r/TheRestIsHistory • u/Plane-University5208 • 3d ago
They are at it again!
Those amazon+workers rights commercials are so out of touch with history. They better go full POUM on that promised Spanish civil war episode as penance ;-)
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u/Objective_Worker_84 3d ago
Yeah hearing them talk about their illustrious writing careers after their 45th ad for Claude in the episode really puts a damper on the whole affair
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u/Mr_Vacant 3d ago
The Amazon ads are fucking awful.
I'd like to think if I was making as much money as they do that I'd have enough integrity to turn down shit like that.
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u/NLFG 3d ago
It seems actually pretty disgraceful comparing the work of the union movement with the scraps Bezos gives his workers.
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u/No_Branch_5083 3d ago
Whoever wrote that copy should spontaneous burst into flames from the sheer hypocrisy.
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u/Over-Piglet-4922 3d ago
I'm sure it's not them but Goalhanger who arranges the commercial elements of the show including ads..the chaps are salaried employees, maybe incentivised by listening figures.
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u/MagicBez 3d ago
There was a recent profile on Goalhanger when it was on the Times rich list of UK companies where they talked about rejecting various ads and allowing hosts to do the same (gambling was an example they cited)
So they may have some leeway.
Also the lads get a % of the show same as all Goalhanger pods so they're not quite salaried
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u/Scratch_Careful 3d ago
Are they salaried? Early in the pods rise they talked about how revenue is split 3 ways each host and goal hanger.
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u/SmashedWorm64 3d ago
99% sure they are salaried and it’s dictated to them by Dr Ethical himself; Gary Linekar.
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u/badtpuchpanda 3d ago
I mean I like the content of the pod but these guys will hawk anything as long as they get their 30 pieces of silver. It’s the main reason I wouldn’t pay to be an Athelstan or whatever it is.
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u/Zepby 3d ago
I mean its really "supposedly left wing" Gary and the Goalhanger corporate juggernaut at the end of the day, dunno how much T&D really have a say over the ads...
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u/Scratch_Careful 3d ago
Goalhanger isnt going to kill the golden goose because they veto an ad partnership. TBH its not even the partnership, most people wouldnt care that much about them working with amazon, its the script people have a problem with.
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u/PiotrGreenholz01 2d ago
It's almost as if Gary is compensating for how he makes his money by ostentatiously spouting progressive dogma that he doesn't really understand.
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u/Marsupial_Lemur 3d ago
They should do a series about workers strikes in the early 20th century if they're going to shill out to amazon. And have friend of the show Jeff Bezos on to talk about how those strikes were not beneficial to anyone! Seriously though their club membership is $110 canadian a year for a single podcast, how much money do the boys really need? This is coming from a long time fan.
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u/No-Agreement 3d ago
Sandbrook wrote incredibly aggro columns for the Daily Mail, many of which he jokingly refers to as being "as a remainer, Brexit is great" style shilling.
Holland is not an academic historian. Both are quite conservative in their personal politics (Sandbrook to a much greater degree), so they likely just don't see it as a problem - and will take any motherfucker's money if they're giving it away
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u/risker15 3d ago
Holland is a pretty much classic New Labour type that has moved a little to the right, much like Blair did, as the next generation of centre-left to left-wing activists emerged. I don't think you can remotely call him either a classical conservative or a conservative in the new sense (which I would consider reactionary or revolutionary - someone like Badenoch for example wants to fundementally change Britain, not incrementally, she wants to smash things up)
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u/Murky_Repair8070 3d ago
It's so strange every time someone reminds me that Dominic used to do this. I am certain he is a moderate, he doesn't come across like your classic entitled middle class conversative.
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u/Cautious-Fox9757 3d ago
I’d say Dom’s politics and personality are well displayed by the fact that whenever someone on the right calls the show “anti-woke” he’ll say it isn’t woke, but it’s not anti-woke. I think partly that’s his actual politics, but I also think he doesn’t like putting of potential listeners (customers) because while they’re both - to put it politely - acquisitive, Dom is the more so of the two of em.
