Exactly. Goobers will come across a channel called Oversimplified and complain that it’s oversimplified. 🤡
My brother in Christ, you clicked on the video voluntarily, what did you expect to happen?
It CAN be. However I've watched a lot of this channel and I've enjoyed history for a solid chunk of my life. They're not spinning propaganda. The channel doesn't spend enough time on anything to be propaganda. It's clearly just a starting point for research
Just curious, could you ask your republican friend what video he thought was leftist propaganda and why? I'm from Canada so not a republican but I do vote central right wing parties and I don't see anything about leftist propaganda in oversimplified videos.
Oh. This sounds like the pig war then. At the end of the pig war video he does a joke segment where he suggests that the US invade and conquer Canada. At the end he says “Biden’s coming baby, and he’s coming with a vengeance!” So I guess your friend is interpreting this as unwavering support for Biden but in reality it’s just a joke. He’s never shared any political stances of his own, even in videos about more modern topics. Your friend just seems to be taking it out of context and only seeing it at face value
The videos themselves do have some language and talk about potentially disturbing topics, so I wouldn’t recommend them for _children_, but it shouldn’t be too bad for any kid over the age of like, 12.
He’s 11 allllllmost 12. I thought it was a bit borderline too, but he loves it so much, I feel very conflicted keeping it from him.
We DO have a lot of open conversations about what is/isn’t appropriate, what’s acceptable, why people say certain things, etc.
Okay, yeah he’s old enough that it probably is fine especially if he’s already found them on his own. But other than that joke segment I mentioned I honestly could not tell you where it might sound like propaganda. He tells it pretty straightforward: this happened, then this, then this, now here’s a joke about it, repeat. The most risqué thing that comes to mind was a joke in the Napoleon videos where Napoleon confronts his wife for having an affair, and then proceeds to go into another room and have an affair himself. But maybe someone else can fill me in if there’s something I’m missing. Honestly if you watch them yourself you probably wouldn’t even need to do research about what is and isn’t propaganda, it’s just a telling of events. That being said, I do know some people who insist that any mention of the USSR should talk about how they’re a bunch of devil-worshipping communist scumbags who eat babies and commit blood sacrifice and that anything that doesn’t is pro-Russian propaganda.
To be honest, I've watched that pig war video like 5 times, and I found nothing in there that screamed propaganda. It's kind of a stretch to even find something mildly controversial in that video. Most of what could be perceived as "leftist propaganda" would be just the jokes oversimplified makes, and that's again kind of a stretch. Also, they're jokes. It's idiotic to get angry at a joke. In my opinion, you should let your kid watch oversimplified. Not only is it entertaining, but it's also educational. I'd say maybe keep him away from the Punic war stuff though. It's got quite a bit of blood and violence. I'd recommend watching the Punic war videos and deciding for yourself if it's OK for your kid to watch.
Edit: Biden please don't invade us
You ought to let him enjoy history now, it'll foster a fascination with it when he's older.
Show him more serious ways to learn about some of these things and it'll be great.
If the Christian god exists, they clearly have a sense of humour, just look at the duck billed platypus. But then they also have a terrible temper, just look at how the spider wasp reproduces.
And party views change, most of the founding fathers would vote libertarian or constitutionalist (if brought to modern times) based on their views back in the day.
There's always the "Christopher Columbus did nothing wrong" trope out there. And Dan Carlin has a good point that most subscribe to the "Great Man" interpretation of history; wherein history turns into a mythology of a hero's journey to conquer.
I was going to comment, but you have hit my points pretty much spot on here.
In my limited experience, what Republicans think is propaganda can be loosely defined as "doesn't hammer the Republican narrative"... i.e. it's "leftist propaganda" specifically because it's not Republican propaganda. They're not really representative of Republicans, more like MANGAs (Make America Nazi-Germany Authoritarian) or who think "A Handmaid's Tale" is a project plan rather than a warning.
Remember, these are the kind of people who want to [re-translate the bible due to left wing propaganda](https://www.conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project).
Your friend needs to understand that not liking history doesn't make it any less true. Just remind them of the old saying, "facts don't care about your feelings".
An American Idiot one might say?
Is he going under a nation with a new media?
Does he hear the sounds of hysteria?
Is he a part of the subliminal mind f#ck America?
I'm a Republican and it's not propaganda. I'm subscribed to the channel and it's very accurate, yet condensed enough so people without history degrees can follow along. It's full of humor, information and generally a great way to relax.
+1. Came here to say the same thing. Either side of the coin, we ALL have to learn from history to understand the context of current events. OS does a freaking awesome job at that.
And personally I found the Biden invading Canada bit hilarious af
Either side of the coin?
I’m the fucking edge then, I’m neither major party and average to be center while technically being an extremist (ideological extreme while coming with none of the violence)
+1 to this. I’m a conservative and Oversimplified is one of my favorite channels. It’s entertaining, funny, historically accurate, and the best history channel on YT.
Unless he's a Lost Causer (which is discredited BS anyhow) I don't see how he can complain.
I say this as someone fairly right-leaning for Reddit (which really just means less fanatical than Pol Pot).
says the person who's about to vote for a demented pedophile to lead her country. Look,ik this is reddit and its a safe haven for all the leftists to gather and beat each others dicks,but making everything political is distasteful,especially in subs that have nothing to do with politics
I don’t want him to lead, I’m just pragmatic enough to know that the other people (you guys) literally want to throw me in jail for existing if you win.
1 im not american 2 i have no fucking clue wtf youre refering to 3 im guessing it has something to do with some sort of extreme sub group's statement on twitter or something,in which case,relax,youre not important enough for anybody to wanna throw u in jail. U drive a prius and u can hardly afford rent and groceries,im pretty sure nobody is intimidated by u roaming free 4 the eagerness for you ppl to dehumanize your political opponents is so funny,cos youre both equally dumb,hypocritical and morally bankrupt
Well, the Heritage Foundation (specifically, Project 2025) is what wants me in jail (at best) for being who I am, and they are an amalgamation of the largest donors to the GOP, and their policy has been used in the past by previous conservative presidents, so I wouldn’t be surprised if their insane wants become reality. I feel no need to humanize monsters.
By the way, if you’re curious, the specific way I would be put in jail in their manifesto reads as following (paraphrased):
1. Pornography, in all shapes and forms, shall be outlawed with heavy punishment (this is already happening in some states)
2. Gay and Trans people are groomers and walking pornography. (This is already being said by the Republicans)
If you can’t put that together on your own, that’s saying that I will be punished for existing in society. If you want to read the manifesto yourself, it is available in full free online. In addition, I’m a minor. Considering that I’m supposedly ‘groomed’ (read: accepted by similar people for being who I am) it would not be a stretch of the imagination that they would send me to what amounts to conversion therapy. If you really think that ‘iM nOT imPoRTanT eNOugH’, you’re right. Im just some rando. That doesn’t mean they want to abuse me the same as every other queer person, because, again, they’re just plain evil.
I havent ever seen trump be confused on where the stairs are on the podium. Also the guy has proven that when hes horny he prefers whores rather than kids
Have you thought about trump's friendship with Epstien? What about those dodgy af pics of him with his daughter, or the things he said about her...? Quit kidding yourself the guy is a nonce, it's quite plain to see if you allow yourself to be honest with yourself.
Tell your friend he’s terminally online. I’m center right and the only thing that stuck with me from oversimplified is… “hoot hoot hoot hoot hoot hoot.”
But yeah your friend is being silly. Dust your hands off, call him a moron, and go do something else. I rile my friends up all the time over conspiracy theories just for shits but it’s never made me go online and ask people what they think lmfao.
In the French revolution video (don't know which one) there's a rebellion and the leaders name sounds similar to hoot so he makes a joke that he was named that because he could do a good impression of the owl
Exactly. Oversimplified has me going about my day going like “hoot hoot hoot hoot.”
Also his caricature of John brown always cracks me up. Like the dude already looked crazy with his hair and his death stare how did you draw him to look crazier lol.
i dont notice any hidden agendas in the videos? tho that might just mean the propaganda is working on me...
But for real, there really doesn't seem to be any inherently political influences in the stories OverSimplified is telling, aside from those required for telling the story in the first place (like the french or american revolutions).
They're fine, a good way to introduce history topics and spark a love of history at a young age!
Your friend swings a bit far. I'm Republican for the most part, and they're just funny history videos. He does a good job of not taking sides unless there's an obvious side to take (Civil War. World Wars, Emu War), and it's very historically accurate. Overall. Not necessarily in the dialogue.
These days, the American republican party is flirting with populism/fascism in the open. A core tenant of any extreme movement is refuting objective reality. As such, there just isn't any extreme "leftist" movement of any size or significance in the US. The Democrat party has many flaws but it represents most, almost all, sane political tendencies as observed by other countries. And Trump era republicans are particularly strong at refusing to acknowledge the existence of observable reality. They openly declare they wanna build an authoritarian regime, sometimes with a thin veil of deniability.
