Let's Taco Bout Nerdrotic

spoilers for Blue Beetle not long ago the YouTube channel nerd rotic daily uploaded a video titled let's Taco about Blue Beetle whose thumbnail you're seeing now that's Jola mariduena as haime Rayes alongside canuela from Family Guy at Taco or you know a chalupa and a big capitalized yikes people didn't like that video very much and they are so honestly blatantly racist just look at this [ __ ] ass thumbnail look at it okay this guy straight up called a sneaky n this isn't criticism of a movie this is hating on us as a people this is just so blatant oh my goodness bro I so let's talk about ner rotic shall we ner rotic is the channel and Persona of this guy Gary if you've spent much time on the comic book or superhero movie side of YouTube or if you've seen many videos on this platform pushing back against wokeness the message or Disney's quest to undermine masculinity or whatever you'll be familiar with nerd rotic or at least you'll have seen his influence n roic's content tends to fall into one of two categories his main Channel output is this stuff videos which recap the commercial performance and critical reception of recent popular films and shows sometimes accurately sometimes less so primarily in order to build maintain and monetize those above anti-woke narrative his other main impact lies with the podcast he runs Friday night tights which gathers together the Avengers of YouTube media literacy on a weekly basis a roster ranging from your garden variety blatant bigots to nitpickers and negativity Mills still informed by an opposition to Hollywood's wokeness to the message but less obviously the taco video is from this latter category an edited down segment of these Titans of intellect discussing DC's recent Blue Beetle film but why did this this happen why is the comment section under that video filled with revulsion rather than the typical cheerleading why did this video have that wider impact and what can that tell us about nerd roic's role in the reactionary content ecosystem again let's talk about it shall [Music] we the first thing to talk about should probably be the first thing you see with this video the thumbnail so the thumbnail it's bad is it outright racist or is it it just crude and insensitive well the overall judgment's not really my call to make but what I can do is break down what's wrong with it here's the thing sometimes stereotypes don't come from nowhere especially you know Cuisine related ones I'm British I drink a lot of tea a Love full English every now and then a lot of parisians buy baguettes and drink wine a lot of Germans like Curry first or kebabs a lot of Mexicans and Mexican Americans eat tacos does every single aspect of his life have to be tacos literally in the beginning he walks in he's getting back from college they're like let's go get tacos the video sees nerd rotics guests incredulous at the fact that haime and his family go for tacos and suggesting that the film having the Reyes family participate in one of their culture's more visible culinary stereotypes is offensive and reductive but having a member of a certain culture eat a food that's common within that culture isn't actually a racism if it's laughable that Blue Beetle has Mexican American seat tacos then it's laughable whenever American characters get hot dogs at a ball game and it's laughable whenever a French character pops a cork it's not always wrong to use those parts of a culture which have become stereotyped what's wrong is pre- projecting that stereotype on or reducing the person or culture to it and that's what we're seeing here in the video in which the panel makes an absolute Mountain out of an incredibly short scene in the way Ryan kinnel refers to the film's engagement with latino culture as Taco referencing just constantly making [ __ ] Taco references with the family and obviously in that thumbnail in Blue Beetle the Mexican-American family enjoys tacos but that is one small cultural characteristic among many the uncle enjoys El chapuline Colorado the classic superhero parody show Mexico produced in the70s the father brought the family to America before working like a dog to claw together a life revolution and civil unrest have left scars still visible in the older generation the grandmother lights candles prays at the domicile home alter this isn't an intensive survey of modern Mexican American family life but it's clearly not just tacos and Sala is it as we'll see the video looks at this Tableau and more or less just pulls out the tacos and the thumbnail compresses all this even further representing the film by placing jolo's face not against caraxes the Scarab jny cords but against tacos and against Family Guys famously one note Consuela to whom a befuddled looking picture of haimi is implicitly compared a fasile comparison riffing on nasty tropes Hae is stereotyped then turned into a paper thin cultural signifier a signifier laughed at but not by the film by this thumbnail if you think this is an uncharitable interpretation let me contextualize it by showing you the times this Channel's done that before those aren't great are they and by the way if seeing them if seeing the wider pattern of nerd rotics channel did change your mind make all this seem less innocent and more mean-spirited hang on to that thought it's an important one so that's the thumbnail but what's wrong with the video itself well how much time do you have a full combing through of everything here isn't really what I want to do I'm more interested in the why