“Mildly interesting” is not very close to my reaction to this at all, rather something closer to “particularly concerning”
It’s not like newspapers or television are much better. The oligarchs bought and control both of those outlets. Plenty of “opinion disguised as news” to go around these days.
It’s not like newspapers or television are much better. The oligarchs bought and control both of those outlets
You have plenty of non-profit newspapers. ProPublica. The Guardian. The Colorado Sun. The Salt Lake Tribune. Mother Jones. The Walrus. Le Devoir. La Presse. Mediapart.
Also, if a journalist writes bullshit, they lose their job. It’s career suicide.
The way to assess the credibility of a journalist is easy. Just look at their past articles. Their articles usually follow them for their entire career.
If someone on social media spreads bullshit, what happens ? Nothing.
If someone on social media spreads total bullshit, what happens ? Nothing.
Thats not true. They become president.
You have plenty of non-profit newspapers. ProPublica. The Guardian. The Colorado Sun. The Salt Lake Tribune. Mother Jones. Le Devoir. La Presse. Mediapart
And how much of the market do these networks control? Just because there are non profits available doesn’t negate their claim.
Also, if a journalist writes total bullshit, they lose their job. It’s career suicide. Their articles follow them for their entire career. So they have to be careful.
Depending on what network they are submitting their work to… It’s not like “journalists” on Fox News are being shamed for submitting fake stories.
Also, if a journalist writes total bullshit, they lose their job. It’s career suicide. Their articles follow them for their entire career.
WMDs in Iraq
The act of reading highly factual, if biased and not independent, still cultivates thinking for one self. Listening to these influencers doesn’t, to the same degree.
Before online influencers, it was AM radio.
Which only reached middle aged and older men who drove a lot
You know some people really show their age when they talk about the past…
Their were just as many radios as we have TVs now back in the day
I submit that there are more radios than cable tvs now. Radio is still going strong. The radio shows are just as dangerous as ever.
possibly more dangerous because they’re what you turn to when you’re really out there. out where spotify doesn’t reach but you still don’t want to be alone with your thoughts. it’s like how it’s important to pay attention to what’s in the walmart discount dvd bin. for a lot of people that is what they have access to because no one else makes themselves available. having infinite connectivity has isolated us more than it connects us.
even now, i’m guilty of this. i’m outside. a honey bee polinates a sunflower. do i talk to anyone here? no they’re all busy with their own conversations and i’m just waiting for a phone call. so i let these cracks in this fractured reality remain as i go online and simulate connection with all those who see this text.
in that experiment with the baby monkey, the wire momma with the milk, and the terry cloth momma with the heater, we are all the baby monkey clinging to the falsified social experience while missing out on the nutrients we need.
the powers that be know this and manipulate it
Being someone from back in the day, yes, I remember. And back then the dominant demographic who tuned in to AM talk radio like Rush Limbaugh were white men driving for work. There were just as many TVs around pre-2000, too, we’re not talking about the 60s…
Yeah, but the target audience for those was people (mostly men) who had long commutes or drove for a living. I don’t think I ever knew someone to leave it on in their house, it was always something to listen to in the car. I’m sure some people did but I don’t think it was typical. If you’re in the house after 2000, Fox News is your steady drip of brain rot.
Thank you for agreeing with my point. No one ever listened to AM radio at home. I don’t get why this perspective seems so controversial here after having living through it and observing this
They didn’t say back in the day, though, they said before online influencers. Which would be, at most, the mid-nineties. Realistically late aughts to early 10s.
How many people, realistically, got their news from AM radio after the advent of television but before the advent of online influencers?
Tens of millions of people did.
There was a time when Rush Limbaugh was one of the most politically influential voices in the country.
Not to mention the huge number of evangelical propaganda AM stations.
I think it’s safe to say that telecom deregulation and the subsequent AM radio boom is one of the core reasons why American adults above 50 are rightwing/fascist.
General “centrist” unbiased news coverage tends not to affirm right-wing beliefs so they have to retreat into fringe independent media.
“Centrist” media tends to affirm things like the results of good science and vague inclusion, so liberals are happy to listen to it. It’s only self-described socialists or other “far left” euphemisms that recognize the deference to capitalism as problematic.
General “centrist” unbiased news coverage tends not to affirm right-wing beliefs so they have to retreat into fringe independent media.
Ehhh, don’t really agree; centrist news has historically ceded a lot to right wing framing and affirmation, while being far from unbiased. If anything, they have license to overtly right wing media to go even further.
Social media was a mistake.
Social media is a tool that could just as easily be used for the betterment of humankind.
Sadly, that doesn’t make a few people lots and lots of money, so it doesn’t happen.
Agriculture was a mistake.
And its here to stay. The way kids are stuck on YouTube is like how old people are stuck on fox news.
I’ve thought about this a lot. There’s no end. If its not Facebook, YouTube, cable, etc. It will be something else. If only our daily lives where interesting in and of themselves. Escapism will always detach us from each other and we will flail on the wind forever.
