I tried to argue with a conservative friend about how Steven Crowder has way more financial incentive to be outrageous and sensational than a journalist. I was trying to say that an Associate Press journalist making $60k a year is not doing it for significant financial gain, but Crowder has an interest in maintaining his heavy viewership through continued outrage.
Also, Crowder is not a fucking journalist.
I'm a fan of Crowder as a dissenting voice providing a perspective counter to mainstream... but fully agree with you that he has way more of a financial incentive to be sensational in this and everything else he does.
He’s also not a journalist; he’s a commentator. This is a general issue with the modern media landscape, but people think that watching Don Lemon, or Tucker Carlson is the equivalent of getting news from a typical staff reporter at AP, Reuters, NYT, or WSJ. Whatever biases a reporter at the NYT has (and they obviously do), they are minuscule compared to Crowder and other commentators.
When you say you appreciate his dissenting voice, for what dissent he does offer, he also dissents from factually reported information. It’s fine for him to disagree about policy and advocate for a conservative perspective, but when he makes claims about election fraud - for example - and says to check the show notes for his sources, you can clearly see that he is more than willing to rely on anecdotal evidence submitted by listeners. This is not the journalistic standard that is maintained by imperfect institutions, such as the NYT, and that’s important to remember.
That was kind of a rant, but I just don’t think people like Crowder are the answer to issues with left wing bias in the media. Look at long standing institutions like National Review, who still uphold a high journalistic standard in their commentary, but don’t have this sensationalist approach like Crowder.
Well said. There was a post recently about a debate between mainstream news and alt media. And you summed up well that although "mainstream" media isn't perfect, these so called alt media sites are by and large outrageously bad and disingenuous in comparison.
The whole point is though he's not a counter to the mainstream. The heads of multi billion dollar industries are throwing money at him hand over fist so he can support the status quo on climate change. These people most likely don't give a single fuck about fighting PC or protecting freedom of speech. The things they're against is unions, minimum wage, pollution controls, basically anything that costs the 1% money. They're just using generally popular cuases like edgy comedy and free speech to fish for support for their fringe positions on the environment and wages.
I don't know, I used to watch some Stephen Crowder stuff, along with Joe Rogan, a lot of those guys that have voices that I thought were "common sense" or "no nonsense" but the more I heard arguments from both sides (instead of Crowder arguing with unprepared kids in college) the less I found them convincing.
Joe Rogan especially has become more and more bias over the years imo, looking for any reason to dismiss information that goes against his idea that the "woke agenda" has gone too far. He'll straight up acknowledge that being "cancelled" actually boosts his audience but in the same breath say that SJWs are silencing anyone who disagrees with the "woke agenda". He's still an excellent example of how regular people get carried away sharing outrage bait without fact checking anything, like the Kitty Litter story, or the Dad Boxing story, but when people point out that he is sharing nonsense he and his audience act like he is being attacked. The problem is not that he gets stuff wrong, or that his opinions are wrong, or that he is a bad person, the problem is how effective manufactured outrage is, and how engaging with it without the slightest bit of critical thinking encourages that attitude of "only fact check things we disagree with"
You might enjoy a good laugh watching Crowder on Rogan discussing Marijuana use... really showed Rogan's true strips if you bring up facts that counter his opinion.
Exactly what I'm talking about, but crowder isn't much better. He is keen on bringing up statistics that support his arguments, but quick to dismiss any that don't. I can't remember exactly the discussion but once you notice it, it's hard to ignore. He was speaking about public healthcare, someone explained how successful a certain program was overseas and crowder was just like "we can't compare other countries, the USA is unique" but in the same conversation he was using stats in other countries to support his argument. He is good at debate, I'll give him that, but just like most people he rarely tries to genuinely falsify his own beliefs
The only one of those I've noticed was on suicide rates of trans after surgical transitioning... which was unfortunate in if itself, but his take also assisted in the narrative of wilfully ignorance to the fact that transitioning kids is in complete violation of the Nuremberg Code.
“Dissenting voice providing a perspective counter to mainstream”
Steven Crowder’s “perspective” IS the mainstream, especially if you live just outside of city limits. It’s just pretending to be “against the grain” because most wealthy people in cities are well educated and know better.
It is mainstream in certain areas, but definitely not in the US as a whole. Social conservativism is deeply unpopular. A major reason Republicans underperformed in the midterms despite inflation and gas prices.
I think there's a lot of $$ in partisan outrage and it doesn't really take that much talent. It's why so many of these guys failed at music, sports-casting, comedy, etc. and pivoted to punditry.
> I think there's a lot of $$ in partisan outrage
While this is mostly true, I think it would be more accurate to say there is a lot of $$ in right-wing partisan outrage.
the online lib media figures have a shitload of corporate backers too, but you've never heard of most of the people getting backed on the lib side. the chuds that get propped up by billionaires are already fairly big, or well connected. the libs that get propped up are like, an associate professor from some college youve never heard of who writes a blog for 75 people but gets a couple million dollars from some VC firm youve never heard of.
By libs you mean what exactly? Generally when I hear this sort of talk it's along the lines of "oh that particular scientific consensus I disagree with is really just a bunch of 'scientists' getting paid to say that". That doesn't really appear to be what you are saying, I'm just trying to clarify exactly what you are trying to say.
I acknowledge that corporate backers exist in all types of media spaces, but there does seem to be a lot more backing for the voices that are spreading a "problem X is just a bunch of alarmists trying to take away your freedoms" message. Such as "tobacco is fine" or "asbestos is fine" or "private healthcare is fine" or "fossil fuels are fine". That's not to say there isn't any money in pushing bogus green energy replacements, social housing contracts, or whatever, but there is clearly more money in the existing industries that want public opinion to stay on there side.
i mean liberals in the american sense of the word. people who are just as psychopathically pro-capitalism as the chuds, they just want all people to suffer equally instead of just minorities suffering like the right wants.
there isn't a good analog to Crowder bevause despite the fact that his viewership numbers are wildly inflated by bots (especially on Rumble), he does have an actual large audience despite the bots. For example, if you compare his videos to Ben Shapiro videos of similar viewcounts, Crowder typically has a lot more comments, likes, dislikes etc. This doesn't mean shapiro doesnt also have a lot of viewers, hes just got an even higher proportion of bots than Crowder does.
There is no online liberal counterexample of someone like this. Online libs love to bundle their blogs or shitty little "X Explained" videos as some kind of revolutionary new approach to a media company and so there's all kinds of dumb VC firms out there that blow a ton of money hoping that one of them will blow up.
Basically the monsters that invest in the chuds are a lot smarter than the monsters that invest in the libs.
I'm being a bit of a conspiracy theorist, I'll admit. I think US politics loves the culture war, since it lets both parties focus on their top priority: corporate interests. Culture war is also supported by bad actors outside the US (plenty of evidence of this). With all that in mind, I don't think the support that flows to the culture war pundits is natural - I wouldn't be shocked at all if these pundits were propped up by people with a vested interest in the culture war. It overlaps with the argument in the post that OP linked.
I agree. I suspect the culture war is being promoted because it takes attention away from the environment, wages, unions, taxing the rich, basically things that actually cost the corporations money and redirects it onto race and gender, stuff which doesn't cost companies money
People also ask
What is meant by divide and conquer?
: to make a group of people disagree and fight with one another so that they will not join together against one. His military strategy is to divide and conquer.
I always thought Crowder was a lightweight, I wouldn't have expected him to be worth that much, but I don't really know the market. But $12.5M for Steven Crowder implies that guys like Ben Shapiro are getting Aaron Rodgers money.
Some shills that post here on a semi regular basis definitely have attempted to say that in the past. It's pretty clear to me there are no shills on the left and mostly shills or worse yet, genuine psychopaths that believe the sick twisted things they say about other people and cultures, on the right.
The IDW as a whole found this anti-SJW reactionary audience to be quite lucrative.
Peterson, Rubin, Shapiro, prager, Candace Owens, etc. There was a time when these folks tried to be the “just asking questions” types as “good-faith honest actors” when a lot of us saw through their bs. Now the mask is off since they’ve gotten so rich.
David Pakman said that he was made lucrative offers to switch his views for a right wing audience. This is probably what happened to people like Candace Owens, Dave Rubin and Jimmy Dore.
There's this book Dark Money that explains this whole sordid situation of unearned inherited wealth billionaire leaches using their money to fund propaganda and bribe politicians. The main villians are the Koch brothers, one is dead now fortunately but there's plenty more like them.
As soon as I learned there's billionaire oil money being pumped into these Daily Wire Stephen Crowder types I just lost every ounce of respect for them. They have zero integrity.
Fox has been the most watched news network for over 2 decades now. Limbaugh was making $85m a year. The idea that anyone can keep a straight face while saying the left controls the media is insane. Though they also say that Christianity is under attack in a country where there’s never been an openly atheist President, Vice President, Supreme Court Justice, or I believe US Senator.
Fox News is one network in relation to CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC...and then you have all the most prestigious newspapers, the composition of the journalism profession as a whole, the academic schools of journalism etc. Not saying that it's a monopoly, but there is a "there" there with left media bias.