and the how than the what today but let's at least establish the types of problem here first a couple of claims about what actually happens in the film are thrown out which are plain wrong discussing the bus slicing scene from the trailers ner rotic heel versus baby face and quarter black Garrett say the shields cool but criticized the film for never having haime use it again testing its Shield thing yeah they wanted to show you things which they wouldn't use in the film later on when when they were particularly useful you know that probably would have been very useful with the B that's my favorite Trope in in Hollywood movies these days showing [ __ ] that would be useful and then never using it again quick go find R engaging threat engage I got your don't wor what you seeing now by the way is Hae using it again gar also recalls this moment and then they walk into their house and she's like that's where mama told us how to make salsa when I started writing this video I didn't remember that happening but Blue Beetle wasn't on streaming so I couldn't check it's out now though so I had a look and I found the moment he's talking about but he got it a little wrong remember how mom taught us salsa right there on the front porch you were always better than me yeah no I still think you don't know how to dance salsa dancing the salsa huh but salsa is food not dance but I'm less interested in that mistake than I am in the flattening of meaning it speaks to let's put that moment into context Blue Beetle setting Poma city is a place in flux it's two cities really the homes the lived in real places like those we see in Haim ends Parmer kees and the Towering neon lit ultramodern Anonymous skyscrapers that surround cord Industries and more and more that first city is disappearing after learning that his family is being forced to leave their childhood home gentrification a [ __ ] haime and his sister reminisce about their past the past that's being uprooted to build more poon pointless Towers the past that simultaneously no match for the looming corporate real estate takeover and is infinitely more meaningful than anything it'll produce do you remember your 21st birthday oh I remember the first half I can't believe we're losing this place all this is reduced to Garrett's complaint that the Hispanic Cultural trappings of Blue Beetle are shallow because it's all eating tacos and making salsa just just referencing Mexican food that's all that's going on here good good job but it's not just the details of the film the guests are off base on there's also the way an unduly negative picture of the film is created by a general lack of knowledge about Blue Beetle on the part of the guests we hear complaints like these I saw a lot of similarities between like the Tony Stark Tech uh that that that he gave to Peter Parker um the voice talking in the suit again reminded me of the personality inside the Iron Man suit and and the similarity of like oh Spider-Man doesn't kill Blue Beetle doesn't kill but everybody else does but the problem here is that the Hae iteration of Blue Beetle has had the nanotech suit the disembodied voice since the get-go like over 15 years back since well before Friday or Jarvis and well before nanotech weapons Iron Man this isn't Shameless cookie cutter copy cutting it is instead that Holy Grail of comic book fandom accuracy in adaptation look maybe during the process of putting together Blue Beetle the filmmakers were inspired by these more recent Marvel examples of ha style Tech but this isn't copying them it's copying those you know the comics lack of source material knowledge isn't a problem by itself of course but here that lack of knowledge means this process of adaptation is framed as an issue the whole picture isn't being given and that's a little misleading isn't it the result is an unfairly negative impression of the film which as we'll see is a bit of a running Trend another Trend which goes well beyond comic book knowledge is the Friday night tights crew being confidently inaccurate here that Trend extends into Latino culture we kind of brushed up against this when talking about that thumbnail but let's have a proper look at it here various elements of Blue Beetle are lampooned by the gang as playing into simplistic Latino stereotypes the film the film written and directed by Latinos is the racist party here actually I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on Blue Beetle most of which yeah was just the unne Neary gratuitous uh racism they're all caricatures the name of his truck is Taco does every single aspect of his life have to be tacos George Lopez in my opinion had some of the most like cringy racist lines in the whole mie it's laughable that the Rey's family get tacos upon ha's return ditto with the uncle's Taco van nicknaming the family are caricatures yada yada yada and look obviously I can't comment on whether or not this is an accurate reflection of of us Latino culture but I can direct you to a video made by people who are a bit more qualified in that department the channel Latinos slant offers as the name suggests a Latino perspective on popular culture and discourse and they've made a very interesting video in response to the nerd rotic daily piece we've been talking about the family is from uh in blue be is from Mexico they are used to Tacos labela is making tacos all the time and they have this joint that does proper tacos and Hae comes back to his City first thing is let's go for tacos because that's the comfort food exactly like uh my