How Did the Left Lose the Internet? The Deck Was Stacked In Their Favor

In this episode, the hosts dive into a viral video clip by a leftist commentator who argues that the left has lost the battle for the internet to right-wing influencers. They discuss the historical dominance of progressive voices online, the cultural shifts over the past decade, and the reasons behind the right's growing popularity on platforms like YouTube and Rumble. The conversation also covers the polarization within the Democratic Party, the rise of new right-leaning creators, and the impact of social dynamics on political content creation. Additionally, they touch upon lighter topics such as romantic Omega verse literature and personal anecdotes.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I saw a video recently that I want to play a little clip from that argues that the left, and this is a leftist arguing, this has essentially lost the battle for the internet, and the statistics she provides are compelling.

So I play the video clip?

Hazel: There is no alt left pipeline because for the longest time, the internet was the alt left pipeline. Maybe it doesn't feel like it anymore, but for over a decade it felt like the internet belonged to us, the progressives, the feminists, the socialists, the Bernie Bros, the techno revolutionaries, the Wikipedia editors, and not just humbler.

The internet and then first slowly by the co-opting of Beloved Online mascots like Pepe and Doge and Joe Rogan. And then all at once in the last year or so, the right took over the internet in the 2010s. The culture war was ours to lose and we lost. We buffed that , man, having blue hair and an ambiguous sexual orientation that used to be cool.

Know them.

Speaker 2: Ah, used to be with it. But then they changed what it was. It'll happen to you

Hazel: anyway. The left wing of American politics is the Democrats, I'm sorry to tell you, they are pouring money into throwing cringe, yet lavish coconut themed parties for online influencers and plot twist. I was one of those influencers.

And everybody is rightfully dunking on it online. Meanwhile, the Republicans seem to have an unstoppable wave of organic support from basically every podcaster who doesn't talk like with the NPR voice. Today on our show, we're gonna be discussing the ways in witch like that. So I ask What the happened?

Now, you might be saying, Hazel, you're catastrophizing. Okay. The internet is still very left or at least a liberal place. And to that, I say, that's right. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. We want all of you to look at it.

Almost all the most popular channels on YouTube, not to mention the, um, the other, all the other ones, including rumble. Should, should I be posting my on Rumble? Uh, yeah. So they're all right-Leaning this Media Matters report shows that nine out of the top 10 online shows had right-leaning politics and across the internet, the right wingers took the lion's share of the views.

This is a big deal. This has real world effects, obviously, because now they're calling the 2024 election, the podcast election, and Trump is also doing this. He specifically thanked podcasters in his inauguration speech.

Malcolm Collins: No. You hadn't seen these statistics before. What are your thoughts?

Simone Collins: This is so surprising to me because as you know, I mostly consume leftist media on YouTube, and so my perception is that YouTube is just a socialist Marxist super echo chamber, and that we are among the very few.

That, that post content, that's conservative, aside from like some, you know, conservative niches, but the mainstream stuff. Super progressive and it

Malcolm Collins: used to be that way.

Simone Collins: Okay, so what hap was, is she saying this happened after Trump was elected?

Malcolm Collins: By the way, I

Simone Collins: was just watching a left-leaning video in which this one financial, she's supposed to be financially focused, but she's just incredibly politically polarized.

Interviewed among other people, princess Weeks, a very progressive YouTuber, and she literally bleeped out President Trump's name, like it was a bad word. Yes. Yes. Like this is how, 'cause it's too, maybe 'cause it's too triggering anyway. Like, this is how, how I'm just so surprised by this, right? Like in light of what I'm listening to.

Well,

Malcolm Collins: and it actually makes sense. If you think about, if I think of any YouTuber or online personality who rose to fame let's say from 1990 to 2010. Mm-hmm. My assumption is gonna be that they are left wing. All Yeah. Because

Simone Collins: you, you could not have gained. All that political, or Oh, sorry. All of that all those followers without being banned if you weren't progressive.

Malcolm Collins: Well, that's part of it. Yes. Which is why they they, because they had a lot more editorial control back then. Yeah. But they were just all progressive. But what I mean is if you were like a neutral content creator, right? Like if you were Matt Pat, or you were, you know, shoe on head. Or you were you know, you're, you're creating content that is like, maybe sometimes it touches on the political, the Green Brothers or something.

Or you were you know, the, the show that became real pique, what did he do? The, the bald guy, like V Sauce. You know, all of these individuals you assumed, even if they don't talk about their politics, are far lefty. The

Simone Collins: Green Brothers, the AKA, the vlog brothers are super leftists.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Or, oh, who is that lady who did like the song?

Do you want to date? My avatar? Who's actually pretty cool. Anyway, she far leftist as well and everything, but now I and Jenny

Simone Collins: Nicholson leftist.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Now I often take the opposite approach. I, I, I generally think anybody who's risen to fame within the past 10 years, if, if, if they don't, if they'd only talk about their politics casually or not explicitly, they're typically rightists.

Simone Collins: So they were just closeted rightists when being a rightist would've otherwise gotten them banned?

