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Contrapoints - Opulence
- Thread starter CoolOff
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Thanks for sharing, bumping this to signal-boost it further.
This bit in particular broke my heart:
What are you on about?
You said this:
Directly in response to me saying it is, and it has.
Once again though, I just detailed what Natalie did to upset the community in a light that doesn't diminish the fact they're conscious choices in the knowledge of past issues she's had, and suddenly I must think Natalie is actually truscum - I don't. An interesting facet of that though is that's always the same thing that gets thrown back:
- Natalie has made hurtful remarks toward non-binary people before.
- Natalie recently invited truscum to contribute to her show, someone that doesn't think non-binary people exist.
"Oh so you think Natalie is truscum now"
It's like, no - I never said that. I just listed what she's done recently to cause upset in the community. Yet other people connect those dots for themselves and then throw it at us. Could you not? Because people aren't even discussing why they're upset or why it's an issue, they're just saying it is one and people already can barely let it pass before offering some "well, actually...".
That's what I'm speaking to. I say it to you and you tell me that there's nothing to discuss. That my issues aren't being diminished or distracted from by focusing on the feelings of the very person that caused the upset. That it's all about Natalie because even at this stage you still can't fathom the conversation being focused on the community affected over the personality affecting it.
Well if you want to think that what she did is not a mistake, then we just have to agree to disagree. Regardless of whatever apology she makes or reason she gives, the way she handled all this is still a mistake.
So er... Enby and trans friends, how're y'all feeling?
Sorry if it sounds awkward saying this, but I've ranted enough about the people at the center of the controversy at this point, instead of focusing on the victims. It's only fair that I/we should listen to both NBs and trans people who're already in here participating, and those who want to participate but don't feel safe doing it. So, again: how are you feeling?
aka "this is now an NB/trans appreciation & listening thread"
(I don't know any enbies IRL, I'll confess, but of the few enby personalities I know, ThoughtSlime is by far my favorite. Big lovable goofball. Quite smart, too.)
mael : ça t'aide si je te fais un résumé en français ? :p
Sorry if it sounds awkward saying this, but I've ranted enough about the people at the center of the controversy at this point, instead of focusing on the victims. It's only fair that I/we should listen to both NBs and trans people who're already in here participating, and those who want to participate but don't feel safe doing it. So, again: how are you feeling?
aka "this is now an NB/trans appreciation & listening thread"
(I don't know any enbies IRL, I'll confess, but of the few enby personalities I know, ThoughtSlime is by far my favorite. Big lovable goofball. Quite smart, too.)
mael : ça t'aide si je te fais un résumé en français ? :p
Just seems weird to intentionally adopt a Marie Antoinette fashion sense and then get surprised when people take you for out-of-touch based on your words and actions
Her content has in the past literally had problematic aspects to it that downplay nonbinary experiences, and she's reiterated how she feels about this on Twitter in situations like this :
When you don't stand with the "vanguard" youth by acknowledging and then accepting it as being 'old school', you do nothing but calcify and sanctify the demon of telescoping bigotry we find in every layer of our strata. We pathologically close and lock the doors we spend so much time opening and the youth must always struggle with those closest to them for basic, fundamental acceptance and our future always suffers for it.
There is no virtue in being 'old school' and the tired acceptance that one is will never be a foundation that anything worth saying or hearing can be built upon.
It's actually pretty simpleish. Contrapoints has said a lot of questionable things about nonbinary people in the past, including talking about how she fears for trans acceptance because they exist. She received a lot of flak for this each time, would retreat from social media, barely give an apology, and repeat it. In this latest video, she featured a guest star who is known as Buck Angel, a transman. She tweeted at him as well thanking him for being a part of the video, and retweeted his separate tweet about how proud he was to be a part of it.
Buck Angel is also a truscum, or a transmedicalist, where he adamantly believes that gender dysphoria is required to be trans and that nonbinary people are not valid. He regularly works with the worst TERFs out there, and gleefully taunts people for losing their healthcare if he disagrees with them on Twitter, as well as a whole other host of transphobia. She provided a platform to this guy after her history with nonbinary people, so people are understandably upset with her and the amount of times that she throws people under the bus.
