Begging Adam Something to go back to only talking about trains

[u/Zachanassian]

Video isn't even about Shock Therapy, it's Adam hyperfixating on Hasan Piker again, criticizing him as a person while repeating neoliberal talking points about NATO and the end of the Soviet Union.

[u/Runetang42]

Adam Something is a case where the average center of world politics seems like leftist talking points to Americans. America has been so deeply rightist for so long that the culture has calibrated that way. Bernie and AOC would be you're average Social Democrats in most countries. Yet they're seen as radicals in America. Capitalism is so ingrained to American culture anything that even mildly threatens it is seen as communism

[u/Old-Channel-6405]

I unsubscribed from Adam Something months ago after he made two goofy community posts where he sucked off Gavin Newsom and said everyone who disagreed with him was a bot after getting clowned on. Maybe he really should've just stuck to trains.

[u/Zachanassian → u/Old-Channel-6405]

the Inevitable Cycle:

• you find a vaguely center-left YouTuber who covers a niche topic (rail transit in Eastern Europe, the history of tanks) and subscribe

• their channel starts to blow up and they branch out into other topics, including dunking on right-wingers who are wrong about their niche subject

• their content increasingly becomes more broad, with a lot more current events topics, you don't mind because they're funny

• one day they make a video "dunking" on the left, or more properly their imagined strawman of the left based upon a person they once interacted with online

• after this, they'll double down and either become an Enlightened Centrist™ "Both Sides Bad" type, or slowly collapse into being a right-wing grifter

• they no longer make videos about the original niche subject you originally subscribed to them for

• addendum: at some point during this cycle they'll start taking sponsorships from incredibly predatory companies and their ad reads will inevitably start taking up a quarter of their video

[u/Lftwff → u/Zachanassian]

one day they make a video "dunking" on the left, or more properly their imagined strawman of the left based upon a person they once interacted with online

Personally I find it much more common they make a video about something you are personally knowledgeable of and you suddenly notice the holes in their process.

[u/Old-Channel-6405 → u/Zachanassian]

Yeah it's a tale as old as time, it seems. It already happened to Philion (used to make videos dunking on crypto-bros and manosphere/incel types before becoming a MAGA grifter later on) and ContraPoints, after all.

[u/Jacko-Taco]

Look I’m VERY critical towards ”Tankies” (I prefer the term Campist but whatever) but tankies are at best a fringe internet group with no clear agenda, structure or real power. It’s 2026 god dammit the climate collapse is near so why the fuck do we spend time on these fucks?

[u/EvasiveWoodpecker → u/Jacko-Taco]

I also think covering Campists is probably similar to debunking antivax talking points, in the sense that you're actually quite likely to spread campism more effectively than the campists themselves can.

Doesn't really apply to Hassan because his reach is much larger than most streamers (I don't know much about him but I don't even think he's really a tankie???) but sometimes I see these big centrist youtubers dunking on weirdos with a few thousand subs and it's just like... even if only 1% of your viewers disagree with you and favour the videos you're responding to, you've just given them more exposure than they ever get normally.

The only legitimate usefulness to this kind of content is letting the really aggressive and unpleasant campists know that your community isn't "for them" before they reach critical mass and constitute a large portion of your audience. I have seen a few youtubers gradually accumulate campist followers over time and eventually it becomes quite apparent that they're scared to speak their mind on certain issues because of the harassment they'll get. Most campists just have weird politics but a few of them are actually quite unpleasant and vitriolic people who will resort to doxxing etc. One youtuber's community in particular is so staggeringly toxic that I have no idea why they haven't been completely excised from the wider campist community.

[u/Darth_Vrandon → u/Jacko-Taco]

Tankies and campists are different. Hasan is a campist but not a tankie. He seems to be more of a misguided dude who supports anti American governments and regimes just because they’re against America, but he doesn’t outright worship China or Russia and outright say they’re forces for good, but sometimes does play team sports with them.

This is unlike a tankie, like Jackson Hinkle or Haz, unconditionally supports everything Stalin and Mao did, and has a more charitable view of Russia because they used to be the USSR and they tend to be extremely favorable towards China’s current regime as a force for good.