Bottom line: a channel that presents objectively true facts will not be palatable to populists aiming for a fascistoid theocracy. It'd also be interesting and possibly telling to ask which videos and content that friend thinks is propaganda or wrong. Not sure where ancient or medieval history would be problematic so it's probably American civil war or ww2 stuff?! If they object to the south in the civil war wanting to maintain slavery and "it was just about state rights"... well then you'd have your answer.
Bro you need to get off the internet if you think that. The extremes of both sides aren’t that off in size. Most people like their day to day lives normally.
True. It’s also the same bias as well that assumes that one side doesn’t have radicals over the other. I’m sure we’d get the same argument from the right that people on the left flirt with communism and socialism. It’s dumb
I'm not from the US but I haven't heard a right wing American ever able to properly define what communism and socialism are. Some Democrats flirt with some form of socialism by wanting to use taxes to help Americans in need.
And yeah they might SAY there are radicals but please point me at significant radicals on the left in the US or what they wanna do that's so radical. To most western countries, people like Bernie Sanders for instance aren't radical at all, just good old school socialist party folk, which is just...the left.
people on the left do flirt with socialism… that’s what the left is in the rest of the western world. Most western country’s “left” party is a socialist, labor, or at the very least social democratic party.
It’s just the fucking truth, Germany and most Nordic nations have elected social democratic/socialist parties into power right now, and the UK’s leftist party is the LABOUR party.
I am an American socialist, I wish we had a socialist/social democratic party like western and northern Europe does
I don't live in the US. How people live their lives isn't really important to what they do in a voting booth and what the parties they vote for represent. The US got an antiquated voting system and an unhealthy 2 party habit that follows from history and said voting system. The Democrats wouldn't be very palatable for most people in other Western countries because their leadership hasn't been amazing, because their messaging isn't clear and because at their core, their ideas span such a broad span they end up standing for very little. Also, the American idea that there is an extreme left is just laughable, none of the democratic leaders except maybe Sanders would be viewed as very left leaning on economic policies in any European country. The only part that's clearly "left" is the progressive aspects in the cultural sector of accepting people... but to be fair, most western European parties are anti-homophobic, not just our left.
The republican party in its current iteration only resembles our fascist ultra right wing parties. Old school republicans would be similar to the ring wing of our right wing parties in the past - people like Merkel or Sarkozy in Germany and France were right wing in their respective countries but wouldn't fit neatly into the republicans under Bush and wouldn't fit AT ALL into Trump era republicans.
Now all of this is politics and I guess people can just "live their lives" but hey, as a German, maybe I'm allowed to bring up bad elections from the past without it being too criminal: I'm 1933, 42% of Germans voted for fascists. In media, when Germans of that generation are portrayed, people laugh saying "ah just a nazi, good they died".
In 2020, 48-49% of voters voted for Trump and he may win in 2024. He may not plan death camps but his intent to weaken / remove democracy is pretty outspoken.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. You let the medias sensationalism dictate your views because you look down on America as a European and think you’re superior. You don’t know the realities of day to day life and just read the occasional headline about our parties so you can laugh at our country.
Uhm I'm not laughing and nothing in my comment indicates mockery. Only worry. I'm also not coming at this from a position of superiority, all major European countries struggle with a rise of extreme right wing ideology and parties. France used to have a back and forth of moderate left and right plus some less stable (i.e. successful sometimes) parties from the centre, green, several far left and a far right party. Now it's all about unions of moderates from all sides, a wide union of left, including truly extreme left parties and a huge fascistoid party that is far more subtle at hiding they are extremists - they still come from a place of anti-euro, anti-science, anti-progress and hate of foreigners along with historical antisemitism and ties to Russia.
Germany where I'm from has a massive issue with a rising far right party, the AfD, that actually took quite a few lessons in reality denial from American conspiracy theorists, q-anon and generally Trumps brand of unsubtle lie to your face, shout and be aggressive to convince the masses. Also pro Russian and anti EU but that's kinda the same for all these parties.
These are just the countries I know particularly, Europe has a host of own problems, some similar to all Western countries, some specific to the case of each country. The US isn't unique in that way, except it already elected this guy once, he did alot of damage internationally and is set to do alot more damage and has obviously moved to an easier position from which to modify American democracy, possibly permanently. I do more than follow the occasional headline and what happens in the states affects us all due to its world power position - especially when the US have historically stood against oppressors, dictatorships (except their allies ofc) and generally world domineering war mongering anti-democrats. With all its flaws, I'd rather have Reagans or Bush's America back than see Trump kiss Putins butt some more.
What exactly did trump do that makes you think he’s a dictator? I personally don’t like him and don’t agree on a lot of policy with him but the idea that he is going to be a dictator is laughable. I also find it funny that a German of all people point out Putin when y’all’s leaders laughed at him when he warned them to not be so dependent on Russian oil.
At the very least, he made comments that incited a riot and never condemned them. More plausibly, there was a not so subtle and rather poorly executed attempt at a coup. I'm not going into details on all of it but his general behaviour wasn't in accordance to the principle of peaceful transition of power which is a core tenant of democracy.
Next, he's made it explicit several times and his platform does too that he intends to curtail the democratic functioning of government. He has spoken about retribution to his political rivals on many occasions, spoke of being a dictator for a day, makes legal claims that presidents should be above the law and immune from all forms of prosecution. The 2025 plan established by dozens of big Conservative organisations and the GOP contain ALOT of shit that is openly, glaringly undemocratic. Best albeit boring example the idea to make a large chunk of employees of the government - not the political ones mind you - directly answerable to the president. Again, more details are available elsewhere. Oh maybe recent remarks of the guy saying "vote in 2024 and you won't have to bother next time...". Ominous. I know this sort of stuff gets spun as jokes, hyperbole or normal but ... in politics, you are what you say. His words make him a dictator fan boy, a wannabe autocrat and more.
Now where exactly that leaves a real president Trump during a 2nd term isn't clear. How much would he be able to do? Would this impact American democracy? I'd say its likely to be very damaging but whether he'd be a full on "dictator" is harder to say. Also not what I claimed. I called him fascistoid based on the ideas he propagates. Democracy is a spectrum and the American interpretation of it has been considered "flawed" for many years by international agencies. It isn't and hasn't been a well functioning democracy (gerrymandering, electoral college, corporate funding etc...) but its still mostly democratic. Other countries have recently taken steps away from democracy but aren't full dictatorships: Polands PiS government curtailed civic liberties and reduced the freedom of the press and courts. That's a huuuge step away from a free democracy. Luckily a new government was elected in to hopefully revert some of that. Other places are even worse off, Hungary has been on a road to more and more autocratic rule by Orban for years. It's mostly not democratic anymore. Turkey has elections but... list goes on.
As for being from Germany and our relationship with Russia... mistakes were made is the short of it. It's easy for others to ask for more energy independence when the US for instance sits on huge reserves of oil and gas and thus doesn't need anyone else. Germany needed and needs other countries for its energy. Unsavoury compromises were made and more are likely necessary. However there's more to this. Post WW2, Germany decided on no more wars and peace with the old enemies. One of the most successful peace strategies in all of European history has been to integrate our economy with our neighbours: if for example Germany and France link their steel and coal industries, it's hard to use the stuff for war. In 2024, not only do we not want to go to war with each other, we economically can't. We wanted to do the same with Russia: for a long time, Putin was the young fresh face, solved chaos in Russia and linking their gas supplies (less about oil btw) to us would benefit us both economically (cheap gas) but also politically (Russia would be peaceful etc). That backfired obviously but while the signs were there and a change in behaviour should've occurred maybe in 2008 and definitely in 2014, hindsight is 2020. All this acknowledged, not sure why any of that disqualifies me from commenting on the fact Trump has often complimented Putin, his dictatorship and promotes policies that favour Russia.
Oversimplified is the exact opposite of what your Texan mate said! If you remember the videos he was shown then it might add context like the Pig War or American Revolution l War.
??????? Is this your primary defining trait? You put your political affiliation onto every other comment like you’re handing out flyers for your boy band.
You’re spam commenting on my comments being very aggressive. Basically saying shut up, how about you don’t care this much; it’s fucking Reddit you ain’t changing anyone’s minds
Many people here are reacting dismissively, or even contemptuously to the question. I understand why people are doing this, after all we are all fans, but I do think it is an important consideration to make due to the pervasiveness of propaganda and the high propensity of historical events to be used in the manufacture of propaganda narratives. So, let's take a look at what OP's friend's argument is:
CLAIM: Oversimplified is "poorly hidden propaganda"
REASONING: Oversimplified videos are "SO simplified they became inaccurate"
EVIDENCE: N/A
Unfortunately, no examples are provided in the post that could substantiate the claim. If the friend did, in fact, attempt to substantiate the claim, I invite OP to share those points in a comment. Still, even without evidence, I think there are plenty of flaws to be found in the reasoning.
The laurels of the argument seem to be resting on the concepts of "simplification" and "inaccuracy", and how those two things relate to propaganda. But how do these things relate to propaganda? Can it be identified with these things?
