slight pet peeve about the Spirituality video
I liked the sprituality tangent overall (esp the Mozart digression). I love Contrapoints - I don't want this to blow up, don't upvote this post.
\#1 did it bother anyone else when Contrapoints said spirituality fills a feminine need for her whereas science fulfills a masculine rational need, right after she described how a specific spiritual experience felt like being "fucked by the universe"?
One more thing,
[ppl who watched Twilight skip this para: DHSM is Contra's term for this niche idea you may have encountered in the fringes like femininity equals passive, surrendering, conquered vs masculinity = viceversa & BASED \]
\#2 I also think, in Twilight, her criticism of DHSM was greatly diminished by the spiritual stuff that followed right after. It felt paradoxical to state masc/fem is nothing but the stylization of male/female and criticize DHSM for associating these qualities to masc/fem to then go on to *label* the qualities which contain and correspond each other in the yinyang - simply put, Activity and Passivity- as masculinity and femininity. Which is it, is the correlation itself "oppressive, homophobic, misgynistic" so we shouldn't do it or is it fine to do the correlation anyway but its just that we should be versatile about embracing the qualities inorder to have sustained eros? Its just a peeve, the yinyang versatility part - to my ears - didn't sound that different from Jordon Peterson's pseudo Jungian nonsense about how Masculinity = order, Femininity = chaos and how we all should harmonize the 2 etcetera etcetera
Again, this spiritual metaphor itself is not new or original in anyway, its just that - to me, it doesn't sound coherent to hold both this\^ view and the criticism of dhsm simultaneously.
Feel free to lmk why you think I'm wrong/ [redacted\] in the comments.
https://redd.it/1h3hgmx
@r_ContraPoints
November tangent topic
Does anyone know which tangent topic won?
https://redd.it/1gzt4cr
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Looking for Ex-Redpill Participants in a Qualitative Study
Hello!
With a fellow group member I'm conducting a qualitative study on how RedPill ideology affects the mental well-being of young adult men. I'm looking for anyone who'd be interested, and comfortable with sharing their experiences with RedPill ideology, and/or manosphere-adjacent content.
Specifically, we'd like to conduct an in-depth interview of about 10 questions, which will address how you got introduced to the RedPill, your wellbeing during that period of time, and how you managed to leave it behind. The online interviews can be conducted over Zoom, or over text (i.e. e-mail, Reddit messages, etc.). The interview will be completely anonymous. Besides, if you want to take extra precautions, we can destroy the interview transcript in March 2025.
If you are an Ex-RedPill, young man who'd be interested in sharing his story, please reach out to me through my reddit account. Alternatively, if you personally know someone who may fit this criteria, and could be interested in participating, please feel free to extend this post to them.
I hope to hear from you soon!
EDIT: Removed some mistakes
https://redd.it/1gy97yw
@r_ContraPoints
Perfect Days and the Tao Te Ching
Hi, just jumping on here to say that ever since I watched the spirituality tangent, I've been reading the Tao Te Ching over and over. I find it very difficult to comprehend or to interpret, but there's still some things that really resonate with me.
Then, yesterday, I watched the latest Wim Wenders movie "Perfect Days" and I found it to bee a deeply Taoistic film, if that make sense. A lot of harmonious "action of inaction" I would say. Like a manual of how to experience the virtue of the world.
I loved it, so this is a recommendation for anyone who's interested. But I would also love to hear some recommendations of pieces of media that explore similar themes.
Anyway, hope you're all doing good considering the circumstances.
Hail Mother!
https://redd.it/1guukam
@r_ContraPoints
So I guess we need a follow-up to "The Apocalypse" huh.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/18/climate-crisis-world-temperature-target
https://redd.it/1gu57u6
@r_ContraPoints
anti-racist and class conscious rhetoric that breaks down the shame felt by working-class Republicans by dislodging the belief of white supremacy.
Should be easy, right?
https://redd.it/1gtqwzc
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Natalie is using Bluesky now
https://redd.it/1gtq4dl
@r_ContraPoints
Insane Revelation
So generally (at least for the last 5 years ish) when I “watch” Natalie’s videos, I’m really just listening. Obviously, I was aware of the visual artistry of the videos, but I caught maybe like 80-100 Frames of basically every video. I definitely enjoyed the videos, but I treated them like audio books where when I went to pause it I would see the narrator in a really crazy Victorian library or some shit wearing a Marie Antoinette costume.