Contrapoints posted behind her patreon wall, which requires you to pay, that she had a good reason for this and all will be revealed in her next video, so tune into that! The cowriter for the video spoke up and said "I recommended him as I knew him as a famous transman, and was not aware of all that junk." essentially. But, they said they can't speak for Contrapoints and to wait and see what she has to say especially after her comment on Patreon.
People reached out to the rest of the Leftist Youtube community to make comments as they're all close friends, and some of them were included in the video. Very few of them are actually focusing on the people hurt by her repeated actions and instead focusing on their next videos, or how there's no way to appease a mob so why bother, most of which is upsetting to the people who have legitimate grievances with the things that Contrapoints has said.
Pretty wiped on this but I'll contribute later.
For now though, the fact the issue is on page 1, the dismissals from page 2 onward and this on page 10 - with a thread of concern over Natalie in-between - illustrates the problem pretty well. It takes 10 pages of being dismissed and mocked or insulted before someone apart from the community focuses on the those affected instead of the personality affecting them.
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But what kind of discussion do you even want to have about the community affected when it's a consensus among us? I would hope that there is no doubt here about how valid and important the concerns are, so it's no surprise the discussion moves to different facets of the controversy.
Like what exactly are we even discussing here?
A ce niveau je suis même pas sûr.
I always thought that most of Contrapoint's content while they can be informative were always more about how Nathalie liked dressing up and doing vids more than any deeper message.
I mean we get in the Cinemasins paradox if you view her content that way but still.
I'll be frank, while I do believe that supporting and acknowledging non binary is important and the crux of that is really about education.
I'm as uneducated as can be, like I have no idea what "truscum" even means (although I can surmise it's probably not a nice thing to be) and from etymology I can guess what "transmedicalist" means.
That's probably why you won't see me be that active in this kind of discussion, so please be patient.
On the last point, I don't understand why anyone who's friend with Wynn has to somehow be an advocate one way or another.
The medium being rather massive because it's fucking twitter means that if a decent percentage of the audience has a question to ask that means an avalanche that looks like a mountain just fell on you.
2014's trauma probably didn't heal for some and it feels like a reenactment for them.
It's not easy to take into account other people being hurt when you're hurting as well which would explain this clusterfuck that took over part of my TL.
I agree with this completely. However, it's worth noting that PT and Lindsey's responses to the situation went beyond rightfully saying "leave me out of this shit" to downplaying the issue at hand. I don't think they should be under any expectation to have to answer for Natalie's decisions, but if they are gonna wade into the discourse, they should at least be able to acknowledge why people are upset in a non-disingenuous way.
Contrapoints content is absolutely meant to be informative with a deeper message. I don't really know how you can really see it any other way when they're incredibly long video essays.
Truscum and Transmedicalist are essentially the same thing, and I was trying to define them for you in that previous section. They're often called "Truscum" because they believe that there is one true way to be trans, and that is to have dysphoria. It ignores the concept of gender euphoria and often has very very thinly veiled bigotry against nonbinary people included with it. In the case of Buck Angel, he has been outspoken about his views on Nonbinary people and they're not great to say the least.
Gender Euphoria is the concept of positive feelings that someone has by presenting a certain way, changing their pronouns, or medically transitioning. It is entirely possible for someone to not feel any discomfort towards their current body but to feel much happier when they transition. This kind of person would still be considered trans and valid as we don't really measure whether someone is 'allowed' to call themselves trans based off a certain threshold of suffering.
I mostly agree with your last point, but I do still feel that the comparisons to Gamergate are a bit much in these situations. And those people decided to call a lot of the people who are upset with Contrapoints bad faith actors who could never be appeased.
I guess to answer this, I'm pretty tired of these conversations if I'm being honest. It's tiring for people to uphold this one youtuber as the one true trans voice, and anyone who disagrees with her as some kind of bad faith attack. Or for people to excuse her actions as trying to learn when she's never demonstrated that to us. It's tiring for cis people to take her opinions as gospel and use that to beat down the rest of us, especially when the vast majority of information they have on trans issues is from her. They realistically don't know if she's saying or doing anything wrong, but they know better than us, the rest of the people who live this life every day. "The left is eating itself" "Outrage culture" and "Purity tests" are all terms that seriously need to go away as more than anything they're just used to stifle legitimate criticism.