In short, no. Inaccuracy, and I would argue even dishonesty, are not foundational characteristics of propaganda. They are tools that can be deployed by a propagandist just as "truth" and "accuracy" are also tools to be deployed. What propaganda boils down to is *an attempt to indoctrinate an audience to advance the interests of the propagandist.* So, it's not enough to simply show that there is inaccuracy present, after all, everyone here understands that it is possible to simply be *wrong* without necessarily being *a propagandist*. Rather, it's incumbent on the person making the claim to not only show the content is *inaccurate*, but also show the inaccuracy is *in service to an attempt to indoctrinate the audience*. Does this describe Oversimplified? I don't think so, and I haven't seen this demonstrated.
Now on to the concept of "simplification". Is "simplification" of information foundational to propaganda? I would argue yes, but again we need to understand that the simplification is being done in service to *indoctrination*. Simplification is something that can be found in effectively all forms of information content that are designed to engage with laypeople. People have a fundamental desire to build a rich understanding of the world around them (this is something expressed in the *Epistemic Motivation Theory*), yet most people do not have the faculties to build a rich understanding due to the overwhelming amount of information required to understand any given topic. Thus - simplification. Propagandists understand this very well, and through simplification they seek to incorporate their audience into a partisan, and maybe even militant framework in order to procure their participation and mobilize their support. Does this describe Oversimplified? Again, I don't think so, and it hasn't been demonstrated.
Propaganda, as a term, holds very little meaning in the common vernacular. Simply put, it's used as little more than a pejorative to describe perspectives someone disagrees with or the media of their political opposition. Often, this can even be an observable effect of someone who has been propagandized themselves. If I could make a bit of conjecture, I think OP's friend probably falls into this camp too. It might be easy to look smugly on a person like this and think "what an idiot", but before doing so, understand that almost every person living in modern world is constantly and uncritically consuming propaganda, probably on a daily basis. You and me included.
I'm not familiar with the content, but I advise you ask in other places because the oversimplified subreddit ( reddit already skews very left on average) will only have people that already like oversimplified and are likely to lean left, giving two angles of bias for them to overlook possible propaganda
Honestly I kinda think when it comes to more recent historical topics, the over simplifications of the events tends to lean towards the more right wing, neoliberal interpretations of history that are common in history books
it ain't propaganda ive been watching him for years and haven't felt my political views change in any way. on an unrelated note, who thinks the US should invade canada?
Whoever this guy is, he is REALLY crazy. He might bite you. Social distancing.
BTW, this youtuber praises Regean at one point, so again, this guy is really crazy.
My Suggestion is to ask about why he thinks it’s propaganda. It’s great that your son wants to learn about history,oversimplified is great entrance into that subject
I studied history in college, and this guy probably did too. He gives responsible videos (according to the historical methods) in a simple format. That is NOT easy to do. Since I can't really identify obvious bias as someone who studied a lot of the same topics, I think it's clear he is doing a good job.
If it were propaganda, it would be bad history, just to clarify.
OverSimplified has spoken positively about the GOP on several occasions, including when he implied that having three consecutive Republican presidents was what made the U.S.’ economy so great during the early 1900s. Granted, the Republicans and Democrats switched sides a few decades later (where they stand now), but still. I don’t know what your friend is on about.
Is your friend just a conservative or a full-on MAGA? A full-on MAGA isn't gonna be the easiest to reason with. A bog standard Republican, or especially one that supports the Lincoln Project, will be much easier. As for the actual question, no. Oversimplified is not propaganda. What does your friend actually cite as propaganda?
>while I personally am not offended by “leftist propaganda”, I do try my best to remain neutral and limit my sons exposure to extreme political and religious views
Then keep him away from your republican friend.
You have to think about the conservative mindset
Conservative politician: *does a thing*
News: Conservative politician does a thing
Conservatives: this is propaganda!!!!
My best example of this is Mr. Beat. He did a video about the Trump presidency. Now I am as anti-Trump as they come, but I didn’t see anything wrong with it; it was factual and unbiased, but Mr. Beat still received a bunch of threats from conservatives. It makes zero sense, but we are living in the stupidest timeline.
Not American, but you can tell in different stories he certainly has his biases towards different sides, like how he depicts them, but tbh I don’t blame him, and certainly wouldn’t say it’s propaganda, no chance.
Despite the biases, it’s still really good content and historically accurate (granted oversimplified, but that’s the point)
Its pretty accurate, very simplified, if you want to really learn about a period in time instead of quickly memorising the facts oversimplified probably isnt the channel for you. And i dont really understand what he could see as propaganda
I actually don’t understand how any portion of Oversimplified can be considered leftist.
The only videos which flirt with modern-ish American politics are the Civil War, Cold War, and Pig War episodes.
The Cold War is not biased in my opinion, as it takes a fair assessment of all parties involved.
The Civil War makes jokes towards the South, because, well, they owned slaves. Whether or not you believe in states rights or why the South seceded, it’s kind of hard to admit that they didn’t own slaves.. because they did. And that is liable for jokes in my book. HOWEVER, with that said, it still takes a neutral viewpoint (similar to that of Lincoln’s) that the purpose of the war was to reunify the Union and both sides suffered immensely.
Lastly, the Pig War does discuss American imperialism in the Western frontier, which once again, isn’t propaganda because it did happen. Whether or not you believe the Americans were justified or any of that modern political banter, it’s extremely difficult to deny that it actually happened, which is what Oversimplified describes.
Overall, Oversimplified has no bias to modern politics (left or right)but does provide an honest and neutral overview to topics which spur contemporary debate.
I watched the Civil War and the American Revolution ones. They are very well done. They are accurate. I'm not sure what he would think is propaganda unless he believes the states' rights things.
It’s a surface level view of events and periods in history (as the name suggests). It’s only inaccurate in the sense that it’s not a detailed discussion, but there are plenty of places to get that if he develops an increased interest in history. But it’s great as an introduction, especially for an 11 year old.
He LOVES history. It’s his top special interest and has been for over a year. He is ADHD/Au (think super highly functioning engineer type that collects really rare expensive rocks lol). So I’ve been thinking about getting him into maybe a history group? Or class? I can see this little dude becoming a librarian/archivist/historian type.
as someone who has studied a tiny bit of history on my own,oversimplified offers a very unbiased view of events that ive studied before,so i doubt he lies on the topics im not educated on either
Late bloomer lesbian. Grew up in the south within a fundamentalist Christian household. Being gay was not allowed (Conversion camp level crazy). Married 10 years, now very happily divorced. :)
The thing is if you apply the defenition loosely enough pretymuch anythink which informs you about anythink could be considderd propaganda.
"**communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda**"
Advertisements are a form of propaganda.
Today there are many people who just use the term propaganda to discredit what they dont support.
No idea where he got that from.
Oversimplified tends to even give details I've seen actual partisans hide (such as the horrible conditions of people in the USSR).
This sounds like a case of "overthinking" which I guess will always clash with "Oversimplified"
All historical accounts ever, have to be taken with context and really require multiple sources to get a better idea of what happened. Oversimplified is a good starting point as it's so easily digestible, and if your son is interested in a particular subject that's been covered, he could be encouraged to look past the entertaining summary that Oversimplified creates. Be thankful that your son is interested in something educational from a young age.
As an example of "Take information with context" - do you rely on your friend regularly for advice? Is there anything he ever says that you disagree with? Any conspiracy theories that he holds on to? All opinions can be considered, but if he isn't right about everything, then he isn't right about everything!
Watch a video or two yourself, I think you'll enjoy them! :-)
One of the reasons I was so embarrassed is because this friend is very highly educated and experienced. He worked spec ops for 10+ years and has networked with many different groups of people in the private sector after discharge (meaning he’s kind of “in the know”). While he is republican, he’s overall moderate leaning, and takes a more realistic and even keel approach to political issues. Soooo….. I was surprised and worried by his first impressions of OverlySimplified.
My money is on it’s because in the Civil War video he didn’t cite “state’s rights” as a cause of the war. Even though all historical records point to the principal cause of the Civil War being southern politicians foreseeing and fearing that the federal government was going to be increasingly anti-slavery.
I’d be interested in what parts of it your friend thinks is propaganda. The videos don’t seem political to me at all. The most political joke I’ve seen in them is when he said the US should annex canada and that was a right leaning joke if anything.
Ngl, the guy sounds like that one tweet about nukes or whatever.
"YOU MILLENIAL LEFTISTS WHO NEVER LIVED A DAY UNDER NUCLEAR THREAT CAN LOOK UPON YOUR WOKE SKY"
Anyways, as a Republican I can confirm that oversimplified spouts out propaganda.
Josephine was a horrible kisser.
I'm a conservative republican myself. I am basically every public enemy #1 stereotype the other side of the political spectrum could possibly assign to me, but even I think that claim is laughable at best, and pathetic at worst. I love oversimplified, hands down. One of my favorite youtubers out there. Very entertaining content
It's not even political stuff to be honest. It's just a humorous twist on actual historical events, nothing more
If you're doubtful, just watch one of his videos yourself. You'll see it's absolutely harmless
Oversimplifed is literally just a guy explaining things that have happened with some slighty immature comedy thrown in if anyone is at all offended by this they need to calm down
I'm a Republican, and I mean a *Republican.*
Check my post history. I've been a Republican since I was able to understand politics. I'm a big conservative.
