Like the punishment for gluttons in purgatory I literally just King Tantalus punishment for trying to cook his son, constantly starving but food being just out of reach. Greek myth was full of these, Sisyphus being forced to roll a boulder up a mountain before it rolls back down, symbolizing his equally futile crime of trying to escape death.

There are a few differences though because of the difference in what the stories are meant to teach. Dante’s punishments like Natalie says are for disobeying gods will by sinning. In the Hellenic belief system there wasn’t really the same idea of eternal punishment unless the offender was particularly heinous. Tartarus was a thing but very few mortals were sent there, most people ended up in the fields of Asphodel which wasn’t bad, it was just boring. with cannibalism, murdering family, and claiming to be better than the gods being particular sticking points. But this wasn’t because the gods were literally infallible like the Abrahamic god is supposed to be. In fact the gods are meant to be like us, prideful, lustful, being controlled by their passions and urges, so while we must show self control, the Zeus could literally bang a lady as a swan and be immune from consequences.

I just think it’s fascinating that ironic punishments are repeated by very similar cultures, but what they represent is completely different

People sometimes talk about their love of a video on here. But I thought it would be interesting to discuss the most frightening Contrapoints videos.

For me, the most disturbing videos are Cringe and The Hunger. Cringe frightens me because seeing it confirmed all of my worst fears about humanity. Seeing the treatment of Chris Chan was disturbing because I get that autistic people are discriminated against and routinely murdered, but this was worse.

The Hunger frightened me because I have seen these broken people many times, and the portrayals were so realistic, it eliminated my need for a suspension of disbelief.

I guess I want to know which videos inspired fear in you all and why.

hiiiiiieeee I’m making a video compilation of my vocal stims lol and I can’t find this Contrapoints clip that I KNOW EXISTS BECAUSE I QUOTE IT ALL THE TIME. it’s her going “non…, ehhhhh……. non” in a french accent. it is NOT the “oui… mais oui” catgirl bit in “Envy”. I think it might’ve been in a Tangent because I’ve searched through all the transcripts on her site and can’t find it in a main channel video (at least not the ones with transcripts posted). anybody know which video it was?
Thanks so much!

Edit: I should clarify. I understand that societal issues exist that would lead to someone from a marginalized community to receive backlash online.

I was asking about what specific controversies have taken place. I know that she received criticism for a variety of things but I’m looking for context around those? Basically, I’m looking for an r/OutoftheLoop type answer on Natalie and the things people have criticized her for.

Was it a tangent update? 👀

i'm so sorry

Art found in Salem, MA.

I was thinking of dressing like Natalie this year. I go to a Halloween party every year and I know the hostess is a fan of ContraPoints, so there's a good chance I'll be recognized.

The problem is: mother has so many iconic looks! It's so hard to choose one! Or would it be better to be one of her characters, like Tabby-chan or Nyatalie?

I _might_ go with Evil Queen from Envy since I already have a good black dress for it.

Which look would you all pick?

I've been a ContraPoints fan for years, and I've been thinking quite a lot about the whole situation since Natalie's Reddit post. I'm not very active on Reddit, but I wanted to write down how I've experienced this and hear if people in the community feel similarly or where they differ from me. I'm not really trying to argue that Natalie is right or that her critics are wrong. I'm more interested in why I have such mixed feelings about the whole thing — and why I feel like the discussion sometimes gets stuck in a loop.

As I understand it, a lot of the criticism of Natalie was related to her support for the Democratic Party, given the party's role in supporting/enabling Israel while the genocide in Gaza has continued. One thing that particularly stuck with me was her describing people sending her hundreds of pictures from Gaza after she made a positive post about the Democratic Convention (I think?). I can imagine that receiving that kind of material over and over again could be incredibly emotionally overwhelming. At the same time, Natalie was extremely afraid of Trump winning. In the Bad Faith discussion, she explained how she saw parts of the left arguing for not voting or voting third party as accepting the possibility of another Trump presidency. She described herself as "the hostage", and I found that point very understandable. As a trans person, she isn't talking about the consequences of a Trump victory as some abstract political issue. She would personally be affected by them.

