"breadtube" and "lefttube" started off as arbitrary labels assigned by fans, less to do with their actual material politics than the fact that they were (as kathryn says in her thead) just left of an at the time extremely prominent and conservative center. https://twitter.com/TransSalamander/status/1326231736804495360

ironically i think the "big name" breadtubers are its worst representatives. not because their work is bad by any means, but because breadtube really only exists as a coherent genre for the people inspired by the trend those "big names" accidentally started.

when i really started taking my channel seriously back in 2017, i was very consciously emulating the likes of hbomb and contrapoints- and i know i wasn't the only one. but that's the only extent to which "breadtube" exists, really. it's a genre, not a distinct political movement.

like a lot of video essayists, i reached a point where i was asking "what does this even accomplish?" it's a question i still struggle with sometimes, but i think it's rooted in the false notion that media is or can somehow become the locomotive for a revolution at any scale.

what watching the george floyd uprisings (and, more specifically, observing CHAZ) taught me is that media is not action. what we do as video essayists is primarily entertain, even as we attempt to educate. any sense of breadtube praxis cannot stand up to scrutiny otherwise.

yes, video essays can raise consciousness and spread awareness. yes, video essayists can raise money for extremely important causes. but their power exists only when they have an audience.

in short: anyone can ignore a youtube video. no one can ignore a brick in motion.

marx has been mediated for well over a century. you put the best leftist in history online today and their words mean nothing if the political will to act does not exist. you can help stoke the fires, sure, but the nature of this beast is you don't know who is and isn't watching.

more to the point, i don't know that it's possible for youtubers of any genre to meaningfully unionize, which means they are fundamentally beholden to google and its litany of government contracts. what leftist has the REAL conversations on youtube? on twitter? impossible!

i can't speak for anyone else, but for me realizing all this has been freeing in the sense that while i believe any artist or critic has a responsibility in doing what they do, ultimately this work can only ever be supplemental. it will never replace the real work. good!!

you can narrativize, you can contextualize, you can agree and disagree and dispute, and yes you can cause great harm and great good in equal measure, but at the end of the day... it's just fucking youtube, man. chill