Peter Coffin Reaction

If you don’t know who Peter Coffin is you can visit his Youtube Channel. I’ll be posting some of his videos below. Peter Coffin is one of the best left-wing commentators on Youtube. He’s is a lynchpin of the so-called “Left Tube.” As help as his videos are and as much as he exposes in regards to advertising, economic changes and more: I have a few problems with his views.

Who is Peter Coffin?

Before we discuss Peter Coffin and his over-diagnosis of capitalism disease, let’s review who he is. He’s a leftuber, and while his content has take on an advocacy role as of late, his content was much more conventional in the past. He created comedy sketches and songs. The sort of ridiculous content that youtube was known for in the late Aughts. He was on Annoying Orange a few times as well. I can’t speak to his comedy chops but they seem legit enough. We also can’t forget about the time he was accused of having a fake girlfriend and that he was making up a fake relationship just to get attention or validation. The scandal became so big the now-defunct Gawker did a story on it. Peter Coffin is now married and has 2 children with his wife Ashley who sometimes appears in his videos. He has held random jobs and from what I can tell now, he does YouTube full time. He is also the author of a book. I am not going to promote it. If you are that interested, links are on his channel. Click any of the videos below to find out more.

Got a Problem? It’s Capitalism!

Peter Coffin goes in hard on capitalism. For him, every problem has to do with capitalism. From workers wages, to commodification of everything, it all has to do with the problems inherent in capitalism. Even things like representation of minorities in media and liberal “call-out” culture are all apart of a web of capitalism and how capitalism has infected our lives.

Long-time readers of my work will know that I am no defender of capitalism. In my upcoming book, “What the Hell is Going On?” (out October 1st) My first 2 essays have to do with capitalism and its ills. Capitalism and politics have become so interlinked, they are nearly one thing. You cannot talk about politics without business and vice-versa. Capitalism, especially the malevolent corporate version that has dominated the world for the past 150 years, is particularly insidious in it’s take-over of every area of life. However, I can’t help but think that there still exists a culture and an area of life where even the long tendrils of capitalism hold no sway.

Res Publica

There are still matters of public life, that while economically based, have purely social implications. When we talk about the system of society, economics is just one part. Often in American history, we overemphasize the economic aspect of things ignoring religion, culture, and ethnic identity. This is to our peril. When people like Roger Stone and Steve Bannon figured out that you could turn millions of people into single-issue voters using “wedge issues” they did this not through economic problems but through calling out to racism and religious preferences. This was a very European move, not an American one. It was effective because no one was looking for it. Nixon figured out he could bleed way southern democrats by embracing their racism. Abortion and homosexuality became talking points and symbols of moral decay. He started the drug war not only to stop the flow of substances to American shores but to crush the robust resistance to a non-responsive government that had grown out of the Vietnam war protest movement and the civil rights movement.

In these fights, there was money to be made but these fights were not motivated for profit. They were motivated by deep social issue unrest. Indeed, even now the fight for identity is not one of capitalism or anything like that. It is the fight for a seat at the American table that has been denied. Slavery was an economic institution on which America was based. The 100 years of Jim Crow policies had 2 parts: one social and one economic. Economics was weaponized to make sure that certain people stayed down while others were allowed to rise and be advantaged. This trend extended to mass media when mass media began to spread in the early part of the last century.

In this documentary, Peter Coffin gives us a break down on how media representation can be used to not only create aspirational capitalism but also to reinforce the system and power dynamics. If people are seeing themselves in media, then they won’t fight harder to improve their conditions and their lot. While he might have a point. The denigration of identities in media is not a matter of capital. Capital is a facility of it. It is a public matter. It is truly a matter of the people. This documentary is 44 minutes long. It’s worth the watch, but if you are pressed for time, skip to the last 10 minutes or see my point. No matter what the problem is: capitalism is at fault.

The System Co-Opts

The mistake Peter Coffin makes is pretty clear. By using capitalism as a foil, he misses how capitalism has affected our lives. Capitalism seeks a frictionless return, or as close to one as it can get. Capital is interested in that only. It is not interested in anything else. Capital, as such, has little social investment in society. However, the greater societal system is very invested in social problems and who might be agitating to change them. Peter Coffin has forgotten that capitalism is just one part of a greater system that runs into things we are not familiar with here in America: religious identity, ethnicity, class, and tribalism/factionalism. One of the greatest fears the Founder had in regards to the American Republic was the rise of factions. They feared the whole system would break down under the strain of factions.

