Theatricality vs. Dishonesty (Ask Yourself, Durianrider, Vegan Gains, Cory & Tara McCarthy)

- yen for me as a vegan it's easy to be
self-righteous shut it all down settle the animals free that's put the whole reason why my youtube channel exists is that I'm not really interested in these the answers to complicated question I'm interested of all the murky complicated you know moral gray areas [Music] a bonus yen there's always been a kind of theatricality to YouTube and theatrical does not necessarily mean fake or phony or insincere but I really do not hold it against other people if in their criticisms of me if they're in their disagrees with me they are a bit shall we say over-the-top some of my videos I speak in a very down-to-earth way exactly the same way I talk to you if we were face to face in a coffee shop and in a few here and there I get a bit theatrical myself I have a hilarious video where I'm denouncing Ryan from happy healthy vegan as I laugh at it myself did I have any emotional investment in that dispute with Ryan zero it's nothing to me being dramatic doesn't mean you're being dishonest the video was also honest it was giving voice to real concerns and real feelings I have just in a way that was a little bit unnecessarily aggravated and aggravating look if you really think I'm I'm angry at Ryan this way you know come on get real it's all a bit of a joke it's all of it theatrical and so I do have a lot of a lot of tolerance for a lot of patience for the antics from some of my fellow vegans and sometimes people really cross the line and then I feel the role of people men of principle people are gonna stand up on an ethical point is to say hey here's the line here's where you crossed it it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye and YouTube in the last 10 years has left content creators to fight amongst themselves and basically scream at each other whenever they think someone loses an eye and the YouTube sat back and pretended that they'll sort it out for themselves they'll draw the line as they may that's changed just in the last couple of months the way the game is played will now change because for the first time YouTube is standing up and drawing those lines there's a difference between theatricality and dishonesty there's a difference between putting out a video that may be a conflict between two channels and maybe being over-the-top being way more emotional and dramatic than you would be if you were talking the person face to face in a coffee shop or what have you there's there's a difference between that kind of heightened life approach to a debate or a dispute on YouTube and presenting an argument that's really dishonest that's based on lies or concealment now one of the important differences is that dishonesty destroys the credibility and theatricality doesn't look when a guy like ask yourself lies straight up lies about what Cory McCarthy said and why he said it when he makes up lies and makes them up in order to justify racism to vindicate racism when he's offering excuses for racism I think he's gonna find that destroys his credibility in a way that he doesn't fully appreciate you America was founded by whites for white there is no question that if you watch this quotation from Cory antara in its original context in the 40 minute context it is not a mere statement affect America was founded by whites for whites it is totally dishonest and totally misleading for this kid Isaac ask yourself it's totally dishonest for him to claim that this is merely a statement of fact that's his first claim then his second claim is that facts can't be racist Cory himself admits that in that video he was angry he was being hateful he was saying hateful things but you're still making excuses for him on the pretense that there's nothing hateful about this that it's merely factual okay your argument is based on concealment and deception and lies and the people who matter are gonna figure that out whether they're 10% or 1/10 of 1% that's the audience you should care about none of us should pitch our content towards the stupidest 60% of our audience you've got a gear content towards the most intelligent 10% 20% take your pick you to set a higher standard for yourself it is very very clear watching Cory antara in context you can watch the whole 40 minute video you don't have to take my word for it that they were making a prescriptive statement it's not just a dry fact where you can say facts can't be racist they were making a statement about what was what is what should be what ought to be America was founded by whites for whites it's a forty minute video that this is clip from nobody can watch that in context and think that it said as a value neutral statement of fact and Isaac ask yourself his defense of this is to claim one that it's merely a neutral fact to that facts can't be racist I've never heard someone using that line to make excuses for races before three that he's not making excuses for racist when he very clearly is and Ford and then treat this as if Corey McCarthy were in an academic setting just making a comment about something factually true about the drafting process for the American Constitution so many centuries ago that's a lie that's a lie Isaac and unlike Durham writers lies it's not a lie that's just said out of simple malice it's not a lie that's just meant to defame me or anyone else you are lying in order to make excuses for racism you're trying to vindicate someone who is a racist America was founded by whites for white it's also interesting to me that you try to excuse racism by claiming that I am wrong that I'm engaging in a psychological claim I'm engaging in some kind of unknowable leap of inference about someone's personal psychology motivation in claiming that they are a racist that's not the way politics works the word racist like the word separatist simply describes a set of goals in politics Cory McCarthy