Mediaboss Marketing

In the days following the US election, hard-right politicians, commentators and social media stars were lacking a platform on which their conspiracy theories could go viral. Both Twitter and Facebook were flaggingtheir endless stream of posts suggesting the election had been stolen, warning they were misleading or contained false information. The right needed a place to regroup; the platforms that had served as megaphones were slipping from their grasp. So, in what perhaps felt like a last shot, they encouraged each other to go to Parler: the free speech platform, heralded bycorners of the right as their last social media hope.

Parler is a relatively newplatform, which encourages themindset that the only rule is there are no rules. It brands itself as a foil to mainstream platforms the place users can go to say what they cant say elsewhere. After launching in August 2018, it surged in users the following May, when Politico reported that Donald Trumps then-campaign manager Brad Parscale was considering making the president an account amid free speech concerns onTwitter. He didnt;but he did set upan accountfor the Team Trump campaign, which is still active. Parler enjoyed greater popularity among right-wingers as a result. In the UK, there was a similar pullto the platform inJune when a user created an account that pretended to be Katie Hopkins who hadrecently been banned from Twitter and managed to raise $500 for legal fees before anyone realised it was a hoax. This saw British commentators and Conservative MPs sign up to the site, proof of Parlers free speech USP.

After a quiet few months, Parler crept back into the news in October, ahead of the3 November election. It became a hotbed of QAnon, Pizzagateand Hunter Biden conspiracy theories. In the week after the election, it was top of the American app store charts, listed as the most downloaded product on both Apple and Android devices.

With the endorsement of countless right-wing celebrities and politicians, it has swelled to ten million users worldwide up from 2.8 million users in July. Right-wing personalities across the globe are now encouraging users to commit to Parler and to quit Twitter for good. And that user growth, coupled with the support of so manymainstream political voices,makes the platform different from its predecessors. If its biggest stars quit other platforms outright, there would be an even bigger draw for theaverage user to keep coming back.

But can Parler really thrive on the right? Can it become a household name? What does the right get out of social media likeParler a platform where, perhaps for the first time, its own mainstreampolitical echo chamber has been created?

***

Parler is not the only place the right is, or has ever, gathered online with little to no left-wing influence. 4chan, Gaband messaging service Telegram have become popular with the alt-right at different points over the last 15 years. However, the vast majority of these platforms have gained reputations as being toxic, and have become synonymous with the worst of the internet. Milo Yiannopoulos, an early far-right British starlet who was banned from Twitter in 2016, infamouslyposted on Telegramlast year: I cant put food on the table this way.

Parler, on the other hand, has been able to style itself as more mainstream, more sanitised in the short time its been live. But,despite its more palatable public face, it still allows most of what you would find on more notorious alt-right sites. After a blip this summer,CEO John Matzewarned the platform would not allow obscene words in usernames, repeated harassment in the comments, or pornographic images (all of which are allowed on Twitter), but misinformation and abuse are still rife on the site.Parlers cleanappearance therefore allows politicians, for example, toparticipate on the site, even though familiarly insidious content lurks underneath. This is the key to Parlers success as a right-wing social media platform.

[See also:What is Parler? Inside the pro-Trump unbiased platform]

One of its biggest drawbacks, however, is the same complaint many on the right make about Twitter: it really is an echo chamber. As a user, you are metwith the same set of opinions,shared in different word formations on different accounts. There is no incentive for anyone on the left to join. And so Parler posts tend to fall flat: intrigue and controversy are impossible when everyone is inagreement.

Already, you can sense users tiring. Right-wing social media posters who are active elsewhere have barely touched Parler since joining. Fox News host Tucker Carlson has only posted twice since joining at the end of 2018 and Donald Trump Jrs partner, Kimberly Guilfoyle, has also posted infrequently since she joined in July. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, one of thepoliticians who very enthusiastically joined Parlerin June,has even started sharing non-political memes clearly ripped from Facebook pages. All three of these conservative personalities still post regularly on Twitter and many others who claimed to be leaving Twitter for good have already begun to trickle back.

The only people who appearto use Parler as their main social media outlet are those who have been banned from all other mainstream platforms. Alex Jones, of InfoWars fame, who was banned from YouTube, Twitterand Facebook last year, posts multiple times a day to his account; Yiannopoulos has also begun posting aggressively on Parler. However, both Jones and Yiannopoulos have only drawn about a tenth of the audience they had on more mainstream platforms over the last ten years, and have subsequently faded into relative obscurity. They may be prolific on Parler, but their importance in advancing the cause ofthe right is very limited.

