What is the origin of the whole "X destroys and humilates Y" genre of debate videos?
from Preventer79@sh.itjust.works to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 16 Sep 2025 21:03
https://sh.itjust.works/post/46172529
from Preventer79@sh.itjust.works to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 16 Sep 2025 21:03
https://sh.itjust.works/post/46172529
I first noticed it in the Hitchens “Hitchslap” videos in the mid 2000’s, but I imagine it started out earlier as that when I started following politics and a lot of the videos and those adjacent to them were reposts of cable news shows.
Were Socrates and Plato just the 4th century BC equivalent of them? That’s depressing if true.
#nostupidquestions
threaded - newest
It increases views which increases ad revenue.
Most straightforward answer with least inflammatory language. You win the internet.
The entire Internet?
Who wants it at this point?
You won’t believe what this man did when he discovered who she was and what her dog had found!
So what did the dog find? What? WHAT DID THE DOG FIND? TELL. ME. I HAVE TO KNOW!
Wait till you hear about how doctors hate this local grandma for one surprising reason!
He found friendship!
…using this one simple trick!
That’s just YouTube speak. The implied drama gets them more clicks. It’s how to frame the ancient medium of public debate for millenials and genz. It’s like YouTubers pulling the dumbest, silliest possible face on the thumbnail. It’ll have more views too.
It’s also a sign of the times since Y2K that you couldn’t just have an enlightening discussion. Somebody has to get owned. Hitchens was forthright in his rhetoric but I never heard him be disrespectful. I’ve only ever seen him tracking the ball, not the players. But that’s boring so people add their own spice to it. And they tend to cut out any counter arguments if the footage was from a public debate.
<img alt="" src="https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/fa13b7a9-9af7-4ea0-b1ce-e4a7f9656e75.jpeg">
Not sure who came up with it first or why humans are wired this way, but the magic combination of anger, outrage, and the vicarious bullying satisfaction of seeing someone dunked on and made to look stupid/humiliated, is all grist for the mill that is the attention economy. The longer you watch, the better it is for the YouTubes and Twitters of the world. And nothing glues people to their screens quite like their own masochism. It’s like when you have a sore tooth and can’t help but prod it with your tongue. Makes no sense, but it’s what we do. The fact that this stuff is so effective is why the algorithms force it down our throats and why cunts like Ben Shapiro have made careers off of it. Society is being torn apart at the seams by this shit. That pent-up hateful energy gets co-opted by state actors and bot farms, and then we get Brexit and two terms of Donald fucking Trump.
I’ve been making a conscious effort to avoid any videos that have titles like that (and by extension, the creators of those videos), and my life and mental health has improved immeasurably as a result. I have literally no idea how to convince anyone else to do the same. It would probably be easier to get people to exercise and eat healthily (something I don’t fucking do either). People get as much of this content as they can consume for free and at any time and any place, thanks to the inherent portability of cellphones. If you’re into this shit, there is no time of day or room in your house where you won’t have it calling to you like a pocket version of the wee devil that sits on a cartoon character’s shoulder whispering evil commands into its ear. And in this scenario, there is no angel on the other shoulder, because that would cause people to maybe spend a bit less time on these platforms, which is no bueno to Silicon Valley sociopaths.
Debates are almost entirely pointless. Very few people in the audience are actually open to being swayed. It’s just verbal UFC, and the winner isn’t the one with the best ideas, but the one with the best tongue jiu-jitsu.
As for Plato et al., I think having something to fill one’s attention in those days was probably a good way to stop people from fucking their livestock. So debates were necessary to prevent sheepman monstrosities from polluting the gene pool with their woolly nutsacks.
Maybe my standards are different, but most videos titled that way don’t even contain a person being owned, and if they do its a different person than the one in the title.
When you watched them did you think you were consuming high quality intellectual rhetoric? The idea that most of the people watching them think they are kinda saddens me.
Not sure what side of the fence you’re on, but Genetically Modified Skeptic put out a video recently about this concerning the religious right.
He basically said no matter how good the argument for insert point, very few people are going to take the matter into consideration and it just ends up being a huge money making initiative.
Debates aren't pointless, it is public discourse with what is meant to be guardrails unintentionally becoming skewers. One would hope someday people again appreciate decorum and evidence based discourse, with time out for more research when needed, again.
Fediverse User SLAMS Concept of ““X Destroys/Humiliates Y” Genre of Debate Videos”
Unrelated, but how do you write big text into a comment on lemmy?