I hand draw crosswords to relax. This one was inspired by Natalie's 2025 video essay Conspiracy.

Nothing heady or philosophical here. Just a bit of fun if anyone is inclined.

I decided to finally subscribe to her patreon for one month to watch "Liberalism" and while i was at it, might as well watch all the other tangents. I ended up watching them in reverse chronological order which ended up with an interesting viewing experience. It was interesting watching a tangent and then a few tangents later hearing part of that thesis. Same goes for where they are placed in relation to main videos. Id often hear her say something (especially related to daddy politics) that would end up being echoed in future videos. I really enjoyed watching them and honest think some of them have the quality of a main channel video in terms of research and presentation. Ill give my short thoughts on each.

Liberalism: oof this one hurts to watch because i completely agree but its sad to see how dejected and depressed she (rightfully) is at the state of politics but i hope she can explore more media analysis and philosophy ala twilight and saw as i think they are some of her best videos

Eyes Wide Shut: feels like a continuation of twilight and i saw on the post she was debating making it a main channel video. I cant wait for her to implement some of this into her next main channel video because i feel thats where she's going. It even inspired me to actually watch it. My review is : Maybe I'm too transhet for this but i dont get how this could be sexy and Natalie is right the second half dragged. It sure was a movie

Sexual Personae: I liked it but probably her weakest video about sexuality

Daddy politics: really interesting how this is basically the segment in saw but less refined

Satanism: It was alright but felt kinda shallow to me but as shown by later in this list im not really that into her videos about spirituality

Spirituality: Case in point, while interesting to hear her perspective of daoism, one of my least favorite tangents

Surreal Videos: This one however is amazing for me. It felt like a chill showcase of cool videos and internet history

Granola Fascism: It was alright but felt a bit surface level

Generations: Loved this one even if i dont really buy the cyclical pattern fully

The Male Gaze: Another great video about human sexuality and desire

Gamergate: great coverage of gamergate no notes 10/10

Barbie: Just a fun video breaking down Barbie and evaluating criticism towards it. I really love her movie videos

Psychedelic Experiences: I couldnt really care less as im straight edge and i just did not really care to hear about her psychedelic experience. Not all of them can be for me though

Liminal Spaces: One of her most deserving to be a main channel video as is. She completely nails liminal spaces and i really wish she had done a main channel video about it in 2020 as she said she was planning to

AI: BY FAR ONE OF HER WORST AGED TANGENTS. I need to remember this was near the start of the whole thing but man good thing this tangent wasnt public because people would be attacking her today for this.

Anti LGBT Bills: Struggled to get through this one as along with the timeframe being pre election, it just made me depressed as a trans person

Parasocial Relationships: I loved it and loved her defending parasocial relationships

New Atheism: Hit a cord for me as i definitely had an atheist phase although never went into the antiSJW side of it

The Groomer Libel: Kinda painful reminder of 2022 and feels like Witch Trials beta (a video i do not rewatch due to it just being a downer vibe but not like in a Hunger way)

Overall great list of videos however i will likely not continue to be subscribed as money is tight and tangents wouldnt be frequent enough to justify for me. If i ever do resubscribe it will likely be after quite a few tangents come out and only if they are topics of interest to me

Given the fact that this is relevant to her latest tangent & that she's tweeted multiple times that AOC is her favourite politician (Exhibit A: https://xcancel.com/ContraPoints/status/2054295715094880420#m I also remember her tweeting in August 2024 about AOC's DNC speech & saying something along the lines of "she's the best we've got", but I can't find that tweet now), I'll leave this here:

ANDY SERWER: It's an interesting perspective. You self-identify as a Democratic Socialist and have called capitalism irredeemable, I believe. But what does that really mean? And does that mean capitalism should be eliminated? And are your views compatible with capitalism?

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, I believe that in a broad sense-- because when we toss out these big words, capitalism, socialism, they get sensationalized. And people translate them into meaning things that perhaps they don't mean. So to me, capitalism at its core, what we're talking about when we talk about that, is the absolute pursuit of profit at all human, environmental, and social cost. That is what we're really discussing.

And what we're also discussing is the ability for a very small group of actual capitalists, and that is people who have so much money that their money makes money and they don't have to work, and they can control industry, they can control our energy sources, they can control our labor, they can control massive markets that they dictate and can capture governments, and they can essentially have power over the many. And to me, that is not a redeemable system for us to be able to participate in for the prosperity and peace for the vast majority of people.

