Thunderf00t
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Following the censorship of South Park for depicting the prophet Muhammad (does depicting him in a bear suit even count? For instance look at this abstract and interpretive depiction of the prophet Muhammad: :-D) Thunderf00t made several videos critical of Islam. This is nothing new, as he's often gone after Muslims just as much as evangelical Christians. His initial video, since widely mirrored, was pulled down by a [[DMCA]] claim by Viacom, for its brief use of a South Park image to demonstrate the point. He also received what can ''only'' be interpreted as a death threat from a supposed "moderate" Muslim - later claimed by the poster as a "[[quote mine]]", taking out the context of his interpretation of Thunderf00t's video (which he took as calling for genocide, thus making the comment about sending Thunderf00t to "the God you wish you knew" to be a declaration of self-defense).<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJwRCv9g88 Thunderf00t - 'Death Threats' from 'moderate Muslims']</ref> | Following the censorship of South Park for depicting the prophet Muhammad (does depicting him in a bear suit even count? For instance look at this abstract and interpretive depiction of the prophet Muhammad: :-D) Thunderf00t made several videos critical of Islam. This is nothing new, as he's often gone after Muslims just as much as evangelical Christians. His initial video, since widely mirrored, was pulled down by a [[DMCA]] claim by Viacom, for its brief use of a South Park image to demonstrate the point. He also received what can ''only'' be interpreted as a death threat from a supposed "moderate" Muslim - later claimed by the poster as a "[[quote mine]]", taking out the context of his interpretation of Thunderf00t's video (which he took as calling for genocide, thus making the comment about sending Thunderf00t to "the God you wish you knew" to be a declaration of self-defense).<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJwRCv9g88 Thunderf00t - 'Death Threats' from 'moderate Muslims']</ref> | ||
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| + | Thunderf00t has been asked to make a clarification video condemning genocide not only by Dawahfilms, but also by Christians such as owchywawa <ref>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcqofOm2IWc</ref>, and even atheists such as riseofatheism <ref>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVRR1C4X_1w</ref>. He has yet to make any such video. | ||
==PEARL== | ==PEARL== | ||
Revision as of 20:41, 18 May 2010
The Internet entity known as Thunderf00t is a Youtube vlogger, well known for his Why Do People Laugh At Creationists?[1] series and his various exchanges with other "vloggers".
Contents |
Activities
Why Do People Laugh At Creationists
Thunderf00t's longest running series of 32 videos have, between them, gathered several million views. Each episode usually takes one creationist point proposed by one of their cranks, either well-known or not well known, and refutes them fully. These are released "copyright free for educational purposes".
VenomFangX
VenomFangX, dubbed "Poster-boy for Creationist Stupidity" or "PCS", had a long running feud with Thunderf00t. PCS has appeared several times in the Why Do People Laugh At Creationists? series. For example, one of PCS's videos proclaims that a global flood could have caused the Grand Canyon to form "in about five minutes", Thunderf00t then spends time refuting this, demonstrating what solubility the granite around the area would have to be (more soluble than caster sugar) and the speed that water would have to travel (five times the speed of sound) to make that claim viable. Thunderf00t has also repeatedly called out PCS regarding his misuse of donations.
The feud had two major peaks following VenomFangX making false DMCA claims against videos by his detractors, causing them to be removed by YouTube. Because the allegations against the videos and their creators were false, they were quickly mirrored and replaced, leaving VenomFangX open to prosecution. The first major incident happened in October 2008 when VenomFangX was forced to apologise to the internet for the false claims made against Thunderf00t. In late 2009, similar claims were made against a YouTube user named dprjones, who, given his previous record, would not accept a simple apology. The incident climaxed with dprjones, Thunderf00t and a few others being involved with VenfomFangX (now dropping the handle and going under his IRL name Shaun) and his parents to get him actual psychological help. A line was drawn under the incident in mid-late Januray 2010 and VenomFangX has not been heard from or mentioned since.
HowTheWorldWorks
His spat with HowTheWorldWorks is his second most prominent YouTube based argument (and not really even a close second to the VenomFangX saga). It was, for the most part, one of the more boring exchanges but did result in Thunderf00t calling out HowTheWorldWorks for being actively deceitful with the identity and number of his subscribers. Namely that many of HTWW's subscribers appear to be clear sock puppets:
- HTWW hides his subscribers list, but one of the other channels the socks subscribe to didn't until it was brought up by other vloggers (it was while these lists were public that further information and evidence of sockpuppetry was acquired).
- The "subscribers" have names like Sock55, or pseudonym2 and so on.
- They all subscribe to nothing but the same 5 channels.
- These subscriptions all came from otherwise dormant channels.
- The subscriptions all occurred within the same time-frame.
- When the "sockpuppets" spoke out to defend themselves as real, they all had exactly the same mannerisms as HTWW, such as excessive use of the word "genius" and the general use of educated terms as pejoratives.
