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ContraPoints

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ContraPoints
Personal information
Born (1988-10-21) October 21, 1988 (age 36)
Arlington, Virginia, U.S.
EducationNorthwestern University
OccupationYouTube personality
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2008–present
Subscribers480,000[1]
Total views23 million[1]
Last updated: March 13, 2019

Natalie Wynn (born October 21, 1988)[2] is an American YouTube personality who specializes in comedic and educational videos about gender, race, politics, philosophy, and social justice on her channel named ContraPoints. Wynn's videos have been praised for their use of lighting and costume, and their nuanced, ironic humor.

Content

Wynn launched ContraPoints in 2008, featuring videos about atheism, but later shifted her content to responding to arguments of right-wing YouTubers,[3][4] a user community that has greatly expanded on the website in the late 2010s.[5] Wynn is a socialist and a feminist.[6][7][8] She was formerly a philosophy graduate student and instructor at Northwestern University.[3][9] She uses philosophy, sociology, and personal experience in her videos to explain, and often critique, common alt-right, fascist, classical liberal, and conservative talking points.[3][10][11] Wynn also uses her videos to explain left-wing ideas such as rape culture and cultural appropriation. However, she has also criticised what she sees as some left-leaning tendencies to present arguments that are a "logical success but a persuasive failure."[12] She illustrates her arguments with her experiences as a trans person.[10]

ContraPoints videos often have a combative and humorous tone, containing dark or surreal humor, sarcasm, and sexuality.[3] Wynn often illustrates concepts by playing different characters, complete with elaborate costumes, who engage in heated debate.[6] The videos showcase Wynn's directorial choices, with Todd VanDerWerff in Slate singling out the "complicated lighting schemes, elaborate costumes, and genuine thought put into aesthetics you don’t get in a lot of television, much less a lot of YouTube."[13] Katherine Cross, in an August 2018 interview for The Verge, notes a significant difference between Wynn and Contra, the character she portrays in her videos. Contra is blithe, aloof, decadent and disdainful while Wynn can be earnest—and she "cares deeply, almost too much."[8]

Reception

Wynn's videos have been praised for their clarity, nuance, and attention-grabbing sense of humor. In an article contrasting her personal sincerity and her ironic sense of humor, The Verge describes her as the "Oscar Wilde of YouTube."[8] New York magazine states, "ContraPoints is very good. Regardless of the viewer’s interest or lack thereof in internet culture wars, YouTube Nazis, or any of the other wide-ranging subjects covered in its videos, they’re funny, bizarre, erudite, and compelling."[3] Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs calls ContraPoints a "one-woman blitzkrieg against the YouTube right," describing her videos as "unlike anything I've ever seen ... She shows how debate should be done: not by giving an inch to poisonous ideas, but by bringing superior smarts, funnier jokes, and more elegant costumes to the fight."[6] Robinson also notes that because of the channel's humor and its direct attention to online culture, it seems uniquely suited to a millennial audience;[6] Wynn's analysis of fascists' use of memes and coded symbols has been cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center in an article explaining the right-wing use of the OK sign.[11] Journalist Liza Featherstone recommends the channel as well, saying that Wynn does a "fabulous job" acknowledging her opponents' valid points while debunking weak arguments and revealing the influence of a sometimes-unacknowledged far-right political agenda.[14] In November 2018, after a ContraPoints video about incels reached over one million views, The New Yorker released a profile of the channel, describing Wynn as "one of the few Internet demi-celebrities who is as clever as she thinks she is, and one of the few leftists anywhere who can be nuanced without being boring."[7] VanDerWerff praised Wynn's videos as "frequently, beautiful" and suggested that Wynn was uniquely suited to YouTube as a content platform.[13] The Atlantic praised Wynn's use of "lush sets, moody lighting, and original music by the composer Zoë Blade" and opined of her videos that "The most spectacular attraction [...] is Wynn herself."[12] Polygon named her video on incels one of the ten best video essays of the year 2018.[9]

Personal life

Wynn is a transgender woman, a matter that features heavily in her videos. She began transitioning in July 2017. Wynn previously identified as genderqueer.[3] In her 2019 video "Are Traps Gay?", Wynn identified her sexuality as queer and polyamorous.[15] She currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "About ContraPoints". YouTube.
  2. ^ @ContraPoints (July 19, 2018). "Alright, alright astrologers. October 21, 1988. 8:00 AM. Arlington, VA. Tell me about my soul" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Singal, Jesse (October 30, 2017). "This YouTuber Is Figuring Out How to Counter the Alt-Right's Dominance of the Site". New York Magazine. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
  4. ^ N.B. (December 20, 2018). "The transgender populist fighting fascists with face glitter". The Economist. Retrieved December 28, 2018.
  5. ^ Herrman, John (August 3, 2017). "For the New Far Right, YouTube Has Become the New Talk Radio". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
  6. ^ a b c d Robinson, Nathan J. (May 6, 2018). "God Bless ContraPoints". Current Affairs. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
  7. ^ a b Marantz, Andrew (November 19, 2018). "The Stylish Socialist Who Is Trying to Save YouTube from Alt-Right Domination". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 19, 2018.
  8. ^ a b c Cross, Katherine (August 24, 2018). "The Oscar Wilde of YouTube fights the alt-right with decadence and seduction". The Verge. Retrieved August 25, 2018.
  9. ^ a b Schindel, Dan (December 28, 2018). "The best video essays of 2018". Polygon. Retrieved December 28, 2018.
  10. ^ a b Kronfeld, Ezra (May 8, 2018). "ContraPoints on YouTube, Social Justice, and Transphobic Feminists". Out Front. Retrieved July 24, 2018.
  11. ^ a b Neiwert, David (September 18, 2018). "Is that an OK sign? A white power symbol? Or just a right-wing troll?". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved November 13, 2018.
  12. ^ a b Mark, Clifton (January 6, 2019). "ContraPoints Is Political Philosophy Made for YouTube". The Atlantic. Retrieved January 9, 2019.
  13. ^ a b VanDerWerff, Todd (December 20, 2018). "TV Club: YouTube's ContraPoints and Hulu's Puppy Prep". Slate. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  14. ^ Featherstone, Liza (June 7, 2018). "I Think My Friend Is a Jordan Peterson Fan. What Should I Do?". The Nation. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
  15. ^ ContraPoints (January 16, 2019). "'Are Traps Gay?'". YouTube.

Further reading

  • d'Almeida, Pierre (January 24, 2019). "You Wynn". Cover story. Stylist.fr (in French). No. 242. pp. 30–33. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Natalie Wynn.
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