe Rogan, or Carl Benjamin (AKA Sargon of Akkad), or Dave Rubin, or anyone else of any political stripe devote their time, resources, energy, (and the time of their audience) to discussing this “Adpocalypse”? Well, since the news cycle is a zero-sum game (in terms of time and attention span), it detracts from both the content-creator’s ability to engage in other subjects of pertinent interest, and the audience’s ability to hear about those other pressing subjects.
Futhermore, if you, as a creator, spend all (or even some) of your time talking about “censorship” or “deplatforming” – the censors and deplatforming-proponents have already won – because now you have to talk about them and their agenda; moreover, in covering the story, you have to either articulate their arguments or reasoning for their censorious beliefs, or make a rebuttal against their views, etc., which only plays into their trap of ultimately requiring those who wish to avoid being censored to have to argue for their fundamental right to speak; such arguments always rely upon (at least) two things:
1) a fundamental concession that the listener can always be wrong (an argument for ‘reason’, leading into the argument for attempting to falsify one’s own views – which is antithetical to most people’s desire to live in an echo chamber where they are never told that they either are wrong, or could be wrong),
and,
2) that the speaker (in this case, Crowder, though the principle is universal) could be right about something, and hence is worth listening to.
A proponent of censorship would know that most people have a natural predisposition to avoid having their own ideas refuted, which solves the question for arguing for censorship with the first half; the only problem is ensuring that the latter half cannot be entertained via direct empirical observation and consideration of Crowder’s assertions or arguments, which can only be resolved via censorship. This is where Maza comes in.
Essentially, by even discussing censorship, those who seek to censor have already won.
He fears his own arguments are not strong enough to directly refute Crowder (or the Right, in general), so he calls for censorship. He also drags in nonsense claims of homophobia and racism, knowing full well that Silicon Valley-headquarted Google/YouTube will not respond kindly if the accusation is true. But the “Ad Hominem” claims are just a distraction from the substantive and ideological divide between the two men; Maza couldn’t care less about some actual homophobe or racist in the backwoods of Tennessee as long as they didn’t make video-after-video refuting and debunking Maza’s videos, which Crowder did repeatedly – to an audience of over 3 million subscribers. And that is what angers Maza: having his ideas rebuffed, not having some guy on YouTube call him a “lispy queer” or something similarly inane. It’s irrelevant. But not being able to indoctrinate the masses for your political agenda – that is consequential – and Maza decided Crowder and the Right should be banned from YouTube, and used meaningless trite mockery clipped and edited from their videos as a bludgeon against them to this end.
By making the Right make videos about Maza and his calls for censorship, they are now unable to fill the public conversation with dialogue on gun control or gun rights arguments (as the Virginia mass shooting just took place), or to talk about the illegal alien/Mexican border crisis (as 2019 is on track to beat 1,000,000 illegal aliens entering America from Mexico – a record number), or to talk about recent changes in abortion laws across the country – these among many, many other pressing issues these creators and commentators have available to talk about. When censorship is injected into the discussion, it acts as a trump card, overriding all other issues since a nefarious actor who inserts the topic knows that unless the call for censorship is debunked and buried 6 feet down, the ability to discuss all other issues without fear of reprisal becomes worrisome. Maza knows this. It’s the metaphorical equivalent of flipping the board in a poker game, rather than accept the impending ‘checkmate’ that was coming your way, in the hopes that in the chaos, you can declare that you had an Royal Flush ready to deliver.
What would you (as a content creator, or as a consumer of the former’s work) have done with your time in lieu of this new “Adpocalypse” drama? It’s obvious: You would have talked about, or listened to, something else more important.
Let’s not forget the “Streisand Effect” which Maza hopes to benefit off of from the situation:
President Trump, long before he was POTUS, wrote in the Art of the Deal about how (this is a paraphrase), “no news is bad news – even bad news”, because, as long as the media is giving you attention – even bad press is free press, and that’s like free advertising.
