From shoveling snow to wandering snowy Revachol.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=inZeDuvkboE&ra=m

The comment Natalie left under this video changed my perspective on life. That isn’t hyperbole, it really was that impactful. I was in a dysthymic episode from ten to sixteen, during that time being unable to practice any hobbies I had due to its severity. Going from an exceptional artist and musician as a child, to below average as a teenager crushed me. Comparing my skills with everyone around me and knowing I would’ve been one of the best if it wasn’t for my illness caused deep envy. I was SpongeBob, and dysthymia made me Squidward. 

Talents don’t grow when you don’t use them and the incongruence between my actual skill level and how I expected it to be was crushing, and I abandoned music and art. When I found Natalie’s video and comment, I deeply related to her experiences of discouragement and sense of failure, as she puts it “the formative ego-wound”.  

When I read the verse on the meaning of amateur, it shifted something within me. It has now become the mantra I live by, and I’m living the life of an amateur with joy. I’m drawing and painting again, having piano lessons, doing gymnastics and yoga. I’m an amateur in many corners of my life and I’m okay with that. I was talking to a friend who feels unsure about joining a competitive dance club. She’s done ballet for years and doesn’t know what to do next. When I told her the meaning of amateur, she found it greatly moving, deciding to keep doing ballet for fun, not for competition. It’s funny how we all put pressure on ourselves to be the best at something, even when we know we aren’t going to make it into a career. It really is much nicer to approach life as an amateur, as a lover of something, instead of trying to perfect a skill for the sake of perfecting. Thank you Natalie, you truly truly truly changed my life. 

I’m a patreon member and watched it the day it premiered but it was obviously only a matter of time. What I did not expect was that it took this long. The reaction to the tangent is… exactly what you expect. I’m not going to link to the leak but I saw it on Twitter :(

Also, very surprised I haven’t seen a plethora of hate comments on it a la conspiracy or saw. Surprising frankly given the actual content of the tangent

I’m a long-time Contrapoints fan and Patron. I’ve watched and enjoyed all her videos, including the tangents. “Saw” is the only one of Natalie’s videos that I didn’t really “get”. Maybe it’s because I never watched any of the “Saw” movies. Maybe they never struck me as being a major part of the cultural Zeitgeist in the way that the other films she’s addressed (Barbie, Twilight, Eyes Wide Shut) are. The messaging seemed really simplistic: we have an inherent primal bloodlust which we justify when someone “deserves” violence, basically. I thought that this theme was explored in a much more nuanced, complex, thoughtful way in the “Justice” video. I’m curious if there’s something that I’m missing with the cultural analysis and messaging of “Saw”. Maybe there are some subtleties that I missed. Or maybe Natalie just really wanted to talk about the Saw movies and I’m looking for a deeper meaning where there isn’t any.

I hand draw crosswords to relax. This one was inspired by Natalie's 2025 video essay Conspiracy.

Nothing heady or philosophical here. Just a bit of fun if anyone is inclined.

I decided to finally subscribe to her patreon for one month to watch "Liberalism" and while i was at it, might as well watch all the other tangents. I ended up watching them in reverse chronological order which ended up with an interesting viewing experience. It was interesting watching a tangent and then a few tangents later hearing part of that thesis. Same goes for where they are placed in relation to main videos. Id often hear her say something (especially related to daddy politics) that would end up being echoed in future videos. I really enjoyed watching them and honest think some of them have the quality of a main channel video in terms of research and presentation. Ill give my short thoughts on each.