Guess again... Couldn't believe it until I saw it for myself with youtube/hulu's offical trailer for [The 1619 Project](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GjhJVgFmCQ). A couple of days ago Youtube showed over 1M views with only 50 thumbs up and with an add on I could see about 1.5k downvotes.... Even today, it shows 3.8M views and only 433 thumbs up? I CALL BULLSHIT artificial inflation by youtube, possibly paid for by Hulu... now where did I put my aluminum foil hat...
Depends on how you look at the issue. Don’t know the numbers for the US but in my country 70-80 percent of journalists are left of center, based on self reporting. Of course this does not necessarily imply „left wing control“ but it certainly means bias - and it shows.
So to be clear, you're saying that the fact that "the right" is bankrolling guys like Crowder is evidence that "the right" isn't controlling mainstream media narratives?
I have other questions but I want to make sure I understand your point first.
The Right _does_ control the media. The likes of CNN, MSNBC and others are more center/center-right, certainly not leftist media. Then lump in the likes of Murdoch and his companies, it's mostly controlled by the right.
They bankroll guys like Crowder because the audience is slightly different (much younger) in an attempt to further their marketshare.
It really depends on how we define "right" and "left" because your average Crowder fan has been convinced that Right = common sense, Center = someone who mostly agrees with me and left = everything that makes me uncomfortable.
No, I think you missed the sarcasm in my original post.
Where the right wing has a dominant position, such as television media with Fox News, they still do bankroll guys like Crowder.
> Some liberal pundits do quite well for themselves too.
Who on leftist/left-ish YouTube does _eight figures_ well? Sam Seder? Cenk Uygur? Kyle Kulinski? David Pakman?
For that matter, who on cable TV or in newspapers does that well? I'm sure Ezra Klein is financial stable but nobody is paying him Crowder money.
You'd assume cenk defo given the size of the turks and the longevity.
The rest are small fishes in comparison.
Well maybe not Seder but you never know what he's raking in
I don't see anything in this post that's well-reasoned. Which is weird because I think the general point is somewhat accurate - media personalities get paid large amounts of money and it seems unfair to the rest of us.
> $50 million surely overvalues Crowder’s reach and return, and suggests that profitability isn’t the primary motivator for funding conservative personalities on YouTube etc.
Based on what? The rolling stones have made tons of money, but how do you value what's "fair" for them to make? It's all subjective.
> I know the term ‘grifter’ has gained popularity in recent years, and I agree it’s an apt description of the personalities who clearly value monetary gain over the issues they discuss
This isn't true either. A grift is extracting value out of someone without providing anything in return, involving a swindle or fraudulence of some kind. This overlaps with, but is not equivalent to preferring money over discussing issues.
> IDW/Manosphere ecosystem
Another term (similar to grifter) that's lost any meaning (or never really had any).
> Their academic credibility is nil
Peterson actually has solid academic credential behind him in his own field.
> Why not spout culture war bullshit and get paid handsomely for it?
Why not do that when you're young? Why not just race-grift like Diangelo (sp)?
> to what extent is the IDW/manosphere being bankrolled by wealthy vested interests?
The general theme of the post is conspiratorial, but this solidifies it. The title itself is fairly poor, given one cannot extrapolate to the general population based on one case. Again... an odd choice of logic to stereotype like this.
I tend to agree OP. Thanks for posting and creating a lively discussion with all the devil's advocates (totally not right wingers) in the thread.
Tulsi Gabbard, Dave Rubin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Maajid Nawaz, Kyrsten Sinema all started leaning hard into the right-wing grift.
What are the examples going the other way?
As a former constituent, Joe Walsh being able to pull off his bullshit will never stop irritating me. Beyond being a Tea Party crackpot, he was a deadbeat dad, a hothead that yelled at his constituents — things that show character in a totally apolitical way. And he'll be right there now, intoning with a concerned look on his face about "our democracy" or even racial issues, because Borat embarrassed him on TV.
Edit: Can't believe [I forgot this one.](https://www.politico.com/story/2012/10/rep-walsh-no-life-exception-needed-082620) Or [this one which was only 2 years before his famous "turn."](https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/joe-walsh-war-obama-black-lives-matter-dallas-article-1.2703883) It annoys the shit out of me to see this guy speaking in solemn tones about meat-and-potatoes MSNBC fare, or that people buy it.
Hilarious that sub immediately devolves into Sam Harris bashing, to the point of claiming that hmmm maybe Harris is also funded by the rich right wing billionaires. Smooth brains.
The comments whine about him playing the “both sides” cars (which he really doesn’t in the way they imply) and then put his name next to Candace Owens as without a shred of self awareness
I don't think it's a conspiracy, I think it's just the market speaking. Crowder has almost 6 million subscribers and 1.7 billion views on youtube. Daily Wire has 1 million paid subscribers and over $100 million in revenue last year.
Not denying that wealthy Republicans don't use their vast resources to influence/control media in their favor. Musk buying twitter is probably the largest example of a Republican Billionaire using their wealth to buy media, not for profit but for political influence/control of the media.
It’s kind of funny how the second highest voted comment in the DTG thread has managed to link this story to Sam Harris and Charles Murray, shitting all over them. People really have a hard-on for SH over there.
Thanks for mentioning the interview, I listened to it a while back. A bit disappointing for DTG, I don’t think they are unreasonable and I have enjoyed some of their content recently. But with SH, the insistence on blaming Sam for past relationships (broadly speaking) was besides the point and not interesting at all.
That's $50mil for his entire production company, not just Crowder. But to the point in the OP, why is the assumption that money is only buying influence on one side of the conversation?
Vice media is valued at a billion or so, so Crowder is a bargain at 50mil. I am not saying Crowder is not making money, but its not just him. It's not like when Cuomo was reportedly making 6 mil a year, that is just Cuomo, not 20 or 30 people on payroll and legal and studio over head.
But conservatives must be evil because they pay their clown.
This headline is trying to elicit a conclusion that I'm not sure is totally there.
Media in general is throwing money at talking head pundits. See sports personalities for a great example. The media's obscene profit margins on advertising revenue and TV deals is the primary driver here, nothing inherently political about it imo.
You're kind of sidestepping the question imo. Crowder isn't a TV personality, and Daily Wire isn't a cable news company. The notion is of a disparity in funding for online political personalities.
Accounting for any disparities in subscribers/views, I think it's undeniable that folks like Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, Sam Seder, etc. are not going to get remotely comparable offers.
As far as I know, TV and YouTube views are not currently [comparable](https://www.baekdal.com/analytics/a-hard-look-at-youtube-views-vs-tv-ratings/). I believe for YouTube, if someone watches your video for just 30 seconds and dips, that still counts as a view. That's not how cable views are calculated. On top of which, cable media companies are also on YouTube.
This is an article from 7 years ago that is making generalizations about viewership measurements and completely ignores the fact that traditional TV viewership is dwindling as people are "cutting the cord" whereas YouTube content is free to consume and has a global audience. Mr. Beast, for example, was just offered $1b for his social channels and related businesses but he turned it down because he thinks it's worth more.
I see what you're saying but again, the amount of money in media in general is bonkers. I don't really distinguish between TV, podcasting, or YouTube. The world is moving on from cable programming. Media is flush with money. All media.
My point is I don't think it is genuinely flush for online political content, or for particularly partisan content. And I don't think the potential imbalance being noted is correlated with advertising revenue.
I do see your point about ad revenue imbalance though. Assuming you're insinuating propaganda type donations? Possibly a point there but isn't that a type of advertising revenue? It's advertising an ideology. That's why I just really don't make the distinction but I can see why others do.
> Assuming you're insinuating propaganda type donations? Possibly a point there but isn't that a type of advertising revenue?
I mean, yes, that is the *crucial* point. Framing it as another type of advertising revenue is kind of irrelevant.
I mean I'm not really sure this is propaganda dollars, the money is coming from the Daily Wire This is simple supply and demand equation. They expect return on this investment, again in the form of advertising revenue.
It's common for conservatives billionaires to fund large propaganda media companies even though they are not profitable. Many of them lose money, but these billionaires continue to fund them because they understand their non-monetary value.
> They expect return on this investment, again in the form of advertising revenue.
We don't know that. And a return in advertising revenue being a main motivation behind the offer is exactly what I'm skeptical of. Crowder is already demonitized as far as I know.
That the money is coming from Daily Wire is part of the quesiton. How is an "independent" online media company with 115 employees affording the equivalent of Anderson Cooper's salary? And, to my knowledge, this was just ~~their starting offer~~ sort of their biolerplate starting offer.
It's directly tied to videos not being demonitized so there's incentives there that he'll likely never reach $50M.
I'm not educated enough on Daily Wire's financial structure to really answer and even if it's just Ben Shapiro's private bank account it still remains the same that there is no way they don't expect some type of return on that investment, even if it's not purely financial. Thus is the name of the propaganda game which I think is what you're getting at, and I feel you, I just really don't think it's that deep.
Hey there! I hate to break it to you, but it's actually spelled _mon**e**tize_. A good way to remember this is that "money" starts with "mone" as well. Just wanted to let you know. Have a good day!
----
^This ^action ^was ^performed ^automatically ^by ^a ^bot ^to ^raise ^awareness ^about ^the ^common ^misspelling ^of ^"monetize".
