(This post is referring to tiktok, instagram reels, youtube shorts type content)

So it’s no secret that for half a decade now we’ve had short form video content get increasingly popularised. To the point where your uncle probably watches them on some platform and so does your 6 year old.

Now in terms of addictiveness, privacy falling through the roof, advertising down your throat, etc. we’ve reached new records. But that isn’t what this post is about.

I never used this format much, except in 2020 during the pandemic, but I can’t help but notice when I do. Even if I make a brand new VPN’d account for it. Every 5-10th post or so wil be some kind of culture war propaganda.

The kind of stuff that made me an edgy right wing bigot as a teenager because I got influenced by it on youtube. Luckily, I grew and changed. Unfortunately, many former friends, not so much.

On a completely new account you’ll get bombarded with videos like:

  • “This is why women NEED real MEN”
  • “How to piss of a cyclist”
  • ”If a climate activist is blocking the road, you should be allowed to run over them”
  • ”When MEN were thrown a grenade, they reacted quickly, WOMEN got confused and scared. That’s why we NEED men in the army”
  • Wholesome looking video — homophobic caption: “This is why children need both a mum and a dad”

These are all examples I got today when I decided to make completely new accounts on a new device with a VPN. I tried youtube shorts and tiktok for this and scrolled 20ish videos on each without liking anything.

It scares me how much there is a strong rightward shift amongst the younger population. To the point where 18-24’s in recent german elections have voted the most for the borderline neo-nazi AFD party. I know these parties are by far the most active and very popular on tiktok.

I know to some people these examples might seem anoying but trivial. But you are forgetting how impressionable children and teenagers are. There really is this thing called the alt-right pipeline. One very specific example which impacted me at a younger age, was you start with “mad karen” type videos, then after a couple you get recommended “mad SJW” videos, I think you see where I’m going with this, after a while you’re on “feminism debunked” and watching peterson/crowder/shapiro. I know many childhood friends who went down this pipeline and became insufferably racist bigot adults.

I wonder what others think on this?

  • RobotZap10000@feddit.nlEnglish
    4·
    6 days ago

    Despite me having maybe a bit too much freedom on the internet when I was younger, I never fell down that hole. Even though many openings presented themselves, I always avoided them due to reasons that I then could not describe. I doubt that many others also had the same experience.

    But then again, Reddit was really the only social media that I properly interacted with. I did also have a nice and fat dose of YouTube, but I (thankfully) never watched the kinds of videos that you speak of, I found them appalling.

    I’ve only ever really heard of what you describe, as I don’t really talk much with people who hate my guts. But by now I’ve heard of it so much I don’t think that it’s an exaggeration anymore. I can only hope that those affected by it eventually free themselves, even if much later in life. Mindless hatred hurts everybody, including the hater.

    • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
      14·
      6 days ago

      I’m worried that the hole is getting bigger and bigger, and it’s becoming almost normal for young kids to fall into it.

      My older brother works at a middle school. Every year, they do mock elections to teach kids about voting. He told me over the past decade, it’s gone from kids choosing the green party 75% (I’m in Switzerland btw), to it being 50% the far right party and the rest split between all the others.