Lindsay Ellis, Steven Crowder, and the American Doom Spiral

Lindsay Ellis (promo photo)

I was baffled and frustrated when, late in 2021, popular internet personality Lindsay Ellis quit YouTube, her primary platform. And not just because I’m a fan, either. Ellis’ retreat from a controversy that never should’ve happened feels misplaced. I mean, I understand Ellis’ personal pain at the vitriol dedicated against her for a single misplaced tweet. But considering that Lindsay Ellis is gone, and Steven Crowder is still working, something seems deeply misguided here.

For those who don’t follow internet pissing contests, in March of 2021, Ellis posted a flippant tweet noting that Disney’s Raya and the Dragon followed the same beat sheet as Nickelodeon’s Avatar: the Last Airbender. Because both properties feature Asian protagonists, this statement was construed as anti-Asian racism on Ellis’ part. Never mind that both properties were developed by American companies for primarily White audiences. Tweeters know racism when they see it.

By contrast, Steven Crowder, a failed actor and part-time stand-up comedian who mainly makes his living as a conservative podcaster and vlogger, has literally donned yellowface and a conical hat to shill anti-Asian feeling on his YouTube channel. This is in addition to having been censured (but not de-platformed) by YouTube for racism, homophobia, and other forms of undisguised bigotry. He consistently excuses his inappropriate behavior with “Hey, it’s just comedy!”

Again, I understand Ellis taking the Twitter outrage personally. The swarming behavior that followed her casual tweet was ugly and, in her telling, persisted for months afterward. We know this happens: in 2013, a similarly flippant tweet submarined a private citizen, Justine Sacco, who still apparently can’t find work. In 2016, netizens likewise mobbed poet Calvin Trillin for a silly poem about food hipsters, because he mentioned Chinese cuisine. Swarming behavior is the norm, not the exception.

Initially, I thought Ellis retreated, while Crowder absorbs the outrage directed against his racist behavior, because Ellis cares what others think, and Crowder doesn’t. But I’m not sure anymore. Watching their respective platforms over time, I think Crowder cares deeply about the anger directed against him. In recent months, he’s donned yellowface, claimed the only crop Black farmers grow is cannabis, and aimed a stereotypically “faggy” voice at gay journalists. Crowder wants people angry.

Steven Crowder demonstrating his usual benevolent, uplifting views
on race in America (click to enlarge)

No, the difference isn’t that only one cares, it’s that anger, for one, is a desired outcome. Lindsay Ellis’ entire internet presence, from her work with Channel Awesome and PBS to her own long-form video essays, has focused on helping people consume arts, literature, and current events more carefully. She wants people to read for greater nuance, to savvy complexity, and to sit with difficult art before having strong emotional reactions. She cares about subtlety.

Steven Crowder, by contrast, gins up anger. He doesn’t much distinguish between directions or nuance, the very issues that define Ellis’ critiques. Whether his True Believers share his performative outrage at minorities, women, the poor, and other out-groups, or his opponents direct their rage at him, it doesn’t matter much. Crowder gets paid by subscriptions from True Believers, and opponents voicing their outrage are money in his coffers. It’s all the same to him.

Lindsay Ellis wants audiences to slow their thinking, consume more carefully, and pay attention to fine details. Steven Crowder wants people to swarm like yellowjackets. Notably, however, this has a paradoxical effect. Ellis, whose work is often lumped together with “LeftTube” despite not being overtly political, believes that more thoughtful individuals will collaborate in building a better society. Though Crowder preaches conservative individualistic ideals, he wants audiences to sacrifice their individuality.

Thus, as critics before me have stated, individualism is the enemy of individuality.

Ellis believes society benefits if more people think more deeply about difficult situations. Crowder wants masses to surrender to pre-conscious anger, fear, and rage. Therefore, when one poorly received tweet turned into gut-level wrath, it wasn’t just that they directed that anger against Ellis, it was that Ellis’ entire philosophy failed. Crowder gets similar incensed responses to his racist, sexist, homophobic behavior regularly, and he’s never going to stop, because it feeds his roots.

Besides Justine Sacco and Calvin Trillin, similar Twitter-based rage has turned against Ellis, Laci Green, and Natalie Wynn. (Huh, that’s a lot of women.) Most have gone, at least temporarily, into retirement; Sacco is reportedly still living in hiding eight years later. This continuing saga calls into question the Leftist belief that we can fix society by good people doing the right thing. It appears too many people are one trigger away from complete surrender.