best friend comes to Ecuador let's go for a chaaan it's important to note that these are not people like me people who already had a problem with Friday night tights before the T controversy no they actually like this podcast and I gather poorly from Latino slant is friends with nerd rotic Gary so this is emphatically not a hit piece it is in my opinion extremely generous yet it's full of moments like this the name of truck is Taco what's wrong with that bro actually the name of my truck has a taco in I call it a taco this is another thing where you just don't understand homie is that we have nicknames for everything it's even in the film he's like it's called I'm calling the my machine choline if you when you create something cool you you name it yourself that's what we do that's what we do I mean of the of of the characters that got the most crap was George Lopez's character uh and I love this character I have opinions about the uncle yeah I have a ton of opinions because that's kind give us one give us one okay that's the kind of guy that I hang out with and he's the kind of guy that I am there's plenty more than that in the video so go check it out if you're fancy it's linked in the description suffice it to say though that responses like Latino slant illustrate very clearly how incorrect A lot of these comments and criticisms are and how true the film wrong for a lot of viewers near the subject matter at one point in that video PA calls blue Beatles the best portrayal of a US Latino family he's seen in a while at another he wonders why nerd rotic didn't invite him on to discuss the film hold on to that but despite all this that confidently inaccurate opening Salvo allows the Friday night tits gang to proceed with the idea that Blue Beetle is racist is itself trafficking in stereotypes yes these guys Mexicans are sneaky dude are saying that they go on to support that claim by leveraging this video's other main problem piss poor comprehension skills that's really the best way to sum it up for example I'm thinking of the point Chrissy mayor tries to make that Blue Beetle is racist because there's a scene where a slick professionally dressed Hae is mistakenly directed to the delivery entrance of a big corporate building the implication being being that the receptionist makes this blunder because of haim's race I.E because she's racist and this wouldn't happen in reality a receptionist wouldn't just be racist like this and the receptionist looks at this guy with his hair you know his hair combed jacket and tight and goes and goes deliveries are downstairs which would never [ __ ] happen you would never say that it's just like intentionally racist like oh because this guy is tan he and and has no deliveries clearly he's here for deliveries it was really kind of unbelievable the way they would sort of force the racism in I'm not going to do the thing where I suggest that moments of bizarre random racism like this moments almost more absurd than offensive do indeed happen that yes people in majority white spars can sometimes get away with blatant racism for far longer than you'd expect no instead I'm going to tell you that I watched Love Rosie the other day stay with me here love Ros is a romcom and as romcoms go it's a fairly grounded one naturalistic realistic and yet at one point as our protagonist finds herself in the hospital with an intimate Health scare and Rosie is confused by the doctor's line of questioning we get this exchange is it um Front Bottom or back what do you think I am sorry I wasn't suggesting you're a slag or anything no doctor would say this in reality a doctor wouldn't just be misogynistic like this right but that scene didn't lead any critics to label the film as sexist so what's going on here well it isn't reality it's a film at this moment Love Rosie wants us to get inside the protagonist's head she's feeling horribly self-conscious and regretting deeply the choices and events that got her to this point so the film heightens reality a little at this moment has something happen has someone say a line that they wouldn't typically say if this situation were mirrored in the the real world because doing so allows that idea to come across nice and clear in that blue beetle scene H's swimming against the current he's just been fired from a custodial gig for speaking out against mistreatment for being a person instead of a glorified Roomba but he's tried to make lemonade out of those lemons got in contact with Jenny cord the person he stuck up for he's badgered her about a non-committal job offer she had made and he's turned up to the HQ of a company that he not managed to get a job at this standard way he's swimming against the current that current being the near invisible set of tricky circumstances that had resulted from his and his family's material situation haim's somewhere the current doesn't want him to be he's in Olympus trying to steal fire from the gods he's not really supposed to be there he only is because of a glitch in the corporate Machinery the Millionaire's compassion Blue Beetle doesn't have the receptionist direct tyy to the delivery entrance because the filmmakers thought that's what always happens when when sharply dressed Latinos Rock up at corporate offices and it doesn't have it happen because the filmmakers think white people are all racist and evil Blue Beetle heightens this moment has this receptionist say something unlikely but entirely possible to make that point again and to have haime refute that point again to look white corporate