Malcolm Collins: No, it's a new class of creators. It's, it's new people who were not famous before. So they just

Simone Collins: got famous. Now, like after the second Trump election, the

Malcolm Collins: people not famous in the past 10 years, largely speaking like Asma Gold.

Asma gold was not famous before 10 years ago. Like he, he may have had some, so you're saying this, this

Simone Collins: rise first started and they were first able to accumulate. Momentum with the first Trump election, Noor?

Malcolm Collins: You know, no, I don't think it was the first Trump election. I, and I'm gonna argue why I don't think it was the first Trump election, actually.

Okay. Because, because let's talk about like, what I think caused this, because I've been trying to like actually dig my brain on this. And I think part of it is the way that each side relates to positions of power. If I look at the online lefty YouTubers, none of them, and I mean literally not one that is popular that I am aware of is identifies as a democrat.

In fact, they are quite antagonistic to the Democrats and see them as not real leftists. You know, like Hassan Piker is never gonna say I'm a Democrat. You know, the, the no, and I'm, and I mean this, you know, not only will he not say he's a Democrat, he let on his show, you know, a OC and Bernie, like two of the most leftist Democrats, and he was roasted for it by his fan base.

And so part of the question is. Is the right like that? It used to be. It used to be. Yeah. And when I think about right-wing influencers, because for a while we've been trying to like build a coalition of them that we can invite to stuff. And it used to be normal when I'd reach out to them and I'd be like, look, I'm trying to put like a Republican coalition of influencers.

And they'd say, well, I'm not a, I'm not a Republican. Mm-hmm.

And I'd be like, everything you post is, is pro. What are you talking about? And I realize that. What you used to have was Republicans, and you had this on the left as well, is fear A a, a few things. One is, is that there's easy social status to be gained in just sh you know, shooting down everything.

Being like, oh, that's not cool. That's not cool. Because clearly the, the implication is, is I am cool, I'm unique, right. I'm the pressure. I'm better

Simone Collins: than this. Yeah. Well, because it's, it's very, I mean, any large political party is gonna have its faults, so it's much easier to be perfect by being like, well, I have nothing to do with them.

Malcolm Collins: And then you would see post-election cycles. The left was like this, right? Like they'd say, well, obviously, you know, I might, I might even if I, I might support the Democratic Party. Obviously I hate Harold, like Clinton, obviously I hate, you know, they'd always say they hate whoever was like the defacto leader of the party.

I.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And you actually saw this with Republicans during Trump's first election cycle to an extent where people would be like, well, I'm a Republican but I'm not like a Trumpist Republican.

Simone Collins: Right? Yeah. That did happen a lot.

Malcolm Collins: And that's changed dramatically. Now. It's not to say we don't have Republicans who have.

Turned against Trump. You know, I, I, you can see our f said, why did the racist and, and Antisemites turn against Trump? You know, Nick Fuentes, leather Apron Club, David Duke, Richard Spencer, all of them very aggressively tried to get their followers to not vote for Trump. It's not like they were token against Trump.

They were aggressively wanted Trump, explicit Trump to lose and Kamala to win explicit. Yeah. To, to basically treat the light a lesson for not caring about their little snowflake opinions enough. And they showed a few things. One, that we don't need people like them to win elections and there is no point in catering to people like them.

But then two which, which I thought was very interesting is. When they turned against Trump. At the same time, many, many more mainstream Republicans, even people who may not fit as stereotypical Republican mold, became very pro-Trump. Like for example, Asma Gold in his political positions, Asma Gold is left of center.

Totally. Everything I've ever seen about him as McGold is left of center. Mm-hmm. And yet he is. Without hesitation and unironically willing to say, I support Trump. You know, creators like Leaflet, who we've had on the show, I love her. She is very centrist in her actual opinions, maybe left of center.

Yet she will unapologetically support the Trump administration. You will see individuals like I mean, you just sort of see you can consider us, right? Like we unapologetically, I, I. Historically, if you'd asked me a few seconds ago, I would've said, well, you know, I agree with a lot of the things the right does.

And I, and I vote for them sometimes on the ticket, but I don't, you know, agree with Trump. And the question is, is why did that change? Because I think this is a big part of why the right's been able to win, is that you're able to have fun within writers circles and like unironically support things.

Mm-hmm. And it's not just about. Shooting down everyone else. But then the other thing that I've noticed is we have our episode where we talk about the diversity of thought within each political faction. And you can see there's very little on this graph I'm putting on screen here, very little diversity of thought within modern leftist culture and a very wide degree of, of thought within modern rightist culture, which which provides a secondary benefit, which means there's a lot to talk about.

Like, why would somebody watch two hours of a Rightwing podcast? 'cause you don't know what's gonna be said. Like, I don't even understand when people are like, I want a, a two hour left wing podcast like Joe Rogan. It's like, but you know, all of their opinions, like, why are you watching it?

Simone Collins: That's an interesting point.

Yeah.

But although, I mean, I will, I will argue that there's, I don't consume a lot of right-leaning content because I do feel like a lot of it's this curmudgeonly. Repetition. Ideas. Ideas. No, I mean, you do get

Malcolm Collins: curmudgeon right-wing content. Like recently we've raed a few times on Sargon Co. Or, or, or Carl Benjamin.