A few months ago, Gillette ran their notorious (on the Internet, at least) advertisement about “toxic masculinity”. Many of the same aforementioned names made videos about that incident as well. Some commentators noted how the video attacked men or activities/archetypes portrayed as common among men, while others pointed out how the video seemed to imply that only white men were bad (depicting most of the “villains” or “incompetent men” in the video as white, and one if not nearly all of the men chosen to be depicted as “good guys” in the latter half of the video were black men). It seemed obvious to many of these critics that Gillette, or the person who made Gillette’s video, had an extreme ideological bias against men, or more specifically white men.
But. . . what happened to Gillette in the aftermath? Checking their stock prices, on the day of the ads’ YouTube release (Jan 13th 2019), the Proctor & Gamble (Gillettes’ parent company) stock price hovered around $91 a share. The weeks and months following thereafter did not show any significant drop from this level; in fact the price rose to about $108 a share by June 10th, 2019, an increase of approximately 18% in about 5 months.
Gillette (Proctor & Gamble) does not appear to have suffered any major financial losses as a result of “Going Woke”. At least not based on their stock price, which acts (partially) as an indicator of investor sentiment in the companys’ long-term health.
So then, who has to gain from the Vox Adpocalypse?
Vox, of course. But not solely Vox, and not solely in terms of their financial gain. There are other considerations at play here. They are only one among many Left-wing outlets that benefit from “Going Woke” (accelerationism towards the furthest Left-wing position one can take on an issue); others include The Young Turks, CNN, MSNBC, Teen Vogue, the New York Times, and basically the entirety of the Left-wing media. Dissent is increasingly not tolerated on the Left, which is why Dave Rubin bothered to create his own show (though that’s a topic for another day). The greatest benefit to the censorious Left in this Adpocalypse is what directly contributes to their overt cause: banning Steven Crowder and other conservatives (and anyone with an opinion to the Right of Mao Zedong), or at minimum, forcing YouTube to make it unprofitable by default to hold any such opinion as those while uploading those opinions to YouTube videos.
But the second-greatest benefit to the Left in this latest Adpocalypse is intrinsic to the same phenomena we see occurring with Gillette, and as Trump described in “The Art of the Deal”: Bad press for Vox (or any of their allies, or proponents of deplatforming and censorship) in the short-term (as having caused financial chaos for many thousands of small-time entertainers and commentators who operate outside of the mainstream corporate control) will be outweighed by the medium-to-long-term name/brand recognition increase for their outlet. Vox and Carlos Maza will most likely profit from the downfall/demonetization of these many small-time creators, as their Google analytics, Twitter mentions, and overall profile and association with opposition to the Right will be artificially increased via all of the free press Carlos Maza and Vox have received – and will continue to receive – as the progenitors of this scandal.
It’s all about the money, and the adpocalypse is a double-win for the Left: it both lines their own coffers, while starving the other side of money via demonetization.
Why then do I write this article? Merely to inform you, the reader, about this phenomenon which we are powerless to stop (assuming that is your objective)?
It is because we are not powerless to stop this.
I write this in the hopes that, in the medium to long-run, people of all political stripes realize that name-dropping an individual or organization – especially when you have 3 million subscribers as Crowder does on YouTube – has power. It gives them free press they otherwise did not need or deserve. Every video Crowder, or Tim Pool, or Dave Rubin – or anyone else – makes about Vox’ absurd videos, or Maza and his escalating calls for censorship of the Lefts’ ideological opponents, simply adds to their bottom-line profitability and name recognition. It spreads their seed like wind against the dandelions. What rational person or entity would want to increase public dissemination of the propaganda of those who wish to see them censored or worse? No rational person would do that.
It is a bit paradoxical for me to write an article with the terms “Vox” and “Adpocalypse” so many times within it that it will doubtlessly end up high on the Google search analytics (which conversely also boosts Vox’ analytics as well) for the terminology. But alas, this is the same sacrifice made by Crowder and others’ in their immediate rebuttals and response to the ongoing demonetization crisis and politically-motivated censorship occurring on multiple platforms: You do have to name the problem in the first place in order to recognize that the problem exists (at least, in the short-term).