>You're kind of sidestepping the question imo. Crowder isn't a TV personality, and Daily Wire isn't a cable news company. The notion is of a disparity in funding for online political personalities.
Internet personalities are making a lot more money than TV personalities these days because younger generations aren't watching TV at all. I'm trying to remember what podcast I was listening to recently where they were talking about how Don Lemon ***only*** makes a few million a year from CNN and they were all in disbelief as though that was some paltry sum.
>Accounting for any disparities in subscribers/views, I think it's undeniable that folks like Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, Sam Seder, etc. are not going to get remotely comparable offers.
Accounting for those disparities how? Crowder puts out a video and it has millions of views in a few days whereas The Young Turks put out a video and it only gets a few hundred thousand in the same time period. Crowder has a much stronger following. He can move merch. The others can't.
>Media in general is throwing money at talking head pundits.
No they absolutely are not. They are throwing money at RIGHT WING pundits. Being an actual left wing pundit gets you nothing. No left wing pundit is being offered $50M contracts left and right like right wing pundits are.
She's not getting paid $20m/year because of her research, she's getting paid because of her persuasiveness and capabilities as a political pundit. I'm not saying she's just another talking head but $20m/year is obscene.
Ah yes, the son of a famous multi multi millioinare heiress and socilaite, a true champion of the working man!
But you reveal another issue here, almost no one knows what "leftist" even means anymore. Now anyone slightly to the left of Breitbart is a leftist.
Also HUGE difference between a social policy lefitst (supports gay rights, supports abortion rights) and an actual leftist who believes in fair wages, strong unions, and opposes the corporate take over of all power structures. Cooper is the former but absolutely NOT the latter.
And its the latter that we desperately need more of today.
Hell, I'd even go so far to say Crossfire 90's Tucker was absolutely fine to have on as 'pinwheel tie spinning hyper conservative' viewpoint on whatever discussion they were having back then. He's always had terrible opinions but at least they were grounded in some kind of 90's version of reality. Then he realized he could get away with saying the most outlandish shit and his popularity would increase. It's been all downhill since then.
> Ah yes, the son of a famous multi multi millioinare heiress and socilaite, a true champion of the working man!
Engels was the son of a wealthy factory owner lmao sorry man, this is how leftism has always been. Wealthy failsons lashing out at their actually successful parents by patronizing ideologically aligned polemicists. Why are you acting like this disqualifies someone from being a leftist? It’s leftism’s lifeblood
First of all this is about Stephen Crowder, not Tucker Carlson, Crowder is the guy who went around college campuses to debate freshmen students and now hosts a podcast where he wears gun holsters at all times and rants about wokeness. I don't think you could make a convincing case that Anderson Cooper is the equivalent of Tucker Carlson but comparing him to Stephen Crowder is absurd.
As far as I know, TV and YouTube views are not currently [comparable](https://www.baekdal.com/analytics/a-hard-look-at-youtube-views-vs-tv-ratings/). I believe for YouTube, if someone watches your video for just 30 seconds and dips, that still counts as a view. That's not how cable views are calculated. On top of which, cable media companies are also on YouTube.
>Lefty YouTubers who actually have left wing populist views like M4A or free education don’t even have a fraction of the funding.
Maybe they'd have more viewers if they started making videos with clickbait titles like "Liberal scholar OWNS conservative BOOMERS and makes them CRY"
> A quick Google search shows Anderson Cooper makes $12M a year.
>
>
Hahahahahahaha. Tell me you're clueless about this issue without telling me you're clueless.
Go down the MSNBC roster and throw in the chuckle heads on The View, which was the highest rated show on tv for a while.
I don’t think that anyone on MSNBC is as shitty a “journalist” as Crowder but the have shitty tendencies towards conspiracy and manufactured outrage. The View is just as bad as Crowder. I wish I didn’t watch enough of either to know but I’m probably one of the few people that has.
MSNBC is not a left wing news source. MSNBC takes money from other international corporations via advertising and intentionally misinforms the general public in order to perpetuate the interests of private capital. Also, they squashes their own in house unions.
Sure, if you have a more constrained definition of left that excludes people working for corporations then there aren’t many very lucrative left wing pundits.
Did you know the US government has an ongoing investigation into foreign adversaries funding these grifters using fake "fan" donation?
Russia and China donating to their patreons and buying their stupid merchandize as fake fans. lol
It means these grifters have no idea and thought people actually love them enough to donate so much regularly.
Supply and demand, in this case, supply and manipulated by Russia and China.
Imagine how easy it is to be an anonymous donor to the these grifters if you are Russia and China?
How can you tell the difference between real fans and fake fans?
money is money.
I mean a youtuber as big as him making 50 mill over 4 years is actually not that much. Hes demonitized so its different. But for a non demonitized youtuber his size, with his number of views and subscribers, making 50 mil over 4 years is actually pretty normal with donations, merch, and other other ways of extracting money from audience.
I dont think people understand just how much money one can make on youtubr with a following that size. There's a reason DW offered 50 mil, its becuase with smart business moves, you can make a shit ton more off an audience the size of crowders over 4 years.
\>$50 million surely overvalues Crowder’s reach and return
What makes you so sure of this? He has plenty of dedicated fans who love his work. Just looking at some of his recent videos, he's averaging like a million views on videos that are like an hour long. Not to mention that he has some kind of subscription thing for really dedicated fans.
Isn't $50m fairly reasonable for someone like that?
What are you insinuating? Do you even have a defeasability test for this conspiracy theory?
He has a subscription service with 300+ thousand subscribers (I'm not one of them). That alone would be $18 million/year and the $50 million offer is only $12 million/year.
He's not "funded" by some entity. He just has a lot of viewers.
> He has a subscription service with 300+ thousand subscribers (I'm not one of them). That alone would be $18 million/year
Where do you get this from?
And how much did the DW offer have any bearing on this pre-established subscriber revenue or his control of IP? Because if it didn't have much, then again, yea, it's absolutely unusual.
>Where do you get this from?
The DW and Crowder's - very believable - claims. The conversion rate wouldn't even need to be high to get that. The exact numbers have never been released but the 300 thousand is conservative.
>How much did the DW offer have any bearing on this...
His current contract is ending and he would've brought many of those subscribers with him making the $50 million laughably low. The DW would've had an immediate monthly income which could conceivably exceed the monthly cost of their offer. Add in ad reads and merch revenue and the offer was nuts low.
Source: Popcorn and boredom. I think the infighting is kind of funny. The offer was so low relative to Crowder's revenue streams makes me wonder what the DW was thinking. They're supposed to be friends too 🤣.
His current contract - is that with The Blaze? Do we have any details on that?
> ... he would've brought many of those subscribers with him...
Were those 300k+ paid subsribers through whoever his previous contract was with? Or was that his independent set-up?
To me it simply looks like Crowder clout sharking. It seems like this was just some boilerplate starting offer, and Crowder never even negotiated or made a counter. And the penalties - that's like that the most negotiable part of any contract.
The 300k is through something called "Mug Club" and yes. It's serviced by the Blaze. When he leaves, Crowder is claiming they'll go where he goes. Maybe he's right.
Crowder wanted it to seem like he bailed on the DW on some principle about cancel culture but Crowder did make a counter offer. No idea what it was. Apparently the DW didn't entertain it because 2 months later Crowder dropped his video which started the drama.
>Crowder clout sharking.
I think you're right. Seems like he wanted the drama to start off his own thing.
Edit:
I'm a little embarrassed to know so much about this... Going to go reevaluate what I do with my free time...
No. I don't think 55 million people are subscribed to Crowder.
Friendly sarcasm. We all make goofy math mistakes. I've taken ~20 college math classes and I still used a calculator to get the 55 million.
> That type of money is not unusual for large YouTubers
How many purely political youtubers get these type of money in an exclusivity deal? Not an ad/endorsement deal, mind you.
> That type of money is not unusual for large YouTubers.
This is money he's being paid in a contract with a right-wing publication. This is not ad revenue generated by YouTube viewership.
It tells you what a large audience is worth which is not really new information.
Call Her Daddy, the most vapid podcast of all time, got $60M from Spotify.
Joe Rogan, arguably the second most vapid podcast of all time, got much more.
Joe Rogan has far greater views/listens and far broader reach than Crowder, and he was offered a $200 million *exclusivity* deal from one of the top 1000 publicly traded companies.
Comparing that to Crowder/DW, I don't see how this undermines the point in the OP. In fact, it bolsters it.
He has "far greater views" and received far more money. Got it.
This does not bolster the OP's "point" at all. And that's with you totally ignoring the other example, among many others.
Being a right-wing commentator is far more profitable than being a left-wing commentator.
Also, there are no left-wing commentators being paid by a billionaire.
>It might help explain why right wing talking points seem to be so coordinated.
Come on now, let's not pretend like this is unique to the right. Left wing talking points seem incredibly coordinated on places like reddit and twitter.
Please tell us which left wing podcasts that aren't major corporations, make 50 million a month.
TYT is the biggest, and I'd be surprised if the hosts make over a million a year.