And, and I, I like him as a content ator, but he very much takes like the curmudgeon approach. And, and you know, and that's one of the reasons, like I don't under understand how we have the highest overlap with his channels. Because what I like his channels, I always know exactly what his opinion is going to be on everything.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I never hear an argument I wouldn't have predicted from him. And so I'm often like, why did I just spend an hour watching that? Like, that wasn't anything that I didn't expect. And I wonder, I feel the

Simone Collins: same way when watching Brett Cooper's content.

Malcolm Collins: I do feel the same way about Brett Cooper's content, which is why I don't understand why she's so popular.

Mm-hmm. Honestly, this, I like her like as a person. She seems interesting, but I know exactly the main reason to watch Brett Cooper's content is when she's talking about celebrity gossip. 'cause she's got great celebrity gossip. Oh. But no, she does. And you know, she's gonna be honest and based about it.

Right. But when it's politics stuff, it's like, okay, this is like the mainstream. So it's almost like

Simone Collins: choosing the skin through which you want. To consume certain contemporary concepts or like news concepts.

Malcolm Collins: That's a very interesting way to put it, right? The skin. Yeah. Well, and, but that's what makes the conservatives different from the leftists, right?

Mm-hmm. If, if you go to conservative content creators, yes. You have the, the skin walkers who it's just, am I watching this in a Brett Cooper skin or am I watching this in a sargon of a coskin? Right? Right. And I will note that I actually do not think Brett Cooper, this Pearl Kelechi are gonna be cod.

She, she doesn't do that. No, she's

Simone Collins: not. No, no. She comes across, well, she d she doesn't come across as curmudgeonly and her default isn't to just poo poo something. She will stand up for things or express support for things, even if she doesn't have a universal feeling of safety, that they're gonna turn out perfectly.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but there's, there's that style of content creator and the left has a lot of those. But then on the right, you know, you've got your like Curtis Jarvin or people like us or you know, content creators that you can go to and you're like, okay, what is actually their take gonna be on this?

Like, I, I, I know if I read a Curtis Jarvin piece or a monstrous small bug is what he is often called. I'm gonna have I'm gonna come across at least some ideas I have never personally thought before. And that's gonna be stimulating for me. I don't really have any leftists like that. Even when leftists break the mold.

And people can be like, well, Scott Alexander's a leftist. And it's like, and this, this actually, I think shows, shows the problem, right? Hmm. The very fact that the New York Times tried to do a hit piece on Scott Alexander and many mainstream people on the left right now consider Scott Alexander Aright shows why the right has grown so much.

That's an interesting

Simone Collins: point. Yeah. Scott

Malcolm Collins: Alexander. Is not a rightist in literally any belief that I'm aware of. Other than that, well, you know, we should challenge the system at times and, and think outside of cultural war. Well, he

Simone Collins: doesn't support Trump at, at all. So there's not

Malcolm Collins: Right. But he never claimed to.

Yeah. That's, I got really mad at the New York Times piece that like, put him in the same category as like ri Richard Hanania. And it was like, look at all these rightists who have turned on Trump. You have like Richard Hanania and then what's her faith one in who who've had on the show from like, Eastern Europe.

Oh.

Simone Collins: Yes. Oh, oh, oh, oh. How can I blink on her name? But yeah, she's so cool. Who lives in Romania?

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, she's fine. I don't, I don't care about her betrayal. Trump, she's not an American. Richards Nia feels very. Strategic team. Alex Kata. Alex Kata feels very strategic, but, but, but Scott Alexander was never pro-Trump, not even a little from anything I've ever seen.

He wrote like, multiple, you should vote for Kamala essays. Yeah. And yet he's considered a Republican by like the online new sphere. And I think that this shows why a lot of people who are like him may eventually just be like, why am I even trying to like side with you guys, right? Mm-hmm. Why am I even trying to make you guys happy?

If you didn't grow up in the previous generation and have this older interpretation of the right you'd just be like, why am I fighting this when these guys are nice to me and accept me, and you guys treat me terribly? Which again, I, I mentioned this story before, but it's one that I think is always worth retelling.

Because I think it's very important to the right. And I think it shows that the rightists who go to events and rag on like gay people at an event or something like that, or attempt to make people feel uncomfortable for having, you know, different beliefs in them instead of just having honest debates.

These individuals are not friends to the movement and they hurt us in the long run. The, the famous case here being one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse or the fifth, the Muslim lady, whatever her name is.

Simone Collins: Omar

Malcolm Collins: Omar. Yeah. So she, she goes to a psychologist and she's depressed and the psychologist is like, well, I know this isn't your brand, but have you ever thought about praying?

And so she tried and she has become a Christian. And a lot of people are like, but why didn't you become a Muslim? Right? Like, you used to be a Muslim, right? And she goes, well, you know, of all the years where I was attacking people of faith. And, and many people on the left do feel this way of all the years I was attacking the right.

They kept coming at me with love and kindness.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: They kept coming at me with, I'm praying for you. I want, I, I hope you get better. Like, I hope you, you know, can see the, the light. Oh. And it was people on my own side, whether it was Muslims or or other a s who would send me all the death threats and say, you know, I hope you die, or I hope you, well, that's interesting that Muslims are doing that.