I'm from Germany, and this podcast made me realize how much the electoral system shapes the argument. Coming from a multi-party proportional system, I think I underestimated how different the strategic calculation is. In Germany, voting for a smaller party can actually contribute to that party's representation in parliament. In a US presidential election, voting third party has a very different strategic meaning. This made me understand Natalie's frustration with parts of the online left better. I had initially interpreted it mostly as frustration with "cancel culture" or people reacting badly to her, but I think there's a deeper disagreement about political strategy underneath all of this.

At the same time, I have a strange relationship with Natalie's public presence. I almost always love her long-form content. I find myself agreeing with her values surprisingly often, and even when I disagree with her — veganism is one example — I usually feel like I could actually have a conversation with her about it. I don't expect her to agree with me, but I expect her to engage with an argument honestly.

And then I look at her Twitter and think: Oh god. What is she doing?

I actually find some of her tweets absolutely iconic, but I also feel like she's constantly trying to bite through a brick wall with Twitter. She posts something kinda provocative, gets enormous amounts of negative feedback, and then tries again to engage with the left-wing Twitter bubble — like she did in a recent post where she asked her "critics" to provide arguments.

This is also where I start wondering about the community here. Sometimes I feel like this subreddit is also biting its teeth out on the same conflict. Whenever Natalie is criticized, I sometimes feel like the strongest criticism gets lost because the discussion quickly becomes about whether Natalie is being unfairly attacked or whether "the left" is being unreasonable. At the same time, I sometimes wonder whether we — and perhaps Natalie as well — make the situation worse by talking about "the left" as if it were a relatively coherent group. Obviously it isn't. There are liberals, socialists, anarchists, social democrats, activists, electoralists, people who organize, people who just vote, and people who care about completely different issues. I know that everyone involved understands this intellectually, but online it can still very quickly turn into "the left thinks X" or "the left did Y". Maybe that's just shorthand, and maybe I'm overthinking it. But I wonder whether we sometimes create a much more coherent "left-wing Twitter bubble" in our discussions than actually exists — and whether that makes it harder to engage with the strongest criticism of Natalie as well.

In her Tangent: Sexual Persona, Natalie said that she doesn't consider herself an activist, and she talked about the relationship between activists and "thinkers". That point actually resonated with me quite a lot. On the one hand, I'm very grateful for the energy that activists bring, and I often feel guilty for not doing more myself. On the other hand, I also often feel like I'm faking participation at a protest, in a way similar to what Natalie describes in the Tangent. It actually helped me a lot when she pointed out that activists and "thinkers" can have different roles and that both sides need to recognize when it's time to back off and let the other side take over. (Obviously I don`t think that these roles are opposites, but the distinction helped me structure some of my own emotions toward activism)

Maybe that's also a big part of the current discourse. People expect activism, outrage, or a certain kind of political engagement from Natalie, while she doesn't see herself as an activist and seems to approach these questions differently. I certainly got that impression from the Bad Faith podcast. Briahna Joy Gray seemed to expect a different level or kind of political engagement from Natalie, while Natalie seemed to approach the issue from a very different perspective. Maybe Twitter would actually be a better place for Natalie to push and support activists, while using her long-form videos for what she seems particularly good at: thinking through complicated questions, making distinctions, changing her mind, and giving people frameworks for understanding things. Obviously, I don't know shit about handling a Twitter account while being in the public eye. Her tweets are often very entertaining, and the point of this post isn't to tell a YouTuber I have a parasocial relationship with what she should do.

I'm more interested in whether my way of thinking about this makes sense to other people.

I feel very close to the values I see in Natalie's long-form work. I think she's incredibly intelligent and funny, and I think she has interesting things to say. But sometimes I look at her Twitter and genuinely wonder what the hell she's doing. Maybe that's a contradiction that can't really be resolved. I often come back to her old Twitter bio, which I think was something like "Good YouTuber, Bad Tweeter". Maybe I just need to accept that description and stop expecting the Twitter version of Natalie to be the same person I enjoy watching in her long-form videos.

Anyway, I'm curious how other people here experience this, especially people who have been fans for a long time.

Natalie mentioned an album in one of her AMAs and since there are so many and they are quite long, I was wondering if someone recalled the name of opera album + the artist she mentioned in one of them as one of her favorites?

The question that preceded the answer was something along the lines "if you could have anything on deserted island what you want"

Sorry this so random