Anyway, last night the twilight video came on when I was going to sleep and I let it play and finally kind of sat and watched one of the videos for the first time in a while. I watched like 40-50% of the video before falling asleep just because I was floored by how beautiful Natalie is. I mean this as a respectful appreciation post, but god damn my brain was definitely arf arfing.
When did you realize how beautiful Natalie is? For me it’s the nose and the hair real shit. She be lookin like Hera from the Disney Hercules movie 😂 anyway I may start watching the videos… and following the IG…
Oh also for clarification, just so nobody immediately calls bullshit on me literally never seeing them before, I think she got that Julia Roberts style beauty. It really doesn’t register until you see the expressions and the mannerisms in action. For Julia it’s the smile, for Natalie it’s the eye movements. Also, their voice is soothing for sure, already knew that though.
https://redd.it/1gtiavb
@r_ContraPoints
Books cited by Nathalie
Hello all ! Just a question, does anyone have a list of all the books quoted by our queen in all of her YouTube videos ? if not I guess that I will need to rewatch every essays (not that this won"t be a pleasure just time consuming)
https://redd.it/1gt8af6
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What are some of your favourite Natalie looks
https://redd.it/1gsgpeh
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Thoughts on her next video's release date?
https://redd.it/1gs01qz
@r_ContraPoints
November tangent topics
https://redd.it/1grekn7
@r_ContraPoints
I highly recommend downloading copies of your favorite progressive videos on youtube
Start downloading copies of your favorite essays and progressive vids. We know what's coming with project 2025. If we take them at their word, that stuff might not be allowed on YouTube anymore depending on your state.
https://redd.it/1grcj0e
@r_ContraPoints
Anyone remembers the YouTube clip Nathalie referred to a few years ago after advertisers fled Twitter? It was a video with a club where some people started to create chaos and the regular customers started to leave...
https://redd.it/1gqkz1r
@r_ContraPoints
Every time I watch something vaguely leftist on YT
Me: Just finished a video that was vaguely leftist
YouTube: Do you wanna watch this Contrapoints video you've already seen 80,000 times?
Me: bro, wtf is your problem?
YT: so... no?
Me: wait, yes I'll watch it, but damn
https://redd.it/1gqfuxj
@r_ContraPoints
Thoughts on a Progressive Media Coalition?
In the wake of the election I've seen a lot of progressives talking about building community, and it got me thinking about online communities. The left has a lot of strong communities built around content creators like Contrapoints and "Breadtube", Some More News, Secular Talk, Hasan etc. but is not particularly organized in terms of political activism and messaging in this space. What are people's thoughts on trying to get a bunch of these content creators together in a discord call like once a month to talk about organizing more effectively? I feel like something like this could turn a large number of disparate communities into a powerful political block, even revolutionize the political space. This could serve as a foundation for organizing campaigns and demonstrations, building mutual-aid networks, fundraising for progressive causes, and more.
This is completely hypothetical at this point, but if people agree it sounds like a good idea, it wouldn't be too hard for a few of us to get together like 50 names/contact info for people to reach out to, and even if 90% say no just or ignore us, once like 5 people are on board I feel like it would be much easier to coordinate in the space. What are people's thoughts?
https://redd.it/1h1bl9r
@r_ContraPoints
What's with all the straight-identifying people with obvious bisexual longings?
https://redd.it/1gywz4b
@r_ContraPoints
Hi, I need your help with a video
For the past two years, I’ve been working on a video on Transphobia. Even though it originally started as only a reply to a book (Time to Think by Hannah Barnes), it has since ballooned into something much bigger.
Essentially, I go through the last four decades of scientific transphobia, and how the research done then still holds up the transphobic sentiment today. Of course, scientific transphobia itself is built on non-scientific ideals, and even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t make it any better. Anyways---
The problem is that I’m a cishet white dude, and no matter how much I may read, and how much I may try to understand, I don’t have the experience. I've also spent too long on it to know whether it's even any good.
I need someone to give it a watch and give me feedback.
I’ve tried to pour my heart into this video, but I would rather find out I’m wrong now than when it's done and I've fully released it. Is it boring? Am I being ignorant? Am I just plain wrong? Any opinion on any part of the video is welcome.
Just a disclaimer: it’s 4 hours, and it’s pretty depressing. I’ve put temporary content warnings before each chapter.