Well, of course Muslims do that too. Apostates, right. But or people they would see as apostates. But it shows that this matters in terms of the final breakthrough with an individual. Mm-hmm. You want someone to come join your side. You don't treat them like a jerk. Okay? Mm-hmm. Even if they are currently not within your team I, I feel like leaving the door open.

And engaging in honest debate is how we bring them over. Yeah. But I think, yeah,

Simone Collins: well that's, that is what cultural sovereignty is about. It's also, it's not about being opposed to outside ideas. It's about having a lot of different ideas and having debates in exchange between the two of them and learning from each other, and also switching when you find a better ideology.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think another thing, and I wasn't sure if I was gonna do a whole episode on this. Is, and, and I've really been confused about this is why doesn't the left stigmatize in other, the communists and the Marxists within their movement,

Simone Collins: well, why, how could you, when those ideologies feed into the logical conclusion of a culture that I.

Is built on victimhood. They are the victimhood, pol pol political alignment,

Malcolm Collins: I guess. But I mean, the right has done a very good job of keeping what I call like our, our trans extremists out of the movement, right? Like these are the, the racist and the anti-Semites and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But the racist and the anti-Semites are more often than not associated with the Nazi party, which it was extremely socialist and progressive.

Yeah. I mean like from the perspective, right? It was like, well, we're victims. And we are gonna, you know, provide, you know, social services and social support. I mean, okay. Yeah, they did demonize this. You know, like certain, like, well a lot of different groups, but they still, in the end, that was still a very, by our modern standards, progressive, leaning, cultural victimhood and of let's have the government pay for everything

Malcolm Collins: who do not realize that the Nazis was a progressive party and was a socialist party.

Because people often be like, oh, they're not actually. They were actually socialists. It didn't mean

Simone Collins: national Socialists.

Malcolm Collins: No, but, but people are like, oh, but the name doesn't national necessarily mean that, so let's review their actual policies. Okay. Hmm. Because their policies. Were more socialists than Bernie Sanders or a OC.

Hello. Yes. I'm just gonna point this out. They were, they were the perfect picture of socialism. The Nazis famously reduced unemployment through state driven infrastructure projects. Mm-hmm. Very famous to us socialists. Like, who was the one during wartime that did the new deal?

Simone Collins: The, the, the, yeah, the big New deal or the.

Malcolm Collins: It was like the New Deal plus is what the Nazis implemented. They, they built the Audubon Highway construction public building works, stadiums, monuments, et cetera. Yeah. This is why there's so many Nazi monuments in, in buildings. You can see and reman in military expansion. By 1936, unemployment dropped from 6 million to under 1 million.

So that's huge. State subsidized leisure, they organize state vacations, cruises, opera visits, and cheap cars. The, the precursor to the Volkswagen Beetle. Wow. And this was called a Strength Through Joy or a Craft Day Freud. They had welfare and family support. They had generous maternity benefits and child allowances and marriage loans.

Simone Collins: And yeah, Fe Street, Simone, for suggesting a medal of motherhood, which France did first. Before Germany ever did, but Oh, ask for unlimited maternal leave and, and, and ask for supportive. No, but what's

Malcolm Collins: really funny is, is you ask an AI this and it'll be like, oh, but these policies were partially racially restricted.

And I was like, they are with modern socialists as well. Yeah. If you look at the way welfare is handed out as handed out on racial lines. If you look at the rate, even COVID

Simone Collins: vaccines were often prioritized. Even vaccines

Malcolm Collins: were handed out, partially along racial lines. If you look at the. No, you just see this over and over and over again.

And there was like a UBI project in San Francisco only given to black people. Well that was

Simone Collins: supposed to be reparations, but I mean, I guess kind of like the Nazis were like, well, reparations for the people who, no, hold on. It's very

Malcolm Collins: important to note. The Nazis believed that they were a discriminated group.

Yeah. Again, it

Simone Collins: was victimhood culture. It, it's, it's an inherent, progressive associated thing, so I don't, I think it, there, it's not there, there hasn't been any effort on behalf of conservatives. To fight Nazism because it's not a conservative thing. It's fundamentally what progressivism is, and I agree with that.

It's epitomized by an internal locus of control by we don't believe in victimhood. We believe in what we have control over, and we believe in granting ourselves the rights to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps. Just give us the freedom to try to do that. Give us the chance, the American dream. The true American dream is having a shot at it.

And then this, it's been perverted by progressives to mean like, oh, the American dream is I should be given this all by default, which was never the American dream. That was never what brought immigrants over. Immigrants came over for a shot at these things, not from some socialist promise to be given these things.

Malcolm Collins: I agree. Well, and, and you see the hatred of this from their hatred of Starship Troopers, we always point out they hate the idea of a system where, where you have

Simone Collins: to earn it

Malcolm Collins: to have political power, you need to make a sacrifice. Mm-hmm. Which is all you need to do. You don't need to join the military, you just need to make some sort of a sacrifice mm-hmm.

In terms of, of spending two years or a few years working for the government.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So. This is, this is their core fear is, is having to make a sacrifice. They want to control other people. But why are these people allowed? Because I, if you look at somebody like Destiny, I love, one of my favorite things to do is watch progressives try to explain why progressives can't win elections anymore.