indifference dead in the eye and say no that's not why I'm here that's the point of this moment it's not subtle it's not hugely important even to the film it's just a little moment making a little point which isn't racist and in arguing otherwise the mayors of the world are simply revealing their own cluelessness as to the relationship between realism and Cinema like this films aren't just about things that would happen they're also about things that could happen continuing with the piss poor comprehension theme let's quickly touch on a few more points at one moment disparu another of nerd rotics guests offers this point what about how blue be essentially killed his father because when he was getting shot and he was protecting the family he the the robot wanted to kill them all and that would have made they couldn't shoot anybody but instead he knocked them back they got back up caused more stress made the father run and then he had a heart attack running away you feel like it barely needs saying but the fact that Blue Beetle doesn't kill the people who end up causing his father's death isn't really equivalent to patricide more to the point though disparu frames this as a flaw suggests the film was wrong either to have haime not kill these men or to have that decision lead to his father's death but isn't this just sort of the point haime doesn't want to be a killer and we'd seen him wrestle with the scarabs disregard for human life quite a bit by this point this moment does tell him and us that taking that high road may have consequences May mean he can't instantly defeat everyone and save everything but by the end of the film haim's accepted this and in the process taught the Scarab the value of human life it is a bitter pill to swallow that by not killing his enemies haim's actions inadvertently allowed his father to die but that bitterness isn't a flaw on the film's part things can be bitter and uncomfortable the fact that there is a price to pay for using this power the right way means it is a real choice and the fact that by the film's end haime chooses it anyway recommits to it has managed to impress that choice upon the alien Scarab underscores the significance and strength of haim's actions and his non lethality what about how blue be essentially killed his father want a superhero Arc he doesn't really learn or achieve anything so maybe this B's framing of this as a flaw is off base and maybe just maybe Shad is wrong in suggesting haime doesn't get any sort of Arc or Journey you know we turn the other cheek we don't fight back you know like something like that in the family also exhibited those traits then maybe you could understand why felt that way and like the very much I don't want to hurt people I don't want to or I don't want to kill people kind of thing but they obviously didn't give a [ __ ] they went on a murdering that would take talent and skill and creativity to do that it's true that other characters do kill people even other characters on haim's side true also that haime doesn't spend all his time saving enemy combatants from these deaths the film isn't constructing some big Central pacifist message or anything but haime doesn't kill and that's a distinction worth making and that non lethality the way that non lethality is contested by the Scarab the way this negotiation plays into the film's [Music] my my first thought when I saw that scene was why didn't he just fly up why didn't the suit go oh we'll just hover over the bus rather than cut the [ __ ] thing in half it didn't fly up because it doesn't yet value human life no what did you do Post production successful you see that change through the film as a result of haim's action body horror M brings up the idea that wait what's MOA doing here on a podcast shot through with alt-right dog whistling basically playing Hillary Clinton she was you killed my papa and I was just like this is so [ __ ] boring get on with it and then they actually had the um I think his the vacine killed your dad what's m doing on a podcast that previously hosted the founder of The Proud boys I thought he was totally uh neutral and objective in no way part of that pipeline wait was that he's a semi-regular guest here then has had plenty of these guys on his podcast often repeatedly well that that can't be right MOA brings up the idea of tonal Whiplash when he [ __ ] around with that after being told not to and he starts transforming with the suit that was where like the tone for the film just completely [ __ ] me because I was watching him screaming in agony in agony looks like it's melting and he's just crippled himself onto the CE the whole the family are like oh no no no no after a little general chaning he flies out of the ceiling and then they're repairing the table they don't know where he is and they like oh let's fix our table because that's more important no you're right Garrett they should have flown after him Ryan kennel agrees with him too 100% on though because it is like it shifts to this almost like horror horrific feeling of this and it's just George Lopez high-pitch screaming and it's like a slapstick comedy [ __ ] and it's like it does not match the tone at all the problem here is that this sudden darker Vibe is jarringly deflated by the slapstick and by Uncle Rudy's screeching and it isn't clear whether the boys think this is a problem because the scene should have been darker or simply because tonal Whiplash is bad but either way they don't seem to see that those injections of Comedy are what keep the