Audience isnt only a problem for those who have nowhere else to go. Parler is, of course, already inherently smaller, before factoring in the work it takes to grow audiences on Twitter and Facebook over the course of years. Whats the point of posting on Parler alone, when you could tweet and get upwards of 20 times the engagement? Parlers loudest advocates would arguethis is the early price users must pay to fully divorce themselves from mainstream tech platforms. But any long-term benefits to the cause will not tempt those who have become brand names in and of themselves.

However, enthusiasm for Parler is still high, even if its long-term prospects are less promising. In the two weeks since election day, new users haveincluded longstanding political personalities and swathes of newly elected politicians. Fresh, right-wing faces in the Senate, the Houseand smaller state legislatures have flockedto the site. They join their senior counterparts in advocating for this new digital future for the right.

But its hard to envision a reality in which Parlers influence extends all that far. In the past, each waveof new Parler users has abated after a few days or weeks of hype. Users get bored, and its biggest names become less vocal. Enthusiasm only lasts if effectiveness does too.

[See also:How QAnon conspiracy theorists entered the US Congress]

Ultimately, for any ideology to thrive, you cant survive on a single-minded platform made for public consumption. 4Chan thrives for two reasons: because there really are no rules, and because users eventually water down their ideas and disseminate themon more mainstream sites. For platforms that have high mainstream salience, the pay-off is created by the back and forth between two opposing sides.

Parler, by trying to create the best of all of them, creates the worst of both worlds. It maintains a more restrictive platform than 4Chan without any of the political tension other platforms offer. The joy for many politically active social media users is criticising the other side. But you cant "own" the liberalsif there are no liberals around to "own". In an effort to create the first mainstream echo chamber, Parler proves why its theory doesnt work in practice: theres no ground to be gained by repeating what everyone else is already thinking.

Link:
Can the right thrive on Parler? - New Statesman

As the holidays approach, the typical jokes about family political fights will no doubt abound especially with a contentious presidential election marred by conspiracy theories, misinformation and threats of violence. While Bidens win signals a return to basic decency at the presidential level, the nation remains very much divided. Worse, misinformation on the legitimacy of the election is spreading rapidly, further driving conspiratorial thinking and other alt-right messages to the fore of current political discourse. Thus, behind the jokes and the family feuds which inspire them are very real consequences for millions of people in the United States something the recent election made incredibly clear. As such, this holiday season, white progressives need to remain consistent with their supposed commitment to social justice they need to stand up to their racist loved ones.

While the results of the election spurred celebration across the country, white progressives must not be complacent. Yes, a proto-facist leader has been defeated, but the hateful rhetoric, conspiratorial thinking and virulent racism, xenophobia and sexism he espoused during his tenure remain deeply entrenched in American political discourse. Thus, not only is the fight for the rights of marginalized communities ongoing, but our new president while better in a myriad of ways must also be held accountable and face demands to execute a progressive agenda. While there are many ways white progressives can help in this mission, a necessary component of this involves debunking misinformation and combatting hateful rhetoric within their own families.

Privileged progressives must make good on their moral commitment to social justice not only in our public actions, but in our personal ones. While white progressives may attend protests, hold phone banking sessions or donate to mutual aid funds, none of this serves as adequate allyship if they are unable to stand up to those closest to them. Thus, if white progressives truly care about the causes they so often and so publicly claim to support, it follows that they must stand up to their families, friends and anyone else in their social circles who espouse hateful views, conspiracy theories or other misrepresentations of facts.

This holiday season, white progressives should not continue to favor their own comfort and familial peace over the tangible suffering of vulnerable people. In failing to stand up to their families and friends whether their statements are meant well or not white liberals show a distinct complacency with white supremacy, sexism, xenophobia and the countless other ways in which bigotry rears its ugly head. Thus, when we sit silent over our uncles QAnon rants or our high school friends xenophobic comments, it shows that we value our own comfort over what we know to be our ethical duty. Further, if your allyship consists primarily of posting prettily curated Instagram slideshows, then it isn't an allyship its a performance. Conflict particularly when it is with people we love can be hard, but this does not mean we get an ethical opt-out.

To be clear, this article is not intended to argue that you are obligated to put yourself in a physically or financially dangerous situation in order to argue against your familys beliefs. If confronting your family and friends could cause violence or abuse, you should obviously protect your safety. Further, arguing against racist family members beliefs is not the beginning and end of good allyship. Rather, it is a necessary component in a long and complex process. Good allyship is an ongoing process that requires constant listening, learning and action. Ultimately, as a white woman, I dont think my job can or should be to tell you how to be an ally to marginalized people with experiences far different from my own. However, what I do know is that continuing to do nothing to the individual people we are most likely to persuade is unacceptable.

