Everything's debateslop now

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Plain Lunatics, All Taking Their Turn At The Rostrum

—by Hussein Kesvani

Hundreds of thousands of far-right protesters swarmed central London last week waving English flags and Charlie Kirk tributes, led by Britain’s closest equivalent to Alex Jones, white nationalist soccer hooligan Tommy Robinson. But the international media coverage of the protest — and endless man-on-the-street videos uploaded by random YouTubers — lacked important context. If you want to understand how Britain’s far-right movement has evolved into the behemoth it’s seemingly become, you need to understand Speaker’s Corner. A corner of London’s Hyde Park where, every Sunday afternoon, visitors and tourists to London can watch dozens of men accuse each other of being satanic, a threat to public safety, and, of course, being pedophiles.

“Speakers Corner,” a stone’s throw from London’s West End, has existed since the mid-1800s, and has hosted speakers including Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and George Orwell, the latter who once described its public speakers as “plain lunatics, all taking their turn at the rostrum in an orderly way and receiving a fairly good-humored hearing from the crowd.”

On the surface, Speaker’s Corner — once a site for the public to watch hangings — is a venue for public speaking, performed by the city’s zealots, eccentrics, and oddballs. It’s the place you go to hear bizarre theories on everything from the Reptilian takeover of the Royal Family and the imminent installation of a One World Government, to the one guy who has spent his life proving we live in a simulation. As a kid, I was vaguely familiar with it as the place to go if you wanted to talk to someone about UFOs and aliens. In the 2000s, it all seemed very benign. Given today’s culture wars, however, and the broader panics over free speech and censorship, Speaker’s Corner has become something of a phenomenon online.

“Debates” regularly gain hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube. And the debaters themselves, who at one point would simply be obscure proselytizers and conspiracists, have found themselves becoming celebrities with huge online followings, with people traveling from across the world just to watch them speak. Some have even gained a degree of political influence, particularly among right-wing political movements fixated on ethnic and religious differences.

I first began studying Speaker’s Corner in 2017, as part of research for a book on British Muslims and internet culture, where I spent some time with two then obscure influencers named Ali Dawah and Mohammed Hijab, who were gaining popularity among young Muslims who felt disenfranchised by both mainstream media, and the digital media counterparts that were then enjoying their final few years of dominance. Both men, who now have popular Youtube channels, hundreds of thousands of followers, and have even featured on interview panels with Piers Morgan, began as proselytizers, aiming to spread the message of Islam. Disillusioned by traditional methods of preaching, they hoped that a more aggressive style could yield a better result — one in which they could be seen to “DESTROY” their opponent in debates (this was the post 2016 period, after all).

Their gamble paid off. But as they amassed larger followings, accelerated through podcasts and appearances on other Youtube channels, even sponsorship deals, they inadvertently ushered in a different style of debating. One that is more aggressive in tone, sometimes breaking out into violence as the orators became connected to the ebbs and flows of internet. As I’ve watched and observed happenings at Speaker’s Corner, I’ve seen the number of cameras, microphones, and professional production equipment take up space in the park, so that it is no longer the local spectators who are are the main audience, but those who watch, edit, and recirculate footage online.

Indeed, the presence of cameras and livestreaming equipment, the ability to cut and edit video in short amounts of time, and the proliferation of TikTok and Reels, means that certain kinds of debates, ones that do better online, are being prioritized. Mostly on subjects relating to Race and IQ, mass deportations, and of course, pedophillia. 

“D,” who formerly shot footage for a channel called “Content Over Everything,” one of the most popular YouTube channels broadcasting debates in Speaker’s Corner, told me, “Islam versus the Christians is probably the most popular kind of debate.”

I first met D in 2019. He said that while he and his colleagues were once interested in showing the many debates taking place in the park, seeing their channel as a celebration of free speech, they noticed how many speakers were adopting more violent styles of speaking. Some going as far as incorporating racist and anti-Muslim language in order to get attention. “They just wanted to go viral and be famous,” he said. “They realized that if they could start some drama, an argument or a shouting match, they’d get the thumbnail that’s like ‘HEATED ARGUMENT about the Lies of the Qur’an’ and it would get more views.”

In recent years, the number of videos coming out of Speaker’s Corner has only increased, while debaters and their subjects have become more provocative and antagonistic. It has also become the venue for far-right figureheads, such as the aforementioned Robinson, to gather and organize an increasingly zealous crowd of supporters, as well as key personalities in Britain’s TERF movement  to perform stunts, such as dressing in a full-face Niqab for a mass audience to film and upload. Younger personalities on the right have also identified Speaker’s Corner as a launchpad to their public–facing careers. Among the new cohort of speakers coming into Hyde Park is “Young Bob,” a Christian preacher, formerly involved in Turning Point’s UK chapter. Still in his teens, Bob has quickly gained a large following due to both his provocative debates with Muslims, as well as his participation in this summer’s anti-migrant protests outside of both the Bell Hotel in Epping, and the Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf, the latter in which he live streamed himself breaking into after the police issued a dispersal order.

It’s likely that we’ll see more guys like Young Bob emerge from Speaker’s Corner in the next few years. An online-pilled generation who came of age during the COVID years know it’s the perfect staging ground for viral debateslop, tailormade for anarchic video platforms that monetize our negative attention. And while it’s unclear how their presence will reshape both the social dynamics of the park, or online environment that guides the broader UK’s culture and politics, one thing I am willing to bet on is that whatever happens, Speaker’s Corner will still be the place to go to if you want to accuse some random guy of being a nonce.