tone from totally [Music] shifting if you've seen Captain Midnight's Blue Beetle video you'll know what I'm referring to he talks about it in a little more depth but to summarize those editing choices those moments of Comedy are the very things preventing Turnal Whiplash allowing blue be able to dip its toes into another style besides campy superhero flick without having to fully commit in a way that keeps that light tone Within Reach it's quite clear that this sequence is precisely as dark as it's meant to be that Blue Beetle doesn't want to go full Cronenberg but does want to get a little uncomfortable just for a moment because well there is something a little uncomfortable about this premise about alien thing fuses to human that places the film and this moment specifically in a sort of off kill to position between one clearly defined tone and another but there's really no reason to consider the resulting being in uncertainty a flaw rather than a deliberate choice if the tone or tones of the sequence didn't work for you that's one thing but the framing of the balance that emerges as accidentally blurry the result of lazily throwing slapstick where it doesn't belong gives us another moment where this discussion seems to avoid engaging with the film on its own terms and it's very odd that the fnt gang is criticizing Blue Beetle for being formulaic one minute if you've seen a a superhero movie before then there's no spoilers they they just take pieces of other superhero you seen Shaquille O'Neal in in steel you've seen this and then showing such discomfort at anything that pushes Beyond clear-cut formulas the next we could keep going there's no shortage of this sort of thing on display but yeah alongside the aforementioned sense of confident in accuracy that's the other pillar of the video poor comprehension whether that be expressed in Ryan and moa's arguments that the film's chosen tone doesn't match the film's tone in the Hae lethality confusion or in May's misunderstanding of basic film making conventions and subsequent racist labeling the result is a torrent of negativity which is as we've seen rarely reflective of Blue Beetle the presence of which is nominally justified by that opening Salvo of inacurate characterizations a small handful of well-founded criticisms like sure Susan sandon isn't doing much here are joined by an avalanche of unfounded ones to build an extended disparaging segment upon those initial assumptions of progressive racism which leaves the inattentive viewer with the impression that Blue Beetle is riddled with objective flaws and that these flaws extend naturally from ideological flaws from filmmakers intent on reducing Latinos to their cultural stereotypes in the name of wokeness and representation and on unfairly demonizing the whites again the film of course does neither of those things but this is the impression n roic's clipped tightly edited fnt compilation video gives and intentionally so again a few times throughout that Latino slant video I mentioned earlier host paie expresses confusion at the fact n Ric didn't get him on the panel after all he'd surely have been able to speak a good deal more accurately to the Fidelity of blue beetles Latino trappings I'm not confused though having poon would have made their job harder and I don't know if we want to put up spoilers but I can share them because they're Prett nobody cares no if this is your first time on nerd rotic daily or seeing the Friday night tights goobers you might think they're just getting it twisted over nitpicks and inaccurate observations but if not you'll likely recognize the pattern subjecting the bad labeled the already woke spotted things to waves of intense scrutiny disdain and incredulity reserved for them oh there're they're brown so they're Perpetual victims they just want to push us out of our neighborhood that's not critique that's just mockery and contempt ntic and his peons take for granted that the work is bad and work out their justifications after justifications which often don't hold up to any scrutiny consider the following example and then he went she went you can create anything went oh oh let's make one sword out of the wait wait wait wait wait there was a bigger CL it was Cloud sword right it was the Buster sword I don't mind like somebody like that who's like they didn't show him ever playing video games or anything I guess that's one of the problems right like if they had showed like a game whatever side table in this case a guest made an already tenuous nitpick that making a big sword only makes sense if you're a gamer and since the film didn't show haime to be a gamer this is a flaw only for another guest to realize that the nitpick isn't just ten was but obviously wrong and be forced to set the record straight you know you've beefed it when [ __ ] pronouns guy has to correct you Kel then apologizes recants his criticism and praises the film for setting that detail up I'm kidding obviously instead this happens like a game controller on his side table yeah exactly right right next to the salsa that's all you need or consider this moment we learn out of absolutely nowhere that he's this technical genius like supposed to just oh of course of course he's a tech Genius Like isn't every Hispanic Uncle a tech genius obviously it ought to go without saying that the Homegrown Tech whz is a staple superhero Trope but Rudy's a mechanic that's his job that justifies his DIY inventor status to a greater degree than many more well-known examples so I'll tell you what