By David Futrelle
YouTube “philosopher” Stefan Molyneux was never really much of a philosopher. And now he’s not a YouTuber either: the streaming video site has banned his ass.
Molyneux, alas, is still on Twitter, where he broke the news with a typically melodramaic flourish.
Oh, it was a “philosophy conversation,” huh? I thought it was just a weird old dude lecturing young women about how they need to start having babies pronto before their eggs get old and smelly. I thought it was a white dude spewing out racist garbage about IQ and the glories of Western Civilization. I thought it was a not-quite-official alt-rightist serving as a gateway drug, leading possibly thousands of his followers into the official alt-right.
But alas, simply cataloging Molyneux’s assorted obsessions isn’t really the best way to pay tribute to this YouTube Philsopher who isn’t a philosopher and is no longer on YouTube. So I thought I’d provide a handy menu of some of his greatest hits as a public intellectual. By which I mean: here are a bunch of my old posts about the guy.
Stefan Molyneux has a new obsession. Can you guess what it is?
Stefan Molyneux throws down the gauntlet to … wine moms?
Stefan Molyneux says his YouTube career is in a “death spiral.” I may bust out crying.
Six fun and kicky makeup tips from YouTube racist Stefan Molyneux
So Stefan Molyneux is a slam poet now, apparently
Stefan Molyneux: Only white men are smart enough to consistently support “free speech”
Brain genius Stefan Molyneux: ADHD is caused by dumb immigrants and shitty single moms
Stefan Molyneux answers the musical question “why do good girls like bad guys?”
And of course there’s this one:
Stefan Molyneux’s Secret Life as a Hot Babe Who Loves Stefan Molyneux
Coming soon: Reddit’s halfhearted crackdown on hate.
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The largest philosophy conversation the world has ever known, huh? My grandfather was a philosophy professor for 50 years, and I’m sure he would laugh in Stefan’s face if they met. Stefan is a 3rd rate cult leader, and that’s generous.
Speaking of manosphere pseudo philosophy, whatever became of Jordan Peterson? Last I heard he was in a coma in Russia or something like that.
I never watched any of Stefan’s videos, but I get the feeling that’s a good thing.
Seeing as the Reddit bans also happened today and Graham Linehan was booted from Twitter and Stefan lost his channel, it almost seems like social media is finally started to do something about hate. This is what should have been done years ago, and is a bit too little too late, but it’s something.
Isnt he in debt? Or am I thinking of Milo… anyway, I guess now that YT, on this rare occasion, cracked down, he should start being an alpha dominant patriarch male breadwinner and get an actual job. Idk how to feel about his wife who is on board with everything he does. I just feel bad for his daughter.
Would this ‘halfhearted crackdown’ involve them dropping the banhammer on The_donald subreddit? Because I think that’s a great sign- if even Reddit is making halfhearted attempts to curtail MAGAheads, it means opinion really is turning against Lord Dampnuts.
@Naglfar- think of it as a barometer of public opinion. Social media wouldn’t be doing this if dedicated MAGA heads weren’t outnumbered by the people calling to curb their vitriol.
Re: Jordan Peterson, some guy named Dr. Thomas Hudlicky wrote an article in the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie about how diversity in science is anti-meritocratic. The article was pulled after a lot of people complained. Now Jordan Peterson is apparently going on a crusade to prove that male scientists are discriminated against, using this as his only real piece of evidence (aside from the usual reams of meaning-devoid bafflegab).
@Snowberry
This sounds rather reminiscent of the Damore memo. Do we know if Peterson ever finished his benzodiazepine detox program?
@Joekster
It is good, yes, but the reason I’m more pessimistic is because there is still a long way to go towards eradicating hate. I’m worried Reddit and the like will look around, pat themselves son the back for this, and decide it’s all good and that they don’t have to do any more. More is needed.
I’m a long time reader who just created this account to celebrate.
Between this and all the banned subreddits, it’s a good day Tater!
Yeah, that’s what I’m bracing for as well. Or as was more succinctly put in this tweet:
“Defund the cops.”
“Juneteenth is an official holiday.”
“Ok but the cops?”
“We changed a syrup bottle!”
“The cops?”
“We’re taking down old sitcom episodes.”
“The cops?”
“Recasting black cartoon characters.”
“And the cops?”
“Haven’t we done enough? You sound a bit ungrateful.”
https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/status/1277285992437813252?s=20
Knowing Reddit, they’ll be playing subreddit whack-a-mole with the remaining users of the banned subreddits for a long while.
