New Yorker article on contrapoints

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-stylish-socialist-who-is-trying-to-save-youtube-from-alt-right-domination

“…She finished in less than an hour. There would be more to shoot in the coming days, after she received shipments of new costumes and props; after that, she would spend several days editing the video, then adding music and last-minute effects. For now, though, she was done. She wiped off her lipstick, changed into sweatpants, and ordered in from a nearby restaurant.

Sitting at her kitchen table, Wynn returned to one of her preoccupations: the chasm between the left’s ability to criticize and its ability to proselytize. An earlier ContraPoints video opened with an m.c., played by Wynn, announcing two public speakers, also played by Wynn. “Ladies and gentlemen, a Fascist,” the m.c. says. The Fascist is poised. The Fascist is coolheaded. The Fascist’s rhetoric, if you’re not listening closely, sounds sensible and patriotic. The audience cheers. Then the m.c. says, “Ladies and gentlemen, a leftist.” The leftist is halting, hostile, and condescending. “So, actually, according to Hegel, the for-itself can only be actualized through the in-itself,” she begins. The audience giggles and boos. “Aw, fuck you, you fucking racists!” the leftist responds, giving the audience the finger.

The food arrived—goat curry and chana masala—and Wynn pulled back her hair and started to eat. “You often hear, with regard to the alt-right or the Intellectual Dark Web or pro-Trump nationalists, that the way to avoid normalizing them is to avoid responding to them, or to only respond by calling them offensive and terrible and bad,” she said. “And, look, sometimes they are offensive and terrible and bad, but you don’t win by saying that. You win by pointing out why they’re wrong, and by making better propaganda than they do.” When Wynn posted the final version of the video to YouTube, several commenters wrote that it had made them reconsider their views. “I didn’t even know what cis meant until I stumbled on your videos,” one wrote. “I guess I just wanted to thank you, as cheesy as it sounds . . . I know how rare it is to change someone’s opinion on the internet.”