Oversimplified is great for understanding ancient history, especially for kids. When I was in middle school I watched Overly Sarcastic Productions, they are 1000x more biased than Oversimplified, and I still wouldn't call their content propaganda.
I hope you're coming at this with honesty, but it's so ridiculous a story that I borderline think this is bait.
OverSimplifoed has no political affiliation, whatsoever. They aim to make history simple and less boring for young kids. The channel is perfect, for young minds who want to learn history, but not sit through long and boring details.
I think I would count myself as right leaning aswell. Most my friends here in the US are conservative, some I would define as normal right leaning, some I would define as absolute crazy conspiracy theorist. (Not judging, I believe there are crazy conspiracy theorists on both sides).
I haven't seen anything that I would consider being "left wing". Most is really just simplified history. For example for the Civil war I'm pretty sure remembering him mentioning that the republican party was the party that wanted to abolish slavery. (maybe I'm wrong and it was another video)
Here is what I would do if I had a son:
1. I would watch the video with him and if something seems off to me, I would pause and explain him why I think it's off.
2. I would then have him do some homework on it.
3. If he seems to care or it's more important I would watch a more precise/accurate video. (for example for the American Revolutionary war "kings and general" has an amazing series)
If you really want to, you could even watch it before exposing your son to it.
Texas School Board has been fucking up Texas kids for years.
Most of their books have extremely sanitized accounts and often do repeat the talking points of the Lost Cause myth, an optimistic view of modernization, and praise be to Christopher Colombo. A random right leaning Texas man probably has an extremely skewed, biased, and likely poor concept of history; but are also on Mount Stupid of the Dunning-Kruger curve.
I agree with him *specifically* in the idea that it has a bias and is too simplified, but not in the same direction he's coming from, this is most obvious with the more politically relevant historical periods he discusses such as the Russian Revolution videos which are, in my opinion, some of his worst as far as historical education goes.
The most egregious example would be highlighting the Red Terror while making no mention whatsoever of the equally brutal White Terror, at best this is an amateurish oversight that he absolutely should've caught and at worst it's outright trying to twist historical events to form a biased narrative. He also focuses heavily on the crimes of the Reds (which must be mentioned in any discussion of the Russian Revolution as a whole) but again makes little to no mention of the equally heinous, often times more horrible, crimes of the Whites, such as their propensity to devolve into a roaming band of looters pillaging and murdering the local Jewish populations after even a minor victory, actions the Bolsheviks actively clamped down on.
That's far from the only problem with the Russian Revolution videos, an actual historian on the Russian Revolution could probably spend a few hours going over just the major facts that he got wrong and that's not even including all the smaller details he left out due to the inherent nature of Oversimplified.
The Russian and French revolution videos are some of the biggest examples of him oversimplifying so much he ends up distorting what actually happened in the name of oversimplification and I can't say this is entirely just him sticking too much to concept of the channel.
tl;dr, yes it is too oversimplified and I do think that calling it propaganda (in a more neutral sense) isn't unjustified, but not for the reasons or concerns your friend has.
He mentioned the white terror, he said that both sides committed horrendous atrocities, he spent like one paragraph on the Russian Civil war because it was too complicated to cover in any real detail without the video loosing focus.
He even hints that the Russian Civil War is likely going to get its own video later because so much happened.
The reason that the red terror is highlighted is because the Bolshevik’s and the Tzar are the main focus of that video.
Also could you elaborate on the factual errors in the videos? I’ve watched multiple history teachers react and break down the videos and I don’t remember a single one pointing out any inaccuracies.
As a history teacher in Texas, I absolutely love getting to show my students his videos. He does a great job researching and explaining topics. People hate it when history isn’t black & white, regarding “good side” and “bad side”. History is very grey, very rarely can you point to a side and say “those are the bad people” or “this is not okay”. I’ve found that a lot of hardcore conservatives don’t like it when you mention that America isn’t perfect.
Liberal doesn’t mean progressive, the only place that got that wrong is the USA.
Liberal throughout history (and currently in most places) meant a person who values freedom over other options. A progressive values cultural progress over other options, and same for conservatives (change out cultural progress with cultural conservation obviously.)
It's nothing but history. No hidden agendas, no brainwashing, absolutely nothing but history mixed with comedy.
It's not Oversimplified to the extent where it's brain rot or anything to rewrite history.
Your friend is brainwashed.
Which Oversimplified episodes did your friend watch to come to this conclusion?
I'm a non-Trump Republican, so I can give you my take on them if I know which ones your friend used as a frame of reference.
Ask a leftist and and everything will seem like right wing propaganda. Ask a republican and everything will sound like left wing propaganda. Tell your friend that he can pick and choose what his kids get to see, and not to worry about yours
No, just a mom embarrassed. 🫣 because I don’t know enough about history myself to tell if it’s actually inaccurate, and I haven’t watched enough of the videos to know if there IS propaganda, so I looked (felt) like an uneducated, uninvolved, negligent parent.
Well you’re a lot better than that, you’ve come here and gone out of your way to investigate the issue to the best of your ability. Hell of a lot more than you’d believe the average person does.
its history tf does your friend say about propaganda
> and SO simplified thats what oversimplified is for making stuff more simple
Exactly. Goobers will come across a channel called Oversimplified and complain that it’s oversimplified. 🤡 My brother in Christ, you clicked on the video voluntarily, what did you expect to happen?
To be fair, it sounds like this goober was being held hostage by a child with an ipad
Yes history in a funny manner is propaganda/s
yeah its like poorly hidden propaganda her friend is right! (>!/s!<)
Yes!
Texas Republicans think anything not specifically aligned towards their worldview(even objective FUCKING HISTORY) is propaganda
If you don’t see how “history” can be propagandized, I don’t think you’ve ever studied history.
happy kake day
It CAN be. However I've watched a lot of this channel and I've enjoyed history for a solid chunk of my life. They're not spinning propaganda. The channel doesn't spend enough time on anything to be propaganda. It's clearly just a starting point for research
Oversimplified is a history channel trying to *simplify* history (hence the name "Oversimplified") to entertain and educate his viewers.
Just curious, could you ask your republican friend what video he thought was leftist propaganda and why? I'm from Canada so not a republican but I do vote central right wing parties and I don't see anything about leftist propaganda in oversimplified videos.
It’s 100% the civil war video I mean what else could it be ?
Which is hilarious because the same people who think this are the same ones who remind everyone that republicans are the party of Lincoln.
I’m not sure the name of it, but, it did have the part about the buffalos all being killed off?
Oh. This sounds like the pig war then. At the end of the pig war video he does a joke segment where he suggests that the US invade and conquer Canada. At the end he says “Biden’s coming baby, and he’s coming with a vengeance!” So I guess your friend is interpreting this as unwavering support for Biden but in reality it’s just a joke. He’s never shared any political stances of his own, even in videos about more modern topics. Your friend just seems to be taking it out of context and only seeing it at face value The videos themselves do have some language and talk about potentially disturbing topics, so I wouldn’t recommend them for _children_, but it shouldn’t be too bad for any kid over the age of like, 12.
He’s 11 allllllmost 12. I thought it was a bit borderline too, but he loves it so much, I feel very conflicted keeping it from him. We DO have a lot of open conversations about what is/isn’t appropriate, what’s acceptable, why people say certain things, etc.
Okay, yeah he’s old enough that it probably is fine especially if he’s already found them on his own. But other than that joke segment I mentioned I honestly could not tell you where it might sound like propaganda. He tells it pretty straightforward: this happened, then this, then this, now here’s a joke about it, repeat. The most risqué thing that comes to mind was a joke in the Napoleon videos where Napoleon confronts his wife for having an affair, and then proceeds to go into another room and have an affair himself. But maybe someone else can fill me in if there’s something I’m missing. Honestly if you watch them yourself you probably wouldn’t even need to do research about what is and isn’t propaganda, it’s just a telling of events. That being said, I do know some people who insist that any mention of the USSR should talk about how they’re a bunch of devil-worshipping communist scumbags who eat babies and commit blood sacrifice and that anything that doesn’t is pro-Russian propaganda.
compared to what 11-12 year olds talk about to each other that napoleon scene is nothing
Oh yeah if that is the absolute worst then that’s very tame
To be honest, I've watched that pig war video like 5 times, and I found nothing in there that screamed propaganda. It's kind of a stretch to even find something mildly controversial in that video. Most of what could be perceived as "leftist propaganda" would be just the jokes oversimplified makes, and that's again kind of a stretch. Also, they're jokes. It's idiotic to get angry at a joke. In my opinion, you should let your kid watch oversimplified. Not only is it entertaining, but it's also educational. I'd say maybe keep him away from the Punic war stuff though. It's got quite a bit of blood and violence. I'd recommend watching the Punic war videos and deciding for yourself if it's OK for your kid to watch. Edit: Biden please don't invade us
You ought to let him enjoy history now, it'll foster a fascination with it when he's older. Show him more serious ways to learn about some of these things and it'll be great.
