Steven Crowder Should be Canceled, Change My Mind.
Steven Crowder Should be Canceled, Change My Mind.
Steven Crowder was a once young actor and voice of Brain on the show Arthur wherein one of his 13 appearances he played a stand-up comedian. A role he plays to this day. That’s what his “stand-up comedian” status is, a role. Greg Gutfeld, an actual performer, and former colleague of Crowder’s at Fox allegedly said “I wouldn’t let Crowder call himself a performer, he doesn’t perform”. In an early appearance on the network legitimate stand-up comedian Amy Schumer, with several HBO and Netflix specials to her name, confronted Crowder about his self-identified status as a comedian saying “you call yourself a stand-up, but you don’t do it that much. I go fishing a couple times a year but I don’t call myself a fisherman.”
Steven Crowder claims to have been a stand-up comedian, but there is almost no record of his work. He claims to have won a stand-up contest no one has any record of. He doesn’t open for major comics. He doesn’t have a long history performing at a major club. Nobody has heard of him. Even when Joe Rogan defended him to David Pakman, Joe Rogan struggled to explain what made Steven Crowder a comedian. That’s because he isn’t. When he does what could be considered “a performance” he simply speaks to the conservative crowds doing hacky Indian accents and not telling jokes. His identity as a “comedian” is exactly what Amy Schumer said it was; a mirage.
So why does a man who clearly is not, biologically, a stand-up comedian comfortable self-identifying, but uncomfortable when others do it?
Crowder’s behavior on Youtube and Twitter has been some of the worst permitted on the platform. And his behavior is not new. It’s not a new feature of his “comedy” but rather the fixture of his “comedy”.
Steven’s been at this grift for a while now, even before he was with The Blaze network. Many of his early videos ranged from harmless topics such as “how good of a martial artist was Bruce Lee really” attempting to seem edgy by including grossly racist Asian caricatures. It seems very tame compared to his later stuff, although it seems like he was testing the waters and seeing how far he could push things early on. This was counterbalanced by more conspiratorial stuff such as pushing Climate Change denial. Unfortunately, it’s a bit tricky to convince people lying about an existential threat in the future is bad to have on platforms like YouTube and Twitter. However, this culminated in his later coverage of the Covid crisis, where he pushed dangerous information that could get people killed, constantly. It was nonstop, for weeks, amongst the then worst period in the crisis. Youtube or Twitter did nothing about him despite many of his audience living in areas that could be hardest hit.
He has a platform seen by millions and it’s growing. Crowder seems to target much of his comedy to teenagers, engaging in low brow antics, often involving him bullying women and minorities. One of his earlier “pranks” involved going to pick up migrant workers with his then partner “Not Gay Jared” and then threatening to call ICE on them for not having their papers. Literally asking minorities to show “their papers”. It doesn’t get more on the nose than that, or at least I thought it couldn’t until he started the bit by playing Mariachi music.
Crowder is a bully. That’s what he thinks is “comedy”. We see this misconception of comedy as “being mean to people” in Amanda Cerny and King Bach skits, with the slight saving grace of those being acted out skits with willing actors participating. Crowder instead confronts actual everyday people, harassing them while they are just trying to live their lives. He even has a segment devoted to this called “Crowder Confronts”. In one of the more infamous episodes, he confronts someone who wrote a mean thing about him on Facebook, at their place of work. In the video Crowder steps behind the counter in a threatening manner, although he maintains he is not there to be physically violent, he continually tries to provoke an altercation. Crowder would later harass the journalist who covered the event, feigning obliviousness to bullying and harassment that caused the police to bar him from entering that establishment for a year. He even made a routine target of Greta Thunberg. Frequently he mocked her intelligence, insinuating she was a puppet of her parents, and also mocked her autism. He had a very infamous tweet about her as well that garnered more than his usual outside attention.
Every once in a while though Crowder’s antics get the better of him.
Crowder actually edited the video of the union worker punching him to leave out how he pushed him. There is some satisfaction from watching this video and seeing someone punch the smug off Crowder’s face. There is yet another one from a “Change My Mind” Segment, where he gets owned by a student named Yusif, and proceeds to invade his personal space to intimidate him. His Change My Mind segments, which according to Crowder are one of the most popular draws to his channel, routinely are there to aggravate students and provoke reactions. One such segment was “Change My Mind: Rape Culture Doesn’t Exist” which provoked some obvious emotional outbursts from student victims who were nearby. In the segment Crowder patronizes the actual victim, while continuing his own victim narrative gift.
The point of this is not whether you agree with his assertions or not, despite the fact that mostly all of it is false, but to establish a clear pattern of behavior. This directly links to his obvious racism and bigotry, to both people of color and members of the LGBTQ community.
