The “Grey Tribe” techbros and techbro stans of the “LessWrong” cult insisted they weren’t political while announcing over and over again that the robot god requires billionaires to get richer and faster. 
used to have such an unassailable PR fortress going that even some leftist communities had struggle sessions about him. One of the most naive ones ever even said that he might bring “reason” to the then-upcoming Trump regime. 
I remember 
being declared “nonpolitical” by his cultists.
Joe Rogan of course had the “he sometimes has a lib on his show so he’s strictly nonpolitical even while mostly signal boosting fascists” thing going for a while but I think no one really believes it anymore, not even his devotees.
Most recently, “MrBeast” started to visibly ride the chud slide, even if he was more incognito for a while because of the garish facade of le epic charity grifting.
Anyone actually remain in the plausible pretenses of nonpoliticalness that you know of?
The more you understand how politics actually function, the more you understand how much politics are baked into everything, even things that you might have thought were apolitical before you had a better understanding of what politics actually are.
My point is that while I’m sure there are content creators that have marketed themselves as more or less Political™, your perception of what is political has also likely changed. Reading theory is like putting on the They Live glasses.
Reading theory is like putting on the They Live glasses.
I certainly need to read more theory, but that has definitely been my experience too.
“Non-political”, in the US, really means that you aren’t going to make any statements against oppression. Every “non-political” personality is doing something political, certainly in the sense of what they are socially doing as part of their job as entertainer. They’re often petty bourgeois and treat their employees poorly. Even if they treat them relatively well, they will adopt the persona if a small business owner and represent their interests. You mentioned Mr. Beast. He started various small business tyrant grifts based in his YouTube fame, hocking garbage to children and teenagers, getting in on the ghost kitchen grift, etc. That is where they spend their time and thoughts and how they present themselves: as a set of branded products. If one of these personalities uses their platform to say how difficult but rewarding it is to be a small business tyrant, that is “non-politicL” and nobody even notices. If they or, more likely, one of their employees talks about poor workplace conditions and racist incidents on set, that counts as “political”.
It makes sense given how “non-political” discourse functions. It isn’t even just implicit support for the status quo, it requires downplaying or hiding oppression, and that is an inherently right wing position.
I’m astounded by how much self-inflicted harm
did to his brand around the time of the submarine incident. He could have said nothing instead and coasted along with basically unlimited government subsidies and a public image of “just wants to Save Humanity™” but nope.
Thinking of some of the counte- strike streamers I follow. They attempt to be non political but fail. WarOwl is a conservative but knows that being a conservative cuts his audience in half, so he stays closeted but leaks things like his Ronald Reagan calendar and sponsored videos he did with the marine corps. Fl0m does a better job avoiding politics and I think he himself is likely a moderate, but he plays on a team with a frothing chud (Cooper) and his brother (freakazoid), so he is in that sphere of influence.
It ultimately leads to a ratchet effect that left leaning things are “political” but discussing current events with a conservative slant isn’t. Literally just a mirror of life in the US
Ronald Reagan calendar
A chud has to be very far gone to actually bother to try to get one of those. They aren’t exactly easy to find, even in chud areas, so that’s some serious virtue signaling there.
Weirdly I was also thinking of CS folks. I think the entire CS community is closeted hitlers, but there is enough money in the scene that the ones who let their Hitler particles fly are removed. I’m thinking of Thorin and Sado, RL to some extent, Redeye by some accounts, and others that you mentioned here. And then the owner of G2 as well got the axe for being sexist. There have been others too.
If at the very least they can’t use their platform to spread the hate I guess that’s a better outcome than it could be. At least within the “official” scene of paid tournaments.
James Rolfe/AVGN?
I haven’t watched the AVGN in years, but I do know he’s friends with Mike Matei (who did the intro drawings for his show and has made various appearances) who is a racist shithead. People found old cartoons drawn by him (that are horribly mask off racist), and he’s never apologized for them. Apparently James is perfectly fine hanging out with a guy like that.
If someone sits down with 4 chuds, there are now 5 chuds at that table.
Please welcome every resident of the United States of America!
I think there are some valid criticisms of Rolfe even beyond how he hung out with Matei for literal decades (he drew those edgelord comics when he was about 25, btw). Apparently, he stiffed many of his friends, like the guy who came up with the AVGN theme song, on pay.
Some of his fandom are screaming pieces of chud shit, but maybe he comes close.
One of the most graphically violent haters I ever got on this site (all in defense of abusing workers to the point of them needing therapy while making “realistic” modern Mortal Kombat treats), one that wished me a particularly violent self-inflicted death, had AVGN as an avatar.