I also completely understand if you don’t want to subject yourself to something like that.
It's not finished, and there’s still a lot of work to be done on it. But I discuss all that in the first four minutes of the video.
I hope you can help me, thank you!
https://youtu.be/PBQXbZWNg4o
Mods, please delete if this isn’t allowed – I know it’s not directly Contra related. I’m just a fan
https://redd.it/1gwnv6f
@r_ContraPoints
Gender Theory- For Him
I constantly see comments of how "there are no many essayists that are male and cishet" and the algorithm reminded me of this.
So I thought I could share
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp0I-qoQLuA
https://redd.it/1gui11l
@r_ContraPoints
I know Natalie doesn't owe anyone anything, but man I'm hurting for the de-radicalization movement that was so big in the late 2010's.
Contrapoints, Shaun, HBomberGuy, all those left/breadtubers gave did so much for me and I feel like the world needs those kind of messages again. I owe a lot to Natalie. Stay safe everyone.
https://redd.it/1gtx2nd
@r_ContraPoints
Shame as the driving factor of political orientation in the United States
This one is going to be a bit of a ramble but I'll try to keep things coherent.
For years I have been puzzled by the way that large masses of people predictably vote against their own best interests economically. The most obvious example of this phenomenon is the way that white working class people vote overwhelmingly to elect representatives that favor the rich. However, I believe that middle and upper-middle class Democrats that favor social programs which they are not qualified to benefit from are also an important example of the phenomenon. I also hoped to explain why many independents ended up voting for Trump while also espousing strong support for politicians like AoC and Bernie Sanders.
I wanted to come up with a unifying theory that explains the behavior of these groups. I wanted to be able to be able to explain this behavior because ultimately I believe that people are more alike than they are different, and even people who make wildly differing decisions are using the same tools of emotional reasoning to make them. Put more simply: I believe that people make decisions based on what makes them feel good. Simple problems (example: I am not going to bite my finger because biting my finger causes me pain) require very little thought. More complicated problems, however, require us to establish beliefs. Beliefs can be formed based on first-hand experience or passed on from a trusted person, but they all serve a singular purpose: to make the believer feel good or to protect the believer from feeling bad.
With all of that preamble out of the way, I can move on to the idea that I had the other night and that I feel compelled to share: politicians win our vote by offering a platform of beliefs that help us to not feel ashamed for the people that we are within the system that we live.
From the perspective of the Republican white working class, many would call them shameless. Unfortunately, I feel that this misunderstands the core emotion that unifies the political right: the shame of being a mediocre white person in a multicultural society. For a white person raised in white supremacy, the notion of being at the same social and economic level as a non-white person is shameful and insulting. It means that they have failed to live up to their "superior whiteness." This shame is cured by the belief in an unjust world: a world of wealthy elites rigging things in favor of the minorities with government programs and wasteful spending. Trump and Sanders both use the wealthy elite as a target of ridicule and contempt, although Sander's rhetoric is fortunately not racist. Both politicians, however, are able to capture the support of the people by soothing their shame. Why would they feel ashamed when things are rigged against them? In a fair contest of skill and intelligence, they would ascend the meritocracy to arrive at their rightful place in the class hierarchy.
I believe that shame also plays a role in the support that Democrats enjoy from those in higher economic classes that would benefit more under a Republican tax program. This shame, more specifically, is the shame of privileged in a system constructed for your benefit. At some level, liberals understand that their status has a lot less to do with their individual effort and merit and a lot more to do with the lifestyle and a lot more to do with the economic conditions that they were raised in. This shame and guilt is eased by programs that they do not themselves benefit from, but that instead help those with less privilege than they enjoy. These programs allow the voter to believe that they are no longer complicit in the system of oppression that has put them on top, without needing to make the major structural change that would destabilize their position in the class hierarchy.
If this is true, could the progressive candidates that we want to see succeed use this information to come up with a strategy for winning broader support? I believe so. I think it begins with a fervently
FYI Natalie on Bluesky
https://redd.it/1gtprtb
@r_ContraPoints
Is Naytalie a gender essentialist?
I came across her youtube channel via this video debunking Blanchard where she disclosed a lot of the perceptions she had as an AMAB, among those, the realization that "women would never love me the same as I do them". She also points out typical socially conditioned behaviors associated to how men desire women by citing 50 Shades of Gray as an example of what women look for in a man.