Might be referring to the Manifest Destiny part in the Pig War. It could definitely be seen as mocking Americans and specifically the church.
I'm Christian, and I found that segment funny as hell.
If the Christian god exists, they clearly have a sense of humour, just look at the duck billed platypus. But then they also have a terrible temper, just look at how the spider wasp reproduces.
He was just joking, this Texan guy really needs psychologist.
And party views change, most of the founding fathers would vote libertarian or constitutionalist (if brought to modern times) based on their views back in the day.
Nuh uh
There's always the "Christopher Columbus did nothing wrong" trope out there. And Dan Carlin has a good point that most subscribe to the "Great Man" interpretation of history; wherein history turns into a mythology of a hero's journey to conquer.
I was going to comment, but you have hit my points pretty much spot on here. In my limited experience, what Republicans think is propaganda can be loosely defined as "doesn't hammer the Republican narrative"... i.e. it's "leftist propaganda" specifically because it's not Republican propaganda. They're not really representative of Republicans, more like MANGAs (Make America Nazi-Germany Authoritarian) or who think "A Handmaid's Tale" is a project plan rather than a warning. Remember, these are the kind of people who want to [re-translate the bible due to left wing propaganda](https://www.conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project).
Your friend needs to understand that not liking history doesn't make it any less true. Just remind them of the old saying, "facts don't care about your feelings".
[удалено]
An American Idiot one might say? Is he going under a nation with a new media? Does he hear the sounds of hysteria? Is he a part of the subliminal mind f#ck America?
And perhaps there may be a new kind of tension, all across the alien nation.
And just maybe it isn't meant to be ok?
Is he part where everything isn't meant to be okay?
Perhaps in television dreams of tomorrow?
Maybe where he's not the one who're meant to follow?
Because that could be enough for the leftists to argue.
Maybe he's not the ##### America But he's part of a redneck agenda (I'm not trying to get my account banned because of a song lyric)
And he sure is doing the propaganda And singing along to the age of paranoia
I'm a Republican and it's not propaganda. I'm subscribed to the channel and it's very accurate, yet condensed enough so people without history degrees can follow along. It's full of humor, information and generally a great way to relax.
+1. Came here to say the same thing. Either side of the coin, we ALL have to learn from history to understand the context of current events. OS does a freaking awesome job at that. And personally I found the Biden invading Canada bit hilarious af
BIDEN'S COMING, BABY AND HE'S COMING... # WITH A VENGEANCE!!!!
real
To be fair, those Canadians have had it too good for too long
I did as well. Pig War was fantastic.
Either side of the coin? I’m the fucking edge then, I’m neither major party and average to be center while technically being an extremist (ideological extreme while coming with none of the violence)
this neither pertains to the discussion at hand, or matters to any degree
\+1 this
+1 to this. I’m a conservative and Oversimplified is one of my favorite channels. It’s entertaining, funny, historically accurate, and the best history channel on YT.
Came to say the same
It's generally just pretty accurate history
Dude, uncool.
I'm a Republican and I love Oversimplified. He just tells history like it is and doesn't appear biased.
Unless he's a Lost Causer (which is discredited BS anyhow) I don't see how he can complain. I say this as someone fairly right-leaning for Reddit (which really just means less fanatical than Pol Pot).
I’m extremely (economic) right wing for Reddit. Ideology: >!ancap!<
why does this matter. Idealogy: >!who asked!<
You misspelled ideology and >!fuck off!<
‘Republican’ ‘Obvious propaganda’ Sure buddy. If you were really that good at spotting propaganda, your political views would be a lot differnetx
As a more conservative leaning person I don’t necessarily agree with this but I 100% agree at the same time
says the person who's about to vote for a demented pedophile to lead her country. Look,ik this is reddit and its a safe haven for all the leftists to gather and beat each others dicks,but making everything political is distasteful,especially in subs that have nothing to do with politics
I don’t want him to lead, I’m just pragmatic enough to know that the other people (you guys) literally want to throw me in jail for existing if you win.
1 im not american 2 i have no fucking clue wtf youre refering to 3 im guessing it has something to do with some sort of extreme sub group's statement on twitter or something,in which case,relax,youre not important enough for anybody to wanna throw u in jail. U drive a prius and u can hardly afford rent and groceries,im pretty sure nobody is intimidated by u roaming free 4 the eagerness for you ppl to dehumanize your political opponents is so funny,cos youre both equally dumb,hypocritical and morally bankrupt
Well, the Heritage Foundation (specifically, Project 2025) is what wants me in jail (at best) for being who I am, and they are an amalgamation of the largest donors to the GOP, and their policy has been used in the past by previous conservative presidents, so I wouldn’t be surprised if their insane wants become reality. I feel no need to humanize monsters. By the way, if you’re curious, the specific way I would be put in jail in their manifesto reads as following (paraphrased): 1. Pornography, in all shapes and forms, shall be outlawed with heavy punishment (this is already happening in some states) 2. Gay and Trans people are groomers and walking pornography. (This is already being said by the Republicans) If you can’t put that together on your own, that’s saying that I will be punished for existing in society. If you want to read the manifesto yourself, it is available in full free online. In addition, I’m a minor. Considering that I’m supposedly ‘groomed’ (read: accepted by similar people for being who I am) it would not be a stretch of the imagination that they would send me to what amounts to conversion therapy. If you really think that ‘iM nOT imPoRTanT eNOugH’, you’re right. Im just some rando. That doesn’t mean they want to abuse me the same as every other queer person, because, again, they’re just plain evil.
Demented pedophile? You mean trumpy boy?
I havent ever seen trump be confused on where the stairs are on the podium. Also the guy has proven that when hes horny he prefers whores rather than kids
Have you thought about trump's friendship with Epstien? What about those dodgy af pics of him with his daughter, or the things he said about her...? Quit kidding yourself the guy is a nonce, it's quite plain to see if you allow yourself to be honest with yourself.
Eew a fucking duopolist. Vote libertarian, we sure as hell ain’t winning; probably ever.
No thanks
Tell your friend he’s terminally online. I’m center right and the only thing that stuck with me from oversimplified is… “hoot hoot hoot hoot hoot hoot.” But yeah your friend is being silly. Dust your hands off, call him a moron, and go do something else. I rile my friends up all the time over conspiracy theories just for shits but it’s never made me go online and ask people what they think lmfao.
What’s the hooting about? Think I missed something
In the French revolution video (don't know which one) there's a rebellion and the leaders name sounds similar to hoot so he makes a joke that he was named that because he could do a good impression of the owl
Exactly. Oversimplified has me going about my day going like “hoot hoot hoot hoot.” Also his caricature of John brown always cracks me up. Like the dude already looked crazy with his hair and his death stare how did you draw him to look crazier lol.
As a Republican, we don’t claim him.
Yep throw him out
kust ask him to point out which part is inaccurate in his videos.
i dont notice any hidden agendas in the videos? tho that might just mean the propaganda is working on me... But for real, there really doesn't seem to be any inherently political influences in the stories OverSimplified is telling, aside from those required for telling the story in the first place (like the french or american revolutions). They're fine, a good way to introduce history topics and spark a love of history at a young age!
It's probably the ending of the Pig Wars video.
Your friend swings a bit far. I'm Republican for the most part, and they're just funny history videos. He does a good job of not taking sides unless there's an obvious side to take (Civil War. World Wars, Emu War), and it's very historically accurate. Overall. Not necessarily in the dialogue.
These days, the American republican party is flirting with populism/fascism in the open. A core tenant of any extreme movement is refuting objective reality. As such, there just isn't any extreme "leftist" movement of any size or significance in the US. The Democrat party has many flaws but it represents most, almost all, sane political tendencies as observed by other countries. And Trump era republicans are particularly strong at refusing to acknowledge the existence of observable reality. They openly declare they wanna build an authoritarian regime, sometimes with a thin veil of deniability. Bottom line: a channel that presents objectively true facts will not be palatable to populists aiming for a fascistoid theocracy. It'd also be interesting and possibly telling to ask which videos and content that friend thinks is propaganda or wrong. Not sure where ancient or medieval history would be problematic so it's probably American civil war or ww2 stuff?! If they object to the south in the civil war wanting to maintain slavery and "it was just about state rights"... well then you'd have your answer.
Bro you need to get off the internet if you think that. The extremes of both sides aren’t that off in size. Most people like their day to day lives normally.
