Current Affairs GB News

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coollino said:
I said you get riled by a very particular type of person. A person who is nothing more than a stereotype.
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Sorry, but again you're saying it's in my head, a stereotype, not real, an amalgamation of ideas to create a mythical 'them'.

No. There's ample, sustained evidence (that you aren't interested in) that this is a consistent, repeated culture that is a textbook definition of mob mentality. It's provable as a dynamic that has been elevated from usage against celebrities who did something fandoms didn't like and were 'cancelled', to being applied far beyond that narrow definition.

What you don't understand about my position on this is that I'm not defending the people and businesses involved being 'cancelled'; I'm calling it out as obviously, astonishingly counter-productive. Do you think I'm a fan of GB News or anything it stands for? No! All I do is see the reason it exists and what fuels it.

Tubey said:
Hahaha I can picture it how - Dan "Contender for worst person in the world" Wootton espousing socialist philosophy to maintain balance lol lol lol

Meh, Sky News went centre ground, it left a gaping hole for right wing nonsense - not a surprise to see it being filled. Must admit though for my own sanity I'll be avoiding it like the plague.
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That's my take on it. When talking about 'cancel culture', my take is all that happens - every single time - is a group of people shout into an echo chamber, people shout back, the divide gets bigger, ultimately nothing is achieved and they all simmer down and wait for the next thing to 'cancel', losing relevance and impact each and every single time they do.

This is the best take on it I've heard.



It's rational, reasoned and spot on. I don't have her patience in calling it out though; I can't help being irritated by the sheer stupidity of it. There's no point pretending it doesn't exist, or is exaggerated, or stereotyped. It isn't.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
It's a power thing in my opinion, with those who have historically been marginalised using social media to raise their voice in ways that have previously seldom been possible. Those who have been always in positions of power (white men usually) decide that they don't like this.

In this instance, however, it's hard to feel sorry for GB News when their ideology is firmly at the reins of the UK government and has underpinned the biggest ruction in British politics in a generation. What the feck are they crying about?

As for what should be done about it, I would love for their ideology to be dismantled with facts and reason, but heaven knows the Brexit debacle showed the limits of that approach. The laugh at them approach you advocate hasn't worked with Johnson, it hasn't worked for Farage, and I see no reason why it would work for GB News.
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I agree with a lot of that, particular the usage of it by those marginalised. I'd understand that to a degree, but usually those with more intelligence and level heads would understand when it's counter-intuitive. Unfortunately, with the advent of social media, the phenomenon fuels itself; there's no leaders. Instead, it becomes fun and games, who cares what the net result is when going for the kill is so much fun!

Power goes beyond government and politics. Culture is a different thing, a different war. A man isn't going to be bothered that Johnson is in Number 10 when he's being called out for simply being male, or called a 'racist gammon' for disagreeing with taking the knee as an effective anti-racism tool due to its' political baggage.

My approach advocates laughing at them in terms of things like their hypocrisy. In this very thread, I've made clear that GB News assertion of balance is so incredibly laughable. The reason you can't see dismantling them through logic as plausible is because it probably isn't due to the way the right leverage what the left do.

Which is my entire point, over and over again, to the point people get bored - what these people are doing is enabling the right, perpetuating their power, achieving the exact opposite thing to what you want to achieve. Trump didn't arrive in a vacuum, Johnson doesn't exist 'just because' - the problem isn't that society is getting more racist/bigoted, the problem is society is becoming more protective of the status quo, which is a naturally centre-right position. You cause chaos over every little stupid thing, and people will pine for "the good old days" when they weren't rolling their eyes every week at the latest dumb thing.

So my message to the left - be more like Loretta Ross posted above; challenge those with your own views if they're 'cancelling' like morons.
 
Tubey said:
It's a crystal clear example of it. Something exists, we don't want it to exist, let's moan to companies to 'defund' it so it doesn't exist. I don't want to argue against the philosophy or politics of this thing, I just want it dead.

The 'boycott' reaction is just that, a reaction to the initial act.

Who wins in this? Not Kopparberg. They'll see sales go down, as the only people angered by this are the majority of consumers as seen with Gillette's plummeting sales after their nonsense. No, GB News win. Hands down. Everything they've said has been justified in an instant, not by their supporters, but by their opposition.

'Cancel culture' describes it perfectly and the application of it is often fine. It's the culture of left-leaning people in not engaging with political viewpoints that don't match their own, but instead to silence them.
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Ok, so I understand what you’re getting at, and agree that those saying to stop advertising on a channel is vaguely ridiculous and unhelpful. I do think the “boycott Kopperberg” stance is equally as ridiculous, and saying “they started it” doesn’t change that.

The definition is clearly much wider than I thought it referred to, which becomes problematic, as it gets thrown around for anything (last week it was levelled at a dozen students taking down a picture of the queen in their common room - “Students cancel Queen!”).

I just don’t see it as massively prevalent outside of social media, where it gets escalated by the clicks and engagement of the perpetually angry, and is stoked by an outrage-hungry media who use these stories to get their 500 word articles out.

As for GB News justifying their existence, I’m not sure they’ll do anything more than shore up their intended demographic, which is the above mentioned perpetually angry and those who are obsessed with woke culture and get upset on a daily basis at stuff on Twitter.
 
Amw79 said:
Ok, so I understand what you’re getting at, and agree that those saying to stop advertising on a channel is vaguely ridiculous and unhelpful. I do think the “boycott Kopperberg” stance is equally as ridiculous, and saying “they started it” doesn’t change that.

The definition is clearly much wider than I thought it referred to, which becomes problematic, as it gets thrown around for anything (last week it was levelled at a dozen students taking down a picture of the queen in their common room - “Students cancel Queen!”).