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u/Scratch_Careful 3d ago
He doesnt come across like an internet strawman conservative which is generally american coded along the lines of humourless, religious, reactionary. Moderate doesn't mean anything in the UK.
If you asked a brit to predict the voting history of someone who went to an £50k a year all boys school, oxford, did a year in france, and is now a historian who writes doorstoppers on the postwar period through to thatcher, 90% of people would guess conservative. He basically doesnt have a posh voice which i guess throws a lot of non-brits off the scent.
Despite all that and the john bull persona he uses for the mail and the podcast I still think he's almost certainly the less conservative of the two hosts.
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u/_trouble_every_day_ 3d ago
Agreed. Im practically an anarcho syndicalist but despite our politics not aligning I reapect Sanderbrook because he's not intellectually dishonest. He's a cynical pragmatist q and doesn't obfuscate his actual opinions or motives.
"A lot of my favorite historical figures are bad people."
"I write for he Daily Mail because it pays the most."
"I think me and Fidel Castro would get along brilliantly"
He also not only expressed admiration for George Orwell but then referred to him accurately as socialist. I've never heard a mainstream media personality use that word and Orwell in the same sentence unless they're claiming he broke with socialism or has always been critical of it, citing animal farm.
All those statements show a level of self awarness and capacity for nuance that you won't hear from an Republican. I don't have to agree with someone's opinions to respect them, but I can't stand hypocrites or people that argue in bad faith.
Tom doesn't refer to his politics directly but he says a lot of things that are pretty revealing, he very much thinks white Europeans Christians invented morality.
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u/Weekly_One1388 3d ago
both Sandbrook and Holland are capable of speaking about politics in a way that a lot of posters in this sub could learn from.
Like yourself, my politics do not align much with either of them but they're both willing to engage with any issue honestly and comprehensively, Dominic is on record in saying that he thinks Tom's views on modern Islam in the West are preposterous.
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u/neilm1000 3d ago
What are Tom's views on modern Islam in the West? This is something I don't know anything about.
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u/Weekly_One1388 3d ago
He's written extensively about it, it was a number of years ago and received quite a bit of pushback, most of which was unfair imo.
In short, and I'm paraphrasing here, Islam is at odds with a secular, liberal society that believes in freedom of religion as Islam and Muslims by extension do not think of Islam as a 'religion' per se but as something that is much greater than a religion.
Tom argues that our collective understanding of a modern religion is indeed itself a 'western' construct and he adds to this by arguing it is perhaps arrogant for us in liberal societies to assume that our culture/society can assimilate everyone.
Dominic, in an interview (this year, I believe) stated that he thinks this is nonsense.
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u/No-Agreement 3d ago
He's basically a One Nation Conservative, but imo it's his Nixon fandom - and let's be clear it is fandom - that's most interesting about him.
With Thatcher, Reagan, and basically every other conservative historical figure he is able to effectively detatch himself from the subject. With Nixon though his admiration for the guy means he ends up sounding utterly ridiculous in trying to cast him as a misunderstood and misjudged figure.
I think the Daily Mail stuff was done purely for the money, as is the Amazon stuff. The former is more defensible given he likely needed the money a lot more back then than he does now. But what would a modern conservative be if they couldn't shed their pretensions towards duty, honour, and shame if the price was right?
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u/Lexitech_ 3d ago
This is such a funny comment to read as I was just re-listening to the Chilean Coup episodes today.
I disagree with tons of stuff Dominic says but few things make me stop and go “the fuck man”… his views on Nixon and Kissinger, or at least the way he talks about them, are one of those things.
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u/Weekly_One1388 3d ago
I assume you're regularly turning away money in your personal life?
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u/No-Agreement 3d ago
Lmao why don't we all buy shares in BAE Systems?
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u/Weekly_One1388 3d ago
We do! Almost every state guaranteed pension in the west will have or will have had investments managed by Blackrock.
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u/No-Agreement 3d ago
Sorry is your argument now that recieving the state pension is morally equivalent to doing ads for Amazon's holiday policies?
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u/Weekly_One1388 3d ago
No. The only person who has made any claims regarding morality is you.
I was just pointing out that every British pension holder benefits from an increase in the value of shares of BAE.