One of the greatest social moments in the 20th century was the way in which the system, led by Nixon and his successors subsumed protest, free expression, and social upheaval into the greater conversation. Boomers took to the streets and ended a war. Their movement changed America forever. Civil Rights, Gay rights, Immigrant rights, and labor rights were heirs to the violent protests that rocked America to its core. Millennials took to the streets in 2011 and almost nothing happened. A few politicians were elected, some tooth-less agencies were created but no meaningful change occurred. Why is that? The system is far stronger than most people realize.

MLK and Malcolm X both identified moderate whites as the biggest threat to Civil Rights. The threat that they posed was a desire for incremental change that would not meaningfully change the system already in place. A slight modification to way things were. Those who have power and wield it, realized that the 1960s had come far too close to causing a collapse of the American system. Protest would have to become apart of the political conversation. It would have to be normalized. By normalizing the idea that when something happens, there will be protests would eventually reduce the very power of protest. Vietnam protests brought America to its knees. Occupy Wall Street caused excess landscaping bills. See the difference?

Today, the country has major problems and people wonder where the protestors are? Where are the outcries? Why haven’t Americans hit the streets like the French? France raised gas prices to pay for climate change and Macron’s government will not likely survive the next election due to the yellow vests. Americans have detention centers functioning as concentration camps for victims and a government that is slowly grinding to a halt and no one seems to care. A few dedicated individuals will go out with some signs and it will sometimes achieve media coverage. But when have protests caused real change? The pussy hat march that launched President Trump’s first term was large but did not affect change. The sweeping election of 2018 has produced no meaningful change. Why is this? Because protest has simply become another part of the conversation. A law is passed or a change is made and a protest is just something that goes on. It is just another thing that goes on in American politics. If the protest takes direct action and generates violence. People will decry it and will post a quote from Martin Luther King in regards to the nobility of peaceful protest. The system has simply co-opted protest. The way the system did that was not through capitalism, but through those non-economic factors that lie just beneath the American story.

Woke Capitalism

To the end that capitalism sucks up everything, Coffin has a point: somewhat. In recent years, brands have started to use big social movements to score big points with consumers. The most recent example that caused controversy, especially with the right, was the Gillette ad. Gillette (a brand owned by unilever) decided to advertise razors by promoting a fresh look at masculinity. Obviously, masculinity has been a hot topic. Thanks to the #metoo movement and the amount of scandal produced by people from Kevin Spacey to Harvey Weinstein, men are coming to account for their poor behavior. This is a deeply social problem. But instead of understanding how a brand might choose to insert itself into the conversation, Coffin ignores the importance of a major brand inserting itself into a social conversation and points the blame at capitalism. His view is simple: Gillette saw an opportunity to re-brand itself as a “woke brand.” They figured that they could gain new consumers by showing how much they identified with a social problem. Again, it is the same Coffin refrain: if there’s a problem, we can blame capitalism. Even when solving social problems, capitalism can’t help but invade the conversation. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Gillette may have inserted itself into the conversation but isn’t that sign of victory rather than a slight against capitalism? Doesn’t that show that the conversation has changed so much that even advertising is shifting in its ideology. Doesn’t it show that ideology itself is changing?

In the past, advertising has been a mirror of society. Looking at old ads tells us where society is moving and how things changed. Capital is not interested in anything that doesn’t make money and provide that frictionless return it seeks. If society weren’t changing, neither would society.

So…..Peter Coffin

Overall, Peter Coffin is doing yeoman’s work creating content and giving strong critiques of the capitalism and the Left while being a bastion of LeftTube. He’s educating people on the economic system and he’s exposing people to the idea that capitalism is not the advantage of the worker but to the owners. He’s exposing how this economic system affects our lives. For those that are educated about these things, he is a valuable resource. I would recommend watching his videos for sure. However, I wish he wouldn’t constantly conflate power with the economy and the economy with social issues. Its an American mistake and I think much can be done to change that perception. If he could expand his view beyond capitalism and to the great divides beyond money, there would be even more to be learned.