In the above video still very available on Youtube Crowder harasses a brilliant black street artist. When he finally provokes the man and the argument gets heated Crowder threatens to call the cops on him for “graffiti”. He is instructed by a man in an authority position that street artists are allowed in this part of the city, but Crowder continues insisting the gentlemen who is minding his own business is breaking the law. This entire video is set to the backdrop of the fallout of the riots over George Floyd. This video is insanely racist, to the point of cartoonishness. There are X-Men The Animated Series episodes more subtle than this exchange.
Crowder’s comedy has always been racist. For a point of comparison, here is Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a movie made in 1961, before the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, or Equal Protections Act were even signed into law…
…and this is Steven Crowder’s show now…
In that very show he makes reference to Breakfast and Tiffany’s from 1961
“In another clip, Crowder shared footage of a man imitating Mickey Rooney’s racist character from Breakfast At Tiffany’s before saying, “playing Breakfast At Tiffany’s and Mickey Rooney is that man’s legacy and I will honor it.”
In the above video Crowder triumphantly brings the banned Alex Jones back to Youtube. The two take a fun romp through the post-George Floyd Dallas. We watch them mime vomiting when they see poor people — Alex Jones blames it on a dust mite allergy, but it’s just incredibly disgusting stuff. The way they speak of the poor and destitute here is textbook fascist propaganda.
In the fallout of the election he posted a video titled “Calling All Patriots to Disobey” and the thumbnail features him posing with a rifle.
This video violates Youtube’s rules against terrorism, and in my opinion, I have a strong case that. Namely that Crowder had held a rally prior in Michigan over the lockdowns. He had made a point on his show to paint a target on Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, having several shows devoted to her and various grievances he has with her as well as many sexist remarks directed at her. In addition he dubbed her Wuhan Whitmer and posted images like this:
Comparing her to chairman Mao, who oversaw the deaths of Millions with the great leap forward. Ignoring that Gretchen Whitmer is neither a dictator nor a Communist, he continued these smears. Barely a week after his rally against Whitmer in Michigan and plot to kidnap and assassinate the Governor was foiled by the FBI. It turns out several of the men arrested were fans of Steven Crowder. This is very similar to the mosque shooter who turned out to be a very big Ben Shapiro fan. Or when Gavin McGinnis started the white nationalist group The Proud Boys, only to distance himself from them — that association got him banned of most major social media platforms. Not to mention the largest platform banning of one Alex Jones following the harassment of Sandy Hook parents after Jones’ accused their deceased family members of being ‘crisis actors’. Crowder, in my opinion, is now worse than these individuals, many of whom have already been banned. For some reason, Crowder has been able to skate by almost unscathed.
By almost I mean until he went after Vox journalist Carlos Maza, who happens to be homosexual.
Crowder targeted him over several months in several video segments or Tweets. The butt of the “joke” was always Maza’s sexuality. For this Susan Wojcicki demonetized, but did not ban the channel, despite the clear, targeted harassment over Maza’s sexuality in direct violation of Youtube’s terms of service. Susan Wojcicki was rightly criticized for this weak response.
He called him a “lispy queer” and insinuated that he can’t keep penises out of his mouth because homosexuals are naturally promiscuous according to Crowder. This is basically the equivalent of suggesting blacks are mentally inferior, but don’t worry, he does that too. That is him talking to Stefan Molyneux, a person Sam Harris would not talk to because Stefan Molyneux is a white nationalist (sadly Harris edited out the parts of his podcast where they talk about this are Molyneux’s behest). Stefan Molyneux is obsessed with race and IQ and claims and routinely places blacks at the bottom, and this is someone Crowder apparently has a lot of respect for and offers glowing interviews to on his platform, which is permitted on Youtube and Twitter, aimed at impressionable young teenagers.
I think this is what makes his most recent video quite troubling. Just a few days ago Elliot Page, famous for playing female characters like Kitty Pryde and the lead in Juno, came out as a transgender queer man. He had mocked Elliot Page earlier on his program for having an emotional response to the then alleged attack on LGBTQ actor Jussie Smollett. Although the attack turned out to be a hoax, Crowder went out of his way to call him out on a segment called “what a piece of shit” mocking him because he feared for the lives of LGBTQ members. As of the recent announcement, he renewed his attacks on Elliot, devoting a show to making fun of him. The segment culminates with him playing a clip from ET to suggest that Elliot Page is a weird, ugly alien.