Pissed that yet again people are tripping over themselves to prove that they're only allies when it's convenient to them. I hate the posts that blindly defend Natalie. I hate the posts that ask us to compromise because hey, she's doing good work. I hate the posts insinuating that there's some unavoidable rift between binary and NB trans people. I hate the posts that build strawmen about how we're the ones in the wrong. I hate the posts that spend paragraphs upon paragraphs waxing poetic about what is ultimately a very simple issue: a person with a history of being shitty to NB people has, surprise surprise, done it again.
Engage the community affected to better understand why it's an issue. The more that's discussed the more validity and context is given to the criticisms to those reading. Where the focus is on the personalities and how they feel it equates criticism to something mean or harsh. There's immediately more worry over the person who caused the harm than those harmed - so how could it have been that bad? Almost the entire thread to any cis people taking a casual interest is positioned as mean angry NB people harassing YouTube personalities, with copious amounts of downplaying or minimising the actions she took and the fact they're only links in a chain on this topic.
You yourself, when directly told that issues are being blunted and dismissed, said that they weren't. Said that there wasn't anything to discuss, that we must consider Natalie truscum if we're not willing to diminish the responsibility in her action. We get this attitude every time it happens, every thread. Each time it's how we should go easy on her because of this, or how she actually meant that. That we should give her the benefit of the doubt, to think about how she must feel, that she's just growing.
Fuck that.
Here's a tip: if you hear anything about trans women who date other women not being "real lesbians", run. That's truscum TERF shit.
Well people make mistakes.
It's true as well that they replied a little more corporate than people would have liked but then again they're viewed as brand 1st and foremost.
My point is more that I don't think Contrapoint is meant to be anything but encyclopedial in nature (as in an encyclopedia you usually have an article that serves as a good starting point but should not be substituted as research either).
If the content doesn't resonate with you, it's enough to help you know that the subject exists but clearly far from enough to claim you have any deeper knowledge about it.
I can't even begin to parse this situation of trans people being exclusionary to other non-heteronormative people because they're somehow less worthy of something because they do not have the same experience.
I know nothing about this and feel like even commenting on this I would break so many eggshells I would end up being shitty not understanding anything I did right or wrong while making the shittiest omelette possible.
Twitter is the wrong medium to use for this discussion I feel.
You're never gonna weed out bad faith actors and the platform is made to give them the biggest megaphone possible.
It's effectively impossible to differentiate a bad faith actor from a good one and it's effectively impossible to distinguish between what is happening and a concerted silencing effort.
We have also be trained to spot the smallest crack possible to identify shitty apologies so this is basically the perfect storm.
I'll forever be baffled by people somehow having trouble with who other people are dating.
It's weird, I don't outwardly identify my gender because I'm largely apathetic towards it, in most cases I'll just list male because it's simpler and it would take somebody actually sincerely asking me about the topic for me to say I'm agender. I also don't usually think it's worth me discussing topics in regards to my gender because it plays no huge impact on my life; it doesn't really play any role in my identity and at worst I just end up feel awkward when I'm expected to act in a masculine way and feel like I need dress in a way that's coded male when even then other individuals have a way tougher time with both.
However, Natalie's statements/action and even more so the supposed allies justifying/ignoring them are making all of this infuriating. It's flat out something people in these spaces wouldn't entertain if the comments were towards other groups so it makes me feel like a joke despite the fact I don't care about my gender. I feel even worse for the folks of enby genders whose gender plays a much larger role in their identity.
Really thankful I have friends and family I can come out to right now because with the stuff MsHappyDieHappy is relating I don't think I'd ever want to do that on any social media ever. Also really glad I just don't use any social media at all.
Maybe this isn't the place to ask this, but I honestly don't understand this line of reasoning.
If I am inclined to accept the existence and validity of trans people, why would turn around and reject that on the basis that non-binaries exist?
I'm pretty disappointed in "BreadTube" with how they been acting. Natalie has had problematic views on non-binary people for a while now but instead of addressing her problems BreadTube has instead decided to circle the wagons and declare any criticism as fake outrage.