Okay? And, and, and destiny is, you know, he's not a communist, right? Like he, he understands these more extremist positions aren't going to win. These individuals who hold these positions often protest progressives instead of Republicans that they often hate on. They're not actually trying to win elections.

Was his her point in this video he did on this?

Simone Collins: Hmm. And I'm

Malcolm Collins: like, yeah, I agree with you. And so my question to you is, why, why do you keep these people within your, your community?

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: You know, why don't you make your community hostile to these people? And I think the part, part of the problem for the progressives is.

Is that the young excited people are all part of these fringe movements, whereas within conservative communities it is the opposite. It's often, I mean, most, you know, when I look at like the actual, I'm not talking about like the genetics people or something. I'm talking about like the actual racist racists.

You know what I mean? Like, a lot of these people are like older and outta touch. They're, they're kind Oh, the raised

Simone Collins: supremacists. Yeah, because the human biodiversity people. I don't know. Like more often than not, like their, their, their wives are different.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Oh. Every human biodiversity person I know is in an interracial relationship.

Like the idea that this is a racialist supremacist movement is effing. Ridiculous.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Now we are not human biodiversity people ourselves, but I'm just pointing out that movement does actually have a lot of like, young, engaged people within it. I don't really consider it to be a particularly racist movement.

When I look at the actions of the people who are within it which are pretty much all in interracial relationships and have interracial kids, which to me does not signal a belief that their race is superior to other races. Questions. And you can watch our videos on like, are certain racists smarter than other races?

They basically are like, I can understand how you could come to this idea, but you're probably wrong in ways that matter. But like, not to go into that. Now the point I'm making is that on the right, those sorts of individuals, like they HBD Bros they generally hate the racist. Racist, yeah. Like, they're not like friends with like your, your, your Richard Swer or you know, your, your, you, the, those sorts of individuals, right? No. And, and they are the first to yell them outta the room. Mm-hmm. You know, the, the, the, the young maga rightis are the first to yell these people outta the room, not yell them outta the room. But, and that was this thing also about like, the way that this works, if you go to, like our conference at the first prenatals conference, like Richard Spencer came, right?

He, he felt uncomfortable and he didn't come to the second one. Right? Like, that's not like we were mean to him or anything, but it was clear. That his sorts of ideas are not normal within this community. It wasn't, well, they just,

Simone Collins: there's no place for them. He, he didn't have a place for them because it's not.

They, they don't have merit.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and, and keep in mind, this is not me saying there's, there's a big difference between like somebody who's like, oh, well, is, isn't, you know, Kevin Dolan a, a racist 'cause he's like a desert nationalist, right? And I'm like, that's just like the Mormon version of being like a Zionist, right?

Like, if he just wants a Mormon state and, and I'm not gonna you know, hate on somebody for preferencing people of their own cultural group, I. Right. Like, and, and sometimes cultural groups have ethnic overlaps, but pretty rarely within the United States, for example, it's usually gonna be like Mormons or Catholics or, you know, weird tech bros like us.

And am I gonna disproportionately, for example, hire a weird tech bro over a, a, you know, like a devout Mormon? Like, I like Mormons, but yeah, unless it's for a sales position, in which case I'd probably hire a Mormon. Always

Simone Collins: percent.

Malcolm Collins: But, you know, it, it, it, it makes sense to preference people who are culturally similar to you.

And so it's important to differentiate like hateful racism and being like, oh, I, I culturally preference people who are similar to me. But the right has done that and the left hasn't had these nuanced conversations. Right. It hasn't been like, oh, you're like an actual racial supremacist. Like when you go out there and you say something like, white people can't be racist, you should immediately.

Anyone in the movement should just be like, what? What are you doing? Like, we need to have a conversation about you saying that, because that's a racist thing to say. That's like saying you can't be racist against Jews. Like, which is basically what the Nazis did. Right? Like, it's a huge problem when you can create a subjective judgment around which groups can be discriminated against it, which group can't.

Yeah. But you do this right? So that's a big problem.

Simone Collins: Little bit, Karen.

Malcolm Collins: I, I think that you're right. I think that part of the problem is, is that. Because they define the right as Nazis, they can't see where it's woven into their own culture. Mm-hmm. Because they have this incredible amount of cultural control and an incredibly narrow degree of thought as we see in this, you know, chart of, of, of ideas on the left and the right.

You don't get a lot of interesting conversation happening. So there's not as much reason to watch it. Because you know, it's so easy to commit thought crimes. You know, if I even was a pure leftist and I tried to talk for two hours every day, or an hour every day, like our podcast, we'd be derated by now.

You know, we, we just said that we're, we're, you know, 'cause we would've made you mistakes. You, that's why they keep their media short, tight, and incredibly editorially controlled. That's why Leftism worked in the age of the newspaper and it doesn't work in the age of the podcast.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But I'd love to hear your thoughts on the, specifically the concept of the righteous being willing to support the Republicans and the leftists not being willing to support the Democrats.