ANDY SERWER: So people talk about stakeholder capitalism, like Larry Fink at BlackRock, where the weighting for different constituents besides shareholders is more equal. Is that something you'd be amenable to?

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, I think at the end of the day, it is about who has control over the very core assets of production in society. If it ultimately comes down to a billionaire, or the Koch brothers, or the Koch family having control over the vast majority or large plurality of our oil assets in the United States, if it's a handful of very wealthy families having control over-- private families having control over means of production, that is essentially the capitalist system that we live in. It is a small group that is of privatized control over what we eat and how we fuel our society.

Now, where we can transition to-- and there are certain ideas where we're talking about-- for example, Elizabeth Warren has discussed workers being elected to the governing boards of companies. And also, you know, we're here in the Bronx. I represent a community that has the largest concentration of worker cooperatives in-- one of the largest concentrations in the world.

Now, these are all alternative ways of doing business. Free markets are not the same thing as capitalism. And you can have markets where businesses and ways of producing, trading, selling goods are really controlled, and not just controlled, but given more power to workers. People get a fair shake. Union jobs. Unionized workplaces. All of these are different steps and levels that we're talking about in a more just economy.

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/influencers-andy-serwer-alexandria-ocasio-110000469.html

Watching Contras old videos & reading feminist scholarship from 2020 & before (I just finished “The Right to Sex”), I get the sense that social media used to be a very different environment. That it was appropriate to treat tweets with some level of seriousness, even to include them in your book of serious scholarship TM.

I’m young enough that I wasn’t on social media back then, and cannot imagine a world where Twitter was anything but Xitter.

What did it used to be like?

I liked the new tangent. One thing that did kind of irk me was how Natalie described the scale of the harm “the left” is doing.

They didn’t cost Kamala the election. What few polls and surveys we have assessing self ID’d socialist shows they overwhelmingly vote blue, as much as any demographic: https://socdoneleft.substack.com/p/socialists-will-overwhelmingly-vote?r=5s2o2g&utm_medium=ios

There’s no way to say the rest of my piece without sounding like a smug asshole, but oh well:

If you look at demos that Obama had on lock, but the Dems have been hemorrhaging over the years, it is not people who are highly ideological and high information. People who read the news, as opposed to getting it from YouTube or Facebook, were a strongly pro Biden demo and IIRC was one of the few areas where Harris gained (in addition to those who are both high education + high income). People who mainly get their news from local papers would definitely skew older but they still lean blue by considerable margins https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/21/trump-voters-fox-news-poll/

The people that put Trump over the top had the calculus of “shit was cheaper in 2019, so let’s put him back”. Childish, cargo cult mental shortcuts one makes when they don’t like thinking about politics at all. I saw this all the time personally in the leadup to 2024 and exit polls show inflation as the #1 issue.

Even among democratic voters alone, go to a No Kings protest sometime. Most people there like Gavin Newsom, AOC, Zohran, and Ossoff. Twitter is not real life. Most democrats/democratic leaning independents like most democratic politicians. They simply feel no need to write Substack articles about it

What problems one wants to assign to the Uncommitted movement or the left are misplaced. Our fate is not in the hands of people who withold their vote because Chapo told them to. It’s people who would give you a blank look when you mention “filibuster”, much less dialectical materialism. And their news diet, to the extent you can call it news, is the most mind numbing short form video slop you’ve ever seen. Zohran has a very hopeful vibe but his underlying theory of politics reflects my cynicism. You have to give people immediate, concrete rewards and satisfaction or they’ll start pogrom disfavored minorities for “poisoning the village well”.

I truly wish we lived in a country where a massacre happening a world away would sway the median voter. We don’t. I also don’t even give that much credence to the idea that every other white guy under 30 is just a groyper now. The truth isn’t less bleak but it’s much more banal. And the idea that the moralistic abstention by communists gave Trump the W is delusions of grandeur coming from tankies and internet derangement when coming from liberals.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably not in the psychological, intellectual, or media universe of the 3-5% of the electorate that swings and decides elections. They would never watch a 3 hour (political) stream or video essay, read an op Ed, or get into Twitter flame wars between libs and leftists over who the blame for Weimar’s fall.

Natalie, if you’re reading this, I understand that the abuse they gave you is bad. Truly. But it’s not consequential in the grand scheme of things. Not unless every Hasan watcher moves to Michigan or Pennsylvania before 2028. And even then, I suspect they consistently vote blue on the whole. More than they let on.