It has reminded me that for a lot of our so-called "allies" they're perfectly fine saying trans right and shit like that when they have no skin in the game but as soon as it time to put up or shut up they become another fake Ally to add to the increasingly growing pile.
Shit like this has always existed in the LGBT community. First was bisexuals, now it's trans folks and it seems like increasingly that our non-binary Pals are next on The Chopping Block.
As for why? Some people just generally shitty, always looking to blame some sort of other, no matter what group they belong to.
Lindsay at least never said that its "fake outrage". People only seem to deal in absolutes. Her statement was more in the line of "She fucked up, I agree, but she apologized in the past and it never went away. What more can one person do?" And since Natalie is not responding, people are going after her friends to give out a statment. The co producer already said what has happened from her point of view. What would be the ultimate goal here? Natalie stops making videos? Public apology?
People want their concerns to be adressed, but there isnt a solution in sight that would truly placate them. If Natalie does everything that is asked, this whole episode will only be kept in the backburner to be brought back again in any misstep in the future.
Realistically, you wouldn't reject trans identities on the basis that non-binary identities exist. However, there are communities withing the LGBTQIA+ community that will punch down on other groups or discriminate in their own ways, sometimes as a way to try and fit in with the majority. While things certainly aren't perfect now, the situation has largely improved for LGB people while remaining somewhat stagnant for Trans people.
There are LG people who will tear down Bisexual people as they feel that they're just saying that they're bisexual for attention, or can't really accept that they're gay. They'll make statements along the lines of "Your flip flopping makes us look bad, like we're not serious about this." Some of the exact same arguments are used by some trans people against nonbinary people, and of course these people are all wrong. It's important to keep in mind that just because we have some letters that are next to each other doesn't mean that everyone gets along or understands the other groups. These ideas that one valid group existing is doing harm to our own credibility puts a ridiculous amount of responsibility on their shoulders for the bigotry that we face, when the only people who are truly responsible for that are the bigots spreading those views.
It's just more cissplaining about how trans folx are wrong.
Every. Fucking. Thread.
That is indeed a bad take. Like, one deserving of that "Have you ever seen a take so bad that you immediatly wanted to sleep" tweet.Are you sure about that
Fucking yikes.
Kyuuji Ketkat Apollo Syril Spirit of Jazz Icemonk191 thank you. Keep 'em coming :).
Man, the whole situation makes me feel like an idiot. Even simply ranting against Contra and pals as much as I did feels wrong when I could instead ask for NBs's opinions, or signalboost them, or whatever. Instead, I've been going "oh, hope such and such helps Contra do better in the future", as if it's more important to me that the personalities I like be cleared of all accusations than that the victims be defended and helped. Ugh. Many of you are dishing some hard, but fair truths, and we (as in, binary and cis people) need to hear you. Sorry about the mess.
This reminds me of the recent thread about that cosplayer who made a full-skin costume of one of her favorite characters. Except she was White, and the character was Black, so it's effectively blackface. I'll admit I was among those who said "but it's not the same here, she's using a full-skin costume and painstakingly recreating the proportions and features of the character, so it's not blackface!" I've since changed my mind, especially considering the cosplayer's reaction, and I've now come to realize that it's not the point. If Black people, by and large, tell me it's blackface, I should listen and at least reflect on that. Likewise, if enbies are hurt and calling out a YouTuber and her friends for enby-phobic content and platforming truscum, I should listen to them first and foremost, not what some other cishet dude like myself says. We know nothing about your gender experience, and while I'm sure there are some extreme cases (just like in any other group of people), it's unfair to treat any NB who's angry as wrong or unreasonable. It's unfair to treat fringe cases as the norm. And it's extremely fucking unfair and vile to equate any of this situation as even remotely close to GamerGate. The nerve of some of these people.
Man, the whole situation makes me feel like an idiot. Even simply ranting against Contra and pals as much as I did feels wrong when I could instead ask for NBs's opinions, or signalboost them, or whatever. Instead, I've been going "oh, hope such and such helps Contra do better in the future", as if it's more important to me that the personalities I like be cleared of all accusations than that the victims be defended and helped. Ugh. Many of you are dishing some hard, but fair truths, and we (as in, binary and cis people) need to hear you. Sorry about the mess.