What do you think it's, is? It's that phenomenal, because that's not one that we've never really gone deep on.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't know. I mean, we, we definitely saw that earlier. I think a lot of this has to do with just the very, very. Blatant betrayal that Democrats felt with the 2024 election and just being openly lied to multiple times. I mean, one, the very undemocratic selection of Kamala Harris for the presidential candidate after Biden was founded validating

Malcolm Collins: every single claim that DEI is just racism.

Simone Collins: But then also the. Clear gaslighting followed by the whiplash of, oh, actually, yeah. He's not fit to be president.

Malcolm Collins: And we systemically covered this up.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I just think that that's what I see cited the most. And I think beyond that, there's the issue of Bernie Sanders being truly beloved, especially among the online content class.

And then being systematically sidelined. And not just that, but being, but admitting to being systematically sidelined.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: So between those things, h how can they not disassociate from the Democratic party? They're extremely mad.

Malcolm Collins: And, and, and by the way, I didn't finish all of the socialist thing the Nazis did.

By the way, they also did price and rent control. They regulated prices, wages, and rents to prevent inflation. They did strict rationing and consumer repression. They also had universal employment. Everyone was expected to contribute to the. People's community. Wow. Unemployment became a moral failing not a structural issue.

And those that didn't work were harassed or in prison very similar to most communists and socialist systems.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: But broadly speaking, they were socialists by any modern standard and very socialist.

They were basically a OC, like Nazis are a OC, the same, same broad political position. And they both hate the Jews, so don't worry. You know, they've, they've converged. But any final thoughts, Simone?

Simone Collins: So let me just get this right, that we're conservative influencers have more reach online now because democratic influencers.

Can't associate with the Democratic Party anymore is, but that's, that can't be it. I think

Malcolm Collins: that's part of it, but it's, it's that they are all forced into being so ideologically extreme that they, they, they, because it, it's all about conformity to this form of extremism as we see from the, the chart.

Mm-hmm. That they're not able to create interesting content, and when they're more, oh, they

Simone Collins: got boring, you're, you're basically saying like, because any non, any heterodox idea got kicked out. All that was left was boring conformity, which then

Malcolm Collins: boring conformity or Hasan piker. And then when you

sorry, what was the point I was gonna make?

Simone Collins: On top of that, like another reason why they, they lost. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That they, oh, yes. Then the ones who were still producing more moderate content were essentially harassed into producing less and less of it and became more and more mentally ill over time. As you know, I

Simone Collins: do actually, you know what, that's a really underrated element of this because many of the progressive YouTubers that I follow who have had five plus year careers on content platforms.

Talk about really basic activities as things that are like difficult for them to complete.

Malcolm Collins: Two issues going on here, right? Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: One is you know, you have, this was like contra points or philosophy tube or like, they basically stopped producing content 'cause they were getting so harassed for trying to take nuanced perspectives.

Hmm. I mean,

Simone Collins: keep in mind you harassment because when I see contra points post and contra points is doing a decent number of, like, Natalie Wynn does a decent number of interviews, like I just saw another interview go live, Contra Points. Or Natalie Wynn also was recently on. A bit fruity, that podcast.

So I'm seeing guests, it's

Malcolm Collins: not that they do nothing, but what I

Simone Collins: hear is that basically a lot of references not to, to videos not being produced due to, due to controversy, but rather to, it's just a lot of work. I think it's more has to do with. Mental health affecting the productivity of these people?

Malcolm Collins: Well, that's part of it.

I mean, like can consider, like Jan Nicholson, who we mentioned before, like basically produces nothing anymore. If you look at the nostalgia chick though, this was specifically harassment. Remember she had a point that people didn't like and so she got harassed. And now she basically doesn't produce things anymore and she was a big progressive voice for a while.

Mm-hmm. Which is that a lot of big progressives were essentially harassed. Out of YouTube by progressives, not conservatives because there is such an expectation of ideological conformity.

Simone Collins: Well, a lot of them also went onto platforms like Nebula, where they just felt safer. I.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and they're, and they're not producing content that people are engaging with as much, and so they've lost the wider cultural conversation.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like I feel like Nebula was kind of an early, I not, and I don't mean this politically, but like an early form of Blue Sky where they're like, oh yes, let's go to this new enlightened platform. But then no one's there. So they just are all kind of talking to each other in a very, very small audience.

Instead of the broader, like YouTube is where the video discourse takes place. X is where the, this is what's happening right now. Discourse is taking place, and if you choose to be off those platforms, even if you're going to some enlightened wild garden, you're leaving the discourse.

Mm-hmm.

So that makes sense.

But no, I think, I think it's underrated. 'Cause I was telling you offline at one point, well we also talked

Malcolm Collins: about the, the self isolation of the Democrats, which has lost them. A lot of access to platforms like Blue Sky. Is Democrats being trapped in a crystal by Trump

Simone Collins: Exactly

Malcolm Collins: like.

Simone Collins: But I was telling you how Abby Cox, who's a, a YouTuber, who I love, who just talks about fashion history, like it, you know, it shouldn't be political, but I mean the, the politics does shine through talked about how exhausting it is just to make like some Etsy listings which that's a before breakfast activity for, for you.