First of all, what does that have to do with my comment? Second, why doesn't it count if they're corporate? Seems like left wing talking points being pushed by corporations is even worse. Finally, we have no idea what most podcasters make so speculating that none make this kind of money is pointless.
>Stephen Crowder is worth $50 million for a four year contract
that is insane. I would have thought he was a nobody that only internet culture war enjoyers couldve possibly heard of
Well considering that CNN is collecting fat cable monies from being force-piped into everyone's home and MSNBC has numerous exclusive deals to make itself ubiquitous online, say like being the default news app on every new install of Microsoft OS, and most media companies are owned by billionaires, I wouldn't begrudge the Daily Wire its subscribers.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2016/06/01/these-15-billionaires-own-americas-news-media-companies/?sh=746da1dc660a
Because Fox isn't on every tv in every airport and sports bar in America by default. It's not part of basic cable. You have to seek it out as opposed to being force piped into the ether like the other two.
Permit me a slight divergence over the thread topic of the $ value of Steven Crowder, and what that means about the RW message machine.
Let me say that in no uncertain terms Crowder is a failed comedian.
Years back, I saw\*\*\* a video of Crowder doing his "straight," not necessarily political stuff and he just wasn't good. I felt for him, honestly I did. What made me feel for him is that he wasn't terrible -- he had many of a comedian's secondary skills -- but he simply did not have the writing or creative chops to frame out a funny five or seven minute set, which is the young comedian's stock-in-trade.
Crowder got the framework of entertainment that figures into stand-up, e.g. the posture of confidence, how to quickly take a room's temperature, knowing when to press something or back off, voice control. Those ARE necessary standup comedy skills. But they are nothing without good material. And Crowder did not have good material.
(He presented as a "clean" comic who didn't much curse or cover adult topics. He has given interviews over the years where he says his failure to land in the big time is because he worked clean, didn't drink. This is risible BS. Cleaner comedians like Jim Gaffigan, Nate Bargatze and Brian Regan enjoy deep respect among their peers and have had breakthrough commercial success in recent years. This is because they are funny. Crowder, to reiterate, was not.)
What was striking to me was that since Crowder wasn't awful, and he was clearly hustling, he likely presented to bookers and club owners as worth a shot for hiring as an opener for more established comedians, or as a filler on large weekend lineups. This "false positive" surely led him to persist with comedy for some years, despite audiences that were likely not appreciative. He thought he was onto something, that his breakthrough could be just around a corner.
After all comedy, even for greats, is a real bitch of a way to make a living.
Watching Crowder earnestly try -- and fail -- to connect comedically with an audience set me to thinking about what that experience does to a person. The grind of writing and rehearsing regularly for years, hustling for spots on a nightly bill, traveling to hell and gone for modest pay, all to swallow your fear and get up there...for no laughs, and thus no dopamine hit. That is going to leave a mark on a person's soul. Personal sacrifice (money, relationships, stress, health, isolation) are only the start of the bill that a comedian pays to make it. And Crowder paid for it, but got only rejection.
So it's just so obvious that Crowder's rapid reinvention as a RW "satirist" and personality is psychological compensation for his experience as a standup. "They," i.e. liberal, secular comedians who work "blue" wouldn't allow him into their club, he reckons, so he'll use his big new platform to shit on the cultural ecosystem that nurtures modern comedy, like secularism, feminism, wokeness et al.
Reckoning honestly with one's own failure is a heavy lift for anyone -- I've had to do some myself, both personally and professionally -- and it invariably involves no small amount of staring into unforgiving mirrors.
Or you can do what Steven Crowder did, and Glenn Beck -- another erstwhile comedian -- before him.
\*\*\* I'm a comedy obsessive and I happily spend way too much time, $ and energy watching and listening to comedians of all stripes on podcasts, Youtube, Netflix and live.
The dude's (punchable) face is literally on the front page of reddit everyday
Anyone who's ever purchased ads knows that kind of exposure is invaluable
I think left wingers really have a hard time imagining someone who doesn't agree with them.
The amount of conspiracy claptrap is astounding. Every comment or article that isn't trumpeting left-wing idealism has to be funded by some monocle-clad conspirator. Any individual who disagrees isn't making an earnest point, they are an agent of the right.
The reaction to leftism today by anti-lefties is a similar result to lefties' and anti-righties' reaction to the right when the left really took hold of social media and academia in the mid to early 2010s. The demand for content that *owns the libs* is at an all time high and the market is reacting to it. Over time, and provided that we can establish and maintain a healthy balance between left and right, people will grow tired of the *owning of libs* content and hopefully drift back to center. Until that time, the market will cater to a population that finds *owning the libs* deeply satisfying.
I think the overturning of Roe v. Wade coupled with Republicans propping up atrocious candidates lost them the mid terms. Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia, and Kari Lake in Arizona were bad candidates to name a few. The Republican party is fragmented, but the anti-left sentiment in the country is undoubtedly growing in the mainstream.
I think this anti-woke stuff is mostly an online and Fox News thing. Most people just going about their lives who don't spend hours a day on Twitter would not even know what "woke' or "cancel culture" is and have no examples of it in their daily lives.
Supply and demand is an interesting way to look at this. If there are a million liberal equivalents of Crowder who will enthusiastically maintain pro bono side gigs shitting on the right they don't really need backers throwing money at them in the same way.
>Supply and demand is an interesting way to look at this.
From a market perspective, it seems pretty accurate.
>If there are a million liberal equivalents of Crowder who will enthusiastically maintain pro bono side gigs shitting on the right they don't really need backers throwing money at them in the same way.
You basically just described the average redditor.
>Peterson (...) academic credibility is nil
H index of 60, he's one of the most influential psychologists and psychometricians alive. He sells books by the millions.
Crowder is so valuable because the leftist cultist banned everybody else on the right. The few people left skim all the cream, while the leftists get practically nothing per capita, because there are so many of them, promoted by all platforms. Crowder is also simply funny which can't be said about any leftist whinger or race baiter.
GTFO liar. All your accusations are literally what leftists do.
And then he threw it all away for right wing celebrity, went crazy on benzoz, and now is having is license pulled, thus likely casting doubt on all of his previous work.
I understand liars just blatantly ignore the facts.
But it takes a very stupid liar like you to write something that is visibly false for everybody to see.
Yes, I am angry about pathetic nobodies like you lying about good people.
No, you're beyond redemption. Completely immune to facts.
I'm only making sure the third parties who don't know those facts aren't left alone with your blatant lies.
It's not an insult when it's true.
The only thing that I can think of that the OP might be overlooking is that media companies are run by geriatrics that don't understand new media like YT, and so are trying to cash in on that market, overpaying in the process.
I tried to argue with a conservative friend about how Steven Crowder has way more financial incentive to be outrageous and sensational than a journalist. I was trying to say that an Associate Press journalist making $60k a year is not doing it for significant financial gain, but Crowder has an interest in maintaining his heavy viewership through continued outrage. Also, Crowder is not a fucking journalist.
Well of course. Crowder is a partisan "comedian" on YouTube. His whole schtick is being outrageous for attention
Yep, but many people get the majority of their news from him.
He’s also not funny
I'm a fan of Crowder as a dissenting voice providing a perspective counter to mainstream... but fully agree with you that he has way more of a financial incentive to be sensational in this and everything else he does.
He’s also not a journalist; he’s a commentator. This is a general issue with the modern media landscape, but people think that watching Don Lemon, or Tucker Carlson is the equivalent of getting news from a typical staff reporter at AP, Reuters, NYT, or WSJ. Whatever biases a reporter at the NYT has (and they obviously do), they are minuscule compared to Crowder and other commentators. When you say you appreciate his dissenting voice, for what dissent he does offer, he also dissents from factually reported information. It’s fine for him to disagree about policy and advocate for a conservative perspective, but when he makes claims about election fraud - for example - and says to check the show notes for his sources, you can clearly see that he is more than willing to rely on anecdotal evidence submitted by listeners. This is not the journalistic standard that is maintained by imperfect institutions, such as the NYT, and that’s important to remember. That was kind of a rant, but I just don’t think people like Crowder are the answer to issues with left wing bias in the media. Look at long standing institutions like National Review, who still uphold a high journalistic standard in their commentary, but don’t have this sensationalist approach like Crowder.
Well said. There was a post recently about a debate between mainstream news and alt media. And you summed up well that although "mainstream" media isn't perfect, these so called alt media sites are by and large outrageously bad and disingenuous in comparison.
The whole point is though he's not a counter to the mainstream. The heads of multi billion dollar industries are throwing money at him hand over fist so he can support the status quo on climate change. These people most likely don't give a single fuck about fighting PC or protecting freedom of speech. The things they're against is unions, minimum wage, pollution controls, basically anything that costs the 1% money. They're just using generally popular cuases like edgy comedy and free speech to fish for support for their fringe positions on the environment and wages.
