Furthermore, which works are accepted as BreadTube content is decided through democratic processes between users, such as discussions on forums or voting on Reddit (Ismangil & Kuznetsov, 2020). To realize its ideal of equality between creators, BreadTube prioritizes the quality of content over creator popularity, as stated in the subreddit's rules. Viewers are encouraged to go beyond BreadTube videos and make use of the educational tools the community around these creators provides, such as discussion boards, book clubs and the dedicated discord channel for pirated or open access books and articles.įigure 2) A smaller creator with 83 subscribers trending on r/BreadTube
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This form of democracy can only successfully be achieved when every citizen is educated on how to be democratic, which is why BreadTube has taken on the role of free educator for all: “BreadTube fills an ideological void for people who may lack the means and methods to educate themselves” (Ismangil & Kuznetsov, 2020). This shared leftist ideology has its roots in the tradition of the radical enlightenment, which promoted universal rights, democracy and radical equality, not just before the law, but socioeconomically as well (Israël, 2010). This critique of mainstream ideology is one of the cornerstones of the shared ideology that keeps BreadTube, which is home to users and creators with a wide array of different political, leftist dispositions, from falling apart. We need to interpret mainstream ideology here as pro-establishment (liberal or conservative), pro-authoritarian, and, perhaps most importantly, pro-capitalist. It is important to stress that, as the second rule of the r/BreadTube subreddit suggests, BreadTube content is not just a counterweight to the new right's usage of digital media, but it is also critical of mainstream ideology. The BreadTube community is not just limited to YouTube but stretches across multiple media platforms, such as Reddit, Discord and its own video aggregation site .įigure 1) The first two r/BreadTube community rules Instead, a shared ideology binds them together” (Ismangil & Kuznetsov, 2020). The moniker Loose Association implies a lack of central organisation, of a structure that determines their relationships. ‘BreadTube’ (or ‘LeftTube’ as it is sometimes called) is described by Kuznetsov and Ismangil as “ a loose association of independent online videographers and their surrounding communities that makes up a leftist response to alt-right use of digital media. This definition of BreadTube and the ideology behind it will then serve as backdrop for an analysis of why some frequently recurring tactics in BreadTube content are successful in challenging new right and mainstream discourse. The data analyzed here primarily comes from YouTube videos by popular BreadTube creators. Using information from BreadTube creators, the r/BreadTube subreddit, and the article “ YouTube as Praxis? On BreadTube and the Digital Propagation of Socialist Thought” (Ismangil & Kuznetsov, 2020), we will attempt to pinpoint what BreadTube is and what ideology underlies it. However, analysing these tactics will also lay bare the weaknesses of BreadTube’s approach. These actors use new right, digital culture, and mainstream tactics to break into the hybrid media system's infromation flows to advance the spread of leftist ideas and, more importantly, hinder the diffusion of right-wing ideology.īy analysing these borrowed tactics, we can start to understand how BreadTube videos effectively challenge mainstream and right-wing discourses. The loose association of leftist independent online videographers, content creators, and their surrounding communities, dubbed ‘BreadTube’, try to do just that. In our current hybrid media system, older (mass media) and newer (social media) logics interact, and the complex relationships between actors are based on the power they exercise within this system: “actors create, tap, or steer information flows in ways that suit their goals and in ways that modify, enable, or disable others’ agency, across and between a range of older and newer media settings” (Chadwick, 2016).