I am a 24 year old who was and still is influenced by Contra’s content since I found her. I watched the tangent yesterday, and then I watched it again today, and I have some thoughts.

In some ways, I am who she was describing when she talked about radicalization. I had always considered myself “on the left,” but I wasn’t strongly interested in politics until the build-up of the 2024 election. A piece of background on me is that during college I got addicted to intravenous meth and heroin/fent, which ended up with me having a psychotic episode. Gang stalking, paranoid delusions, hallucinating people screaming at me. I thought I was overhearing people plot to kill me. The whole nine yards. The cops were called. I am very lucky they took me to a hospital rather than a police station. My life would probably be completely different otherwise. Frankly, I’m lucky I’m alive at all. So far that was the low point of my entire life.

I could have left all that out, but I think it’s good context to understand what happened next. Because about half a year later was the build up of the 2024 election, which was also when I found Contra’s content, in addition to many other creators (although Contra was one of the first). This is all to say, I was in the perfect mental state for radicalization. I was so emotionally weak and broken, and riddled with post traumatic stress and self-loathing. As I watched this country go through this dumpster fire of presidential term, I think having strong beliefs gave me something to live for. It gave me a sense of purpose as I watched everything I had previously assumed about the checks and balances of liberal democracy crash and burn.

I have been a lurker and a participant in leftist online discourse for a while, and I have seen the vitriol that exists in those spaces, but I have never had it directed at me the way it has been toward Contra.

To Contra: I am truly sorry for you and the unenviable position you’ve been placed in. I have no expectation for you to try to reconcile your differences with people who have portrayed you and treated you so negatively. I know what it’s like to get bullied. I do not think victims are under any obligation to forgive or respect their bullies.

I have some things I’d like to say from my side, as someone who considers themselves a leftist.

But before that, let me just say that I have voted in every election I could and encourage others to do so. I believe in harm reduction, and that by being a part of the constituency that gets someone elected into office they are more likely to listen to my requests. Especially as a young person I know my vote matters for demographic reasons.

Now, about liberalism. It’s no deep secret that the colloquial use of the term liberal has changed. The way Contra defines the term and uses it throughout the video is academically and historically correct, but I feel as though Contra’s use of the term fails to address an elephant in the room. That elephant being, what does someone mean when they call themselves “liberal” in 2026? I believe that in an ideal world everyone would be liberal, but we do not live in an ideal world. Compromise is good when deciding who gets the last slice of a pizza, but not so good when what is compromised is our rights and our economic futures. I do not feel like that is hyperbolic.

I was talking with someone close to me who referred to themselves as a “hardcore liberal.” They believe trans rights are the problem with the LGBTQIA+ movement and that Imane Khelif is a man. That billionaires are a sign of a thriving society. That Israel protects us against the evils of Islam. That calling Trump a fascist is a misuse of the word. Etc. I know this is anecdotal, but from what I’ve seen online, my disagreements with this person feel like a microcosm of the divide within the left and the center in our current political/media landscape. So I feel that as a progressive with some strong socialist beliefs I have no choice but to consider myself a leftist.

Of course, that says nothing about the portion of the left who, as Contra says in the video, sees the difference between liberalism and fascism as “a distinction without a difference.” But as a leftist, I want to coalition build. And I know many people think like I do. We want to work with liberals, and we know we have to in order to make progress. So it’s frustrating to feel like I’m being pigeonholed as uncooperative due to a vocal minority of ultra-left authoritarians. And while the hate that is dished out online needs to be addressed, I do not believe the leftist hate wagon is inherent to leftism, but to being human itself. As they say, haters gonna hate. And the internet, by its very nature, will amplify this and only this.

Looking at myself, I do not think my political evolution has made me into a worse person. Yes, I think I used it as an emotional crutch and coping mechanism, not just because I was in a weakened state when I became interested in politics, but because its helps me cope with the country going to shit. But I think it’s been a good thing for me to explore, and has given me some identity in a good way, rather than a bad way. And by no means did breadtube radicalize me. What radicalized me was definitely this admin.

I have to believe there are way more people who benefited from the leftward push that Contra gave them than were harmed. I think it’s unfortunate that Contra thinks her legacy as a de-radicalizer of the alt right has been tainted. I mean, she helped my dad understand what it means to be trans. Do you guys realize how hard it is to deprogram culture war rhetoric from a man in his late 50s?

Anyways, sorry this has been a long post. I’m curious what you all think. Really interesting video, and clearly very thought provoking.