I just don’t see it as massively prevalent outside of social media, where it gets escalated by the clicks and engagement of the perpetually angry, and is stoked by an outrage-hungry media who use these stories to get their 500 word articles out.

As for GB News justifying their existence, I’m not sure they’ll do anything more than shore up their intended demographic, which is the above mentioned perpetually angry and those who are obsessed with woke culture and get upset on a daily basis at stuff on Twitter.
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'course the reaction is ridiculous. They're all ridiculous. The problem is the reaction is sympathetic to an onlooker. Which in turn means the "get a load of this" conversation in a pub gets a sympathetic ear.

The problem is people with similar political beliefs are increasingly incapable of calling out their peers, even when they're blatantly being stupid. So you have someone say "using a black emoji is cultural appropriation" and people feel compelled to agree, because they have to defend and attack as a mob, all the time. The political cause has to be 'perfect', always aligned, never doubted, no shades of grey - "trans women are women, full stop, end of story, if you bring up genetics and facts you're a transphobe/TERF". So many countless, stupid examples.
 
Tubey said:
'course the reaction is ridiculous. They're all ridiculous. The problem is the reaction is sympathetic to an onlooker. Which in turn means the "get a load of this" conversation in a pub gets a sympathetic ear.

The problem is people with similar political beliefs are increasingly incapable of calling out their peers, even when they're blatantly being stupid. So you have someone say "using a black emoji is cultural appropriation" and people feel compelled to agree, because they have to defend and attack as a mob, all the time. The political cause has to be 'perfect', always aligned, never doubted, no shades of grey - "trans women are women, full stop, end of story, if you bring up genetics and facts you're a transphobe/TERF". So many countless, stupid examples.
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Yeah, can agree with some of this. The need for ideological purity is not something that affects the right to the same degree.

I just think that in the same way that some decry the left for seeing racism where it’s not (which is sometimes a legitimate criticism), the same is true of people seeing cancel culture issues or free speech suppression where it’s not.
 
Tubey said:
'course the reaction is ridiculous. They're all ridiculous. The problem is the reaction is sympathetic to an onlooker. Which in turn means the "get a load of this" conversation in a pub gets a sympathetic ear.

The problem is people with similar political beliefs are increasingly incapable of calling out their peers, even when they're blatantly being stupid. So you have someone say "using a black emoji is cultural appropriation" and people feel compelled to agree, because they have to defend and attack as a mob, all the time. The political cause has to be 'perfect', always aligned, never doubted, no shades of grey - "trans women are women, full stop, end of story, if you bring up genetics and facts you're a transphobe/TERF". So many countless, stupid examples.
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You’re tying yourself up in knots about something that doesn’t matter and doesn’t affect you in anyway.
 
Tubey said:
They don't care about any of that. They're just interested in lowest hanging fruit.

Example: P&G make a Gillette ad about men being bad, great, all praise to the corporation! P&G also destroy rainforests, meh.

It's identity politics, constantly. Anyone who doesn't think the way I do must be silenced at all costs, whatever the method.

And then they all wonder why Tories win elections and why things like GB News and Trump exist.

And here's the kicker; when you identify exactly what it is, they try to shut you down, constantly, because they don't want what they're doing challenged in any way; they simply want you to bow down to it.

Screw 'em. Prev can make snarky comments like the above all he wants; as long as I see stupidity, I'll call out stupidity. Giving GB News a free PR win by moaning about companies advertising on it, proving the exact reason they exist is valid, is stupid. Could have just ignored it, could have just laughed at it, but no, you validate it and make them sympathetic.

Morons. Complete morons.
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A snowflake within a snowflake.

Snowflakception.
 
Tubey said:
I agree with a lot of that, particular the usage of it by those marginalised. I'd understand that to a degree, but usually those with more intelligence and level heads would understand when it's counter-intuitive. Unfortunately, with the advent of social media, the phenomenon fuels itself; there's no leaders. Instead, it becomes fun and games, who cares what the net result is when going for the kill is so much fun!

Power goes beyond government and politics. Culture is a different thing, a different war. A man isn't going to be bothered that Johnson is in Number 10 when he's being called out for simply being male, or called a 'racist gammon' for disagreeing with taking the knee as an effective anti-racism tool due to its' political baggage.

My approach advocates laughing at them in terms of things like their hypocrisy. In this very thread, I've made clear that GB News assertion of balance is so incredibly laughable. The reason you can't see dismantling them through logic as plausible is because it probably isn't due to the way the right leverage what the left do.

Which is my entire point, over and over again, to the point people get bored - what these people are doing is enabling the right, perpetuating their power, achieving the exact opposite thing to what you want to achieve. Trump didn't arrive in a vacuum, Johnson doesn't exist 'just because' - the problem isn't that society is getting more racist/bigoted, the problem is society is becoming more protective of the status quo, which is a naturally centre-right position. You cause chaos over every little stupid thing, and people will pine for "the good old days" when they weren't rolling their eyes every week at the latest dumb thing.

So my message to the left - be more like Loretta Ross posted above; challenge those with your own views if they're 'cancelling' like morons.
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They were doing pretty standard activism that has been active for years. Just because you've not previously been aware of a lot of activism or movements does not mean they do not have a successful history. It'd be worth you doing a bit more research and reading about the left and social movements, it might save you getting very upset over things you have no reason to.

Or maybe you'll go back to your big 'but THIS is why the left don't win' because it's a easy to believe and easily digested view. GB News, the Tories, they want to rile people like you up, that's what this is aimed at, and they keep succeeding. Stop getting angry about very, very little and stop being played by these people.
 
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