Overreacting or doing the right thing?
Casey Neistat is a very popular American youtuber with almost 5.5 million subscribers. A few days ago he published a video called “who i’m voting for president” in which he talks about why he votes for Hillary Clinton and why “Trump can’t happen”. In his video he tells all his viewers to vote for Hillary and calls out every other big creator to talk about the election as “standing on the sidelines is no longer an option”. The point that got him the most criticism however is that he encouraged everyone watching to pressure their favorite youtuber to talk about the election which many users happily did. He ended his video with the frame below.
The video itself quickly started trending on youtube and has as of today over 4.6 million views. The video’s like and dislike rate is almost 50%-50% which shows just how splitted the opinions and reactions to the video are.
Even if Casey may just wanted to do the right thing I do agree with a lot of other youtubers that his approach of telling his viewers to call out and pressure other youtubers to talk about politics was a rather insensible and naive approach as everyone who spends a bit more time in internet communities knows that people tend to get really aggressive and insulting using their online immunity and anonymity especially when it comes to sensible topics such as political views.
A lot of youtubers complained that they were getting harassed in the comments under their videos and on social media being called racists and cowards because they didn’t want to make a video about their political view. Naturally a lot of users would sort youtubers in only two sections. Either you say that you vote for Hillary or you don’t say anything which they would take as you are voting for Trump.
I have no problem with talking about my political views and even though I am German and can’t participate in the election I would vote for Hillary if I could. When I first saw the video Casey did I spend a lot of time thinking about whether I agree with him or not because for me it feels like there is a very thin line between overreacting and forcing your opinion onto others and trying to open people's eyes to avoid a catastrophe.
While I did follow the election and debates in America I would lie if I would pretend to know all about the two candidates and their programs which puts me into an uncomfortable position in which I don’t want to fully commit in saying this is the right way and the other way is wrong. You could argue that there is no right or wrong when it comes to political views but with all my respect for the freedom of an individual's opinions, views and values, if your and your parties views go against the human rights and you decide to act in ways to compromise those rights of another individual i wouldn’t hesitate to say that your political views are simply wrong.
If I imagine a similar situation in Germany in which a political party or candidate makes racist statements like Donald Trump does I would feel a strong urge to act against it which is in addition to some other aspects why I would vote for Hillary given the knowledge that I obtained thus far.
There are political parties in Germany that are known for being very right sided and extreme and if i would feel threatened enough by the possibility of those parties becoming too powerful I would do everything i could to act against them as Germany has historically already made the grave mistake in the past when liberal people didn’t do enough to stop the election of Adolf Hitler.
Looking at Casey’s actions in this light I do feel like I see his motivation and fear that made him act that way. You could say that it might be a little extreme to compare Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler as we live in different times but there is no denying that both of their campaigns do show some similarities and I think that it is always dangerous to follow someone who leads one’s campaign using the fear and the hatred of people like Trump does with muslims and Hitler did with jews.
So yes. I do agree with some of the critique that Casey received for his video but if I look at the bigger picture I can understand his actions and could imagine to act in a similar fashion given the right circumstances.
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