@Catalpa
Exactly. So much is performative and doesn’t show a true commitment to addressing the underlying issues. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to ban hate subreddits, but there is still a lot left to do.
@Talonknife
They’re doing better than I expected with that so far. r/Gender_Critical was banned within hours of the original (without the underscore). r/TrollGC (the TERF meme sub, where they post MRA-quality memes and think they’re funny) has gone private, and hopefully will be gone soon.
Stephen Molyneaux sockpuppeting as an adoring young female fan was my favorite philosophical moment of all time.
They also banned several other subs, according to this (partially-redacted) list.
Among others, Reddit also banned Gendercritical (TERFs, TERFs everywhere), ChapoTrapHouse (Dirtbag Left sub that was getting to T_D levels of advocating for violence), Wojack (crypto-fascist memes), ConsumeProduct (fashy anti-capitalism).
All in all, a good start. Emphasis on start.
Well, defunding the police is outside of Reddit’s purview, and I doubt that they’d be the sort of organization to voice support for it in the first place, but I take your greater point.
Something tells me that this is a preemptive strike because of all the bipartisan talk about ending the rules that protect social media companies from being sued for their user’s content, for example hatespeech. Of course Republicans are only interested in this rule because they want to able to sue and harrass the accounts that they don’t like with “libel”, but I’m hoping that will all come out in the wash.
Yeah and Bipolar Disorder is caused by the Portuguese and Anime fans.
Somehow I think if you got Plato, Confucius, Lao zi, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Socrates, John Stuart Mill and Kierkegaard together, “Is fat acceptance a plot to lower birth rates” among other things doesn’t sound like it would be the topic of conversation.
@Moogue: The problem is that, as usual, they’re only thinking about what they can do to those they consider enemies. They’re not considering that those people could do the same to them in return, and probably far more competently. Despite that it blows up in their face nearly every time, they never learn. And the long-term effect if they succeed is that the major US-based companies will just move *out* of the US to avoid the worst of it, damaging the country’s economy further and mostly undoing everything anyway.
Good riddance for that clown. May he have a good day in company of Milo.
Good thing the general deplatforming of the far right is picking a bit of steam.
I still remember Shaun’s video on Stefan as he complained about Wonder Woman, that was the first time I heard about the guy and I wondered how anyone could take him seriously.
@Snowberry
A few weeks ago when Trump went off about Section 230, it was pointed out that if it were repealed Twitter would probably ban him for liability reasons. I wonder if he will be angry about r/The_Donald being banned, although he isn’t officially connected he did an AMA there a few years ago while campaigning.
Trump’s over 50, so Reddit is about as relevant as predicting moonquakes. Doubt he’ll even notice.
Speaking of Reddit bans, the Twitter account for r/GenderCritical (not totally sure how Twitter accounts affiliated with subs work) has suggested members give the app a bad rating in the App Store to try to get their subreddit back. I don’t think they realize what a small minority they are.
Dieudonné, one of the biggest french antisemite, was banned too apparently. (from youtube at least)
I guess non-french won’t get how big of a deal it is, but it’s still cause of celebration to me 🙂
@Ohlmann
You’re right, I don’t, but still yay! I’m choosing to believe it’s something like Rush Limbaugh getting pitched off (if he were a YouTuber). I celebrate with you 🙂
@Ohlmann: Yeah, I remember Dieudonné, back when he wasn’t a raging antisemite he could be wickedly funny… His descent into hate-filled, bigoted anti-Jewish one-man-wankfest is a tragedy for French comedy and I now hold only scorn for the man.
Oh, and re: Molyneux’s tweet:
“TeamYouTube just suspended the longest pseudo-philosophical attempt at justifying being an arrogant, bigoted macho tool the world has ever known.” FTFY.
Time for a quenelle (the food kind)?
(I only know him as being the inventor of the shove-it-this-far-up-your-arse-but-also-it’s-an-inverted-Nazi-salute-and-yes-it-was-used-against-“Zionists”-but-I’m-not-an-antisemite-I-swear gesture that some French football player made.)
@An Autistic Giraffe
“Yeah and Bipolar Disorder is caused by the Portuguese and Anime fans.”
Are the Portuguese a large influence on the US and the West in his mind? It just seems really weirdly… specific.
@Naglfar, @Snowberry
Yeah, that makes sense. A part of me is not feeling optimistic about anything anymore.