This reminds me of the recent thread about that cosplayer who made a full-skin costume of one of her favorite characters. Except she was White, and the character was Black, so it's effectively blackface. I'll admit I was among those who said "but it's not the same here, she's using a full-skin costume and painstakingly recreating the proportions and features of the character, so it's not blackface!" I've since changed my mind, especially considering the cosplayer's reaction, and I've now come to realize that it's not the point. If Black people, by and large, tell me it's blackface, I should listen and at least reflect on that. Likewise, if enbies are hurt and calling out a YouTuber and her friends for enby-phobic content and platforming truscum, I should listen to them first and foremost, not what some other cishet dude like myself says. We know nothing about your gender experience, and while I'm sure there are some extreme cases (just like in any other group of people), it's unfair to treat any NB who's angry as wrong or unreasonable. It's unfair to treat fringe cases as the norm. And it's extremely fucking unfair and vile to equate any of this situation as even remotely close to GamerGate. The nerve of some of these people.
To be clear, this was Contrapoints' apology in relation to her most recent comments on nonbinary people :
This isn't the first time she's done this kind of thing, and this apology doesn't actually address any of the issues. It's mainly just a "I shouldn't have expressed this in a glib way" and then she moves on from it. She needs to make an actual apology that addresses the real concerns that people have and not just continue to blow people off time and time again, and not tell people to just wait until her next video for the real answer
Completely dishonest. It's like you didn't even listen to the trans folx in this thread.
I mean, I would probably be something close to placated if she made a legit apology and stopped being so persistently hurtful to NB folx. It's really not that hard to do?
...
🤨
...all after this shit...
Without actually bothering to respond to the response asking you exactly who is using "whatever" to paint Natalie in a negative light.
Tripping over yourself to protect youtube personalities from criticism while throwing darts toward trans people taking issue in the thread.
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Yeah, im tired of twitter statements and symbolic video responses
Just address directly. Grab a camera and tell people that you are deeply sorry. Otherwise, why trust her?
Just address directly. Grab a camera and tell people that you are deeply sorry. Otherwise, why trust her?
Im speaking to that particular aspect of the situation and why I don't care that she has an issue with it, not accepting it as a valid reason to dismiss critique
I am not speaking for anyone. You are welcome to disregard anything I say. If you care about my opinion, however, I think Natalie should be put on blast any time she fucks up, but I dont agree with the "calling out her friends to say something bad about her" and also the "here is the laundry list of every time she fucked up, she cant possibly mean that she is sorry." I think one of the most poisonous thing that can happen in any relationship is bringing up shit that happened in the past and was discussed just to hurt people. Why? Because you cant ever hope to be better if people keep bringing shit you did up.
I think that in her mind, she already did that, and it didnt work. So she feels that even if it wasnt her intention (Was her intention? She says it wasnt. We may never know.) it wont be enough to placate people.
This reminds me in a way about the JK Rowling stuff. People were starting to realize who she followed, who she liked and started to point out that maaaaybe JK Rowling was a full blown TERF. People tried to rationalize a LOT that no, maybe it was not true, maybe we were seeing too much into it. Point was, she indeed is a terrible TERF. But Rowling never tried to appear as something other than that. She never said "I am not a TERF", she actually kinda doubled down on it the last time I was looking about that stuff.
Natalie said multiple times that she was not against NB people, and said she was sorry her actions caused hurt. We can come to two conclusions here: Shes either straight up lying about her personal views (I think thats possible) and we will eventually get to a "JK ROWLING" critical mass situation where you just cant deny it anymore (Maybe this is that situation?), or she is being sincere when she says that she did not meant to hurt NB people, but she fucked up.
I never believe when people cause a shitstorm and then say "dont worry it was all part of the plan, you wil come to regret your words and deeds", I think that was just a panic statment until she gets whathever she wants to do about this ready.
On a final note, when I was criticizing "people" who are demanding her friends to speak out about her, I didnt mean anyone from here. I do think that is really weak, though.
...yeh, ok.