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A Good TikTok

@birds.n.bass.official

Birds N' Bass Fighting edition #drumandbass #dnb #fyp #mlg #photography

This was dropped into the Garbage Day Discord by user jekkjekk.

Charlie Kirk’s Big Funeral

MAGA world came together last night for Charlie Kirk’s “memorial” service, a bloated, gaudy spectacle pulling together all the various aesthetics of Trumpism. An Evangelical tent revival, a WWE match, a Super Bowl halftime show, and a Nazi rally all swirled together inside of Arizona’s State Farm Stadium. And, yes, the memes are correct. There was a Grindr outage reported in the vicinity. Do with that what you will.

X user afrocosmist called the event, “Astroworld Festival for dead Goebbels.”

And the comparisons to a Nazi rally are not all that hyperbolic. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller delivered a speech that has more than a few similarities to Joseph Goebbels’ 1932 speech, “The Storm is Coming.” I guess Kirk wasn’t MAGA Goebbels, but MAGA Horst Wessel.

Kirk’s widow and new CEO of Turning Point USA, Erika, delivered a speech where she said she forgives alleged Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson. President Donald Trump, who did a weird little fucked up dance on stage and went on a digression about finding a cure for autism, was not so benevolent. “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them,” he told the crowd. And Tucker Carlson compared Kirk’s death to Jesus’, allowing the audience to insert the antisemitic dogwhistle themselves.

Also, this guy was there doing this for some reason.

Bluesky Is Trying To Crack Down On Porn Sorta

—by Adam Bumas

On Friday, Bluesky announced some new community guidelines set to take effect in October. There’s obviously a lot happening on Bluesky — well beyond all the “Blueskyism” discourse — that could have inspired some updated moderation. The same day as the announcement, Morrissey canceled two performances thanks to receiving a death threat on Bluesky (According to Rolling Stone, the threat came from an account named “guy who gets shot in the head one hundred thousand times a day”).

It’s obvious that both the canceled shows and the new guidelines are partially thanks to the general increased sensitivity around social media after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. But this is far from the only factor. The new guidelines don’t just talk about politics or threats of violence, they also specify they won’t be allowing “synthetic, simulated, illustrated, or animated versions” of sexual content featuring “non-consensual activity” or “realistic depictions of animals.” Or, to put it another way, cartoon erotica that gets too kinky or too furry.

As I’ve covered before, this is a meaningful slice of all activity on Bluesky. More to the point, it’s similar to restrictions that payment processors like Mastercard and PayPal tried to impose earlier this summer, which received so much backlash they tried to shift the blame for it, but is still making life harder for thousands of people who make a living off NSFW content online.

A lot of Bluesky’s early success was thanks to these creators, who are increasingly ostracized by larger, corporate web services that hide or ban them in the name of advertiser safety. According to CEO Jay Graber, the platform will have ads “eventually,” but for now it still feels like a betrayal to these creators, who have decided to respond by posting even more porn (that link is safe, don’t worry). It remains to be seen how Bluesky responds, but Tumblr, a similar safe haven for creative work, never recovered after it infamously banned all NSFW content in 2018. Could Bluesky be making the same fatal mistake?

It’s All Kicking Off On Rapture TikTok

TikTok users have convinced themselves that the Rapture is coming on Tuesday. (God, I fucking wish.) I’ve seen more than a few users on various platforms talking about “religious psychosis” all month. Turns out this is what they’re talking about!

Seems like most of the American TikTokers posting about the Rapture are using Charlie Kirk’s death as the reason for it happening now. They’re also pointing to a bunch of numerology to back it up. But the initial idea was started by a South African pastor who mentioned it on… a podcast a few months ago!

The Rapture conspiracy theory escaped containment in a big way over the weekend. An employee at a South African office for KPMG, a huge multinational tax and financial services firm, appears to emailed the entire company a massive, rambling PDF explaining that the world is going to end this week. There are screenshots on X and the company’s subreddit has a pretty good thread about. This is why you shouldn’t hire Gen Z, folks!!

Anyways, Fox Corp. is currently in talks to join TikTok’s US ownership structure. So I assume we’re going to have a lot more stories like this soon.

The All In Guys Don’t Seem To Understand The New YouTube Update

The reactionary CEO hosts of the All In podcast believe they’re being censored by YouTube. Well, that’s kinda-sorta true. But not for the reasons they seem to think. “Before we pile on YouTube, let's wait and see if this is a group of folks reporting videos for political reasons (and tricking the algo),” host Jason Calacanis wrote on X. “Or if it's just keywords in our transcripts.” Well, it’s probably neither!

They’re almost definitely being throttled by YouTube’s new idiotic AI age verification system, which is decimating a lot of channels’ views right now. If you want a good explainer of what it is and how to turn it off, the fine folks over at Red Letter Media dug into it.

Rainbolt Bought A Billboard

Some Stray Links

• “Tom Homan was investigated for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents. Trump's DOJ shut it down.”

• “ChatGPT Is Blowing Up Marriages as Spouses Use AI to Attack Their Partners”

• “Parents outraged as Meta uses photos of schoolgirls in ads targeting man”

P.S. here’s a very good X thread about planes.

***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***