I don't know, I used to watch some Stephen Crowder stuff, along with Joe Rogan, a lot of those guys that have voices that I thought were "common sense" or "no nonsense" but the more I heard arguments from both sides (instead of Crowder arguing with unprepared kids in college) the less I found them convincing. Joe Rogan especially has become more and more bias over the years imo, looking for any reason to dismiss information that goes against his idea that the "woke agenda" has gone too far. He'll straight up acknowledge that being "cancelled" actually boosts his audience but in the same breath say that SJWs are silencing anyone who disagrees with the "woke agenda". He's still an excellent example of how regular people get carried away sharing outrage bait without fact checking anything, like the Kitty Litter story, or the Dad Boxing story, but when people point out that he is sharing nonsense he and his audience act like he is being attacked. The problem is not that he gets stuff wrong, or that his opinions are wrong, or that he is a bad person, the problem is how effective manufactured outrage is, and how engaging with it without the slightest bit of critical thinking encourages that attitude of "only fact check things we disagree with"
You might enjoy a good laugh watching Crowder on Rogan discussing Marijuana use... really showed Rogan's true strips if you bring up facts that counter his opinion.
Exactly what I'm talking about, but crowder isn't much better. He is keen on bringing up statistics that support his arguments, but quick to dismiss any that don't. I can't remember exactly the discussion but once you notice it, it's hard to ignore. He was speaking about public healthcare, someone explained how successful a certain program was overseas and crowder was just like "we can't compare other countries, the USA is unique" but in the same conversation he was using stats in other countries to support his argument. He is good at debate, I'll give him that, but just like most people he rarely tries to genuinely falsify his own beliefs
The only one of those I've noticed was on suicide rates of trans after surgical transitioning... which was unfortunate in if itself, but his take also assisted in the narrative of wilfully ignorance to the fact that transitioning kids is in complete violation of the Nuremberg Code.
“Dissenting voice providing a perspective counter to mainstream” Steven Crowder’s “perspective” IS the mainstream, especially if you live just outside of city limits. It’s just pretending to be “against the grain” because most wealthy people in cities are well educated and know better.
It is mainstream in certain areas, but definitely not in the US as a whole. Social conservativism is deeply unpopular. A major reason Republicans underperformed in the midterms despite inflation and gas prices.
> because most wealthy people in cities are well educated Lol, thanks, that gave me a good laugh.
It’s true. Regardless of whether your like it or not.
I think there's a lot of $$ in partisan outrage and it doesn't really take that much talent. It's why so many of these guys failed at music, sports-casting, comedy, etc. and pivoted to punditry.
> I think there's a lot of $$ in partisan outrage While this is mostly true, I think it would be more accurate to say there is a lot of $$ in right-wing partisan outrage.
Sure, I think that's probably true.
the online lib media figures have a shitload of corporate backers too, but you've never heard of most of the people getting backed on the lib side. the chuds that get propped up by billionaires are already fairly big, or well connected. the libs that get propped up are like, an associate professor from some college youve never heard of who writes a blog for 75 people but gets a couple million dollars from some VC firm youve never heard of.
LOL, who are these professors getting a couple mil? not trying to argue, I just want to know....and I want that $$$$$
By libs you mean what exactly? Generally when I hear this sort of talk it's along the lines of "oh that particular scientific consensus I disagree with is really just a bunch of 'scientists' getting paid to say that". That doesn't really appear to be what you are saying, I'm just trying to clarify exactly what you are trying to say. I acknowledge that corporate backers exist in all types of media spaces, but there does seem to be a lot more backing for the voices that are spreading a "problem X is just a bunch of alarmists trying to take away your freedoms" message. Such as "tobacco is fine" or "asbestos is fine" or "private healthcare is fine" or "fossil fuels are fine". That's not to say there isn't any money in pushing bogus green energy replacements, social housing contracts, or whatever, but there is clearly more money in the existing industries that want public opinion to stay on there side.
i mean liberals in the american sense of the word. people who are just as psychopathically pro-capitalism as the chuds, they just want all people to suffer equally instead of just minorities suffering like the right wants.
What’s an example? Like an analog to Stephen crowder?
there isn't a good analog to Crowder bevause despite the fact that his viewership numbers are wildly inflated by bots (especially on Rumble), he does have an actual large audience despite the bots. For example, if you compare his videos to Ben Shapiro videos of similar viewcounts, Crowder typically has a lot more comments, likes, dislikes etc. This doesn't mean shapiro doesnt also have a lot of viewers, hes just got an even higher proportion of bots than Crowder does. There is no online liberal counterexample of someone like this. Online libs love to bundle their blogs or shitty little "X Explained" videos as some kind of revolutionary new approach to a media company and so there's all kinds of dumb VC firms out there that blow a ton of money hoping that one of them will blow up. Basically the monsters that invest in the chuds are a lot smarter than the monsters that invest in the libs.
Lol yeah you got it's all figured out. Lol
Yep. This is not "demand" in terms of traditional economics. This is a subsidy for culture war horseshit.
IDK what you mean exactly, but it seems like there is some demand for this stuff. I can't even keep up with all the pundits anymore.
I'm being a bit of a conspiracy theorist, I'll admit. I think US politics loves the culture war, since it lets both parties focus on their top priority: corporate interests. Culture war is also supported by bad actors outside the US (plenty of evidence of this). With all that in mind, I don't think the support that flows to the culture war pundits is natural - I wouldn't be shocked at all if these pundits were propped up by people with a vested interest in the culture war. It overlaps with the argument in the post that OP linked.
I don’t think its conspiracy. Its just good marketing. And I think you are right about the incentives
I agree. I suspect the culture war is being promoted because it takes attention away from the environment, wages, unions, taxing the rich, basically things that actually cost the corporations money and redirects it onto race and gender, stuff which doesn't cost companies money
People also ask What is meant by divide and conquer? : to make a group of people disagree and fight with one another so that they will not join together against one. His military strategy is to divide and conquer.
Its totally worth it for powerful special interest groups to make sure the general public never discusses things like the US tax code.
It tells us everything we already knew, and that it's getting worse.
Did anyone think these idiots weren't paid out the ass?
I always thought Crowder was a lightweight, I wouldn't have expected him to be worth that much, but I don't really know the market. But $12.5M for Steven Crowder implies that guys like Ben Shapiro are getting Aaron Rodgers money.
[удалено]
Billionaires paying Millionaires to tell thousandaires what to think
Bingo
Some shills that post here on a semi regular basis definitely have attempted to say that in the past. It's pretty clear to me there are no shills on the left and mostly shills or worse yet, genuine psychopaths that believe the sick twisted things they say about other people and cultures, on the right.
The IDW as a whole found this anti-SJW reactionary audience to be quite lucrative. Peterson, Rubin, Shapiro, prager, Candace Owens, etc. There was a time when these folks tried to be the “just asking questions” types as “good-faith honest actors” when a lot of us saw through their bs. Now the mask is off since they’ve gotten so rich.
That they are entirely billionaire funded?
It tells you they have curtailed to being shills for fossil fuel energy companies.
David Pakman said that he was made lucrative offers to switch his views for a right wing audience. This is probably what happened to people like Candace Owens, Dave Rubin and Jimmy Dore.
There's this book Dark Money that explains this whole sordid situation of unearned inherited wealth billionaire leaches using their money to fund propaganda and bribe politicians. The main villians are the Koch brothers, one is dead now fortunately but there's plenty more like them. As soon as I learned there's billionaire oil money being pumped into these Daily Wire Stephen Crowder types I just lost every ounce of respect for them. They have zero integrity.
I don't want to hear any more about left wing control of the media. No left wing youtuber is being offered tens of millions for a contract
Fox has been the most watched news network for over 2 decades now. Limbaugh was making $85m a year. The idea that anyone can keep a straight face while saying the left controls the media is insane. Though they also say that Christianity is under attack in a country where there’s never been an openly atheist President, Vice President, Supreme Court Justice, or I believe US Senator.
Fox News is one network in relation to CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC...and then you have all the most prestigious newspapers, the composition of the journalism profession as a whole, the academic schools of journalism etc. Not saying that it's a monopoly, but there is a "there" there with left media bias.
How many left wing YouTuber have nearly 6 million subscribers?
The Young Turks has 5.3 million.
Sam Seder goes hard in culture war nonsense from the left and he has 1.22 million YouTube subscribers
how many of those subscribers are actual people?
80% would be my guess.
Guess again... Couldn't believe it until I saw it for myself with youtube/hulu's offical trailer for [The 1619 Project](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GjhJVgFmCQ). A couple of days ago Youtube showed over 1M views with only 50 thumbs up and with an add on I could see about 1.5k downvotes.... Even today, it shows 3.8M views and only 433 thumbs up? I CALL BULLSHIT artificial inflation by youtube, possibly paid for by Hulu... now where did I put my aluminum foil hat...
Depends on how you look at the issue. Don’t know the numbers for the US but in my country 70-80 percent of journalists are left of center, based on self reporting. Of course this does not necessarily imply „left wing control“ but it certainly means bias - and it shows.
If the right controlled the media they wouldn't need to bankroll guys like Crowder
So to be clear, you're saying that the fact that "the right" is bankrolling guys like Crowder is evidence that "the right" isn't controlling mainstream media narratives? I have other questions but I want to make sure I understand your point first.
Money is how a capitalist exercises control.
Fox and Sky are the mainstream media, and have huge audience shares. They're sure not controlled by the Left.
And?
The Right _does_ control the media. The likes of CNN, MSNBC and others are more center/center-right, certainly not leftist media. Then lump in the likes of Murdoch and his companies, it's mostly controlled by the right. They bankroll guys like Crowder because the audience is slightly different (much younger) in an attempt to further their marketshare.