if anyone can find me an existing clip of me making the same complaint about Peter Parker a non- mechanic who at less than half Rudy age invented his web fluid and web shooters I'll become a top level member of n rotics YouTube membership program but Mees allowed to make this point with no push back in a call full of professed comic nerds so the fact that these critiques are weak doesn't matter it's not the complaints that are important it's the complaining it was very mid if anything uh it wouldn't have mattered if Blue Beetle had been a wholly different film if these complaints the Ed anti-white racist microaggressions the unreasonably intelligent inventor that taco referencing hadn't been present they just have made other ones because the gleefully dismissive energy which animates this panel which animates this whole video isn't a result of the film's quality it's a result of the negative stance they default to for any franchise property that's had their idea of problematic wokeness projected onto it and if you're not sure what I'm referring to there link now is a video All About That process of projection it's about now 30ish minutes in that given this video's title you may Well Be Wondering where's n Ric in all this the guy himself Gary despite the fact that this was uploaded to one of his channels and is flush with his branding we've only talked very briefly about the things he actually says in this video but it is his video this second channel is very clearly an arm of the nerd rotic brand if this video is a torrent of negativity he's the one turning the tap it's easy to forget since he's rarely the most vocal but Friday night tights is his podcast he assembles the panels and directs the flow of conversation he's the Nick Fury of Jabron nitpickers and anti fans Gary has a lot of your more standard anti-an content on his main Channel which is significant a lot of his selectively reported rating SL boox office videos in addition to being stinky little nuggets of bigoted doooo by themselves serve to set the tenor of wider CH reports on the same topics but to limit critiques of nerd rodic solely to his main Channel content is to miss an important bigger picture n roic's impact on this little corner of YouTube isn't simply in the videos he puts out it is in those but it's also in these streams and in the clipped highlights such as these and not always in ways which are immediately apparent sure the streams make for low effort Standalone content tasks farming super chats but these podcasts also double brainstorming SL breathing sessions after all if you try hard enough you can poke holes dig out foundations for reactionary rants disguise this readings in anything yourself but you don't even need to try if you get a half dozen professional pedants in a zoom call to do it for you with Friday night tights nerdrotic can at once Outsource the brainstorm and see to it that the wider nerdrotic family of chuds is fully equipped with the resulting talking points to dust off and use whenever ntic influence goes beyond Beyond either Channel goes beyond his streams even and suffuses the channels and web presences of his guests that influence ripples out to other people other channels other podcasts spreading far enough that it begins to take on an organic semblance even but it isn't they get their topics and talking points from each other they get their statistics from the same poisoned Wells and they work together to build mutually supportive structures of outrage to unleash and direct torrent after torrent of targeted negativity and to maintain the narratives that legitimize that targeting process thing woke woke bad thing bad here's why and by the time you contest the why they've already moved on already stacked more ideological jenger at top that position that pattern is wider than nerd roic's Network the web it's produced is a multicentered one but in nerd rotic on his channels in these streams and in those adjacent web presences it's perhaps more blatant than anywhere else that is if you know what you're looking for if you don't if you take these guys at their word consume the misinformation the Notions of objective flaws resulting from either imbecilic writers only bothered about getting paid by woke Disney or just from degenerate moral failings if you see the similarity in content strategy not as the result of coordination but as organic various free thinkers just happening to arrive at the same obvious conclusions you start getting angry start getting suggested Little Else by the algorithm and the cycle begins you stop getting excited by the art at the center of all this and start dreading it the pleasure you got from engaging with it once upon a time is replaced by a sort of AstroTurf in catharsis as you Revel in watching the guys who sold you this lie appear to prove it time and time again it feels good to get angry about this easy emotionally engaging answers go down a lot smoother than complex ones that's how the audience is captured that's how it grows in comments on social social media sites these anti fans and their viewers feed the Flames any descent is V's canel culture gone mad feeds the persecution complex kicks up the fear all the while hanging out in these circles your tolerance for casual racism or transphobia or whatever else is growing because what is the big deal really they're just joking if you're offended you're the problem God why is everyone such a snowflake these days my life's not perfect I've got my problems but Society doesn't let me be down about them