Ultimately, telling your family members that their bigotry is wrong is not activism. However, it is still an incredibly important way not only to show that your moral principles and the individuals and communities whose lives and livelihoods are in the crosshairs of these conversations are more important to you than your relationship with racists. Will having hard and likely contentious conversations with your family work to persuade them? Maybe, maybe not. The reason to stand up against your loved ones bigotry is not just to be persuasive clearly and decisively showing your family that their bigoted beliefs do not have a compliant audience is also a valuable action. No matter the outcome, standing up for your principles disrupts the presumption of agreement so often assumed by bigots. Hateful beliefs may continue but at the very least you can make it clear that they are not welcome to at least one person at the dinner table.

Emma Camp is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.

The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.

View post:
CAMP: Stand up to your racist family - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

Candace Owens/Twitter and Dia Dipasupil/Getty

Harry Styles is human perfection. He is insanely handsome, incredibly talented, and an all around amazing human. The musician recently graced the cover of Vogue magazine (the first time a man has been on the cover) and people have feelings. On the cover, Styles dons a light blue Gucci confection of a dress. Reactions to him wearing the frock are largely ecstatic, but of course, there are haters. The loudest and most vocal being conservative pundit Candace Owens. After the Vogue features release, Owens took to Twitter to complain, claiming There is no society that can survive without strong men. As if Styles wearing a dress somehow undermines his masculinity. Its 2020, time for these narrow-minded views of what is masculine and feminine to end. Strong men can wear dresses too, obviously.

Candace Owens is one of those Black women who has become a shill for the alt-right. Its worth noting that until maybe three years ago, she was critical of Trump and the right. Then seemingly overnight, shes one of them. So now she touts her ignorance and idiocy for the whole world to hear. Clearly she likes to drum up controversy, especially when she knows it will rile up her rabid supporters.

The real question here is what the fuck is a strong man? Like, does she think that every hetero woman wants to be with the guy on the Brawny paper towels? Do women really want to only be with men who look like Dwayne Johnson? If youre going to make the claim about manly men, then you better have specific examples of what you mean, because clearly we are all working off of different definitions here.

A quick Google search shows that her own husband is a pretty generic looking white guy. So what authority does she have to say we need strong manly men? Shes literally married to the human embodiment of Wonder Bread. Harry Styles is a god among men, so maybe she needs to get her facts straight.

Its not even like Harry Styles is the first musician to experiment with clothing. From David Bowie to Prince to even Kurt Cobain, male musicians have worn more feminine or gender bending clothing for a very long time. The amount of lycra worn by Bowie as his alter ego Ziggy Stardust is plentiful. And Prince rocked the hell out of a purple jumpsuit and heels. Freddie Mercury oozed masculinity and still dressed like a harlequin jester. Harry wearing a Gucci dress is hardly revolutionary.

Toxic masculinity is a very real thing. The Good Men Project defines it this way:

Toxic masculinity is a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression. Its the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly feminine traitswhich can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexualare the means by which your status as man can be taken away.

Candace Owens and her followers are perfect examples of what happens when you subscribe to that line of thinking. Their view of what is masculine is archaic at best. A lumberjack with an axe and a mustache is no more masculine than Harry Styles in a dress, and thats facts.

When you take away Theres clothes for men and theres clothes for women, once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up the arena in which you can play. Ill go in shops sometimes, and I just find myself looking at the womens clothes thinking theyre amazing, Styles says in the Vogue interview.

Were, thankfully, living in a time where men are trying to redefine what masculinity looks like. Theyre rejecting the violence of toxic masculinity. And many are actively trying to be better people. Whether that means tapping into their emotions, or eschewing traditionally male styles of dress. Seeing them actively begin to unpack those archaic views of masculinity is important. Men wanting to be better humans, and embracing who they truly are, ultimately benefits everyone.

But of course Candance and her brethren (which includes Twitter troll Ben Shapiro) dont see it that way. Unsurprisingly, Ms. Owens manages to politicize Harry Styles and his dress. In a follow up tweet, she says, In the west, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence. Join me in saying, what the actual fuck?

How does Harry Styles wearing a dress and some skirts relate to Marxism? What kind of mental gymnastics does it take to land at that conclusion? Someone get Candace an ice pack because I think she pulled a muscle with that reach.

