Asmongold is a Twitch streamer whose output is also edited and put on YouTube.
A funny example (specifically the timestamp at 14:20).
He is making fun of some protestors. At first glance it is inane. But there is more here.
He makes several points. Free speech and peaceful protest are important. As soon as people are setting fire to things, it is no longer a protest but a riot. Rioters should be dealt with swiftly and severely to discourage others. Blocking the highway or taking over buildings is infringing on others’ rights.
Here he is covering conflict between India and Pakistan.
This is how The Kids are getting The News These Days. Streamers are surfacing, and commenting on, both mainstream and social media content.
This is no bad thing. Mainstream media getting to set the narrative has proven unhealthy. Blogs had their day. Video is now where it’s at. Streamers and influencers are filtering things.
This could be good or bad. It depends on the streamer. Asmongold is thoughtful, non-partisan, exercises critical thinking, caveats and bounds his opinions, avoids giving opinions where he lacks knowledge (such as specifics of politics between India and Pakistan in the above example), avoids (when he is being serious) sweeping generalisations, has views mostly compatible with maximising freedom and in general seems pretty smart.
That he is one of the most successful and influential at doing this, is more successful than others in a similar line of work who might charitably be considered dangerous idiots, gives hope that the natural filter of the algorithms can do good.
others in a similar line of work who might charitably be considered dangerous idiots
I wonder which is more dangerous? Sophomoric pranks and childish mocking or, for example, covering up the fact that the guy in charge of the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal has totally lost his marbles, or that a very credible accusation was made just before the election that he sexually assaulted a woman, or suppressing the publication of details from a laptop that made a serious allegation that a presidential candidate was utterly compromised by a foreign power, and was running a gigantic corruption machine.
Just because the BBC and MSNBC have a fancy studio and highly paid “journalists” doesn’t make them any less dangerous.
Completely fair, Fraser, and the article addresses the MSM.
I was thinking more of very charismatic non-mainstream people with bad ideas. They exist, and the freedom of the internet makes them easily accessible. So we rely on the badness of their ideas losing in the marketplace of ideas.
We want freedom because we want good ideas to win. It’s useful to point out when good ideas are winning because there are those who will point at the bad ideas and use them as arguments against freedom.
Of course, there are also those who would put someone like Asmongold in the “charismatic with bad ideas” group, so this is also a defence of him.
I can’t keep up. Is twitching closer to twerking, or to tweaking?
It is a dangerous area – both from missiles and shells, and from terrorist groups.
Of course, I am assuming this person has actually gone to the area and is reporting what they have seen and what local people have told them – the person may just be sitting at home far away (if so they are not a journalist).
Being a journalist is not about working for this or that organisation or having this or that license or whatever – it is about going to places and honestly reporting what you see and what ordinary people tell you, which can be very dangerous indeed.
Asmongold has become the largest “political” streamer on Twitch, much to the chagrin of one of the aforementioned dangerous idiots: Hasan Piker.
There’s a difference between a journalist and a reporter. A reporter will tell you what he sees; a journalist does the same but adds why, in his opinion, the event happens as it does. A journalist always has an axe to grind – usually a ‘progressive’ one – a reporter doesn’t.
Bobby B, Twitching is bird-watching. I won’t be watching the YouTube videos as that site frequently has two unskippable adverts before you can watch a video but presumably Mr. Asmon Gould livestreams his bird-watching adventures. It’s a popular pastime in England. I myself am an incorrigible bird-watcher especially in early summer.
Alex, you’ve mistaken “Twitching” for “Tweeting” yet again.
“Twitching” is actually where you put caramel on two biscuits and enrobe them with chocolate, separately.
I came across Asmongold after led to one of his video reviews on Black Myth: Wukong, as he came across as a very thoughtful take from a normal person. He made clear which side he was on for Gamergate, and since then I have occasionally popped by one of his videos to keep on some of the latest developments.
Old Glyn in East Lindsey – a journalist, even a leftist one, can still be an honest person.
The test is whether they go to the place they are talking about and honestly report what people, of different sides in a conflict, say.
Sadly too many “journalists” rely on establishment sources (they do not talk to ordinary people on the ground – on all sides of a conflict or event) which means they are not really reporters (or journalists) at all.