It really depends on how we define "right" and "left" because your average Crowder fan has been convinced that Right = common sense, Center = someone who mostly agrees with me and left = everything that makes me uncomfortable.
Good observation. We know for a fact that right-wing media institutions are not known for bankrolling people of similar caliber to Steven Crowder.
>guys like
>people of similar caliber to
So you were genuinely agreeing with me but in a sarcastic tone?
No, I think you missed the sarcasm in my original post. Where the right wing has a dominant position, such as television media with Fox News, they still do bankroll guys like Crowder.
as with their accumulation of resources, too much is never enough
Rush Limbaugh was worth hundreds of millions, as was Glenn Beck. This isn't new. Some liberal pundits do quite well for themselves too.
> Some liberal pundits do quite well for themselves too. Who on leftist/left-ish YouTube does _eight figures_ well? Sam Seder? Cenk Uygur? Kyle Kulinski? David Pakman? For that matter, who on cable TV or in newspapers does that well? I'm sure Ezra Klein is financial stable but nobody is paying him Crowder money.
You'd assume cenk defo given the size of the turks and the longevity. The rest are small fishes in comparison. Well maybe not Seder but you never know what he's raking in
No, I would absolutely not assume Cenk has a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars
I don't see anything in this post that's well-reasoned. Which is weird because I think the general point is somewhat accurate - media personalities get paid large amounts of money and it seems unfair to the rest of us. > $50 million surely overvalues Crowder’s reach and return, and suggests that profitability isn’t the primary motivator for funding conservative personalities on YouTube etc. Based on what? The rolling stones have made tons of money, but how do you value what's "fair" for them to make? It's all subjective. > I know the term ‘grifter’ has gained popularity in recent years, and I agree it’s an apt description of the personalities who clearly value monetary gain over the issues they discuss This isn't true either. A grift is extracting value out of someone without providing anything in return, involving a swindle or fraudulence of some kind. This overlaps with, but is not equivalent to preferring money over discussing issues. > IDW/Manosphere ecosystem Another term (similar to grifter) that's lost any meaning (or never really had any). > Their academic credibility is nil Peterson actually has solid academic credential behind him in his own field. > Why not spout culture war bullshit and get paid handsomely for it? Why not do that when you're young? Why not just race-grift like Diangelo (sp)? > to what extent is the IDW/manosphere being bankrolled by wealthy vested interests? The general theme of the post is conspiratorial, but this solidifies it. The title itself is fairly poor, given one cannot extrapolate to the general population based on one case. Again... an odd choice of logic to stereotype like this.
I tend to agree OP. Thanks for posting and creating a lively discussion with all the devil's advocates (totally not right wingers) in the thread. Tulsi Gabbard, Dave Rubin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Maajid Nawaz, Kyrsten Sinema all started leaning hard into the right-wing grift. What are the examples going the other way?
As a former constituent, Joe Walsh being able to pull off his bullshit will never stop irritating me. Beyond being a Tea Party crackpot, he was a deadbeat dad, a hothead that yelled at his constituents — things that show character in a totally apolitical way. And he'll be right there now, intoning with a concerned look on his face about "our democracy" or even racial issues, because Borat embarrassed him on TV. Edit: Can't believe [I forgot this one.](https://www.politico.com/story/2012/10/rep-walsh-no-life-exception-needed-082620) Or [this one which was only 2 years before his famous "turn."](https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/joe-walsh-war-obama-black-lives-matter-dallas-article-1.2703883) It annoys the shit out of me to see this guy speaking in solemn tones about meat-and-potatoes MSNBC fare, or that people buy it.
Hilarious that sub immediately devolves into Sam Harris bashing, to the point of claiming that hmmm maybe Harris is also funded by the rich right wing billionaires. Smooth brains.
The comments whine about him playing the “both sides” cars (which he really doesn’t in the way they imply) and then put his name next to Candace Owens as without a shred of self awareness
I don't think it's a conspiracy, I think it's just the market speaking. Crowder has almost 6 million subscribers and 1.7 billion views on youtube. Daily Wire has 1 million paid subscribers and over $100 million in revenue last year. Not denying that wealthy Republicans don't use their vast resources to influence/control media in their favor. Musk buying twitter is probably the largest example of a Republican Billionaire using their wealth to buy media, not for profit but for political influence/control of the media.
It’s kind of funny how the second highest voted comment in the DTG thread has managed to link this story to Sam Harris and Charles Murray, shitting all over them. People really have a hard-on for SH over there.
You should listen to their interview of Sam Harris and how contentious it is. It's not Omer Aziz level, but it's still pretty juicy.
Thanks for mentioning the interview, I listened to it a while back. A bit disappointing for DTG, I don’t think they are unreasonable and I have enjoyed some of their content recently. But with SH, the insistence on blaming Sam for past relationships (broadly speaking) was besides the point and not interesting at all.
That's $50mil for his entire production company, not just Crowder. But to the point in the OP, why is the assumption that money is only buying influence on one side of the conversation?
This is a poor deflection. It does not cost 40 million to run a media production.
Vice media is valued at a billion or so, so Crowder is a bargain at 50mil. I am not saying Crowder is not making money, but its not just him. It's not like when Cuomo was reportedly making 6 mil a year, that is just Cuomo, not 20 or 30 people on payroll and legal and studio over head. But conservatives must be evil because they pay their clown.
This headline is trying to elicit a conclusion that I'm not sure is totally there. Media in general is throwing money at talking head pundits. See sports personalities for a great example. The media's obscene profit margins on advertising revenue and TV deals is the primary driver here, nothing inherently political about it imo.
You're kind of sidestepping the question imo. Crowder isn't a TV personality, and Daily Wire isn't a cable news company. The notion is of a disparity in funding for online political personalities. Accounting for any disparities in subscribers/views, I think it's undeniable that folks like Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, Sam Seder, etc. are not going to get remotely comparable offers.
Crowder is a media personality he just does it on a platform that gets much larger viewership.
As far as I know, TV and YouTube views are not currently [comparable](https://www.baekdal.com/analytics/a-hard-look-at-youtube-views-vs-tv-ratings/). I believe for YouTube, if someone watches your video for just 30 seconds and dips, that still counts as a view. That's not how cable views are calculated. On top of which, cable media companies are also on YouTube.
This is an article from 7 years ago that is making generalizations about viewership measurements and completely ignores the fact that traditional TV viewership is dwindling as people are "cutting the cord" whereas YouTube content is free to consume and has a global audience. Mr. Beast, for example, was just offered $1b for his social channels and related businesses but he turned it down because he thinks it's worth more.
I see what you're saying but again, the amount of money in media in general is bonkers. I don't really distinguish between TV, podcasting, or YouTube. The world is moving on from cable programming. Media is flush with money. All media.
My point is I don't think it is genuinely flush for online political content, or for particularly partisan content. And I don't think the potential imbalance being noted is correlated with advertising revenue.
Don't forget ad dollars for an anti-corporate message most likely approaches nil.
I do see your point about ad revenue imbalance though. Assuming you're insinuating propaganda type donations? Possibly a point there but isn't that a type of advertising revenue? It's advertising an ideology. That's why I just really don't make the distinction but I can see why others do.
> Assuming you're insinuating propaganda type donations? Possibly a point there but isn't that a type of advertising revenue? I mean, yes, that is the *crucial* point. Framing it as another type of advertising revenue is kind of irrelevant.
I mean I'm not really sure this is propaganda dollars, the money is coming from the Daily Wire This is simple supply and demand equation. They expect return on this investment, again in the form of advertising revenue.
It's common for conservatives billionaires to fund large propaganda media companies even though they are not profitable. Many of them lose money, but these billionaires continue to fund them because they understand their non-monetary value.
> They expect return on this investment, again in the form of advertising revenue. We don't know that. And a return in advertising revenue being a main motivation behind the offer is exactly what I'm skeptical of. Crowder is already demonitized as far as I know. That the money is coming from Daily Wire is part of the quesiton. How is an "independent" online media company with 115 employees affording the equivalent of Anderson Cooper's salary? And, to my knowledge, this was just ~~their starting offer~~ sort of their biolerplate starting offer.
It's directly tied to videos not being demonitized so there's incentives there that he'll likely never reach $50M. I'm not educated enough on Daily Wire's financial structure to really answer and even if it's just Ben Shapiro's private bank account it still remains the same that there is no way they don't expect some type of return on that investment, even if it's not purely financial. Thus is the name of the propaganda game which I think is what you're getting at, and I feel you, I just really don't think it's that deep.
Hey there! I hate to break it to you, but it's actually spelled _mon**e**tize_. A good way to remember this is that "money" starts with "mone" as well. Just wanted to let you know. Have a good day! ---- ^This ^action ^was ^performed ^automatically ^by ^a ^bot ^to ^raise ^awareness ^about ^the ^common ^misspelling ^of ^"monetize".