Marxism talks about creating an anti-capitalist society and giving power to the workers. So how does that explain a millionaire celebrity wearing a designer dress? And what does it have to do with a dress anyway? Dresses are not political. And they certainly arent Marxist or communist. Theyre pieces of fucking fabric people wear so theyre not nude. Why are these people so fucking upset by a man in a dress that theyre comparing it to Communist theory?

But more importantly, why do they feel Harry Styles on the cover of Vogue is a threat to men everywhere? Its not as if he is going to start walking up to men demanding they join him in wearing skirts.

And whats the big deal even if they do become normalized for all gender identities? Dresses are hella comfortable. Theyre less restrictive than pants, even when they dont have pockets. Maybe more men should start wearing dresses. Let their junk breathe a little bit more. Theyd likely be less grumpy if their balls were free, just saying.

Let me make it clear for Candace Owens and everyone else who has a problem with Harry Styles looking gorgeous and angelic in a beautiful dress. There is no one way to be masculine. Gender is a spectrum and we need to stop telling men that theres only one way they can be. A piece of clothing isnt the sole indicator of a persons gender. And if people begin to understand that, we can start to chisel away at toxic masculinity and literally make the be world a better place for everyone.

Originally posted here:
Candace Owens Cant Handle Harry Styles In A DressHeres What I Have To Say About That - Scary Mommy

Use your (arrows) to browse

Recently it has been reported that the PC player base for Marvels Avengers has dropped a whopping 96 percent since launch. Lets talk about this because since it was reported there have been a lot of ideas why and some of them dont make sense.

So were going to look at it logically by going into reasons why this dip occurred and what is just bizarre opinion.

If you look into the dip in players by looking into Google like I did, originally one of the first sites you might stumble on is a fairly new site called Cosmic Book News. Unfortunately, Cosmic Book News is an extremely alt-right news site ran by disgraced comic book scribe, Ethan Van Sciver, a person famous for helping to start the Comicsgate movement which rallied against comic books getting political. Unfortunately, their idea of a book getting political extends to a superhero not being a white male.

Clicking on this link will tell you that the reason for this drop focuses heavily on the storys focus on Ms. Marvel by claiming she is a failure and was forced into the game to his a racial status quo. The article then goes on to call her a sales failure.

Square Enix

Heres why thats bunk. First off, never trust a person who uses SJW as an attack, especially if theyre a comic book writer who suddenly thinks fighting for social justice is bad like they havent seen a single issue of Captain America.

But heres the other bit. Ms. Marvel was a godsend for Marvel Comics. As Vox pointed out recently, Ms. Marvel was one of Marvels highest-selling books. Near impossible to keep in stock as it opened up a massive new market of people who normally feel alienated by comic books. It was a huge success for Marvel, outselling many of their other books. And Ms. Marvel herself is going to be in her own movie in the MCU, making her the freshest character to star in her own MCU property. Miles Morales technically got a movie first but that was a one-off movie as opposed to something tied to the MCU.

So having the story focused on Ms. Marvel isnt really anything that would have affected player drop-off. Especially considering the fact that the end game focuses more heavily on Black Widow, Captain America, Thor and Hulk as opposed to Ms. Marvel. In fact, after you beat the main story, you dont really get a Ms. Marvel story beat until you get her to level 50 where youre treated to a special cut scene which I wont spoil but is adorable.

So its definitely not her fault. Honestly, I remember hearing a lot of customers from the job I had at the time saying they werent interested in the game until they heard about her being in it.

Use your (arrows) to browse

See the rest here:
Marvel Avengers: What caused the massive player drop (and what did not) - App Trigger

Reading the pages ofThe Atlanticthis morning, David Frum opines that the Republican Party has two choices before it.

Simply put, Republicans caneither retrench into Trumpism or they can become more like Democrats or as Frum puts it, become more secular, more diverse, more accepting of female leadership which seems like odd advice from a party that just finished eviscerating Justice Amy Coney Barrett for the better part of a month.

With the death of Virginias mainstream media, the opinion columns have by and large moved online. Most of them have chimed in with varying degrees of value, but a quick summary will run as follows:

Lowell Feldover at the Democratic flagshipBlue Virginiaprognosticates thatDemocrats enjoy the latitude for infightingmoving into 2021 while Republicans continue to be in a three-way civil war (one of whose factions actually uses Civil War imagery).

Meanwhile over atBacons Rebellion,writerJames Sherlockstates facts pretty plainly:

Until there is a Republican Party of Virginia, not the current Republican Party of me, the party candidates will remain eclectic to the point of statewide incoherence. Not sure who has the juice to pull that together.

