From mafia-meets-game-show “Odd One Out” to politically charged showdown “Middle Ground,” content corporation Jubilee Media is notorious for producing witty and borderline infuriating YouTube series. Each video captivates viewers for its candid examination of human relationships and the boundless social factors that influence them. However, with their new video series, “Surrounded,” the company’s spiral into cash cow content is more blatant than ever. Rather than dedicating themselves to a broader productive conversation and uniting people together through thoughtful compromise, Jubilee is cluttering the U.S.’s starkly divided bipartisan headspace with controversial content that only generates futile drama and short-lived reactions.
With 18 million views on the series’ flagship video “Can 25 Liberal College Students Outsmart 1 Conservative? (feat. Charlie Kirk),” followed by its viral successor “Can 1 Woke Teen Survive 20 Trump Supporters?” featuring social media debater Dean Withers, Jubilee’s timely release of politically-focused “Surrounded” throws one person of a certain party in a lion’s den of opponents from the other side, where people race to the middle to debate the opposition on topics of interest. Both videos are over an hour long, spanning several dialogues from the morality of abortion, to presidential candidates’ characters, to beliefs about minorities. The series sets itself up as a free-for-all despite its misleading title of “one versus all,” which is where most of its pitfalls begin.
Although they’re 20 people against one person from the extreme end of opposing ideology, the crew of debaters are anything but united. Each person is given a red flag that they may raise if they feel that the person currently debating isn’t making strong enough points or if they simply wish to talk instead. When over half of the group raises their flags, the current speaker gets booted and is replaced with whoever makes it to the hot seat first. Many contestants raise their flags yet don’t make an effort to contribute to the conversation, simply choosing to vote contestants out for arbitrary, nonsensical reasons. Even more disappointingly, speakers are voted out as soon as a genuine conversation, rather than a competition, ensues.
Jubilee enables the close-minded mob mentality characteristic of modern politics through their failure to encourage constructive discourse.
In Charlie Kirk’s feature, he debates Juliana, who introduces herself as Catholic, about whether or not abortion should be legal. As soon as she mentions her religion, the video cuts to skeptical looks around the room, and the majority of flags raise in seconds. Juliana and Kirk find common ground in their faith and begin to discuss abortion using the Bible as reference, yet Juliana’s fellow Liberals refuse to let her defend her claims. Abortion stances are known for resting on religious beliefs, yet when Juliana attempted to refute such beliefs using her opponent’s guns and appeal to the other side, her argument was suddenly not worth hearing. Similarly, speaker Carter approached Withers in his feature and candidly asked him to elaborate on his views so he could hear Withers out and respond appropriately, only to be met with almost the majority of flags being raised. Carter was forced to beg his fellow Republicans to allow him to make his point first before voting him out. “Surrounded” allows immaturity to get the best of contestants, granting them the opportunity to cut a person short simply because they don’t like what they’re hearing — defeating the entire point of what should be an open-minded debate. The lack of regulations in the series turns each video from a timed discussion into an aggressive dialogue that aims only to exacerbate existing political divisions.
What could have been an opportunity to properly explore controversial arguments is only a surface-level, meager contribution to the American political warzone. Whether it’s intentionally not hearing out compelling arguments that are especially relevant to the other party’s beliefs and thus have better chances of being considered or attempting to kick speakers for engaging in a two-way conversation, Jubilee enables the close-minded mob mentality characteristic of modern politics through their failure to encourage constructive discourse.
Jubilee’s website claims the corporation aims to “push boundaries, tackle taboos, and break the rules” with the core belief that “discomfort and conflict are pivotal forces in creating human connection.” However, “Surrounded” stands as a lackluster copy of previous series “Middle Ground,” its only new contribution being a cheap, competitive ante that fails to recover any of “Middle Ground’s” engaging conversations and sensible compromises.
Politics is no longer about the ideas and actions that affect citizens’ lives, but about getting the last word in.
As a result, “Surrounded” is a distorted caricature of modern debate, amplified by today’s inclination towards hot button issues and winning arguments above all. In both Kirk’s and Withers’ features, they encounter flustered arguments driven by emotional reaction and an ingrained desire to emerge as the more intelligent — arguments bloated with interruptions, personal attacks, moving goalposts, and blizzards of loaded questions that almost never receive an answer. For instance, social media debater Parker and Kirk engage in a shouting match, cutting into each other’s sentences at rapid-fire pace in an incoherent, stumbling excuse of a debate. Throughout the video, Parker seizes the opportunity to argue with Kirk any chance he gets yet barely brushes the surface of each topic, using his time to flaunt any intellectual prowess he possesses or how fast he can catch up to Kirk’s lightning-speed pace. On the contrary, Withers makes it a point to wait for his opponent to finish speaking before responding, yet lets himself get cut off so frequently that time is wasted simply criticizing each other’s etiquette. The sheer lack of decency between debate opponents overshadows any mature, productive conversation occurring in the series, taking viewers’ attention away from potentially intriguing perspectives on today’s most sensitive topics and onto fruitless incitements, like speakers screaming over each other or menial jabs at the opponent’s character. The series only drags out the cemented hate inherent within the U.S.’s polar opposite two-party system, proving the modern consensus of politics to be a fight over right and wrong rather than an ever-evolving conversation about the greater good of the country.
“Surrounded’s” virality overtly reflects the shift in entertainment today and its effect on the quality of conversations surrounding incredibly important issues as a result. Jubilee clearly takes advantage of the allure towards fast-paced content manufactured for viral Tweets, warping “Surrounded” from a potentially innovative political exploration into a weak ploy meant to farm viewer engagements. More than ever, today’s civic culture sees itself exemplified in Jubilee’s clickbait series through loyalist political party arguments and unfounded, emotionally-driven hatred. Politics is no longer about the ideas and actions that affect citizens’ lives, but about getting the last word in.