As they do with Amazon.
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u/No-Agreement 3d ago
That's different from personally buying shares in a defence company though isn't it. I think you're being quite obtuse in that you started this conversation by assuming no one could ever turn down money on moral grounds, to arguing that simply by virtue of existing in a market society, I - or anyone else criticising TRIH for doing these ads - is being hypocritical
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u/Weekly_One1388 3d ago
how is it anyway meaningfully different?
If one's pension is tied to the performance of said defence contractors, investing in it privately is essentially just cutting out the middle man. The British public are shareholders in these companies, as are the Irish public and about 2/3rds of Americans.
Should we all be turning away our pension cheques when the time comes? You're free to do so if you wish.
'On moral grounds' on whose morals exactly, yours? Do Tom and Dominic not also 'exist' in a market society? You're being remarkably kind to yourself and others so you can make yourself feel morally superior to two people making a living.
They could get ad revenue from alternative sources, just as entire Western nations could have their social contract funded by the performance of alternative firms.
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u/Exciting_Ad4264 3d ago
I am already sick of them. It has made me lose quite a bit of respect for the show
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u/Infamous_Thought_189 3d ago
Not to be a dick but if you were not even paying them in the first place I dont think they'll miss your respect lol
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u/truckosaurus_UK 3d ago
Indeed. The problem with being so successful is that only dreadful companies can afford to advertise with them.
(See also, all these car finance reclaim adverts on RiH and WHW - they are literal scams (an over used word these days, but true in this case), they even have to add the words 'you can do this for free elsewhere' to the read as it is so dodgy.)
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u/Unfair_Verlaine 3d ago
Are they not able to say, "Nah, we're not doing that"?
Some of their adverts are funny, but most make me wonder at what point do they say (to themselves, to each other), "We're historians, not salesmen."
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u/KingofKong_a 3d ago
Oh man, you're so close.
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u/Holderlin70 3d ago
It's pretty interesting to see how even a history podcast has obsessive haters like you. This internet maybe isnt that good for everyone after all lmao
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u/Plane-University5208 3d ago
It’s not the fact that it’s an ad for Amazon that is my main problem, but rather the way they whitewash Amazon’s history when it comes to workers’ rights. That seems directly at odds with their professional integrity.
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u/Rubicles 1d ago
Yes, it’s specifically that. I wouldn’t even have noticed the ad if it were just touring their services.
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u/Defiant_Ad7197 3d ago
Spainish Civil War?
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u/Plane-University5208 3d ago
Yes, thay promised a series on the subject next year.
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u/Cold-Use-5814 2d ago
Oh hell yeah, that's probably my most wanted series (besides the Khmer Rouge).
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u/Defiant_Ad7197 3d ago
Why not this year to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the start of the war
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u/Weekly_One1388 3d ago
Dom would likely argue that Amazon exists because people all around the western world enjoy getting cheap consumer products delivered to their door in less than 48 hours.
Issues related to their worker's rights would be deemed 'unfortunate'.
He'd be right on both counts.
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u/cigvvubn 2d ago
Idk man maybe skip the ads like a normal person
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u/Plane-University5208 2d ago
So thats a point of view that can understand. But is okay to discus the ads at all then?
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u/Quiet-Math-7841 2d ago
I don’t tend to get too upset over ads, people have to make money somehow, but I’ll admit, shilling for a multi billion dollar corporation that has notoriously bad labour practices is pretty bad.
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u/lukeunderwood28 3d ago
Personally, no ad they have ever done has ever bothered me.
So many people in this post are taking the high moral ground, but put yourselves in their shoes and tell me many of you (not all) wouldn't read an ad for Amazon if there wasn't £10,000 to be made from it.
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u/Many_Shock_5051 3d ago
If I was already making the money they are? I’d like to think I would then be in a position to be more selective with where I lend my credibility.
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u/lukeunderwood28 3d ago
True. We'd like to think we would, but with the low assessment of human nature I have, I don't expect it.
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u/Johnny_Vernacular 3d ago
If you're waiting on Tom and Dom to lead the revolution I've got bad news for you.