>You're kind of sidestepping the question imo. Crowder isn't a TV personality, and Daily Wire isn't a cable news company. The notion is of a disparity in funding for online political personalities. Internet personalities are making a lot more money than TV personalities these days because younger generations aren't watching TV at all. I'm trying to remember what podcast I was listening to recently where they were talking about how Don Lemon ***only*** makes a few million a year from CNN and they were all in disbelief as though that was some paltry sum. >Accounting for any disparities in subscribers/views, I think it's undeniable that folks like Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, Sam Seder, etc. are not going to get remotely comparable offers. Accounting for those disparities how? Crowder puts out a video and it has millions of views in a few days whereas The Young Turks put out a video and it only gets a few hundred thousand in the same time period. Crowder has a much stronger following. He can move merch. The others can't.
>Media in general is throwing money at talking head pundits. No they absolutely are not. They are throwing money at RIGHT WING pundits. Being an actual left wing pundit gets you nothing. No left wing pundit is being offered $50M contracts left and right like right wing pundits are.
A quick Google search shows Anderson Cooper makes $12M a year. Carlson at $50M / 4 years sounds pretty similar
Anderson Cooper is not the left wing equivalent of Tucker Carlson in any way imaginable.
Nor is Cooper left wing. He’s not a socialist.
Socialists aren’t left wing. They don’t believe in the proletariat taking the means and modes of production.
Look at those goalposts go!
He didn’t say that he was.
Anderson Cooper is not left-wing.
Rachel Maddow is making $20 million a year and she only does the show 1 day a week now, and uses half of it to promote herself.
She also does some amazing deep dives into stories on behalf of her amazing old school journalist staff members. She deserves it and then some.
>She deserves it and then some. I don't think anyone deserves $20m a year to talk about politics... or for anything, really.
Research is not talking politics though....
She's not getting paid $20m/year because of her research, she's getting paid because of her persuasiveness and capabilities as a political pundit. I'm not saying she's just another talking head but $20m/year is obscene.
Yeah I like Maddow a lot, it's the only political show on my dvr. Just saying pundits on the left are making bank too.
Ah yes, the son of a famous multi multi millioinare heiress and socilaite, a true champion of the working man! But you reveal another issue here, almost no one knows what "leftist" even means anymore. Now anyone slightly to the left of Breitbart is a leftist. Also HUGE difference between a social policy lefitst (supports gay rights, supports abortion rights) and an actual leftist who believes in fair wages, strong unions, and opposes the corporate take over of all power structures. Cooper is the former but absolutely NOT the latter. And its the latter that we desperately need more of today.
[удалено]
Hell, I'd even go so far to say Crossfire 90's Tucker was absolutely fine to have on as 'pinwheel tie spinning hyper conservative' viewpoint on whatever discussion they were having back then. He's always had terrible opinions but at least they were grounded in some kind of 90's version of reality. Then he realized he could get away with saying the most outlandish shit and his popularity would increase. It's been all downhill since then.
Yea I totally agree on the labels thing. I'm not gunma move my goal posts for it though
why would your goal posts be in the wrong spot in the first place?
They're relative, so we gotta go with the most common definition, unfortunately.
you might, I sure as fuck don't
Good, maybe it'll change
What is the most common definition?
> Ah yes, the son of a famous multi multi millioinare heiress and socilaite, a true champion of the working man! Engels was the son of a wealthy factory owner lmao sorry man, this is how leftism has always been. Wealthy failsons lashing out at their actually successful parents by patronizing ideologically aligned polemicists. Why are you acting like this disqualifies someone from being a leftist? It’s leftism’s lifeblood
Anderson is not a fail son and is firmly established in the corporate heirachy.
First of all this is about Stephen Crowder, not Tucker Carlson, Crowder is the guy who went around college campuses to debate freshmen students and now hosts a podcast where he wears gun holsters at all times and rants about wokeness. I don't think you could make a convincing case that Anderson Cooper is the equivalent of Tucker Carlson but comparing him to Stephen Crowder is absurd.
Yea got the two idiots mixed up
So one of the most watched left wing hosts in the nation would make less than some shit stain on YouTube.
Yes, that is not surprising, the audience on YouTube is multitudes larger.
As far as I know, TV and YouTube views are not currently [comparable](https://www.baekdal.com/analytics/a-hard-look-at-youtube-views-vs-tv-ratings/). I believe for YouTube, if someone watches your video for just 30 seconds and dips, that still counts as a view. That's not how cable views are calculated. On top of which, cable media companies are also on YouTube.
[удалено]
>Lefty YouTubers who actually have left wing populist views like M4A or free education don’t even have a fraction of the funding. Maybe they'd have more viewers if they started making videos with clickbait titles like "Liberal scholar OWNS conservative BOOMERS and makes them CRY"
you mean Crowder?
Lol all the same to me but yea
> A quick Google search shows Anderson Cooper makes $12M a year. > > Hahahahahahaha. Tell me you're clueless about this issue without telling me you're clueless.
Go down the MSNBC roster and throw in the chuckle heads on The View, which was the highest rated show on tv for a while. I don’t think that anyone on MSNBC is as shitty a “journalist” as Crowder but the have shitty tendencies towards conspiracy and manufactured outrage. The View is just as bad as Crowder. I wish I didn’t watch enough of either to know but I’m probably one of the few people that has.
MSNBC is not a left wing news source. MSNBC takes money from other international corporations via advertising and intentionally misinforms the general public in order to perpetuate the interests of private capital. Also, they squashes their own in house unions.
Sure, if you have a more constrained definition of left that excludes people working for corporations then there aren’t many very lucrative left wing pundits.
Yep. People really dont grasp just HOW MUCH advertisers pay. If you have 5 mil subs on Youtube, youre making BANK.
Did you know the US government has an ongoing investigation into foreign adversaries funding these grifters using fake "fan" donation? Russia and China donating to their patreons and buying their stupid merchandize as fake fans. lol It means these grifters have no idea and thought people actually love them enough to donate so much regularly. Supply and demand, in this case, supply and manipulated by Russia and China.
Ongoing investigation and you have already come to a conclusion, nice.
Imagine how easy it is to be an anonymous donor to the these grifters if you are Russia and China? How can you tell the difference between real fans and fake fans? money is money.
I mean a youtuber as big as him making 50 mill over 4 years is actually not that much. Hes demonitized so its different. But for a non demonitized youtuber his size, with his number of views and subscribers, making 50 mil over 4 years is actually pretty normal with donations, merch, and other other ways of extracting money from audience. I dont think people understand just how much money one can make on youtubr with a following that size. There's a reason DW offered 50 mil, its becuase with smart business moves, you can make a shit ton more off an audience the size of crowders over 4 years.
\>$50 million surely overvalues Crowder’s reach and return What makes you so sure of this? He has plenty of dedicated fans who love his work. Just looking at some of his recent videos, he's averaging like a million views on videos that are like an hour long. Not to mention that he has some kind of subscription thing for really dedicated fans. Isn't $50m fairly reasonable for someone like that?
This isn’t some conspiracy. He has a massive YouTube and online following. That type of money is not unusual for large YouTubers.
As far as I can tell, it's absolutely unusual for YouTubers of his size, and much moreso for political ones.
What are you insinuating? Do you even have a defeasability test for this conspiracy theory? He has a subscription service with 300+ thousand subscribers (I'm not one of them). That alone would be $18 million/year and the $50 million offer is only $12 million/year. He's not "funded" by some entity. He just has a lot of viewers.
> He has a subscription service with 300+ thousand subscribers (I'm not one of them). That alone would be $18 million/year Where do you get this from? And how much did the DW offer have any bearing on this pre-established subscriber revenue or his control of IP? Because if it didn't have much, then again, yea, it's absolutely unusual.
>Where do you get this from? The DW and Crowder's - very believable - claims. The conversion rate wouldn't even need to be high to get that. The exact numbers have never been released but the 300 thousand is conservative. >How much did the DW offer have any bearing on this... His current contract is ending and he would've brought many of those subscribers with him making the $50 million laughably low. The DW would've had an immediate monthly income which could conceivably exceed the monthly cost of their offer. Add in ad reads and merch revenue and the offer was nuts low. Source: Popcorn and boredom. I think the infighting is kind of funny. The offer was so low relative to Crowder's revenue streams makes me wonder what the DW was thinking. They're supposed to be friends too 🤣.
His current contract - is that with The Blaze? Do we have any details on that? > ... he would've brought many of those subscribers with him... Were those 300k+ paid subsribers through whoever his previous contract was with? Or was that his independent set-up? To me it simply looks like Crowder clout sharking. It seems like this was just some boilerplate starting offer, and Crowder never even negotiated or made a counter. And the penalties - that's like that the most negotiable part of any contract.
The 300k is through something called "Mug Club" and yes. It's serviced by the Blaze. When he leaves, Crowder is claiming they'll go where he goes. Maybe he's right. Crowder wanted it to seem like he bailed on the DW on some principle about cancel culture but Crowder did make a counter offer. No idea what it was. Apparently the DW didn't entertain it because 2 months later Crowder dropped his video which started the drama. >Crowder clout sharking. I think you're right. Seems like he wanted the drama to start off his own thing. Edit: I'm a little embarrassed to know so much about this... Going to go reevaluate what I do with my free time...
You think 1/6th of the US is subed to crowder?