Ray Comfort
More recently, Thunderf00t started branching out of mere YouTube based creationist bashing and into religion, atheism, philosophy and politics. In early 2009 he challenged known creationist and evangelist Ray Comfort (yes, Bananaman himself) to "a discussion" on their views. This was prompted by the knowledge that Comfort has often said he'd like to challenge prominent atheists; while Thunderf00t is no Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, he does have several times more subscribers than Comfort's Way of the Master channel. Thunderf00t first made the invitation to Comfort privately via email asking for a civil discourse on their views, but it was bounced back as the contact address wasn't for Comfort himself. The invitation then was made publicly on Comfort's blog where it was initially declined (leading to the "pointless speculation about motives" that Thunderf00t was trying to avoid by sending the first invitation privately). Following this Ray finally accepted, on the condition that Thunderf00t pay $100,000 to Richard Dawkins but this condition was eventually dropped and the fight discussion was on.[2]
Most viewers thought they'd see a debate where Comfort was systematically destroyed and wanted to "see some blood", they were disappointed when it turned out that Thunderf00t is actually quite calm (bar the stuttering due to being very new on the live debate circuit compared to Comfort) and reasoned in a debate. Notably, he managed to make Comfort very uncomfortable with his "all morality comes from the Bible" stance by asking "what if the Bible said paedophillia is good?". Although, to shamelessly quote mine the interview, Comfort did state that "paedophillia makes a lot of people very happy", which is fun.
Richard Dawkins
Towards the end of 2009, Thunderf00t managed to get an interview/discussion with Richard Dawkins. The four-part discussion, in Dawkin's own house it appears, was plagued by some bad sound, but generally audible to anyone who just turns their volume up. The themes throughout are evolutionary and memetic explanations for the origin of religion. Towards the end of the series, Thunderf00t goes into his reasons for taking on creationism in many of his videos.[3][4]
Of Muslims and South Park
Following the censorship of South Park for depicting the prophet Muhammad (does depicting him in a bear suit even count? For instance look at this abstract and interpretive depiction of the prophet Muhammad: :-D) Thunderf00t made several videos critical of Islam. This is nothing new, as he's often gone after Muslims just as much as evangelical Christians. His initial video, since widely mirrored, was pulled down by a DMCA claim by Viacom, for its brief use of a South Park image to demonstrate the point. He also received what can only be interpreted as a death threat from a supposed "moderate" Muslim - later claimed by the poster as a "quote mine", taking out the context of his interpretation of Thunderf00t's video (which he took as calling for genocide, thus making the comment about sending Thunderf00t to "the God you wish you knew" to be a declaration of self-defense).[5]
Thunderf00t has been asked to make a clarification video condemning genocide not only by Dawahfilms, but also by Christians such as owchywawa [6], and even atheists such as riseofatheism [7]. He has yet to make any such video.
PEARL
PEARL is Thunderf00t's personal re-branding of atheism. Not impressed with how "atheist" concentrates on the negative aspects, "PEARL" stands for Physical Evidence And Reasoned Logic, which are positive aspects of his personal belief. Essentially, PEARL is synonymous with strong rationalism, indicating that a PEARList doesn't believe in things that can't be observed and tested. It hasn't really caught on outside of a few Thunderf00t fan-circles, although it does frequently get brought up on websites and forums discussing atheism or rationalism.
Trivia
This list of miscellaneous information is endorsed by the RationalWiki Pub Quiz Team!
- TF is a fairly skilled glass blower.[8]
- He likes model airplanes, particularly flying them around, and crashing them into, the grand canyon.
- He was once declined a blow job from dprjones. The reason? "Not hairy enough", he prefers AronRa.[9]
Criticism
Besides being slightly under-prepared for the Ray Comfort debate and a few attacks on his personal, beardy appearance, Thunderf00t is often criticised for overstepping certain boundaries. Some comments below his videos suggest he should stay out of politics - as he ventured into a lot of Sarah Palin bashing around the time of the 2008 US election - and stick with the creationism. Sometimes the Thunderf00t channel gets a little "preachy" with respect to the beauty and wonder of the universe and how technology is fan-fucking-tastic-at-everything. Although there's nothing wrong with this exactly, it does get a little sickening after 20 minutes.
Although he doesn't answer to every critic personally, he makes a point about not censoring any comments or video replies to his channel as a lot of his adversaries are very much guilty of.
His videos in May 2010 that were critical of Islam made a comment regarding a "sleeping giant" - clearly a reference the quote credited to Isoroku Yamamoto. Some have interpreted this as condoning genocide of the Muslim world, particularly youtube user Dawahfilms, who was responsible for the alleged "death threat". Dawahfilms later apologized for letting his temper get the better of him, but has also asked that Thunderf00t make a clarification video in which he condemns genocide, later challenging Thunderf00t to yet another debate.[10]
See also
External links
- Thunderf00t's YouTube channel
- Thunderf00t on Twitter
- thunderf00t.com - was a scam (and a rather cheeky one) and not associated with Thunderf00t at all. Thunderf00t originally took the site with good humour as a fansite, but after at least three attempts at the site begging for donations, he threatened the site's owner (who was stupid enough to send an email with all his relevant contact details) with action and the site disappeared quickly.[11]
Footnotes
- ↑ ...Only Creationists Don't Know Why
- ↑ Invitation to Ray Comfort
- ↑ The Richard Dawkins - Thunderf00t discussion (part 1)
- ↑ Richard Dawkins and Thunderf00t (improved audio)
- ↑ Thunderf00t - 'Death Threats' from 'moderate Muslims'
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcqofOm2IWc
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVRR1C4X_1w
- ↑ Melting metal using only 'Body Power'
- ↑ Sorry thunderf00t - I have to say no!
- ↑ Dawahfilms - I'm Calling You Out, Thunderf00t (Debate)
- ↑ YouTube - Thunderf00t.com IS A SCAM