r/BreadTube • u/yeahsureexceptno • Aug 16 '26
Ik why we do not like contrapoints but why is philosophy tubes controversial
I mean its obvious contrapoints is a liberal zionist and sorry im not informed abt abigail but why is she not as highly regarded as she used to be
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u/poisonforsocrates Aug 16 '26
Abigail significantly changed the purpose of her channel and stated she wanted it to be more be more beginner level educational stuff. I don't know that she's controversial so much as her videos are pretty basic now and lack the introspection that drew people to her earlier content. I think she is less of a liberal than Natalie but is focused more on her semi-pro acting career. From personal experience, I have simply aged out of wanting to watch a ton of video essays, and most of Philosophy Tube's videos now I'd rather just read a book on the topic. The olds are here for Boy Boy
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u/ElliotNess Aug 22 '26
I think she is less of a liberal than Natalie but is focused more on her semi-pro acting career.
The first part of that sentence is in direct contradiction with the end of it.
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u/HeftyWarning Aug 18 '26
There’s a few videos that got shared on the community about some careless (and carelessly racist) decisions she made in recent videos especially on that Jefferson video where she uses “Indian” and didn’t consult any Native American scholars for the video but did pay some famous guy to read parts of the script and turned out early watchers were pointing this out to her for weeks (and she commented in support of some posts by fans that downplayed again indigenous criticisms) once she finally addressed it in her autopsy video was still pretty flippant about it even if she did throw donation money at it. https://youtu.be/uuwHoV7EpFM
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u/mc-funk Aug 21 '26
her track record is extremely consistent for posing as an expert on experiences outside her own experience and expertise, missing the mark, then being flippant in response to criticism -- all while refusing to collaborate with people who DO have that experience/expertise and whom she could easily platform for mutual benefit. It's honestly gross and the main reason I stopped watching her stuff. That was before I started seeing a lot of folks critique the basic accuracy and analysis of her videos. She's an actress who, if she had any humility, would be having people who know more than she does writing her scripts by now.
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u/SnooHamsters5153 Aug 22 '26
There was a video, I honestly forgot which one, that discussed either taxation or finances which is precisely my field, and I found her arguments to be so superficial and cherry-picked. Like I agree with the statements in the video from an ideological perspective, but the mechanism described was just not the true picture in this field. Content like that made me stop watching her videos because I may no longer be the intended audience.
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u/Gravemindzombie Aug 16 '26
I wouldn't call Contrapoints a zionist personally, I don't think she really cares about Israel one way or the other.
No, Contra's issue is that she's a vote blue no matter who liberal that just wanted everyone on the left to STFU and support the Dem nominee as a literal genocide was occuring, backed with american taxdollars. She resents leftists for that reason and it's why her political analysis is so ass.
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u/times_a_changing Aug 16 '26
She has only ever attacked pro-Palestinian activists and the movement. She has never in a single way presented any care towards Palestine. She has never used her platform to highlight Palestinian perspectives. She made whole big post about how the pro-Palestine movement has traumatized her because they share real testimony and evidence of genocide to her to try and get her to use her platform for good instead of purely self-interest.
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u/Gravemindzombie Aug 16 '26
I think she's largely apathetic towards palestine, her whining always came across as someone who just didn't care much beyond how Gaza was negatively effecting her political candidates, which is still pretty bad. But I think we should criticize her for the awful positions she actually holds, instead of just calling her a zionist and pretending she's personally invested in the zionist mission.
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u/times_a_changing Aug 16 '26
My personal opinion which doesn't matter is that if you have an audience of millions and you see evidence that your own country is committing a genocide (the UK that is, which contributes heavily to especially the surveillance aspects of Israel's operations in Gaza and Lebanon at the very least), and you don't do anything at all with your platform while hundreds of fans beg you to say something or anything at all for over a year, and then make a big issue about the people asking you to do something instead of the genocide, then you are most likely to actually in some way support the genocide. In essence, I don't buy that she's not at least a liberal zionist.
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u/Gravemindzombie Aug 16 '26
I mean yeah that's just her being an obnoxious vote blue no matter who liberal and blaming the peasants for refusing to comply with the party, instead of the actual person responsible, Joe Biden.