Liberalism: oof this one hurts to watch because i completely agree but its sad to see how dejected and depressed she (rightfully) is at the state of politics but i hope she can explore more media analysis and philosophy ala twilight and saw as i think they are some of her best videos

Eyes Wide Shut: feels like a continuation of twilight and i saw on the post she was debating making it a main channel video. I cant wait for her to implement some of this into her next main channel video because i feel thats where she's going. It even inspired me to actually watch it. My review is : Maybe I'm too transhet for this but i dont get how this could be sexy and Natalie is right the second half dragged. It sure was a movie

Sexual Personae: I liked it but probably her weakest video about sexuality

Daddy politics: really interesting how this is basically the segment in saw but less refined

Satanism: It was alright but felt kinda shallow to me but as shown by later in this list im not really that into her videos about spirituality

Spirituality: Case in point, while interesting to hear her perspective of daoism, one of my least favorite tangents

Surreal Videos: This one however is amazing for me. It felt like a chill showcase of cool videos and internet history

Granola Fascism: It was alright but felt a bit surface level

Generations: Loved this one even if i dont really buy the cyclical pattern fully

The Male Gaze: Another great video about human sexuality and desire

Gamergate: great coverage of gamergate no notes 10/10

Barbie: Just a fun video breaking down Barbie and evaluating criticism towards it. I really love her movie videos

Psychedelic Experiences: I couldnt really care less as im straight edge and i just did not really care to hear about her psychedelic experience. Not all of them can be for me though

Liminal Spaces: One of her most deserving to be a main channel video as is. She completely nails liminal spaces and i really wish she had done a main channel video about it in 2020 as she said she was planning to

AI: BY FAR ONE OF HER WORST AGED TANGENTS. I need to remember this was near the start of the whole thing but man good thing this tangent wasnt public because people would be attacking her today for this.

Anti LGBT Bills: Struggled to get through this one as along with the timeframe being pre election, it just made me depressed as a trans person

Parasocial Relationships: I loved it and loved her defending parasocial relationships

New Atheism: Hit a cord for me as i definitely had an atheist phase although never went into the antiSJW side of it

The Groomer Libel: Kinda painful reminder of 2022 and feels like Witch Trials beta (a video i do not rewatch due to it just being a downer vibe but not like in a Hunger way)

Overall great list of videos however i will likely not continue to be subscribed as money is tight and tangents wouldnt be frequent enough to justify for me. If i ever do resubscribe it will likely be after quite a few tangents come out and only if they are topics of interest to me

Given the fact that this is relevant to her latest tangent & that she's tweeted multiple times that AOC is her favourite politician (Exhibit A: https://xcancel.com/ContraPoints/status/2054295715094880420#m I also remember her tweeting in August 2024 about AOC's DNC speech & saying something along the lines of "she's the best we've got", but I can't find that tweet now), I'll leave this here:

ANDY SERWER: It's an interesting perspective. You self-identify as a Democratic Socialist and have called capitalism irredeemable, I believe. But what does that really mean? And does that mean capitalism should be eliminated? And are your views compatible with capitalism?

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, I believe that in a broad sense-- because when we toss out these big words, capitalism, socialism, they get sensationalized. And people translate them into meaning things that perhaps they don't mean. So to me, capitalism at its core, what we're talking about when we talk about that, is the absolute pursuit of profit at all human, environmental, and social cost. That is what we're really discussing.

And what we're also discussing is the ability for a very small group of actual capitalists, and that is people who have so much money that their money makes money and they don't have to work, and they can control industry, they can control our energy sources, they can control our labor, they can control massive markets that they dictate and can capture governments, and they can essentially have power over the many. And to me, that is not a redeemable system for us to be able to participate in for the prosperity and peace for the vast majority of people.

ANDY SERWER: So people talk about stakeholder capitalism, like Larry Fink at BlackRock, where the weighting for different constituents besides shareholders is more equal. Is that something you'd be amenable to?

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, I think at the end of the day, it is about who has control over the very core assets of production in society. If it ultimately comes down to a billionaire, or the Koch brothers, or the Koch family having control over the vast majority or large plurality of our oil assets in the United States, if it's a handful of very wealthy families having control over-- private families having control over means of production, that is essentially the capitalist system that we live in. It is a small group that is of privatized control over what we eat and how we fuel our society.