The inestimableJames A. Baconwhoshepherds what has to be one of the more informative bastions of intellectual policy thought in Virginiaobserves that the polarization of power in Virginia is much larger than Trump. With Democrats holding every statewide office, the question at large is whether Republicans (and specifically conservatives) can still muster a challenge?

Once the mainstay of conservative thought and opinion in Virginia, the old flagship ofBearing Driftseems to enjoy more left-of-center commentators than conservatives ones. Former Republican DelegateChris Saxmanbemoans the current state of affairson Grace Street;Steve Brodie Tuckerwrites on howthe Republican Party is irreparably damagedand calls for a third party;D.J. McGuire formerly a hard nosed anti-Communist until recently and now a hard nosed progressive Democrat points towards what moves behind the curtain an effort to build a third party.

This does not make their erstwhile rivals atThe Bull Elephantany more friendly, as their flirtation as the mouthpiece of the the alt-right in Virginia dithers from embarrassing to absolutely outrageous at any given moment.

Cathy McNicklewrites on howthe strategy of terror oscillating between COVID and BLM/Antifa workedto grind down Republicans who otherwise might have re-elected Trump in a landslide.Mark Jaworowskiwonders aloud onhow the alt-right can be coalesced into a wider coalition of smart right leadershipwith alt-right energy.

Yes, these voicesactuallyexistin the Republican Party of Virginia.

NewcomerKerry Dougherty(formerly of theVirginan Pilot) andBrian Kirwinrespectively have not chimed in with their prognostications, thoughDougherty sure does wag a finger towards the Biden campaignfor being sore winners.

Ouch.

Last but not least,Robert Zullowith the left-leaning (and dark money funded)Virginia Mercuryhas some basic and well-intended truths to lay on the table, namely the nature and feature of that all encompassing term: GRIFT.

For example, the Republican Party of Virginia launched an election integrity fund in attempt to siphon more money out of its voters ostensibly on behalf of the guy who has helped lose the Virginia GOP every statewide election, control of the General Assembly and three House of Representative seats since he took office.

Needless to say, I think we can distill the wisdom of the blogerati as such:

Virginia Republicans simply arent tacking into this headwind well, if at all.

Typically in any sort of After Action Report, you have four considerations: objectives, results, pathways, and goals.

The objective and the result should be self-evident at this rate. The pathways our processes, causes, what-happened, what worked, what broke apart, and most importantlywhy are where we have been stuck since the Jeff Frederick era.

Everyone knows what is broken; no one wants to fix it.

As it stands now, the Republican Party of Virginia is about to engage in a five-way civil war of its own and the winner take what few spoils remain.

This is not to say that anyone who hails from one of these camps is 100% on board in each. Some candidates will be able to unite the various camps.

Rare candidates will be able to unite them all (one thinks of Jim Gilmores campaign for governor in 1997 as an example of such quality).

The great task of Rich Anderson as chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia is to get all these camps to work together against a wider opposition, one where all the voices get a seat at the table in any future majority/administrationandwhere all five camps (and various candidates) believe the nomination contest was adjudicated fairly, evenly, and without bias or pressure.

This will still require the discipline to weed out those who are poisonous to that essential unity. The alt-right cannot be part of this coalition; racial and ethnic sentiment cannot be part of this coalition; religious intolerance cannot be part of this equation.

The larger point is that unlike the emotional attachment Democrats gave to Obama and Clinton the left misses the fact that most Republicans viewed Trump as a vehicle for ideas, not as a cause unto himself.

That Republicans are not burning down our cities or behaving like BLM/Antifa shocks most observers on the left who were hoping for a similar temper tantrum.

Sorry. Not happening.

But we have to be considerate moving forward that we will require candidates and qualities that remain sensitive to the idea that we will only recapture majorities and statewide offices in Virginia by speaking the languages, hopes and fears of the broader Republican coalition in Virginia which means we go back into the suburbs, find our inner Jack Kemp, and start presenting an alternative to socialism that is uniquely American.

Above all else? Republicans need to start deeply considering whether our party infrastructure requires an update.If the RPV Advance actually comes off this year(and I think it will), the presentation of an After Action Report with recommendations to State Central on how it can effectively reform into a membership-driven party is critical.

We have great difficulties to surmount in 2021. The good news is that most difficulties are surmounted by leadership. The great news is that Virginia Republicans have never lacked for great leadership.

Originally posted here:
So Now What, Virginia? - The Republican Standard