Social media isn’t the problem Friendster used to exist and it was fine
The problem is putting the internet on a smartphone, because that meant that any idiot could get online now
And now the internet is 99.99% idiots
for muricans
Are you suggesting that the nearly instantaneous spread of mis/disinformation, the erosion of young peoples’ self esteem, or the damage to our attention spans is limited to people living in the United States?
no,I’m saying muricans. are mostly stupid and therefore MOSTLY susceptible
Feels weird to include Noah and Carlson but not include Jon Stuart, Stephen Colbert, or John Oliver.
Maybe because Jon Stuart, Stephen Colbert, and John Oliver don’t currently host any “online shows”?
Jon Stewart has a podcast: https://youtube.com/@WeeklyShowPodcast
John Oliver’s show regularly uploads segments to YT for free viewing, though. It often hits the trending list.
Reagan was President when I was a kid. America is right-wing as Hell and always has been.
This is less indicative of the political leanings of the population and more the result of a precise planned and serious effort of the right and rich political machine to spread their message. This is why Trump won 2025 in such a big way.
Edit: but your statement is also true
ThE LeFt cOntRols The nArAtiVe
Left snowflakes are treading on me snaek!
Would be interesting to see a funding source overlay on this
To those asking about the imbalance— it’s money. Just like older forms of media (print, radio, tv) there’s much deeper pockets for right-wing “funding” than on the left. And many left leaning outlets/personalities will turn down cash flows that might limit their control over their content. Follow the money. Always.
It’s not just money, it’s the fact that leftists tear down other leftists more than they tear down right wing posts
The right doesn’t have this problem
No, it’s the money
More likely, this is an artifact of a poorly condicted study. As someone else pointed out, John Oliver isn’t listed. To me, this just indicates that more left people get their news from sources which didnt fit the study’s criteria for whatever reason.
One more thing to add is lot of non-US right wingers watch stuff like Rogan and Carlson. If you want I can point you to an Indian tech forum where you’ll see users parroting exact same points.
That does not the case with leftists/progressives/liberals. If they’re not American, they don’t see any reason to watch Trevor Noah or Colbert cause they’ll be more concerned about local politics.
I myself used to keep up with US politics before the orange turd came back for the second time. Now I’ve cut it down drastically. Only John Oliver’s episode I saw this season was for AI.
I find it interesting - and a little concerning - that there are so many more right-leaning voices than left. I have to ask a simple question - why has the left not produced more strident voices and more people able to make popular content?
The left doesn’t need their opinions constantly validated by personalities. The left enjoys (and understands) satire more. Voices like Colbert, and Jon Stewart, and John Oliver.
Are my eyes failing me, or are they not in the chart?
Having a hard time pre-deciding who and what content I think should appear in such a chart. Vlog brothers? e-newspapers?
Josh Jonson Taylor Tomlinson hell 60% of the standup comedians easily. The picture would be much different with them in. Colbert alone would blow rogan out the water.
In that case, I think this chart is probably saying more about what kinds of media people with different leanings consume, not so much about deep pockets or a generational shift.
Late Show with Colbert had an average of 2.42mil viewers through Q2.
Joe Rogan, for comparison, boasts 11mil listeners per episode.
So he’d probably be somewhere between MeidasTouch and The Breakfast Club.
There’s probably some truth to this, but it also leans into the “MSM is lying to you” narrative that’s pervasive in far right (and far left) circles. A production with [the appearance of] a low budget is associated with “genuineness” by most people. You can’t be paid off by the big corpos if you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart…or so the reasoning goes.
I frequently see people on the left commenting “I don’t recognize this as a trusted source.” Or “Is this just someone’s blog?” Or, “I’m not seeing this published anywhere else.”
There is a lot of astroturfing, garbage, and propaganda that gets published online and on TV. I wish people would look into things more before believing everything they see on tv or read. People’s critical reading skills have definitely gone out the window, and it is totally being taken advantage of.
It’s not just politics either. Lots of fake product reviews, medical misinformation, etc. constantly showing up in search results, YouTube ads, TikTok videos, etc. And influencers are just the new “As Seen On TV” pitchmen of this century.
You don’t see Colbert or Stewart, or Oliver trying to sell you timeshares, or snake oil, or get rich quick schemes. Quite the opposite.
that sounds alot more like right wingers pretending to be on the left, to stok anger division, i dont pay attention to those posts.
I am guessing here, but right wing shows seem to have more finances. They are run by wealthy people, playing power games, who have sociopathic motivations.
Left wing shows are more run on a minimal budget, more for selfless reasons, by people who have a day job too.
I mean personally my beliefs are really straight forward. I don’t need influencers it’s only complicated when you’re internally dishonest and insecure.
I’m left leaning, however the only time I’ve watched Brian Taylor Cohen or Midastouch was because I got click-bated into watching what became a hyperbolic video subject.