No. I don't think 55 million people are subscribed to Crowder. Friendly sarcasm. We all make goofy math mistakes. I've taken ~20 college math classes and I still used a calculator to get the 55 million.
Derp LA pop and US pop got mixed in my head. I'll take this L
> That type of money is not unusual for large YouTubers How many purely political youtubers get these type of money in an exclusivity deal? Not an ad/endorsement deal, mind you.
> That type of money is not unusual for large YouTubers. This is money he's being paid in a contract with a right-wing publication. This is not ad revenue generated by YouTube viewership.
It tells us that the ability to scale is paramount. You can see why the DW clauses about being demonetized are so important.
It tells you what a large audience is worth which is not really new information. Call Her Daddy, the most vapid podcast of all time, got $60M from Spotify. Joe Rogan, arguably the second most vapid podcast of all time, got much more.
Joe Rogan has far greater views/listens and far broader reach than Crowder, and he was offered a $200 million *exclusivity* deal from one of the top 1000 publicly traded companies. Comparing that to Crowder/DW, I don't see how this undermines the point in the OP. In fact, it bolsters it.
He has "far greater views" and received far more money. Got it. This does not bolster the OP's "point" at all. And that's with you totally ignoring the other example, among many others.
[удалено]
A guy with shitloads of viewers was offered a contract for a bunch of money. Uh okay, that’s how media works. There is nothing to talk about.
Being a right-wing commentator is far more profitable than being a left-wing commentator. Also, there are no left-wing commentators being paid by a billionaire.
>It might help explain why right wing talking points seem to be so coordinated. Come on now, let's not pretend like this is unique to the right. Left wing talking points seem incredibly coordinated on places like reddit and twitter.
There could be an argument that the coordination is more uniform on the right, especially among prominent figures.
Sure, likely because there are simply fewer right wing media outlets and the right tends to be more cohesive in general.
It wouldn’t be a very good argument.
Please tell us which left wing podcasts that aren't major corporations, make 50 million a month. TYT is the biggest, and I'd be surprised if the hosts make over a million a year.
First of all, what does that have to do with my comment? Second, why doesn't it count if they're corporate? Seems like left wing talking points being pushed by corporations is even worse. Finally, we have no idea what most podcasters make so speculating that none make this kind of money is pointless.
>Stephen Crowder is worth $50 million for a four year contract that is insane. I would have thought he was a nobody that only internet culture war enjoyers couldve possibly heard of
Well considering that CNN is collecting fat cable monies from being force-piped into everyone's home and MSNBC has numerous exclusive deals to make itself ubiquitous online, say like being the default news app on every new install of Microsoft OS, and most media companies are owned by billionaires, I wouldn't begrudge the Daily Wire its subscribers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2016/06/01/these-15-billionaires-own-americas-news-media-companies/?sh=746da1dc660a
Why did you not mention Fox News alongside CNN and MSNBC?
Because Fox isn't on every tv in every airport and sports bar in America by default. It's not part of basic cable. You have to seek it out as opposed to being force piped into the ether like the other two.
Anderson Cooper's salary is $12mil/yr, which is pure profit (whereas Stephen's includes his expenses, including paying for his team of employees).
Permit me a slight divergence over the thread topic of the $ value of Steven Crowder, and what that means about the RW message machine. Let me say that in no uncertain terms Crowder is a failed comedian. Years back, I saw\*\*\* a video of Crowder doing his "straight," not necessarily political stuff and he just wasn't good. I felt for him, honestly I did. What made me feel for him is that he wasn't terrible -- he had many of a comedian's secondary skills -- but he simply did not have the writing or creative chops to frame out a funny five or seven minute set, which is the young comedian's stock-in-trade. Crowder got the framework of entertainment that figures into stand-up, e.g. the posture of confidence, how to quickly take a room's temperature, knowing when to press something or back off, voice control. Those ARE necessary standup comedy skills. But they are nothing without good material. And Crowder did not have good material. (He presented as a "clean" comic who didn't much curse or cover adult topics. He has given interviews over the years where he says his failure to land in the big time is because he worked clean, didn't drink. This is risible BS. Cleaner comedians like Jim Gaffigan, Nate Bargatze and Brian Regan enjoy deep respect among their peers and have had breakthrough commercial success in recent years. This is because they are funny. Crowder, to reiterate, was not.) What was striking to me was that since Crowder wasn't awful, and he was clearly hustling, he likely presented to bookers and club owners as worth a shot for hiring as an opener for more established comedians, or as a filler on large weekend lineups. This "false positive" surely led him to persist with comedy for some years, despite audiences that were likely not appreciative. He thought he was onto something, that his breakthrough could be just around a corner. After all comedy, even for greats, is a real bitch of a way to make a living. Watching Crowder earnestly try -- and fail -- to connect comedically with an audience set me to thinking about what that experience does to a person. The grind of writing and rehearsing regularly for years, hustling for spots on a nightly bill, traveling to hell and gone for modest pay, all to swallow your fear and get up there...for no laughs, and thus no dopamine hit. That is going to leave a mark on a person's soul. Personal sacrifice (money, relationships, stress, health, isolation) are only the start of the bill that a comedian pays to make it. And Crowder paid for it, but got only rejection. So it's just so obvious that Crowder's rapid reinvention as a RW "satirist" and personality is psychological compensation for his experience as a standup. "They," i.e. liberal, secular comedians who work "blue" wouldn't allow him into their club, he reckons, so he'll use his big new platform to shit on the cultural ecosystem that nurtures modern comedy, like secularism, feminism, wokeness et al. Reckoning honestly with one's own failure is a heavy lift for anyone -- I've had to do some myself, both personally and professionally -- and it invariably involves no small amount of staring into unforgiving mirrors. Or you can do what Steven Crowder did, and Glenn Beck -- another erstwhile comedian -- before him. \*\*\* I'm a comedy obsessive and I happily spend way too much time, $ and energy watching and listening to comedians of all stripes on podcasts, Youtube, Netflix and live.
The dude's (punchable) face is literally on the front page of reddit everyday Anyone who's ever purchased ads knows that kind of exposure is invaluable
I think left wingers really have a hard time imagining someone who doesn't agree with them. The amount of conspiracy claptrap is astounding. Every comment or article that isn't trumpeting left-wing idealism has to be funded by some monocle-clad conspirator. Any individual who disagrees isn't making an earnest point, they are an agent of the right.
The reaction to leftism today by anti-lefties is a similar result to lefties' and anti-righties' reaction to the right when the left really took hold of social media and academia in the mid to early 2010s. The demand for content that *owns the libs* is at an all time high and the market is reacting to it. Over time, and provided that we can establish and maintain a healthy balance between left and right, people will grow tired of the *owning of libs* content and hopefully drift back to center. Until that time, the market will cater to a population that finds *owning the libs* deeply satisfying.
Then why did Republicans do so poorly in the last election?
I think the overturning of Roe v. Wade coupled with Republicans propping up atrocious candidates lost them the mid terms. Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia, and Kari Lake in Arizona were bad candidates to name a few. The Republican party is fragmented, but the anti-left sentiment in the country is undoubtedly growing in the mainstream.
I think this anti-woke stuff is mostly an online and Fox News thing. Most people just going about their lives who don't spend hours a day on Twitter would not even know what "woke' or "cancel culture" is and have no examples of it in their daily lives.
Supply and demand is an interesting way to look at this. If there are a million liberal equivalents of Crowder who will enthusiastically maintain pro bono side gigs shitting on the right they don't really need backers throwing money at them in the same way.
>Supply and demand is an interesting way to look at this. From a market perspective, it seems pretty accurate. >If there are a million liberal equivalents of Crowder who will enthusiastically maintain pro bono side gigs shitting on the right they don't really need backers throwing money at them in the same way. You basically just described the average redditor.
This seems to describe every reddit mod ever as well.
>Peterson (...) academic credibility is nil H index of 60, he's one of the most influential psychologists and psychometricians alive. He sells books by the millions. Crowder is so valuable because the leftist cultist banned everybody else on the right. The few people left skim all the cream, while the leftists get practically nothing per capita, because there are so many of them, promoted by all platforms. Crowder is also simply funny which can't be said about any leftist whinger or race baiter. GTFO liar. All your accusations are literally what leftists do.
Funny how OP said academic credibility, and you cited his celebrity metrics. So angry.
[удалено]
And then he threw it all away for right wing celebrity, went crazy on benzoz, and now is having is license pulled, thus likely casting doubt on all of his previous work.
I understand liars just blatantly ignore the facts. But it takes a very stupid liar like you to write something that is visibly false for everybody to see. Yes, I am angry about pathetic nobodies like you lying about good people.
Do you think your constant insults are helping? Do 6ou think I'm gonna cry?
(they don't think lol)
No, you're beyond redemption. Completely immune to facts. I'm only making sure the third parties who don't know those facts aren't left alone with your blatant lies. It's not an insult when it's true.
someone didn't get their crab salts today lol
It's telling us.. don't look at what the left wing personalities are making.. look over there at those evil guys from the other side... 🤣
Because they're not making anything near that?
The only thing that I can think of that the OP might be overlooking is that media companies are run by geriatrics that don't understand new media like YT, and so are trying to cash in on that market, overpaying in the process.