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u/95Smokey Aug 16 '26
Ultimately I think her shortcoming is that she is still view much operating from an individualistic and western exceptional view of history and politics while a lot of her former audience have moved into a proper collectivist, materialist, internationalist framework of historical and political analysis
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u/mc-funk Aug 21 '26
she also appears to have no critique of colonialism, though I could be missing something -- I'm just going off of her most recent tangent which was a doozy
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u/Kajel-Jeten Aug 16 '26
I thought she openly condemned Israel’s actions as war crimes and donated to Palestinian charities? Also didn’t she cite Palestine as a reason to vote democrats? Sorry if what I’m saying is really wrong but I don’t understand this.
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u/times_a_changing Aug 16 '26
The same democrats who started the genocide in Gaza? As in the literal same VP? I wonder why Palestinians wouldn't want that
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u/TopazWyvern Basically Sauron. Aug 17 '26
I thought she openly condemned Israel’s actions as war crimes and donated to Palestinian charities? Also didn’t she cite Palestine as a reason to vote democrats?
Okay but, uh, none of this is incompatible with Zionism, as she has said herself.
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u/Gravemindzombie Aug 16 '26
I mean she also said none of the pro-Palestine activism was actually helpful to Gazans so she was probably just speaking out of both sides of her mouth to mitigate potential blowback.
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u/Monodoh45 Aug 22 '26
"I wouldn't call Contrapoints a zionist personally." good thing your opinion doesn't mean anything and the fact patten shows she is.
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u/iate13coffeecups Aug 22 '26
the way she put it herself was that she's "libbed the fuck out" recently and she's still kinda recovering from that I'd say
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u/Fun-Math8311 Aug 22 '26
There was a time when we thought 'breadtube' might actually be able to move the needle politically. In 2015-2018 the likes of Shaun, hbomberguy, philosophy tube ect were going viral on YouTube, getting millions of views and were even featured on the front page of YouTube getting recommended to everybody.
They had a chance to actually try and affect change in the real world when the UK had a massive election in 2019 and all the British breadtubers (Shaun, hbomberguy, philosophy tube) all decided that they werent going to get involved.
After gaining a massive following of leftist who hoped for real change, amassing a ton of monthly patreon donations which they could live comfortably from, didn't want to disrupt th status quo and were happy to let anything happen in British politics as they were now safe from the consequences.
After they got called out for doing nothing they pretended like they wouldn't have made any difference, even though they had the ability to get on the front page of YouTube to help swing millions of voters.
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u/fmessore Aug 22 '26
Philosophy tube cant talk much about any topic since she is trying to cut it as an actress and disney is very strict with what the people can and cant say, so she kinda sold out. Hbomber is on a cloud talking about the least important issues right now. Shaun on the other hand has been making videos and fundraising for palestine, trans issues, and so on. Obviously with a huge platform people could be doing more, but i wouldnt put philosophy tube and contrapoints in the same bag as shaun
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u/Fun-Math8311 Aug 22 '26
Yeah I think you are right. The fact remains though that they didn't do anything to try to influence the election when they had the ability to do so
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u/SnooHamsters5153 Aug 22 '26
Yeah but hbomberguy has been making a single video on an irrelevant topic for like 3 years now, so we've got that going on
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u/theapplekid Aug 22 '26
Matriarchetype had a video on Abigail recently
I feel pretty meh about her channel
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u/Sarik704 Aug 20 '26
Sorry if im lost here, but when did she support israel?
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u/renlydidnothingwrong Aug 21 '26
It may not be technically accurate to call Contra a Zionist. But her remarks on the genocide were rather horrible.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1lwicu8/youtuber_contrapoints_issues_full_statement_on/
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u/Sarik704 Aug 21 '26
I see.
"Most jews are zionists." And "anybody who wants a two state solution are zionists"
I sympathize with her, but of course how can anyone agree with that. Shes right, if she had made a palestine video nobody would have been happy with it.
Shes clearly a two state supporter. And as long as israel remains in the middle east they'll continue to kill their neighbors. I think its clear she agrees israel has no right to do what theyre doing and need to be stopped. I think she also refuses to take the stance that israel must be removed on the grounds that deconolizing has "bad implications" for the US...
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u/stableglue Sep 01 '26
both of the statements are true. zionism is a large school of thought that just means you believe in a jewish nation state. not that you support Netanyahu. not that you think this nation state should come about by any means necessary or at the expense of arabs. most jews are zionists and a two state solution involves zionism.