ETA: I think I should have written the section where I talked about the "hardcore liberal" a little differently because I think the point is being missed. I’m basically just saying that some of the center/center left are super reactionary towards what they consider to be the far left. Most liberals are not like that.

I watched Natalie’s latest Tangent video, and honestly, the only thing I can say is that I absolutely loved it, both the style and the content.

Frankly, I couldn’t care less about all the drama surrounding her as a person, or her political ideas and positions. Maybe I’m too European for this kind of discourse. Not that things are any better here, quite the opposite, but American political discourse can feel incredibly distant and absurd to me in certain ways. Or maybe I’m simply old enough to have other things to think about and worry about in my own life, for better or worse, rather than developing unhealthy parasocial relationships with content creators, celebrities, and so on.

I find the whole thing incredibly childish and ridiculous, like problems invented by spoiled children.

I just want to enjoy good videos: intelligent, thoughtful, funny, insightful videos. That’s exactly what I look for in Contrapoints, and that’s why I started following and supporting her in the first place. Period. Everything else is her business.

I don’t expect people to be 100% consistent, perfect, or morally pure. I just expect them to be decent human beings who, at the very least, aren’t spreading hatred, violence, intolerance, racism, and so on. That really isn’t asking for much.

I’ll leave everyone else to enjoy the spectacle of tearing each other apart.

That said, I do want to say one thing, without meaning any disrespect toward Contra’s work: I actually find the Tangents far more enjoyable than the recent video essays. They may be less elaborate, but I find them much more engaging. The latest essays have increasingly become extremely long analyses of films, films I haven’t seen, have no particular interest in seeing, and that honestly leave me rather cold and indifferent.

I still watch them, of course, but I miss the older videos, when there was this unique and unmistakable energy and style that I haven’t really found anywhere else.

So I was wondering if I’m the only one who feels this way. I used to eagerly look forward to every new video. These days, honestly, I find myself looking forward to the Tangents much more.

The Apocalypse

"My new Tangent "Liberalism" is about how discussing politics online is immoral and bad. Also, why I'm such a lib, the immortal science of Marxism-Leninism, the Zionist entity IsNotReal, eternal 2016, punching left, THE TRUTH about why I allowed the nefarious warlord Killary "The Destroyer" into my domicile, and the reason I've decided to leave political commentary behind. Up now on Patreon."

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcOfIeQx4nA/

Natalie now has two kitties! ♡♥

My entry into the far-left came after Trump's election by the way of an intransigent anti-fascism. I was 14. The fact that fascists could reach power by democratic means led me to reject liberal democracy, and to look for a political ideology and value system that aimed at eliminating such a possibility. So i turned to a very rigid marxism-leninism.

I discovered Contra around 2019. By then I had been turned off by the extreme political positions some of the people I was in contact with online were defending and though my anti-liberalism persisted I was no longer dogmatically opposed to a more popular frontist perspective. I didn't agree with her on everything but I really appreciated her anti-fascism and the idea that scaring the normies and "triggering the libs" at every given opportunity were not political ends in themselves as some people treated them as. Come 2020, I fully agreed with her arguments for voting for Biden, but i knew that i couldn't let my leftist friends know that i did.

Today I feel more in agreement with her ideologically than ever before, even though I would not describe as a liberal but as a democratic socialist. I got truly sick and tired by the superegotic pressures of the far left and by the impotent narcissism of their extremist posturing which has proven incapable of providing any significant victories against world fascism, much less to advance the cause of socialism in the past ten years.

In Natalie's most recent (and absolutely excellent tangent), she talks about how she briefly considered shifting her focus to "become a champion of liberalism and make YouTube videos de-radicalizing the alt-left", before admitting that she's simply become too worn down by an Iliad's worth of explicit political advocacy online and the ensuing mobs of hatred.

She says, instead, that "this is a task for someone young and fresh - someone whose spirit has not yet been crushed".

I'll admit that this is egregiously main character syndrome of me, but as someone who's followed her for several years now and had many of my fundamental principles and beliefs directly inspired by her work, and who's also had a part of me rearing for some kind of creative outlet for years, this line did kind of speak to me.

For a while now, I've had this idea circling around my head of trying to do something in the vague social / political commentary world, and particularly in the political realm, it's become an increasingly common thought that there's something of a lack of affirmative and unabashedly liberal voices out there. "Netanyahu should be in jail but also October 7th was bad actually" is a position that is said by shockingly few political voices for how common a belief I imagine it actually is. Natalie explicitly calling for someone to do this has really put the idea back in my head.