He broke from nearly three weeks worth of election conspiracies, which are dangerous in their own right as I outlined, to do a hit piece on a transgender actor. This actor, Elliot Page, is now the most accomplished transgender actor in entertainment, having already won 12 awards. Steven Crowder decides that now it’s time to devote a show to deadname and misgender this person and suggest that they are a hideous alien. This is something Youtube permits on their platform. In addition to that their demonetization period has past and Crowder can now run ads. Crowder, quite literally, is profiting off of proliferating bigotry in all forms.
Many people will attempt to turn this into a free speech issue and it is not. Crowder has his own channel and is connected to the Blaze Network — a subscription service. He also has MugClub where users can pay to join. He also has a merchandise store where he sells homophobic “Socialism is for F*gs” shirts.
Freedom of speech does not owe hate a platform on major social media networks any more than it guarantees him a job on Saturday Night Live. He has his freedom to speak, and he has his own platform and studio to do it from. He doesn’t need Youtube and should be in a place where he is as easily accessible as old episodes of 1980s cartoon shows. He has clearly violated their hate speech policies time and again, and he is poisoning the well for the Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers he courts as an audience.
Many Youtubers have posted responses to or video essays about the problems with Steven Crowder. These Youtubers include Vaush and Destiny, two Twitch streamers who are on the left-wing spectrum. Three Arrows, a historian, does an excellent job debunking his “Hitler was a Socialist” conspiracy theory. Shaun has done a total breakdown of Steven Crowders direct connection to white supremacy and white supremacists. Jose does an excellent breakdown of why Crowder’s infamous ‘Change my Mind’ segments are designed to rationalize his own arguments. Potholer54, a science journalist, also did an excellent job countering Crowder’s climate change denial, a topic that doesn’t dominate his program as much these days. This is hardly an exhaustive list, with many of these creators devoting more than one video to the topic of his channel, but they are worth checking. While several of these channels are popular and do have large followings, they have not resulted in Youtube properly enforcing their policy. They continue to allow Crowder’s harmful and hateful rhetoric to spread unchecked on their platform save for a few meaningless slaps on the wrist.
Crowder is unapologetic for his behavior. After the Maza incident, he posted a video mocking Maza yet again, and mocking the idea that he should feel the need to apologize for harassing minorities, making blatantly racist jokes and targeting members of the LGBTQ community.
People often play this game of false equivalency with Steven Crowder, suggesting someone banning someone like him simply opens up the door to banning Dave Chappelle. They’ll claim that, to many, Dave Chappelle was offensive. Steven Crowder makes this argument himself, equating himself to other “canceled” celebrities such as Dave Chappelle, Sarah Silverman, and Louis CK (ignoring completely the reasons for any negative press). There are differences, however. One, those people are actual comedians. They may push the envelope, but because of their expertise and experience, they know and respect the boundaries they so often press. They know how to construct an actual joke, instead of simply ridiculing others and hiding behind pretending to be a comedian as a defense for their words and behavior. They also don’t intentionally punch down on marginalized groups. Crowder is none of these things, least of which a comedian. He’s a fraud, who uses the appearance of being a comedian as a shield to spread bigotry, homophobia, conspiracy theories, violence, and hate.
When I was in High School and College the gay marriage debate was only beginning. While I can attest to having some anachronistic opinions about it at the time, with the help of a friend whom I later found out was gay himself, I quickly came around on the issue. I was happy to be wrong about that, however, that political divide caused a rift in South Carolina, a place where I know Crowder and those like him are popular. At the time several unnamed relatives and people I knew were afraid of how acceptance of different sexualities and preferences would “influence children and teenagers.” If you are honestly concerned about what “influences your children and teenagers” you need to look at Steven Crowder. This is someone that some teenagers and young adults see as an aspiration figure. This miserable person who makes a career off of dumping on people for being different, or choosing to be different. This person pretending to be a comedian so as to teach his impressionable audience members these kinds of thoughts are normal and okay. It’s okay to harass a black person who is painting a wooden board. It’s okay to threaten ICE on your neighbors if they don’t have their papers. It’s okay to harass a young girl with autism. It’s okay to harass transgender people, deadname and misgender them. This is not comedy. This is not art. This is textbook right-wing fascist propaganda. It’s more dated than Breakfast and Tiffany’s if I’m being honest, and it’s being broadcast as if it’s edgy and new in 2020.
Steven Crowder has made quite clear how unrepentant he is for his rhetoric and behavior. The demonetization clearly did not work as Crowder’s show arguably got worse and more destructive during that period. Steven Crowder behaves more brazenly now than before. Even worse, for the people atYoutube, Crowder’s views and subscribers steadily increased during his demonetization period. Susan Wojcicki instead of fixing the problem with Crowder’s channel made it worse, improved his reach, and it resulted in real consequences in the real world.
It’s high time Twitter, Facebook, and especially Youtube grew some ovaries and kicked Crowder to the curb.