[cw: racism, ableism, chronic pain, dental stuff]

Thinking about Breadtube.

Like, Breadtube's made up of mostly relatively privileged people, and, in a way,

it was always kind of *bound* to be,

'cause relatively privileged people, by virtue of *being* relatively privileged people,

hit the ground running.

You start with an immediate upper hand

in terms of time, money, spoons, the number of people willing to *listen* to you, etc. etc. etc. etc.

I can offer myself up as an example.

I've toyed around with the concept of doing podcast-y-type stuff a couple times over the years.

Problem is,

I have a flat affect,

I speak with a stammer,

and I don't always pronounce all my R's in a way that you might call "correctly."

End result:

I check just about every box on the list of "things that make people 'cringe-y' to listen to,"

because our common concept of who is and isn't okay to listen to is pretty inherently ableist.

It also means I have to work harder, for longer, to get usable takes,

which is only made worse by the fact that I also have a lot of really serious dental issues,

so I'm kind of

*always* in the *process* of "re-learning" how to speak around my shitty, breaking teeth.

So, all this means that I have to put a lot more conscious effort into the physical act of speaking

than most people do,

and that's not even getting into the chronic, physical pain of my teeth,

or the fact that I'm autistic and not always super verbal.

I also make an easy example on the flip side because,

at the end of the day,

I'm still relatively privileged on a lot of other axes.

Case in point: I'm white.

So, you see what I'm saying. The system selects for privileged people by its nature,

and the most you can really do is consciously work to beat back *against* that,

which Breadtube categorically doesn't.

They do sometimes do videos like,

"Watch Me Take Down This Racist Person or Concept (Because I'm Very Smart and Also Good),"

but that's not the same thing as actually *platforming* more marginalized people.

On the rare occasion they *do* platform someone outside their most immediate friend group

of other mostly white,

mostly cis,

mostly abled Youtube people,

it ends up being fucking Buck Angel or something.

So, not only is there a lack of doing good, but there's a lot of actively doing bad.

You can't make it through any given ten minutes of a Contra video without getting an R-slur,

a T-slur,

three "ironic" racist statements,

and seventeen cases of her misgendering *someone* (even if it's only herself),

because part of the way she maintains her fucking *massive* cis audience

is by making them *feel* like they're learning,

while still actively feeding them a steady, consistent stream of unchallenged anti-trans bigotry.

Over the course of the last year, especially,

it's become increasingly obvious just how far they're willing to go to excuse,

ignore,

or actively *sell* vicious fucking out-loud bigotry.

And people have noticed.

I don't just mean critics, or former fans.

I mean other fucking content creators eager, willing, and able to take advantage of that space.

Over the course of the last year, it feels, to me, like there has been a fucking *explosion*

of openly, violently racist, abusive, transphobic

sacks of human *shit*

trying to get in on that sweet, sweet Breadtube cash.

When I say "sacks of human shit," what I'm doing is,

I'm being vague

because these people have done things on a level I'm not even comfortable talking about.

When Breadtube people, or Breadtube fans, talk about the fucking "deradicalization pipeline,"

this is what they mean.

This is where the fucking pipeline goes.

[cw: stalking, doxxing, pedophilia, rape]

We just end up with serial stalkers,

doxxers,

sexual predators, Nazi pedophiles,

and hardcore, devoted fucking racists """"on the left.""""