This is about a long-term strategy. It’s similar to those who boycott CNN or MSNBC for being far-Left wing; operating on the Internet is a bit different from TV channel ratings. You can’t simply not watch a Vox video in order to avoid helping Vox (which is how cable channels work; no ratings = no advertisers’ money). On the Internet, you have to not talk about Vox at all – anywhere on the Internet – so that there are fewer organic Google search page results when someone searches for their company or organization; you have to avoid making videos or articles with “Vox” in the title or body (the irony is not lost on me); you have to avoid responding to their insane or absurd policy positions or clicking on their articles (i.e., clickbait). Basically you have to act like they don’t exist; starve them of attention – and eventually – they will get none. This is why CNN is dying: no one watches them!
If you truly care about ensuring that those who seek your destruction (and in Crowder’s case, this is not an overstatement: they truly want the man gone from the Internet, and many of their fans also want his presence gone from the physical world as well), then you cannot legitimize them by interacting with them. There is all the difference in the world between debating or talking with those who disagree with you in good faith, and granting credibility to those who want opposition to their viewpoint totally eradicated. The former group can coexist peacefully. The latter cannot. In any war for ideas, diplomacy is either respected or it isn’t. Vox and Maza have made it clear that they don’t believe Crowder has the right to speak. Therefore until they change their view on this specific subject (free speech), one cannot recognize them as legitimate – as to do so would risk the ascendancy of their views until your own right to think independently and speak freely is criminalized.
The best part about this strategy (simple boycott and deliberately ignoring Vox/Maza) is that it is both the opposite of what Vox’ Maza argues for (censorship) and also what those on the Right most often argue for: the “free market” of ideas.
If Vox truly has a natural, organically-growing market segment of viewership and readers to keep them afloat without occasionally going for all-out war with their Right-wing counterparts on the Internet (in a desperate bid for free media coverage), then this strategy will only minimally affect them. But if I’m right, and ignoring them entirely and all of their future content slowly deprives them of enough money to keep their company alive (which, rumor has it, Vox is already struggling), then they will eventually go the way of the Dodo: extinct.
Stop giving your money to “Woke” companies. Stop giving your attention to “Woke” companies. Don’t click on “Woke” clickbait. Don’t legitimize “Woke” fools like Carlos Maza or his far-Left wing company Vox by engaging in any of their content. Vox is only one name among many. There are numerous Leftist rags and outlets just dying to feed you their poison. Yes, in the short-term, people have to acknowledge this incident of censorship is a problem, and Vox has to be called out for causing it. But, if you are a content creator (or even a content consumer, and watch the videos of the aforementioned people or those tangential to them, or simply want to be able to watch anyone’s content on the Internet without fear of censorship or “deplatforming” or whatever new euphemistic labels Marxist hacks like Maza can come up with), STOP making videos or viewing videos about Vox or Carlos Maza (or for that matter, anyone you oppose or who advocates for censorship). Stop sharing or retweeting any of their drama or attempts to stir up drama. Ignore them entirely. The alternative is to legitimize them and their arguments, which ultimately empowers their agenda.
Yes, this sounds a lot like the reasoning Maza uses to try and argue for deplatforming Steven Crowder (and many other independent content creators, many of whom aren’t even Right-wing). But the key difference here is that Maza believes that Crowder cannot fail on his own; he believes Crowder can only be stopped and fail via outside intervention (YouTube, or government involvement), whereas with boycotting (what I’m advocating for) requires neither force nor fraud, and is therefore a peaceful way to disempower Maza and his censorious and Marxist agenda. The beauty of my argument is that I believe it is both practically effective, and also has the additional effect of proving Maza’s argument wrong and misguided, since if he or Vox were to fail as a result of a #VoxBoycott (don’t retweet that – it will only add to their name recognition and analytics), then it would prove censorship/deplatforming entirely unnecessary, refuting Maza’s entire premise for attacking Crowder and independent creators.
Share this article. DON’T share Vox’s.
Thanks for reading.