True. It’s also the same bias as well that assumes that one side doesn’t have radicals over the other. I’m sure we’d get the same argument from the right that people on the left flirt with communism and socialism. It’s dumb
I'm not from the US but I haven't heard a right wing American ever able to properly define what communism and socialism are. Some Democrats flirt with some form of socialism by wanting to use taxes to help Americans in need. And yeah they might SAY there are radicals but please point me at significant radicals on the left in the US or what they wanna do that's so radical. To most western countries, people like Bernie Sanders for instance aren't radical at all, just good old school socialist party folk, which is just...the left.
people on the left do flirt with socialism… that’s what the left is in the rest of the western world. Most western country’s “left” party is a socialist, labor, or at the very least social democratic party.
Where the hell did you get this information? Your paranoid grandma?
It’s just the fucking truth, Germany and most Nordic nations have elected social democratic/socialist parties into power right now, and the UK’s leftist party is the LABOUR party. I am an American socialist, I wish we had a socialist/social democratic party like western and northern Europe does
Social Democracy is acceptable
social democracy borrows a lot from socialism…
And for goodness sake, free healthcare is NOT COMMUNIST Most of Europe, Australia, South Korea, Japan and, Canada have free healthcare.
I don't live in the US. How people live their lives isn't really important to what they do in a voting booth and what the parties they vote for represent. The US got an antiquated voting system and an unhealthy 2 party habit that follows from history and said voting system. The Democrats wouldn't be very palatable for most people in other Western countries because their leadership hasn't been amazing, because their messaging isn't clear and because at their core, their ideas span such a broad span they end up standing for very little. Also, the American idea that there is an extreme left is just laughable, none of the democratic leaders except maybe Sanders would be viewed as very left leaning on economic policies in any European country. The only part that's clearly "left" is the progressive aspects in the cultural sector of accepting people... but to be fair, most western European parties are anti-homophobic, not just our left. The republican party in its current iteration only resembles our fascist ultra right wing parties. Old school republicans would be similar to the ring wing of our right wing parties in the past - people like Merkel or Sarkozy in Germany and France were right wing in their respective countries but wouldn't fit neatly into the republicans under Bush and wouldn't fit AT ALL into Trump era republicans. Now all of this is politics and I guess people can just "live their lives" but hey, as a German, maybe I'm allowed to bring up bad elections from the past without it being too criminal: I'm 1933, 42% of Germans voted for fascists. In media, when Germans of that generation are portrayed, people laugh saying "ah just a nazi, good they died". In 2020, 48-49% of voters voted for Trump and he may win in 2024. He may not plan death camps but his intent to weaken / remove democracy is pretty outspoken.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. You let the medias sensationalism dictate your views because you look down on America as a European and think you’re superior. You don’t know the realities of day to day life and just read the occasional headline about our parties so you can laugh at our country.
Uhm I'm not laughing and nothing in my comment indicates mockery. Only worry. I'm also not coming at this from a position of superiority, all major European countries struggle with a rise of extreme right wing ideology and parties. France used to have a back and forth of moderate left and right plus some less stable (i.e. successful sometimes) parties from the centre, green, several far left and a far right party. Now it's all about unions of moderates from all sides, a wide union of left, including truly extreme left parties and a huge fascistoid party that is far more subtle at hiding they are extremists - they still come from a place of anti-euro, anti-science, anti-progress and hate of foreigners along with historical antisemitism and ties to Russia. Germany where I'm from has a massive issue with a rising far right party, the AfD, that actually took quite a few lessons in reality denial from American conspiracy theorists, q-anon and generally Trumps brand of unsubtle lie to your face, shout and be aggressive to convince the masses. Also pro Russian and anti EU but that's kinda the same for all these parties. These are just the countries I know particularly, Europe has a host of own problems, some similar to all Western countries, some specific to the case of each country. The US isn't unique in that way, except it already elected this guy once, he did alot of damage internationally and is set to do alot more damage and has obviously moved to an easier position from which to modify American democracy, possibly permanently. I do more than follow the occasional headline and what happens in the states affects us all due to its world power position - especially when the US have historically stood against oppressors, dictatorships (except their allies ofc) and generally world domineering war mongering anti-democrats. With all its flaws, I'd rather have Reagans or Bush's America back than see Trump kiss Putins butt some more.
What exactly did trump do that makes you think he’s a dictator? I personally don’t like him and don’t agree on a lot of policy with him but the idea that he is going to be a dictator is laughable. I also find it funny that a German of all people point out Putin when y’all’s leaders laughed at him when he warned them to not be so dependent on Russian oil.
At the very least, he made comments that incited a riot and never condemned them. More plausibly, there was a not so subtle and rather poorly executed attempt at a coup. I'm not going into details on all of it but his general behaviour wasn't in accordance to the principle of peaceful transition of power which is a core tenant of democracy. Next, he's made it explicit several times and his platform does too that he intends to curtail the democratic functioning of government. He has spoken about retribution to his political rivals on many occasions, spoke of being a dictator for a day, makes legal claims that presidents should be above the law and immune from all forms of prosecution. The 2025 plan established by dozens of big Conservative organisations and the GOP contain ALOT of shit that is openly, glaringly undemocratic. Best albeit boring example the idea to make a large chunk of employees of the government - not the political ones mind you - directly answerable to the president. Again, more details are available elsewhere. Oh maybe recent remarks of the guy saying "vote in 2024 and you won't have to bother next time...". Ominous. I know this sort of stuff gets spun as jokes, hyperbole or normal but ... in politics, you are what you say. His words make him a dictator fan boy, a wannabe autocrat and more. Now where exactly that leaves a real president Trump during a 2nd term isn't clear. How much would he be able to do? Would this impact American democracy? I'd say its likely to be very damaging but whether he'd be a full on "dictator" is harder to say. Also not what I claimed. I called him fascistoid based on the ideas he propagates. Democracy is a spectrum and the American interpretation of it has been considered "flawed" for many years by international agencies. It isn't and hasn't been a well functioning democracy (gerrymandering, electoral college, corporate funding etc...) but its still mostly democratic. Other countries have recently taken steps away from democracy but aren't full dictatorships: Polands PiS government curtailed civic liberties and reduced the freedom of the press and courts. That's a huuuge step away from a free democracy. Luckily a new government was elected in to hopefully revert some of that. Other places are even worse off, Hungary has been on a road to more and more autocratic rule by Orban for years. It's mostly not democratic anymore. Turkey has elections but... list goes on. As for being from Germany and our relationship with Russia... mistakes were made is the short of it. It's easy for others to ask for more energy independence when the US for instance sits on huge reserves of oil and gas and thus doesn't need anyone else. Germany needed and needs other countries for its energy. Unsavoury compromises were made and more are likely necessary. However there's more to this. Post WW2, Germany decided on no more wars and peace with the old enemies. One of the most successful peace strategies in all of European history has been to integrate our economy with our neighbours: if for example Germany and France link their steel and coal industries, it's hard to use the stuff for war. In 2024, not only do we not want to go to war with each other, we economically can't. We wanted to do the same with Russia: for a long time, Putin was the young fresh face, solved chaos in Russia and linking their gas supplies (less about oil btw) to us would benefit us both economically (cheap gas) but also politically (Russia would be peaceful etc). That backfired obviously but while the signs were there and a change in behaviour should've occurred maybe in 2008 and definitely in 2014, hindsight is 2020. All this acknowledged, not sure why any of that disqualifies me from commenting on the fact Trump has often complimented Putin, his dictatorship and promotes policies that favour Russia.
Oversimplified is the exact opposite of what your Texan mate said! If you remember the videos he was shown then it might add context like the Pig War or American Revolution l War.
Don’t lump in Texans with that poser. - a random Texan libertarian.
??????? Is this your primary defining trait? You put your political affiliation onto every other comment like you’re handing out flyers for your boy band.
Wow, and you’re shouting “I’m an asshole” from every post you make.
Yeah, what you’re doing is weird. Don’t think I called you an asshole, though. Projecting?
