in Mainstream Media

BuzzFeed Deconstructed – Why Is It So Disliked?

30 Comments

Buzzfeed is a self-styled news and entertainment company that is perhaps famous and infamous in equal measure, in fact the hate for Buzzfeed might well be what has helped it standout in an increasingly crowded market. But what is it really, and why in some corners is it so reviled?

Carlson / Smith Interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC1f7ZUwPxk

10 Moments Black People Know In The Workplace Too Well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqHrT_MD4ys

Written by Georg Rockall-Schmidt

Comments

  3. I know it was a metaphor, but it is good to know the origin of phrases – yes, fire was effectively used to fight fire, you burned the ground in a controlled way around fire so that it could not spread.

  6. There are parallels between YouTube and Buzzfeed. YouTube can be a wonderful thing, but it's not exactly blameless in giving a voice to idiots, racists, attention seekers and charlatans. "12 Things You Didn't Know About…" videos are plastered all over the medium, and more often than not they'll be 12 things anyone who has an interest in a particular product or IP will already know. There's plagiarised content and people who can't make a coherant point over the course of a relatively short space of time. There are endless lists of Top Tens, which have zero creative input. Then there are the racists… apparently some racists are good racists while others are bad. You get the idea. The main difference is that Buzzfeed does seem to be entirely about lowest common denominator rubbish, while YouTube can be as wonderful or as terrible as each individual chooses. All the same, every sin perpetuated by Buzzfeed has a home here, too.

  13. Not that i like buzzfeed but i always thought the “white people ruined x” type stuff to be tongue and cheek and not actual bigotry, where most stuff about who “black people ruin x” are usually legitimately bigoted

  18. Agree with mostly everything here but I think you are missing the cultural context of the "white people" posts. You made up some examples of BuzzFeed articles that derided other racial or ethnic groups ("10 things that black people ruined") without considering the racial and socioeconomic contexts of what that means. In the states (and most other places really, whether you want to admit it or not) white folks have hegemony that has been relatively unquestioned and even unnoticed. I don't know if BuzzFeed approach is most appropriate, but they are effectively trying to call out the attitudes of entitlement and arrogance that comes from SOME white people (like Tucker Carlson lol) when they are ignorant of the massive privilege they gain in the world that comes just from having a lighter skin color. You can't ignore the context of social power when you compare a headline about white people vs. folks of a different race, I'm sorry. It's not comparing apples to apples even though it seems that way on the surface. Otherwise, good video.

  20. Buzzfeed is what is wrong with modern liberalism. Shallow, trigger-happy, and willing to expand definitions of -isms and -ists to fit their agenda.

    All I want is for people to realize they're not going to work it out until we can see ourselves as United under one flag, not divided by anything else.

    I am American, and I see other American people as Americans, not as black people, not as white, not as gay, lesbians, whatever, but as Americans.

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