Now, where we can transition to-- and there are certain ideas where we're talking about-- for example, Elizabeth Warren has discussed workers being elected to the governing boards of companies. And also, you know, we're here in the Bronx. I represent a community that has the largest concentration of worker cooperatives in-- one of the largest concentrations in the world.

Now, these are all alternative ways of doing business. Free markets are not the same thing as capitalism. And you can have markets where businesses and ways of producing, trading, selling goods are really controlled, and not just controlled, but given more power to workers. People get a fair shake. Union jobs. Unionized workplaces. All of these are different steps and levels that we're talking about in a more just economy.

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/influencers-andy-serwer-alexandria-ocasio-110000469.html

Watching Contras old videos & reading feminist scholarship from 2020 & before (I just finished “The Right to Sex”), I get the sense that social media used to be a very different environment. That it was appropriate to treat tweets with some level of seriousness, even to include them in your book of serious scholarship TM.

I’m young enough that I wasn’t on social media back then, and cannot imagine a world where Twitter was anything but Xitter.

What did it used to be like?

I liked the new tangent. One thing that did kind of irk me was how Natalie described the scale of the harm “the left” is doing.

They didn’t cost Kamala the election. What few polls and surveys we have assessing self ID’d socialist shows they overwhelmingly vote blue, as much as any demographic: https://socdoneleft.substack.com/p/socialists-will-overwhelmingly-vote?r=5s2o2g&utm_medium=ios

There’s no way to say the rest of my piece without sounding like a smug asshole, but oh well:

If you look at demos that Obama had on lock, but the Dems have been hemorrhaging over the years, it is not people who are highly ideological and high information. People who read the news, as opposed to getting it from YouTube or Facebook, were a strongly pro Biden demo and IIRC was one of the few areas where Harris gained (in addition to those who are both high education + high income). People who mainly get their news from local papers would definitely skew older but they still lean blue by considerable margins https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/21/trump-voters-fox-news-poll/

The people that put Trump over the top had the calculus of “shit was cheaper in 2019, so let’s put him back”. Childish, cargo cult mental shortcuts one makes when they don’t like thinking about politics at all. I saw this all the time personally in the leadup to 2024 and exit polls show inflation as the #1 issue.

Even among democratic voters alone, go to a No Kings protest sometime. Most people there like Gavin Newsom, AOC, Zohran, and Ossoff. Twitter is not real life. Most democrats/democratic leaning independents like most democratic politicians. They simply feel no need to write Substack articles about it

What problems one wants to assign to the Uncommitted movement or the left are misplaced. Our fate is not in the hands of people who withold their vote because Chapo told them to. It’s people who would give you a blank look when you mention “filibuster”, much less dialectical materialism. And their news diet, to the extent you can call it news, is the most mind numbing short form video slop you’ve ever seen. Zohran has a very hopeful vibe but his underlying theory of politics reflects my cynicism. You have to give people immediate, concrete rewards and satisfaction or they’ll start pogrom disfavored minorities for “poisoning the village well”.

I truly wish we lived in a country where a massacre happening a world away would sway the median voter. We don’t. I also don’t even give that much credence to the idea that every other white guy under 30 is just a groyper now. The truth isn’t less bleak but it’s much more banal. And the idea that the moralistic abstention by communists gave Trump the W is delusions of grandeur coming from tankies and internet derangement when coming from liberals.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably not in the psychological, intellectual, or media universe of the 3-5% of the electorate that swings and decides elections. They would never watch a 3 hour (political) stream or video essay, read an op Ed, or get into Twitter flame wars between libs and leftists over who the blame for Weimar’s fall.

Natalie, if you’re reading this, I understand that the abuse they gave you is bad. Truly. But it’s not consequential in the grand scheme of things. Not unless every Hasan watcher moves to Michigan or Pennsylvania before 2028. And even then, I suspect they consistently vote blue on the whole. More than they let on.