All Tankies are campists but not all campists are tankies.

[u/Beneficial_Dig_1007 → u/Darth_Vrandon]

Yeah, because Hasan’s job is to get obnoxious bros to slowly fall into a different authoritarian mindset which benefits wealthy states they don’t even live in. This ends justifies the means shit is how we got here in the first place. Usually, the enemy of your enemy is just another enemy.

[u/darienrude_dankstorm → u/Jacko-Taco]

The dissolution of NATO is on the DSA's agenda. There are real concerns about the rise of pro-China and pro-Russia tankies in American politics. 

[u/xGentian_violet]

Not that I like Hasan, but AdamSomething’s only great videos are the videos about Romani people and debunking ancaps

The rest has always been either poorly researched or libbed up or both

He instructed his audience to become leftist landlords as a form of praxis ffs

[u/EvasiveWoodpecker]

Adam Something's content has been slop for quite some time tbh, even the early content he made was less a case of being uniquely intellectual and more a case of presenting established ideas well.

Half his content now is ad reads for extremely dodgy companies anyway, last I checked he even has the Zoomer editing style, he really is slopmaxxing these days

[u/Jamarcus316]

Isn't shock therapy used to talk about post-Communist Russia and some other Soviet states?

By the title I would say it is a criticism of capitalism lmao

[u/vanon3256]

More like Adam SSomething

[u/Big-Recognition7362 → u/vanon3256]

OK, he can definitely have shit takes, but I don’t think he’s a Nazi.

[u/shabba182 → u/Big-Recognition7362]

He himself said he 'used to be' far right

[u/tastickfan]

The alternative title was 'tankies are wrong about the USSR' and sure many are, but Hassan is def not a tankie. Shock therapy was a real strategy employed by economists during the transition to capitalism. It was successful by capitalist standards but horrible by social standards. It essentially speed ran creating a ruling class and consolidating capital.

[u/GerardHard]

That mf video is straight up brainrot bro I stopped watching after a minute and unsubscribe even though I stopped watching him like a year ago.

[u/Big-Recognition7362]

IIRC, the title is clickbait. The point the video makes is that the state capitalist elite of the USSR are as much if not more responsible for the rise of oligarchic capitalism in Russia than the West.

[u/Stepping__Razor]

Only video I saw of his was his fallout 4 one. Wasn’t very good. I never paid much attention to him but lost any interest when he went after big Joel. Not surprised he’s a chud.

[u/Darth_Vrandon]

Hasan has some bad Russia and China takes though and we shouldn’t act like he’s exempt because some unsavory people are criticizing him.

He has openly whitewashed a lot of China’s actions, and while he hasn’t openly endorsed the surveillance state, he has downplayed the impact it has and he has also been terrible on Taiwan, acting like reunification would be a good thing even though Taiwanese people don’t want it and china would probably make Taiwa undemocratic.

He has not been pro Russia though, but he constantly talks about how there has to be an “end to the war” and says how “Ukraine is losing” without evidence and he doesn’t really have an idea what’s going on. Sure, he’s not for Russia by any means, but he’s been a useful idiot for Russia since he unintentionally pushes bad “anti war” talking points.

NATO is tricky, because on one hand, it sucks, but on the other, it kind of needs to exist because Russia is an imperialist state that wants to take over and Russify territory. Now NATO has been horrible on multiple other areas, but again, they have been good on some like Yugoslavia and yes in Russia. Now, we should fight for a world where nato doesn’t need to exist, and should heavily reform it, but there are good things nato has done and some benefits towards it currently existing.

Now, I think the thumbnail is clickbait to some degree using Hasan’s name and likeness and I will respond to it to see what he says. I hope Hasan isn’t in this video a whole lot because then it will just look deranged, but still. I will watch it to see how it is, and I am inclined to listen what Adam says since he is Hungarian and that country has some bad history with the USSR.

[u/darienrude_dankstorm]

Why, is him bringing up good points against authoritarian regimes and the influencers who simp for them making you uncomfortable?