because I'm straight or white or a guy or God forbid all of the above and all those movies games TV I used to like they all hate me for that apparently I saw it on YouTube you know maybe there should be more people like me on screen maybe we really are under attack man it seems like there's only a few sensible people left people who get this oh boy one of them's uploaded a new video and so as one they swarm to YouTube Every time another morsel of cathartic hate gets released engage with the video boosting it further still and throng the comment section or well that's how it normally goes because in a twist for the ages if you scroll down from that video and look to the comments you won't see SS of 14-year-olds agreeing with the gang you'll see a whole host of comments clapping back this video went viral and went viral outside of its Target demographic responses across the internet though most notably on Tik Tok amassed millions of views internet users from within and without the Latino and comic book communities chimed in to point out the various inaccuracies and blatantly offensive angles of this video and thumbnail exposing plenty of onlookers to nerd rotic and the Gang for the first time onlookers so blissfully naive that the expected nerd rotic apology became recognized and Autos suggested as a search term ripples from this outcry did indeed make it back to YouTube a few less notable anti-work channels saw opportunity in the drama and rushed into play defense nerd rodic is mocking being cancelled after a tick tocker decided that they would stir up a firestorm online by focusing on nerd rodic's Blue Beetle video Jesus Christ how many of these guys are there no apology came of course instead n rotic doubled down he since used let's Taco bout as a title template a few more times on unrelated topics either in an attempt to mine the controversy for all it's worth or perhaps to try and demonstrate there's nothing intrinsically offensive about Taco themed puny which is true and therefore that he did nothing wrong which is not and obviously does not follow from the previous point but those among you who are already somewhat familiar with nerdrotic and friends might be a little confused sure there's plenty of ignorance and insensitivity on display here with the people Mexicans are sneaky dude there's a good few Brazen alt-right conspiratorial interjections playing Hillary Clinton she was evil no the vaccine killed your dad half the panel is just acting offended by the film's values responding to it with incredulity and mockery more so than critique or review and even the few moments of actual discussion are suffused with conservative return to tradition Aesthetics I think that was a great aspect of this one of the few great aspects of the movie that it was really centered on family I like the fact that there was a love interest and it wasn't like uh she was shutting him down or whatever you know I like that that's kind of back to traditional some storytelling we don't [ __ ] get also you know fat phobia to round out that list I'm like oh you're oh we're Brown stop feeding the daughter maybe stop feeding her but so what right none of that is remotely new here that's that's what they do the inaccuracies the poor media comprehension all of those problems we spent so long discussing are not remotely unique to this specific nerdrotic daily upload why the response the callouts the woefully naive expectations of a nerd rotic apology well there's only really two things that stand out between this Nerd rotic video and all the other ones one the thumbnail is a little more overt a little more overly risque than normal and two perhaps as a result people outside the usual nerd rotic Geeks and Gamers Friday night tight Circle took notice of it and that's good it's always good for more people to become aware of the idiocy of those leading this anti-woke grift but it's not all good this isn't nearly as big a dub as it seems the thing to understand is that the backlash is not from the fans of nerd rodic of his podcast or any of those guests this isn't the end of that boiling frog syndrome this isn't a regular audience who have seen their faves go a bridge too far and have realized there's a problem here the Tik toks the backlash those top comments are from a wholly external demographic nothing's changed with n rotics fans and so nothing's changed on the channel there's something of an inherent weakness to external backlash like this then people who are unfamiliar or less familiar with nerdrotic at Al seeing and critiquing a video like this are always going to focus on the specifics of these videos the critiques and comments that jump out as wrong or offensive rather than those Trends and patterns behind those specifics because well if they're not familiar with the mo if they don't have that context the comments the thumbnail and everything else seem like random discreet instances of ignorance bigotry and poor criticism and if someone's ignorant you can correct them if the nitpickers can be proven wrong maybe they'll know for next time and if the grounds of those generalizing assumptions can be debunked maybe those assumptions will stop but as we've seen the details the specifics aren't the point they're the excuse callouts are satisfying but they don't really move the needle the root of the problem here has nothing to do with tacos nothing to do with Blue Beetle even the problem is the pattern of selective scrutiny that determined well before that stream was ever planned that Blue Beetle would be