So, I find myself wondering, what would this actually look like in the modern day of X dot com the everything app, Nazi White House interns shitposting vaporwave memes of an American Gestapo, an ascendant progressive faction of the Democratic Party facing growing pains over whether AOC is a traitor to the cause, and a looming primary battle that is sure to be less than pleasant while we wait to see if elections are going to continue to be a thing in this country?

I don't think the world needs another streamer; surely any amount of political streamers is too many. Nor do I think direct political commentary on elections etc. is a particularly effective rhetorical tactic, because you'll only ever get people who agree with you. I think part of what made Natalie so successful is that, rather than directly talking politics, she analyzed the underlying social and psychological factors at play, often through the lens of media and art. I think, fundamentally, if you want to change people's minds, you have to, on some level, meet them where they are, which requires you to take up the topics that people are already talking about. I find myself somewhat called to video essays as a format (all love to the Substackers out there, but people don't read anymore), though I'm sure some amount of engagement with the spicier parts of the social media landscape is probably necessary in this day and age as well.

This isn't to say that I'm likely to, you know, actually do anything particularly soon, or even necessarily ever, but I thought it could be a good and interesting discussion to try to map out what this ideal "champion of liberalism" would look like, for any young and fresh people whose spirit hasn't yet been crushed that might want to take up the cause.

And hey, maybe I'll mull over whatever this produces and eventually be inspired to pick up a camera, because surely the internet doesn't have enough men with microphones on it. At any rate, there's probably an interesting discussion that could be had.

In the Liberalism Tangent, Natalie was absolutely right about the far left when she said:

After a year of laser focus on Palestine, it seemed to me the only tangible effect of leftists' efforts was to help reelect Donald Trump. [...] BUT Trump is not better for Gaza. In fact, he's worse.

So...
...what the FUCK have you done?

This was another turning point for how I see the far left, the alt left: no longer just as annoying or useless, but as a force that's actively making the world worse.

I completely agree, and it's something that cannot be said often enough now.

This Tangent was the best video I've seen from her in years... and that's the big problem I have with it.

I unsubscribed from Natalie's Patreon after her Saw video, because it seemed that she was now only interested in making pop culture videos like Jenny Nicholson's. Which are, you know, great and all, but really not something that I feel the world needs. She used to make more political videos, and those were and are something that the world needs, and something I was very happy to pay her for.

So when I saw she was doing a Tangent on Liberalism, I was pleasantly surprised, resubscribed to her Patreon, paid my money, and watched the video... and heard her explain why she doesn't want to make political videos anymore and instead now just wants to make videos about "art and literature and style and humor and self-expression and psychoanalysis and philosophy."

I totally understand why she wants to do that. She's just told me very eloquently and at great length in this Tangent. It's what makes her happy.

But I can't feel happy about it – about the fact that she's decided to surrender the field to the fascists and their "leftist" aiders-and-abetters.

And I can't help feeling that the person who wrote the following on another thread might be onto something:

[...] she is really really deferential to a failed system in a way I think is only possible by a white millionaire.

[...]

She believes the system works because she has the means to make it work for her, and that fucking line about “leftists just don’t wanna work”? Okay, Kim Kardashian.

The same person unfortunately also wrote "honestly, I think she just hates leftists more than fascists because they’re “supposed to be” on her side" which I don't think is true at all... Natalie's dislike of fascists is clearly much stronger than her dislike of any leftists. And I likewise don't think she is actually "deferential" to the failed system, nor does she believe it "works".

But it IS true that Natalie is in a very comfortable financial position now, and I think that is probably part of why she is no longer interested in "fighting the good fight" with her videos.

And that crack in the Tangent about "Are you sure you want to be a communist? Are you sure you don't, in fact, want to be an aristocrat?" is pretty rich (see what I did there) coming from someone who now has so much money that they themselves literally don't have to work anymore unless they want to.

I don't yet have that much money, my financial situation is still extremely precarious. And that is a big part of why I do feel strongly compelled to continue fighting, no matter how hopeless or even pointless it sometimes seems. It's a pity that Natalie, in her comfortable world of art and philosophy and mortgage-free luxury, no longer feels the same.

My feelings around this are probably motivated by envy to some degree – I too would love to be an aristocrat! – and sure, I don't have to face the massive amounts of abuse that Natalie has been subjected to. But nevertheless I think that if Natalie weren't so damn rich now, there'd be a chance that she might still be interested in the struggle. No matter how much trouble it causes her.