Now, isn't that enforcing gender essentialism? She correctly saw a problem with how limiting men's gender role is to their own humanity because it reduces them to 'doers' with no emotional depth to be 'charmed', and her solution was suppose that men actually enjoy this limitation and that, since she didn't, that could only mean she was a woman? It feels a lot like gender essentialism.
I wonder if she was criticized and/or changed her perspective ever since.
https://redd.it/1gt8um3
@r_ContraPoints
is there a video which mentions the gender ratio of ContraPoints viewer demographic?
Has the gender makeup of contrapoints viewers ever been mentioned in a video? like through youtube analytics.
not sure if I'm imagining this but I thought maybe she did once reference her demographics in a video, but maybe I'm imagining this. would be curious to know.
https://redd.it/1gsgfde
@r_ContraPoints
Was there ever a tangent/video discussing the youtube genre where "guy dresses as girl" on omegle prank? And something about digital self harm in this type of act/fetishization of sorts?
Sorry if my title is a word vomit. I just have a vague memory of someone on 'breadtube' talking about this and I can't remember who it was. I believe they mentioned F1nnster too.
https://redd.it/1gsev5y
@r_ContraPoints
Anybody know what she offered up for tangents on Patreon?
https://redd.it/1grdhsz
@r_ContraPoints
New tangent topics!
https://redd.it/1grdjbd
@r_ContraPoints
ContraPoints’s video ‘Men’ might’ve aged like wine
I’m thinking about rewatching this video when admittedly at the time I thought ‘why won’t you just lead the revolution by breaking down Karl Marx to me mother???’
(But without making a stink online as I was really uneasy with how Twitter harasses her over not liking or agreeing with everything she’s said).
Over recent years, I feel like I’ve seen a real uptake in brocialism where it’s like I have to brush my values aside to keep the peace even though I’m a queer woman with autism who is going to be ‘an SJW, wait, wait, I mean think too much about identity politics’.
I came across someone running for George Galloway’s Worker’s Party at a protest who had a mentality of it’s between Palestine or an old school ‘left wing’ politician who wants to bring back section 28 and will just split the vote for the more popular and affective Green Party. (UK greens are definitely not perfect and UK politics is kinda fucked, but they’re not a sham like the US Green Party)
Some people have said Kamala talked too much about identity politics with an air of ‘oh women and their not wanting to go back to coat hangers in a back alley is so hysterical and frivolous’.
I feel like people use ‘liberal’, which has come to mean ‘hysterical’ and ‘less clever and pure than me’, to describe women, people of colour, disabled people, and LGBTQ+ people who’re shit scared and are probably gonna be upset about people who voted green or didn’t vote as well as upset about people who voted for Trump
I don’t know what the democrats could’ve done, as they did talk about how they will be better for the economy, which is what a load of people who voted for Trump say it’s apparently all about. Maybe they should’ve been less fickle about support for Palestine- Joe Biden shouldn’t have been running for president, which I do agree with the left on, but I don’t know who else would’ve won. I met some pro Palestine people who’re pro Trump and can’t believe the reality that he loves Netanyahu, he just has the air of apparently saying it as it is that some people eat up. His performance has a knack for filling in whatever someone wants the president to be. There’s also probably a lot of people who unfortunately don’t care about what’s happening in Gaza
Maybe the democrats could’ve had a slogan like ‘Tariff Trump will dump the American dream’ or something cos US politics seems so vibes based idk
https://redd.it/1gr5mta
@r_ContraPoints
Commentary on activist personality tropes
Has Natalie ever offered any direct commentary on the personalities found within (particularly leftist) activist circles and/or the types of people drawn to direct action and civil disobedience activism?
It's a subject that implicitly informs so much of the dynamics in Cancelling, for example, but I'm not sure I've ever heard her discuss the subject directly.
Thank you!
https://redd.it/1gql2gh
@r_ContraPoints
Transmedicalism on the Rise?
Does anyone else get the sinking feeling that, given the election result, there’s a brewing resurgence in transmedicalist viewpoints?
In the sense that in order to present a more “respectable” and “easy for cis folks to understand” framework to view trans identities with, people are going to start to gatekeep trans identities more intensely out of some attempt at self-preservation? Doing away with self-id as a goal, throwing nonbinary folks under the bus, etc.
https://redd.it/1gq6vfe
@r_ContraPoints