subjected to that torrent of negativity and that the torrent constituent nitpicks and criticisms would necessarily be molded into one more reactionary Warhead for the culture War culture war is going we're in the [ __ ] culture War whether we like it or not we are in it and it's going to last a while and it was never going to be [ __ ] easy Blue Beetle the Tacko bouting of Blue Beetle these are but single points in that pattern and that pattern is what needs to be called out plastered across Tik Tok disseminated the fact that this isn't about ignorance or accidental insensitivity the hate isn't organic they didn't slam Blue Beetle and the wokeness behind it because of these inaccurate complaints and cultural mischaracterizations they're slamming the film making those complaints and mischaracterizing this culture because they don't like that wokeness and they've built a market of pavlovian bigots who don't like wokeness either whatever it is don't ask me to Define it I I can I I promise I I just don't want to everything else follows and it'll follow again and again because content like this is easy to make and addictive to consume it's not about bad complaints or bad videos or bad thumbnails even these are just the Tells it's about Bad actors acting in bad patterns and bad faith exploiting bad systems to create bad pipelines and spread bad politics nud Ric and Friday night tights are at the center of all that calling this out that's winning Victory is enough people seeing that pattern that they don't take the bait that they don't fall down that pipeline that doing this stops being so financially rewarding and that this online wing of the war against wokeness stops being so effective a tool at laundering right-wing sentiments the people who aren't equipped to notice what they're watching is effectively highly lucrative self-sustaining propaganda the subtle but everpresent racism is something I couldn't ignore none of this is to say that in the course of this no good criticisms will be made or that no bad movie will be slammed it's to say that isn't the reason these videos exist and none of this is to say that all of nerd rotics guests and collaborators regular or occasional are in on it too it's to say that they don't need to be in on it to be useful to it because every head in the core means more complaints valid or otherwise added to the torrent means more borrowed legitimacy means it's harder and harder for people without this frame of reference to separate content like this from organic critique and that it's more and more tedious and I might add backlash inducing for people in the no to try and help out callouts are satisfying but they don't move the needle getting informed helping each other see past the grift well that just might and I should add at this point that this is starting to happen a bit it's about T it's about [ __ ] time the general public recognized how racist this [ __ ] really is bro it it it's about [ __ ] time like I swear to God every time this [ __ ] talks about M Morales you can hear the ghost of bull Conor speaking through this [ __ ] but responses like that are certainly the exception rather than the rule for now at least don't view this video as a takedown attempt view it as a case study in what the ner rotic brand does how it's responded to how the those responses are prompted and what their limitations might be that's it I'm not attempting a gotcha here again the stuff in this Blue Beetle video is mild for these guys in nerd rotic terms nothing about this whole situation is singularly awful it's just another piece in their little puzzle another annoying little shape that takes on new meaning when you plug it into the pattern so please plug it in a couple of things just before we end first even even though I get the impression our opinions differ on a few things if you have seen Blue Beetle I'd really recommend watching that Latino slant video Even if you couldn't care less about nerd rodic or Friday night tights if you're not from a Hispanic background it adds a whole new layer to the film really brings a lot of small details to life second I will grant it's possible theoretically that some of the problems I honed in on in terms of inaccuracies and the like are corrected or expanded upon in the original stream this video was edited down from but that doesn't actually matter and I'll tell you why what was included what was emitted in this edit is as much and as relevant a choice as what was said and what wasn't if there was Nuance that was cut for the edit for the bite-sized Wing pellet that's a bad thing and the last thing I'll say is that if you think what I do on this channel is worth supporting the best thing you can do to help is to join up at any tier on patreon or YouTube naturally in exchange for a bunch of cool perks and if you're not in a position to do that likes comments and and shares all go a long way too finally huge thanks as always to everyone supporting the channel at present the whole gang on screen now especially Daniel goldhorn Karen kman magath Ryan Emily something something capitalism bad Thomas R and weirdy bir peace

Channel: Pillar of Garbage

Views: 96,966

Keywords: nerdrotic, fnt, friday night tights, taco, let's taco bout blue beetle, blue beetle, yikes, xolo, mariduena, response, woke, anti-woke, debunked, debunk, dc, video essay, tiktok, callout, apology, analysis, analysed, pillar of garbage, chud, jaime reyes

Id: 3GkWE7lUODw

Length: 45min 34sec (2734 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 18 2023