After the first 5 minutes, when the facts become opinions, I immediately switch off. I simply hate fake shit.
those are what you call RESISTANCE grifters, they depend on outrage or clickbait and pretending that they are exposing something against or criticizing the right, but offer no real solution. I get enough fill on them from reddit posts of thier SC posts, so i dont watch thier actual videos.
Because most of these people make cheap potshots, even the ones with evidence to back themselves up. Just look at John Stewart, he can be incredibly insightful… but the majority of his comments during interviews are sarcastic cracks about how things aren’t working as they should be.
The basis of a lot of left-leaning philosophies are abstract and complicated. That makes it hard to sum them up in convenient sound bites that are easy for mass audiences to consume. It also means that it can be very fractious, as the complicated nature of these philosophies lead to a wide variety of nearly-the-same-but-not-quite conclusions. Considering the very black and white, good versus bad, mentality that has been most prevalent at least since the WWII (if not earlier), this generally leads to people being unwilling to work with people whom they agree with 95% of the time… and that last 5% ends up being the most important to them.
You can find lots of left leaning online personalities, but left leaning voters don’t generally get their news from Vlogs and don’t really care about meaningless statements without data or by people with no real power to affect.
Voices need an audience and leftists are shit at organizing right now
Plus what are they going to campaign on? Even more corporate welfare?
The left had a ton of progressive voices and the DNC spends a fucktonne of money making sure they never ever get an audience.
Bernie would have saved us from Trump twice and the DNC shitcanned him for fear of losing their corporate gravy train
Because the left doesn’t have oligarchs with functionally infinite money funding them.
Is this graph supposed to be useful in any way? It excludes a huge number of voices from the left and also have a bunch of circles without names and just some random 1.1m or 2m NR on them but without any indication of who they represent more than their color.
I don’t understand why bubbles with seemingly random positions was chosen to represent this data.
is whyElmo how could you! How dare you display data on a format that poorly communicated the data! You were supposed to be better than this!
Wow. How are Colbert and John Oliver not on that graphic? Meanwhile, I don’t think I’ve ever watched more than three or four YouTube clips of Trevor Noah.
Oh god, am I old?
Also, it sucks that Brand’s a right-winger. There was a time when I thought his heart was somewhat in the right place even if the execution was… questionable.
Yeah. Seriously questioning methodology here.
Of the blue bubbles that actually have text (which is already a lot less than that of the red ones), I think I’ve heard of two or three. I’ve heard of a lot more of the red ones, and I actively avoid right-wing social media.
I honestly had no idea Trevor Noah was still around.
Much like Matt Taibi, Brand got outted as a sex pest and then took a hard right turn.
It is important to mind the small text, showing where the data came from. Subscribers and followers on YouTube, Spotify, Rumble, Twitch, Kick, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
They get funding, that much is obvious. It was the same story with the Nazis who got massive support from obvious sources.
This is me. I get my news from Lemmy, a dude in New zeelandZealand, and a gardener in Oregon.
Sometimes a lady in Florida that owns a shed.
That’s New Zealand, or Aotearoa if you prefer.
Get some of your news from a Scottish astronomer/gamer and Fly Safe!
Asmongold…you have got to be shitting me. imagine getting your “news” from a guy that used a dead rat as an alarm clock, wipes the blood from his gums on his bedroom wall, used to routinely eat snacks that had maggots in them, and treats drinking water like it’s poison.
A guy who could barely play WoW and left his main account on twitch because making money from viewers on that was “too stressful” proceeds to start an alt channel where he nows grifts the right for money.
Shitstaingold: “Muh Superior Western Culture”
Also Shitstaingold: “I never clean my room, have roaches, and never wash my hands”
🤣
I dunno who this person is… But this chart was apparently made my Media Matters according to the credits at the bottom.
All I know of him is he starts showing up on my YouTube if I dont wipe my brwser every few weeks. Haven’t watched anything of his but based off the video titles I’ve seen and his face I don’t see how anyone would want to watch them. He just looks dirty.
Growing up in the 90s, teachers and adults were always saying “the geek shall inherit the Earth” or shit like that. We were told we would create a progressive and peaceful tech utopia with a post-scarcity economy where no one goes without.
Well, we did inherit the earth. And all that happened was hateful fucking dirtbags like Asmongold getting paid to play video games and wormtongue their far right incel bullshit into our kid’s ears.
I don’t get why people dislike him so much. You don’t have to agree with everything he says, and he presents stuff pretty honestly. If you don’t like it, just don’t watch it
The man is a biohazard I can smell through the monitor.
I don’t watch him, and neither should you. He’s a con artist. It’s painfully obvious he’s grifting his viewer base with his “hot takes”. He doesn’t present jack shit honestly. Remember when he called the Palestinian people “inferior”? He discovered he could milk people like you for money by saying the most dumb shit and you eat it up like pigs eating shit.
Idk, his reaction content just comes up on my second monitor once in a while. I’ve never given him anything. I think it’s healthy to take in opinions other than my own, and I don’t get brainwashed by media personalities, but then again, I’m not American
You need to take a hard look at your life, and maybe seek some therapy
Alright buddy