and Tara McCarthy their stated objective their policy objective they're pursuing is racist I don't have to make any claim about their psychology or their motivation they have stated that there goal is to kick out all of the non-white people to exile them I can say that is a racist political position that is a racist policy and you're dead wrong to say that I'm making some kind of tremendous leap of inference as to what motivates Corey McCarthy in the short term when you do something like this something dramatic and dishonest and you create a conflict between two channels of nothing in the short term it increases your number of viewers and a guy like durianrider was basically addicted to that durianrider kept on telling lies about people kept on creating new drama you know week after week month after month and in the short term of course he just saw that he was getting more attention he was getting more fame he was getting more money well in the last year that all ended and during writers conflict with me is a huge part of what it what ended it how it ended why it there's no doubt during writer defamed and denounced and told lies about so many other people but the situation with me was I was the first person to really stand up to him and he didn't just lie about my sex life or my divorce or my career or all kinds of personal things which he did which is serious criminal defamation and he's now apparently facing criminal charges women you know he lied about little details like what things I said on my channel that anybody could look up give you one example which is you know harmless I mean it's not defamation a criminal sense but I mean durianrider claimed that I had insulted the makers of the documentary cowspiracy that's a pretty famous documentary amongst vegans most people know that that movie that I had denounced the movie cowspiracy as a bunch of hippie now anyone can check that claim by going to my channel typing in the word cowspiracy in the search bar and finding my film review I did a movie review of cowspiracy back when it was a new film and you get my nuanced political science perspective on the film which is quite flattering that's quite a positive review now this lie may be meaningless I mean this lie it certainly doesn't compare to the the type of defamation which now has durianrider facing criminal charges in court but as meaningless or harmless as it may be it still destroys his credibility and these are the questions of the rules of the game that will always lie outside of you know the Adsense revenue scandal were they calling it ad ad mageddon or something okay now but you know the questions about D monetization of videos and censorship from YouTube nobody is gonna censor you for telling a lie of that nature you know what was my opinion about a movie in a movie review but the people who matter in your audience the most intelligent viewers you've got the people whose respect you need to earn the people the people in the long term you should be struggling to build a constituency with a meaningful level of trust and rapport with whether there are 10% of your audience or 30% there always gonna be a minority those people are gonna hear what you say and whether or not that Google at themselves one way or another when they find out that your argument is based on concealment and lies you will lose credibility okay Isak AKA ask yourself your whole argument is based on concealment and lies you complain that other people misrepresent what you have to say fair enough but you are constantly engaged in misrepresenting what other people have to say and if you feel that in my video where I mentioned you in passing and about two sentences if you feel I did a poor job of summarizing your view that's a reasonable criticism but what's not reasonable is to treat me as if I was speaking about you with malice when I clearly wasn't I wasn't intentionally misrepresenting you and now we have a stack of videos from you in which you do misrepresent my position you do lie about me about what I said why I said it etc and you are very clearly doing so with malice and above me on that look durianrider destroyed his credibility and in the short term he only got more viewers but in the long term now one year later you see the consequence of that his channel was hollowed out his whole status and the movement profoundly changed he'll never have the importance that he had before in long term he destroyed himself even though probably at each step of the way with each little controversy with each little instance of slander and defamation he probably shot saw a short-term boost in his numbers I mean ask yourself a lot of people have talked to me saying that used to be fans of your channel and when they engage with you on these issues the extent to which you misrepresented what they had to say and then at some point they figured out the sense of what you were misrepresenting what I had to say the extent to which you have lied and been dishonest and been dishonorable in this affair it will in the long term hollow out your presence on YouTube even if in the short term it gets a lot of action it gets you a lot of attention even someone with a channel that says shallow as Harleys I mean durianrider basically does diet advice you know long-distance bicycling you know he's not really dealing with politics in the same way that Isaac and I are he's not doing this issues but even for him when it's revealed that his arguments are based on dishonesty and concealment and deception even for him his credibility is destroyed so Isaac you can score some points and you can get some short-term attention with this drama the same way that during writer did but the people who matter one at a time however slowly over months or years are going to figure out that you're not just being over-the-top and dramatic you're not just being histrionic you're not just being theatrical you're a liar a bonus Yin