It was a little over two months ago, right after Donald Trump won the presidential election, that Elon Musk declared we are the media now.
He's not wrong: legacy media, mainstream media (whatever you prefer to call it) is dying on the vine. And the fatal wounds were all self-inflicted. Trust in media is at historic lows because media are now nothing more than the propaganda arm of the DNC.
There was a palpable shift in the atmosphere when Trump won. A week and a half after the election, I traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the Grand Rapids ComicCon. I attended a panel featuring The Critical Drinker and Gary from Nerdrotics, during which Gary admitted the election results lifted a giant weight.
Drinker and Nerdrotic would know. They make their livings being part of the media, streaming on YouTube and talking about movies, video games, and -- more so Nerdrotic than Drinker -- politics. I listen to both, usually while I'm writing for Twitchy.
Drinker put up an excellent video talking about how his work gets more traction than traditional media. It's worth a watch:
Look at me. We are the media now.https://t.co/HloOw6lxTv
— The Critical Drinker (@TheCriticalDri2) January 10, 2025
Drinker is, largely, correct. Thanks to the woke implosion of media, there is an opening for content creators and alternative forms of media to become the media.
If we can keep it.
Last week, Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta -- parent company of Facebook and Instagram -- would be doing away with third-party fact-checkers in favor of X-style community notes. This was met with a lot of skepticism from the Right, and rightly so.
Zuckerberg admitted he, at the behest of the Biden administration, suppressed news on COVID and political news that wasn't to the liking of the regime. On one hand, I get it: the government, using its full weight, comes knocking on your door and telling you to do XYZ -- allegedly screaming and cursing at you in the process -- and you're going to be intimidated.
But Zuckerberg, like Elon Musk, is a billionaire. In other words, he has enough 'f**k you' money to stand up to the government's censorship.
He didn't.
It's possible Zuckerberg's conversion is genuine. That free speech will now be the norm on Facebook going forward.
But what happens on January 20, 2029, when Trump is out of office and it's possible (likely, even) a Democrat president will be inaugurated?
Will those free speech protections last?
I ask, because right around the New Year, there was a big blow-up on X about H-1B visas, and Elon Musk was very much in favor of them -- to the point that several accounts were allegedly demonetized for their dissent. To which Elon replied:
Exactly. The first amendment is protection for “free speech”, not “paid speech” ffs.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 1, 2025
For guys like Drinker and Nerdrotic, streaming is their job. They likely couldn't do what they do, at the current level at which they do it, without that financial incentive.
I wouldn't write for Twitchy if I didn't get paid to do so, as much as I love it. It's just not economically feasible for most people to stream or write if they can't get compensated for doing so.
And if the metric for getting paid is 'saying stuff the people currently in power like', we have a serious problem. Those political winds can, and will, change. This is why free speech was enshrined in the First Amendment. It's meant to transcend the ruling party and be lasting.
The Left made it very clear: if Kamala Harris won, X would be toast, and free speech would go the way of the dodo bird. Extinct.
We must safeguard against this, or things will return to the bad old days.
You know how I know this? Look at protests. I see a lot of people on the Right point out how the Left are much better at protesting -- complete with pre-printed signs and large crowds who show up in the middle of the day, often at the drop of a hat.
'Where are the conservatives?' they ask.
Well, they're at work. They're trying to pay their bills and put food on their tables. We all know the Left pay for protesters, but the point is they pay, so Lefties can show up.
The need for a new media -- one that is not wholly intertwined with the Democratic Party -- is clear. But that media cannot thrive in a world where they are censored, suppressed, or demonetized because they say something unpopular or offensive.
In the age of social media, the most important distinction between us on the Right and the Bolsheviks of the Left has been our commitment to free speech. Full stop. No qualifiers. It is the lifeblood of every free state.
But now that our billionaires are the ones with their hands on discussion's kill-switch, will our principles remain unalloyed? Or are our beliefs as transactional as theirs?
Will we become what we've beheld?