Yeah. So I think that, that it does come down also to people falling into progressive therapy culture, which like. Bricks them more and more and more. It sat their ability like, like a PC that needs to be de fragmented and they just like, after a certain point, like their Tetris wall is a mess and they can't break through anymore.

Like it just, it's gridlock. I.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, I, I totally see that. I love that analogy of the Tetris wall just filling up over time as more and more progressive ideas and social therapy norms fall into their lot.

Simone Collins: Yeah. As, as victimhood creeps. As the, as the, as the therapy takes over suddenly. Yeah. But

Malcolm Collins: anyway I love talking with you for dinner tonight.

Please reheat those chum B patties. And what I'd love, what I'd love to try tonight is maybe could you like. Toast some bread with butter for like a bun because we've got white bread. Right. I think we also

Simone Collins: have hotdog buns. Would you like a hotdog bun instead?

Malcolm Collins: White bread will taste better.

Simone Collins: Just white bread. Just like um, butter. Toasted white bread.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then cut up some onions and gimme some salad with it. Okay. And I'll just put it in little, like I'll make little sliders out of it. Okay.

Simone Collins: How many slices of toasted buttered white bread.

Malcolm Collins: Two. Okay. I mean, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna eat a ton.

Don't serve me more than four at a time. These things are okay. So four

Simone Collins: patties, two slices of white bread, salad. Cucumber, yes or no.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Cucumber.

Simone Collins: Cucumber, salad.

Malcolm Collins: And with the cucumber, you can make it either way. This time whatever's easier for you.

Simone Collins: Okay. And I'm not making more of that sugar dressing, therefore, because

Malcolm Collins: I don't need the sugar dressing for this because Yeah, you're having it

Simone Collins: with buttered toast.

And then maybe I can make flaky butter biscuits or something like that tomorrow. Which would be more,

Malcolm Collins: I just figured this would be like a fun, different way to eat it.

Simone Collins: Well, and, and the kids are really into sandwiches right now, so I can, you know, it's useful. Everyone wins by this, so thanks.

Malcolm Collins: Thank you.

I love you so much. You're, you're so pretty. Thank you for being my mated person as they, as they say in the rum bonded book that we learned bonded for life. Oh, no. Oh, it doesn't even make sense. Why would I like a woman for life if I'm not like supernaturally attracted to her? Well,

Simone Collins: no, that's, you know, you don't have to feel personally responsible for it because it was fake pressure moments.

I have no personal responsibility.

Malcolm Collins: It was forced on me by God, clearly. So

Simone Collins: it's not your fault Yeah. For everyone who criticizes you for, you know, clearly she's out of her league.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, she, it's not his fault. I just bonded to her. Don't you know, I, it's a romantic He didn't have

Simone Collins: a choice. Yeah. I love you.

Malcolm Collins: I love you too.

Simone Collins: You're perfect and hot. No,

Malcolm Collins: you are

Simone Collins: my,

Malcolm Collins: my bonding. You hit record, okay? Mm-hmm. So how's it going? You learn anything new today?

Simone Collins: The, the, the reader suggested YouTube video of a Marxist analysis of, what was that book called? Morningstar Milking Farm.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Tell, tell the audience about this 'cause I can't believe you went through this analysis.

Simone Collins: Well, I'm glad, I'm honestly glad a listener suggested it 'cause it's hilarious. And in the context of the episode that we ran on romantic, there was this extremely smutty romantic novel called Morningstar Milking Farm about a corporate facility where women, bring Mino Tars to ejaculation to create basically a Viagra pill for a pharmaceutical company because they just, it's the, it's the minar semen extract that produces the desired effect. Wait,

Malcolm Collins: is this, is this written for women? It appears because the woman, yes, it is a

Simone Collins: romance novel written for women.

And this one YouTube creator went to just do. Satire of it, like read it and then roast it online. And then she reads it and she's like, actually this is a Marxist critique of late stage capitalism. And she goes on this long rant about how like the facility represents late stage capitalism. And this two-faced, like, you know, front room is all cutesy farm decorations.

And then you go back and it's all sterile hallways and how, you know, overeducated women. Can't find a job and end up having to sell their manual labor to produce, you know, products in the name of vanity. And

it is, I highly recommend it, just milking farm Marxist, late stage capitalism on YouTube and you'll find it. And that was, it was very. It was very enlightening. Oh, great.

Malcolm Collins: Enlightening, enlightening, Simone. It was great.

Simone Collins: I, I, I don't think I could read that book. So I'm glad that I just read her her Marxist critique of it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I got obsessed with a series. That I, I read the entire thing, by the way. Oh, you did? Oh, yes. Yes. So I was, when I was doing that episode, because we had talked about like a mega verse in it. Mm-hmm. And I was like okay. I, I should like Google around like I'm, I'm doing, I'm like, okay, I'll Google around.

Are there any Omega verse stories that a guy wouldn't hate? Right? So, oh, for men.

Simone Collins: Omega verse, but for men, okay, go on. Yeah. I was like, okay,

Malcolm Collins: I'm looking for girl, girl stuff. 'cause I don't want, I don't want any guy in, in my romantic fantasies, I don would not want a guy fair. Because they're not gonna be, and that's why actually

Simone Collins: keep in mind that I, if you just, for example, Google and will search image, search the term Omega verse, you're getting all Boy, boy, boy, covers.