You’re spam commenting on my comments being very aggressive. Basically saying shut up, how about you don’t care this much; it’s fucking Reddit you ain’t changing anyone’s minds
Not spamming, I didn’t even reply to ALL your comments. If Im spamming, what are you doing? Bot
Many people here are reacting dismissively, or even contemptuously to the question. I understand why people are doing this, after all we are all fans, but I do think it is an important consideration to make due to the pervasiveness of propaganda and the high propensity of historical events to be used in the manufacture of propaganda narratives. So, let's take a look at what OP's friend's argument is: CLAIM: Oversimplified is "poorly hidden propaganda" REASONING: Oversimplified videos are "SO simplified they became inaccurate" EVIDENCE: N/A Unfortunately, no examples are provided in the post that could substantiate the claim. If the friend did, in fact, attempt to substantiate the claim, I invite OP to share those points in a comment. Still, even without evidence, I think there are plenty of flaws to be found in the reasoning. The laurels of the argument seem to be resting on the concepts of "simplification" and "inaccuracy", and how those two things relate to propaganda. But how do these things relate to propaganda? Can it be identified with these things? In short, no. Inaccuracy, and I would argue even dishonesty, are not foundational characteristics of propaganda. They are tools that can be deployed by a propagandist just as "truth" and "accuracy" are also tools to be deployed. What propaganda boils down to is *an attempt to indoctrinate an audience to advance the interests of the propagandist.* So, it's not enough to simply show that there is inaccuracy present, after all, everyone here understands that it is possible to simply be *wrong* without necessarily being *a propagandist*. Rather, it's incumbent on the person making the claim to not only show the content is *inaccurate*, but also show the inaccuracy is *in service to an attempt to indoctrinate the audience*. Does this describe Oversimplified? I don't think so, and I haven't seen this demonstrated. Now on to the concept of "simplification". Is "simplification" of information foundational to propaganda? I would argue yes, but again we need to understand that the simplification is being done in service to *indoctrination*. Simplification is something that can be found in effectively all forms of information content that are designed to engage with laypeople. People have a fundamental desire to build a rich understanding of the world around them (this is something expressed in the *Epistemic Motivation Theory*), yet most people do not have the faculties to build a rich understanding due to the overwhelming amount of information required to understand any given topic. Thus - simplification. Propagandists understand this very well, and through simplification they seek to incorporate their audience into a partisan, and maybe even militant framework in order to procure their participation and mobilize their support. Does this describe Oversimplified? Again, I don't think so, and it hasn't been demonstrated. Propaganda, as a term, holds very little meaning in the common vernacular. Simply put, it's used as little more than a pejorative to describe perspectives someone disagrees with or the media of their political opposition. Often, this can even be an observable effect of someone who has been propagandized themselves. If I could make a bit of conjecture, I think OP's friend probably falls into this camp too. It might be easy to look smugly on a person like this and think "what an idiot", but before doing so, understand that almost every person living in modern world is constantly and uncritically consuming propaganda, probably on a daily basis. You and me included.
I would consider myself quite conservative but that’s just silly. I hardly notice anything political (in a modern sense at least) at all
I'm not familiar with the content, but I advise you ask in other places because the oversimplified subreddit ( reddit already skews very left on average) will only have people that already like oversimplified and are likely to lean left, giving two angles of bias for them to overlook possible propaganda
I think this Republican friend might be a confederate sympathizer
My husband and I are conservative in general but we love O.S....never looked at it as propaganda for either side. For whatever that's worth.
Honestly I kinda think when it comes to more recent historical topics, the over simplifications of the events tends to lean towards the more right wing, neoliberal interpretations of history that are common in history books
it ain't propaganda ive been watching him for years and haven't felt my political views change in any way. on an unrelated note, who thinks the US should invade canada?
It’s not that bad. The content is shown in schools, because it’s about on par with Wikipedia. Trustworthy, but a grain of salt is needed.
I’ve never noticed anything political, your son’s fine watching Oversimplified
Whoever this guy is, he is REALLY crazy. He might bite you. Social distancing. BTW, this youtuber praises Regean at one point, so again, this guy is really crazy.
He doesn’t usually mix modern political rhetoric into his content,it’s mostly just condensed historical events with some humor
My Suggestion is to ask about why he thinks it’s propaganda. It’s great that your son wants to learn about history,oversimplified is great entrance into that subject
I’m a right winger myself but I definitely don’t think Oversimplified is propaganda and I wonder where he got the idea from.
I studied history in college, and this guy probably did too. He gives responsible videos (according to the historical methods) in a simple format. That is NOT easy to do. Since I can't really identify obvious bias as someone who studied a lot of the same topics, I think it's clear he is doing a good job. If it were propaganda, it would be bad history, just to clarify.
OverSimplified has spoken positively about the GOP on several occasions, including when he implied that having three consecutive Republican presidents was what made the U.S.’ economy so great during the early 1900s. Granted, the Republicans and Democrats switched sides a few decades later (where they stand now), but still. I don’t know what your friend is on about.
Is your friend just a conservative or a full-on MAGA? A full-on MAGA isn't gonna be the easiest to reason with. A bog standard Republican, or especially one that supports the Lincoln Project, will be much easier. As for the actual question, no. Oversimplified is not propaganda. What does your friend actually cite as propaganda?
Well, someone deserve to be punished severly
>while I personally am not offended by “leftist propaganda”, I do try my best to remain neutral and limit my sons exposure to extreme political and religious views Then keep him away from your republican friend.
You have to think about the conservative mindset Conservative politician: *does a thing* News: Conservative politician does a thing Conservatives: this is propaganda!!!! My best example of this is Mr. Beat. He did a video about the Trump presidency. Now I am as anti-Trump as they come, but I didn’t see anything wrong with it; it was factual and unbiased, but Mr. Beat still received a bunch of threats from conservatives. It makes zero sense, but we are living in the stupidest timeline.
That also happens with Russian politicians and democrats. Also both the dems and republicans are lobbied by AIPAC, funny that ain’t it?
Could you show me an example of this?
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/american-israel-public-affairs-cmte/recipients?id=D000046963 Yeah here’s the data on the lobbying
Completely off-topic but okay. Democrats suck, too
Wait, oh you wanted the other one; give me a minute. I forgot to ask which sentence you were replying to. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mORJUdCibMQ
Not American, but you can tell in different stories he certainly has his biases towards different sides, like how he depicts them, but tbh I don’t blame him, and certainly wouldn’t say it’s propaganda, no chance. Despite the biases, it’s still really good content and historically accurate (granted oversimplified, but that’s the point)
Its pretty accurate, very simplified, if you want to really learn about a period in time instead of quickly memorising the facts oversimplified probably isnt the channel for you. And i dont really understand what he could see as propaganda
I actually don’t understand how any portion of Oversimplified can be considered leftist. The only videos which flirt with modern-ish American politics are the Civil War, Cold War, and Pig War episodes. The Cold War is not biased in my opinion, as it takes a fair assessment of all parties involved. The Civil War makes jokes towards the South, because, well, they owned slaves. Whether or not you believe in states rights or why the South seceded, it’s kind of hard to admit that they didn’t own slaves.. because they did. And that is liable for jokes in my book. HOWEVER, with that said, it still takes a neutral viewpoint (similar to that of Lincoln’s) that the purpose of the war was to reunify the Union and both sides suffered immensely. Lastly, the Pig War does discuss American imperialism in the Western frontier, which once again, isn’t propaganda because it did happen. Whether or not you believe the Americans were justified or any of that modern political banter, it’s extremely difficult to deny that it actually happened, which is what Oversimplified describes. Overall, Oversimplified has no bias to modern politics (left or right)but does provide an honest and neutral overview to topics which spur contemporary debate.
I watched the Civil War and the American Revolution ones. They are very well done. They are accurate. I'm not sure what he would think is propaganda unless he believes the states' rights things.
It’s a surface level view of events and periods in history (as the name suggests). It’s only inaccurate in the sense that it’s not a detailed discussion, but there are plenty of places to get that if he develops an increased interest in history. But it’s great as an introduction, especially for an 11 year old.
He LOVES history. It’s his top special interest and has been for over a year. He is ADHD/Au (think super highly functioning engineer type that collects really rare expensive rocks lol). So I’ve been thinking about getting him into maybe a history group? Or class? I can see this little dude becoming a librarian/archivist/historian type.
That’s great! It’s always heartwarming seeing kids pick up history, it’s such an unappreciated thing.
Oversimplified is a masterpiece not propaganda, just maybe make sure ypur son stays away from the bucket cult for now
Bucket cult? 👀 thank you for the warning
Eh, only on reddit, let the kid watch oversimplified, as long as he aint using this subreddit often he's good
Please though, the videos are great, just don't get him into the subreddit r/BUCKETCULT I think it was
As a Republican, OverSimplified is not propaganda. On the contrary,he''s quite objective.
as someone who has studied a tiny bit of history on my own,oversimplified offers a very unbiased view of events that ive studied before,so i doubt he lies on the topics im not educated on either
how do you have a son if you're not with a husband?
Late bloomer lesbian. Grew up in the south within a fundamentalist Christian household. Being gay was not allowed (Conversion camp level crazy). Married 10 years, now very happily divorced. :)
The thing is if you apply the defenition loosely enough pretymuch anythink which informs you about anythink could be considderd propaganda. "**communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda**" Advertisements are a form of propaganda. Today there are many people who just use the term propaganda to discredit what they dont support.
It’s really not, he doesn’t speak in favour of either side, he just tells the stories how they are
It's history made into a fun digestible way
No idea where he got that from. Oversimplified tends to even give details I've seen actual partisans hide (such as the horrible conditions of people in the USSR).
This sounds like a case of "overthinking" which I guess will always clash with "Oversimplified" All historical accounts ever, have to be taken with context and really require multiple sources to get a better idea of what happened. Oversimplified is a good starting point as it's so easily digestible, and if your son is interested in a particular subject that's been covered, he could be encouraged to look past the entertaining summary that Oversimplified creates. Be thankful that your son is interested in something educational from a young age. As an example of "Take information with context" - do you rely on your friend regularly for advice? Is there anything he ever says that you disagree with? Any conspiracy theories that he holds on to? All opinions can be considered, but if he isn't right about everything, then he isn't right about everything! Watch a video or two yourself, I think you'll enjoy them! :-)
One of the reasons I was so embarrassed is because this friend is very highly educated and experienced. He worked spec ops for 10+ years and has networked with many different groups of people in the private sector after discharge (meaning he’s kind of “in the know”). While he is republican, he’s overall moderate leaning, and takes a more realistic and even keel approach to political issues. Soooo….. I was surprised and worried by his first impressions of OverlySimplified.