"The more I read this thread, the more I believe people are using wathever they can to paint Points in what negative Light that they can.
If people have problems with her videos or views, leave a comment or tweet at her. Dont try to go around to her friends so you could "get " to her.
That is weak as fuck."
What's 'weak as fuck' is dropping that take and never clarifying who exactly is using "whatever they can" to paint Natalie in a negative light.
..you're actually saying this in response to people giving context to Natalie having prior issues with the non-binary community? You're genuinely so far up the ass of the youtube personalities that you think people are referencing the past comments just to somehow hurt Natalie?
Fucking christ. Persistently framing this as people trying to find reasons to hate or hurt her.
...or in your words:
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More dismissals based on half-truths.
Wynn NEVER APOLOGIZED FOR HER REMARKS AGAINST NB PEOPLE, AND THEN INVITED A WELL-KNOWN TRUSCUM ENBYPHOBE TO HER SHOW.
There is nothing else to unpack here. Stop trying to tell trans folx we are wrong about things we understand far, far more than you do about our own community.
...yeh, ok.
"The more I read this thread, the more I believe people are using wathever they can to paint Points in what negative Light that they can.
If people have problems with her videos or views, leave a comment or tweet at her. Dont try to go around to her friends so you could "get " to her.
That is weak as fuck."
What's 'weak as fuck' is dropping that take and never clarifying who exactly is using "whatever they can" to paint Natalie in a negative light.
Reading the thread, I went after what was happening on twitter and around the whole controversy. Not what people were saying here. You can believe me on this or not. I dont think I replied to anyone with any hostility regarding their views.
I really believe people had legitimate concerns regarding that person that read the quote in the video. I think those concerns should be adressed by Natalie, not any of her friends.
Yes. I am. Read the rest of the post that you quoted. I said that because I believe it to be true, but I also believe what is happening right now could be well on the way of Natalie in the future revealing herself to be against NB people. But we are not there yet.
You have no place telling us we're wrong about what affects our community.
Wait you are equating a lot of different things I said, taking words out of context and say them back to me like this, it's like you are not even reading what I'm writing. I get that you are tired, but eh fuck discussing with rhetoric like this. If you are going to ignore the whole post and just pick up the parts you want, I have nothing more to discuss here.
I am involved in this particular controversy because I watched Natalie's videos since the first one. I think she is one of the best youtubers all around. I just dont think what is happening right now "is it, chief". I am going to keep watching it unfold, and say wathever I want about this matter. Even though I think things are not really going well for her "group". (That comparison to NB people criticizing her to GamerGate and the Lindsay like is in incredibly poor taste, for example).
It sucks, because apart from that terrible choice, this video is one of her best.
You have some fucking nerve to accuse others of not listening after repeatedly dismissing trans folx in this thread. Fucking wow.
There is some hot bullshit elsewhere in this post but it's been addressed so I'll just dig into this:
There's another outcome which you're disregarding in trying to set up this false choice, which is that while she's not intending to hurt people, she doesn't actually care about hurting people enough to change her own behavior. This hews pretty close to being as despicable as the "she's lying" outcome without requiring outright active deception on her part.
For my money, this seems like where she's probably at. She might not care to be actively shitty, but she's definitely being shitty and doesn't care to remediate her behavior to stop being shitty.
There's another outcome which you're disregarding in trying to set up this false choice, which is that while she's not intending to hurt people, she doesn't actually care about hurting people enough to change her own behavior. This hews pretty close to being as despicable as the "she's lying" outcome without requiring outright active deception on her part.
For my money, this seems like where she's probably at. She might not care to be actively shitty, but she's definitely being shitty and doesn't care to remediate her behavior to stop being shitty.
I was not disregarding this "outcome", it simply did not occur to me. But you are right, this is indeed a very real (and probable) possibility. (Probable possibility? I need coffee).
She may as well think that she "secured" a big enough hardcore following that she can "show her true colors" or if thats not the case (the true colors) is that she doesnt care enough to adress this in a compelling way. Something like "NB people are not substantial amount of my userbase to really adress this."
Which is fucked up.
Ok sis, you accuse me of dismissing trans folx while having a discussion? repeatedly even, wow ok.