Students at Cambridge University debated Charlie Kirk this May in a debate that has since gone viral, amassing over 900,000 views on YouTube in just the past month. Another debate hosted on Jubilee between Jordan Peterson and 20 atheists, posted in the same month, has garnered 6 million views on YouTube, drawing attention due to the change in the original title of the video from “1 Christian vs. 20 Atheists” to “Jordan Peterson vs. 20 Atheists.”
Debates involving popular political activists and debaters, such as Charlie Kirk, Dean Withers, Ben Shapiro, @parkergetajob (whose last name has been obscured on the internet), etc., have become increasingly popular, drawing more attention since the 2024 presidential election. While these debaters have garnered hundreds of thousands of followers and supporters, commending qualities such as quick thinking, witty comebacks, and insightful reasoning, many critics claim that their style of argumentation is rife with logical fallacies and misinformation. Another common critique is that such figures “clip-farm” — a technique used to highlight certain clips from a longer video to gain views and popularity. Trinity, a 13-year-old from the Metro Atlanta area, finds that “certain stuff, it’s just childish.” Such “gotcha” moments take sections of debates and discussions out of context, contributing to digital echo chambers as viral moments seek to draw attention to the perceived lack of knowledge and aggression of “the other side.” Malaya, a 20-year-old psychology student at Georgia State University, notes “there’s not a lot of science-based arguments” in such debates, even mentioning that she’s “disappointed in a lot of the people on there.”
Such intense public debates are akin to the 1968 debate between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal, where two figures with a notorious dislike for each other were invited to appear on a debate hosted by ABC. Both individuals quickly resorted to crude insults, driving up viewership with their televised animosity. Eventually, networks realized the benefits of short and snappy segments, trading in profound commentary and discussion for views and higher ratings, despite the Buckley vs. Vidal debate containing intellectual substance. Hostility-driven debates seem to have become the norm, dragging insightful conversations to the back burner.
Reddit user Honeyfage criticizes how today’s online debates seem to be “designed to bring out bad arguments and generate snappy 30-second clips”. In contrast, others, like NoButterfly6276, state that “[TikTok debaters] are all toxic.” These commenters discuss viral debate videos on Jubilee’s YouTube channel and across debate accounts on social media.
In September 2024, Jubilee, a popular YouTube channel with a mission of “creating human connection,” introduced a new video format called “Surrounded,” where one special guest is invited onto the show to debate with anywhere from 20 to 25 individuals. These discussions are structured around one key topic, ranging from current political events to sports. The key guest, a well-known figure on the topic, presents a series of claims, and upon stating them, waits at a desk in the center of a circle of speakers as those who wish to address the recently made claim rush to be the first to reach the chair at the center. Each claim made by the key guest has 20 minutes to be argued; however, it is not only one person debating the entire time. Other peers present can raise a red flag when they wish to vote out the current debater. Once a majority of the audience present raise their flags, the current speaker is voted out, and others present rush to the chair to try to refute the claim. While the debates are ongoing, a fact-checker appears on the screen whenever a statistic is used as evidence, informing the audience of any potential misinformation. This feature indeed holds speakers to a particular level of accountability; however, because they are not informed of any incorrect facts in real time, many have criticized the fact-checker for not doing enough to contribute to the discussion itself. The unique debate format pioneered by Jubilee has been undoubtedly successful, garnering over 50 million views across platforms since its conception, albeit at the expense of promoting a caricature of traditional debate.
Cade Hanson, a two-time participant on Jubilee’s “Surrounded” videos, states that “’Surrounded ‘is not the format to exhaust an issue.” However, he notes that, for the average individual interested in a controversial topic, they “get to hear all of the talking points in a high-speed format,” because Jubilee’s Surrounded provides “a smorgasbord, like a buffet of different argumentation styles” effectively allowing audiences to understand the main points of arguments made by both sides.
For those who find themselves in the middle of two sides and are willing to learn about different perspectives, these online debates provide an accessible source of information for exploring intriguing arguments presented by both sides. This allows people to broaden their knowledge of hot-button issues and become more empathetic towards perspectives they may disagree with. As Reddit user WordlyJudge6520 finds, “the debates are also critical to those of us who are transitioning from red to blue.”
In today’s digital age, 47.87% of debates that Americans are exposed to occur online, according to the research study “Americans Misperceive the Frequency and Format of Political Debate,” published in the academic journal Scientific Reports by researchers at UC Berkeley and Columbia Business School. Study participants report that such debates foster negativity and consider them representative of average debates, which also contributes to political anxiety. A 2019 study, titled “The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States,” led by a political science professor at Stanford University, notes that inadvertent exposure to one-sided media augments the effects of partisan media due to the nature of social networks, as one-sided arguments are brought to those who did not initially consider themselves aligned with a particular ideology. Essentially, such neutral individuals are being presented with potentially polarizing videos, contradicting the original intent of a debate, as explained by Forbes, which is to focus on understanding and learning rather than being right.
The nature of debate today largely refutes this proposition, as Charlie Kirk, at the end of his debate at Cambridge University, stated, “You guys are easy,” despite the students he debated against utilizing proper argumentation techniques to bring forth their points. Popular debaters have begun to rely on harsh comments, ad hominem attacks, and semantic games to enhance and maintain their image in front of key audiences, thereby eroding the credibility and widely held respect for the long-standing tradition of engaging debate for intellectual growth. However, many still use the points brought up in viral debates as a learning opportunity. As Hanson states, “I had a number of people reach out afterwards that are like, ‘Wow, I disagree with you, but you got me thinking.’”
And despite the nature of debate today, and all of its benefits and shortcomings, there are still many ways to work on and benefit a cause. Hanson affirms, “There’s so many things you can do to move the needle forward on the issue that you care about. Just because you care about something doesn’t mean that you have to debate it.”