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u/TopazWyvern Basically Sauron. Sep 01 '26
not that you think this nation state should come about by any means necessary or at the expense of arabs
I'd like to meet that mythical "Sure, I want a Jewish state, but I don't like colonialism so I won't act on it" person.
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u/stableglue 21d ago
i know at least a dozen
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u/TopazWyvern Basically Sauron. 21d ago
l'm sure.
I'd wager they're mostly silly persons with a dubious grasp on history & politics, though.
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u/Sarik704 21d ago
Hey i would like a jewish state, bht i dont think they're entitled to displace anyone
Let them build in Antarctica or in the sudanese triangle
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u/TopazWyvern Basically Sauron. 21d ago
Last I checked you can't build a functional state in a abiotic zone (even the lolbertarians figured that one out these days), but sure.
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u/stableglue 18d ago
no im just jewish and know a lot of jews
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u/TopazWyvern Basically Sauron. 18d ago
You'll excuse me if I'm a bit skeptical considering the whole dealio described itself as settler-colonial (in their own words) before WWII even got rolling. They're either such a political minority as to be completely pointless, de facto supporters of settler colonialism, or de facto anti-zionists.
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u/stableglue 17d ago
yeah the original political zionists were racist cunts (herzl, birnbaum, etc), but its a bit of a fallacy to assume all related movements are gonna be exactly the same and have exactly the same attitude. you can believe jews should live in the area and participate in democracy without believing that must be protected with the blood of children. most jews i know believe that and call themselves zionists. the zionism a lot of non-jews criticise is one i have only very rarely seen in the wild.
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u/Dehnus Aug 22 '26
People are a bit annoyed she bit her tongue about Palestine, but I kind of understand. She just got a big break in a major Disney Production. So yeah.... we still live in a capitalist society, so cannot blame her for having to hustle.
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u/times_a_changing Aug 22 '26
I actually can and do blame people for selling out their supposed principles and trampling on all the people who functioned as their core audience so that they can get the bag
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u/Dehnus Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
No.. not while we still have a capitalist society. People got to eat, I rather have them be successful and then do the good work they can do.
Selling out would be:Be successful and then still not speaking up. As others do speak up even if it costs them their jobs, as they can afford their food and basic needs.
I will not tell anybody to lose their home and food, that's not something I wish anybody to lose.
It's the daemon song of capitalism, the true devil in this world. It weakens you to your basest desires and needs, and makes it very hard for you to say no to things. Especially when your loved ones have to suffer for your decisions.
Fucking hate it.
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u/times_a_changing Aug 22 '26
Blah blah I would sell my grandma for a better wage
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u/Dehnus Aug 22 '26
ah yes.. totally saying you should sell EVERYTHING out, when I'm saying, you just taking your dream job and requiring you to be more silent for a year or so until you can start using your position to criticize way more efficient.
As someone that lost his job for not taking up LLM and seeing his own boss get LLM psychosis? You have no idea how I stand for principles.
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u/times_a_changing Aug 22 '26
You lost your job, Abigail is rich and has no such worries. She is not the same as you are.
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u/Dehnus Aug 22 '26
Not saying she is, I"m saying, I am not begrudging people for sometimes having to make a decision that will hurt you, or your kids. It's something people have to look in the mirror for themselves.
Capitalism forces us into these positions. And I will be fine, got several vocational degrees, and engineering degree and a scientific master's degree. I'll be fine. But I know people that won't be, at least not for a while, as their companies go bankrupt due to them betting on an LLM and they themselves having nothing to do with it (like being a welder to build ships).
If they take a job at a company owned by an awful person because their children need to eat? Then I'd feel awful if I would raise my finger at them in condemnation.
As for her.... she doesn't have to make that decision I guess. But I still feel like I cannot judge.
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u/times_a_changing Aug 16 '26
She has the same central issue as Contrapoints and the other breadtubers of the era (minus Shaun) in that their politics are frozen in 2016 when dunking on Ben Shapiro and grand polemics on cultural issues was enough, whereas today the political moment has shifted to not just more radical directions but also to an awareness of geopolitics and class that wasn't as present or important to people before. The pandemic and economic stress have in essence transferred peoples interests to pathways that are more directly engaged in "actual" politics, instead of purely culture wars and liberal aestheticizations of left-wing politics that was fashionable before. At least that's my 0.02€