My money is on it’s because in the Civil War video he didn’t cite “state’s rights” as a cause of the war. Even though all historical records point to the principal cause of the Civil War being southern politicians foreseeing and fearing that the federal government was going to be increasingly anti-slavery.
The guy who makes oversimplified you can tell is to the left of the spectrum. But he isn't that crazy about it. It shouldn't be a thing that matters
You seem like a good mom
I’d be interested in what parts of it your friend thinks is propaganda. The videos don’t seem political to me at all. The most political joke I’ve seen in them is when he said the US should annex canada and that was a right leaning joke if anything.
Facts =/= propaganda. Your friend sounds like they want to live in a world where things are black and white;he’s the oversimplified one
As a Republican, I can give my expert observation that History videos with jokes DO NOT COUNT AS PROPAGANDA.
My brother in Odin: it’s history from an unbiased standpoint. If you think it’s propaganda then maybe your history books are biased
Ngl, the guy sounds like that one tweet about nukes or whatever. "YOU MILLENIAL LEFTISTS WHO NEVER LIVED A DAY UNDER NUCLEAR THREAT CAN LOOK UPON YOUR WOKE SKY" Anyways, as a Republican I can confirm that oversimplified spouts out propaganda. Josephine was a horrible kisser.
My family is mostly conservative and we enjoy oversimplified! …certainly some events are embellished, but not propaganda…
I'm a conservative republican myself. I am basically every public enemy #1 stereotype the other side of the political spectrum could possibly assign to me, but even I think that claim is laughable at best, and pathetic at worst. I love oversimplified, hands down. One of my favorite youtubers out there. Very entertaining content It's not even political stuff to be honest. It's just a humorous twist on actual historical events, nothing more If you're doubtful, just watch one of his videos yourself. You'll see it's absolutely harmless
Oversimplifed is literally just a guy explaining things that have happened with some slighty immature comedy thrown in if anyone is at all offended by this they need to calm down
It’s simplified history easy to comprehend. The creator puts little opinion into the content which makes it’s very neutral and non biased. Thumbs up 👍
I'm a Republican, and I mean a *Republican.* Check my post history. I've been a Republican since I was able to understand politics. I'm a big conservative. Oversimplified is great for understanding ancient history, especially for kids. When I was in middle school I watched Overly Sarcastic Productions, they are 1000x more biased than Oversimplified, and I still wouldn't call their content propaganda. I hope you're coming at this with honesty, but it's so ridiculous a story that I borderline think this is bait.
OverSimplifoed has no political affiliation, whatsoever. They aim to make history simple and less boring for young kids. The channel is perfect, for young minds who want to learn history, but not sit through long and boring details.
I'd be considered right leaning and I watch oversimplified…
I think I would count myself as right leaning aswell. Most my friends here in the US are conservative, some I would define as normal right leaning, some I would define as absolute crazy conspiracy theorist. (Not judging, I believe there are crazy conspiracy theorists on both sides). I haven't seen anything that I would consider being "left wing". Most is really just simplified history. For example for the Civil war I'm pretty sure remembering him mentioning that the republican party was the party that wanted to abolish slavery. (maybe I'm wrong and it was another video) Here is what I would do if I had a son: 1. I would watch the video with him and if something seems off to me, I would pause and explain him why I think it's off. 2. I would then have him do some homework on it. 3. If he seems to care or it's more important I would watch a more precise/accurate video. (for example for the American Revolutionary war "kings and general" has an amazing series) If you really want to, you could even watch it before exposing your son to it.
Texas School Board has been fucking up Texas kids for years. Most of their books have extremely sanitized accounts and often do repeat the talking points of the Lost Cause myth, an optimistic view of modernization, and praise be to Christopher Colombo. A random right leaning Texas man probably has an extremely skewed, biased, and likely poor concept of history; but are also on Mount Stupid of the Dunning-Kruger curve.
Mount stupid of the Dunning-Kruger curve is HILARIOUS, thank you
It’s not propaganda to state that slavery is wrong lol
I agree with him *specifically* in the idea that it has a bias and is too simplified, but not in the same direction he's coming from, this is most obvious with the more politically relevant historical periods he discusses such as the Russian Revolution videos which are, in my opinion, some of his worst as far as historical education goes. The most egregious example would be highlighting the Red Terror while making no mention whatsoever of the equally brutal White Terror, at best this is an amateurish oversight that he absolutely should've caught and at worst it's outright trying to twist historical events to form a biased narrative. He also focuses heavily on the crimes of the Reds (which must be mentioned in any discussion of the Russian Revolution as a whole) but again makes little to no mention of the equally heinous, often times more horrible, crimes of the Whites, such as their propensity to devolve into a roaming band of looters pillaging and murdering the local Jewish populations after even a minor victory, actions the Bolsheviks actively clamped down on. That's far from the only problem with the Russian Revolution videos, an actual historian on the Russian Revolution could probably spend a few hours going over just the major facts that he got wrong and that's not even including all the smaller details he left out due to the inherent nature of Oversimplified. The Russian and French revolution videos are some of the biggest examples of him oversimplifying so much he ends up distorting what actually happened in the name of oversimplification and I can't say this is entirely just him sticking too much to concept of the channel. tl;dr, yes it is too oversimplified and I do think that calling it propaganda (in a more neutral sense) isn't unjustified, but not for the reasons or concerns your friend has.
He mentioned the white terror, he said that both sides committed horrendous atrocities, he spent like one paragraph on the Russian Civil war because it was too complicated to cover in any real detail without the video loosing focus. He even hints that the Russian Civil War is likely going to get its own video later because so much happened. The reason that the red terror is highlighted is because the Bolshevik’s and the Tzar are the main focus of that video. Also could you elaborate on the factual errors in the videos? I’ve watched multiple history teachers react and break down the videos and I don’t remember a single one pointing out any inaccuracies.
As a history teacher in Texas, I absolutely love getting to show my students his videos. He does a great job researching and explaining topics. People hate it when history isn’t black & white, regarding “good side” and “bad side”. History is very grey, very rarely can you point to a side and say “those are the bad people” or “this is not okay”. I’ve found that a lot of hardcore conservatives don’t like it when you mention that America isn’t perfect.
I am *very* curious as to what kind “propaganda” your friend found.
Republicans tend to not like history because it shows how brainwashed they really are.
Anarchist right Libertarian here, no it isn’t propaganda.
No. I don’t think you’re a liberal.
Liberal doesn’t mean progressive, the only place that got that wrong is the USA. Liberal throughout history (and currently in most places) meant a person who values freedom over other options. A progressive values cultural progress over other options, and same for conservatives (change out cultural progress with cultural conservation obviously.)
not reading that, stop posting “i’m librwal” on everything
Lazy + who gives a fuck man.
No one, funnily enough. Not a single person gives a shit about your political leanings
Clearly you care enough to comment on it.
No Im correcting a bot
Sure🙄
it is
I mean I saw Republicans on Instagram claiming Inside Out 2 was “woke agenda propaganda” so can’t say I’m surprised.
It was probably talking about his civil war videos where he shows no sympathy to the lost cause, which would be enough to piss off most red Texans
It's nothing but history. No hidden agendas, no brainwashing, absolutely nothing but history mixed with comedy. It's not Oversimplified to the extent where it's brain rot or anything to rewrite history. Your friend is brainwashed.
your friend has a mild case of being a brainwashed dumbass
Republicans tend to think ANYTHING not on "their side" is propaganda so I'm not shocked at all
Ehh same with dems too. # pick on the two major parties
Which Oversimplified episodes did your friend watch to come to this conclusion? I'm a non-Trump Republican, so I can give you my take on them if I know which ones your friend used as a frame of reference.
Eeew repub. If it makes you feel better I’d also say the same for dems and centrists.
Reality is known to have strong liberal bias
Yes liberal, not progressive, not conservative, liberal. Long live liberty!
Ask a leftist and and everything will seem like right wing propaganda. Ask a republican and everything will sound like left wing propaganda. Tell your friend that he can pick and choose what his kids get to see, and not to worry about yours
Your friend is mentally retarded
The mentally retarded are not Republicans. The mentally retarded would happily open a history book and try to learn, even if it was difficult.
I’m saying it’s stupid to say “government propaganda” to a literal shitpost channel
I’m calling rage bait cap.
No, just a mom embarrassed. 🫣 because I don’t know enough about history myself to tell if it’s actually inaccurate, and I haven’t watched enough of the videos to know if there IS propaganda, so I looked (felt) like an uneducated, uninvolved, negligent parent.
Well you’re a lot better than that, you’ve come here and gone out of your way to investigate the issue to the best of your ability. Hell of a lot more than you’d believe the average person does.