That are. Yeah. So I found one. So a lot of women also prefer erotic material that don't have any women in it for record. Oh yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Why do you wanna, I mean, I'm not into men, right? Like, so why do I wanna see men? But, so I found one Omega heroine wants her alpha villainous. And I read the entire, how many chapters was this?

141 chapters. Basically three books in, in the past few days. 'cause I enjoyed it so much. It's, it's. Just cutesy, basically.

Simone Collins: How does it compare to love advice from the Great Duke of hell, because I just died for that.

Malcolm Collins: I considered it about the same, but was a different vibe. How does it compare

Simone Collins: to the lesbian BDSM?

What were and what were those books called? I

Malcolm Collins: liked it more than Sunstone.

Simone Collins: Sunstone. Okay. So better than Sunstone. Equal to Love Advice from the great Duke of Hell.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but different. This is, okay, so this was about maximizing. When we talk about a story, I meant to masturbate a specific emotional subset.

Okay? Sweetness and people being really dedicated to each other as partners. That's what the sunstone series is about. No. No, it is too tangential. The, the plot is not as interest. So if you look at this story versus Sunstone, which is another good story that I'd recommend but it's about BDSM if you're interested in that culture.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I didn't like a lot of it is like, oh, I, I did all this stuff to like prep for sex. I did all this stuff to prep for whatever and, and to prep to make my partner. This is like, I help them with a test. Oh, okay. I help them get into medical school. It's just

Simone Collins: straight to the act of love, of service of help.

Malcolm Collins: Right. And, and I should note, if you're getting into this and you expect something not safe for work. It even censors, kissing and that is the most not safer for work thing that happens. I wonder

Simone Collins: if there's, so they must be catering to the laws of some country that don't, that doesn't permit showing lesbians kissing, which I'm thinking might be Russia because the Duma last year, or no, previously they had, they only added to this legislation had had passed legislation.

I think that that prevented any promotion in the media of gay or lesbian. Lifestyles. So I bet this is to enable, it could be Chinese distribution in Russia, but I don't know of Chinese regulation against gay or lesbian media. Whereas in Russia, I know that that is not permitted.

Malcolm Collins: Interesting. So, so as a guy, I'm forced to watch men in, in my erotic material, I'm forced to read books with men, and I don't, I don't want to do that.

But no, it's, it's a, you, you might like it, Simone, if you like, like,

Simone Collins: maybe, what was I gonna

Malcolm Collins: say? Stories that are like, it uses the omega verse trope just to make it so that there is no question, like it basically, it makes their relationship not gay because in an omega verse world. You have women whi women and they can have kids.

So, and you have men with

Simone Collins: men. Men get pregnant in the Omega verse all the time.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So basically it removes all of the problems with them being lesbians in terms of like the story. Oh.

Simone Collins: Because they can, one can get the other pregnant without there being

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And it creates. Whiz, like scenting and marking and stuff like that.

Mm-hmm. Replacements for modern concepts like giving someone a ring or something like that, which may have lost some of its power or like, oh, well we don't actually want to do like a real sex scene, so we'll just have her sniff the girl or something. Right.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I'm like, okay, whatever. Like, I actually appreciate that more because I didn't want a sex scene.

I just wanted them to be happy with each other. Right. Which is it, it, it's very interesting to see how it's done in practice because I had never actually read an Omega first book before. Wow. So, so now I am the worst that I actually found one that I thought was pretty decent.

Simone Collins: Yeah. See, okay.

Simone's not the only one. Except that sounds actually good. The books that I read actually, which means Matt got mad at

Malcolm Collins: her for gi giving, giving up that she actually reads all these pervy romantic books.

Simone Collins: I, I didn't, and you said, I only do it to go to

Malcolm Collins: sleep. And I'm like, you're on book number three of the series, Simone, you're not.

Simone Collins: It takes me at least 30 minutes to fall asleep and a book can help. At the end of that period, I'm more likely to fall asleep. I have to go through novel material every night. So even a 20 hour book isn't gonna last me. A time, time. It, it's like saying like, oh, how dare you refill your prescription of Ambien?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Because your prescription is filled with, with porn, Simone prescription bottle full of porn and

Simone Collins: you're the old man. He is like,

Malcolm Collins: I need this for my heart. Okay, all,

Simone Collins: all the readers say, I'm busted, but whatever. If I am.

Malcolm Collins: You are so busted, Simone. No, the

Simone Collins: problem is I'm still reading all systems read by Martha Wells and loving it.

The problem is I'm not going to sleep. I'm not falling asleep. It has to be. Well, you gotta get

Malcolm Collins: back to your, your werewolf, billionaire story, Simone. That's what's truly gonna put you to sleep. All right. All right. I'll get started here.

Speaker: Hey Octavian, how do you feel? Um, let me get my weight right here and I can milk in my mouth. You wanna get milk in your mouth? Um, I wanna get away from cold milk and surgery while get away and, and medicine too. You want cold milk and medicine? Oh, that sound a good plan. That sound a good plan. Okay. You got Mr.

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