Tim Pool

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Tim Pool with orthographic view turned off.
Like and subscribe
YouTube
Icon YT bullshit.png
Up next
Tim "socially liberal" Pool at dinner with Brittany Pettibone, James Allsup, and Baked Alaska, surrounded by men making the OK sign[1]
β€œβ€some 4chan troll: instead of saying the n-word let's do, idk, the πŸ“Ž emoji
anyone else: that's stupid
tim pool: *bouncing up and down, pointing* you fell for it! you fools! once again the left epic fails by reacting at all, in any way, to anything!
β€”Shaun[2]
β€œβ€I like owning guns
Why should I lose my guns?
β€”Pool, the gun nut[3]

Tim Pool (1986–) is an American far-right conspiracy theorist, grifter, and YouTube commentator and former Vice News reporter who reads other people's tweets and news articles out loud for a living. He describes himself as a "social liberal" and "left-libertarian" who "support(ed) Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Yang, and Tulsi Gabbard".[4] Despite this, his content is composed almost exclusively of rebuttal-free alt-right talking points. He is basically one of those "centrists" who somehow always agree with the American Right on most, if not all, issues. Pool first gained notoriety reporting from the front lines of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Early Life[edit]

Pool was born in Chicago attending a Catholic school leaving school as a teenager without qualifications.

Scope[edit]

Pool's YouTube channels "Tim Pool" and "Timcast" have millions of subscribers and hundreds of millions of views,[5][6] and his Twitter account has 1.3 million followers.[7]

On November 2019, Pool reported that Facebook suspended his channel. He said that "Facebook Has SUSPENDED Me For Reporting on CIA Whistleblower Calling It 'Crime Activity.'"[8]

Clickbait content[edit]

Some clickbait June 2019 headlines of Tim Pool's "socially liberal" content:

  • "Feminists Outraged That The Line To The Mens Bathroom Is Shorter"[9]
  • "Regulation Will END Censorship Online And Of Course Leftists Complain"[10]
  • "Brett Kavanaugh Has Proven Himself Against The Leftist Outage [sic] Mob"[11]
  • "Democrats And Far Leftists Are Tearing Each Other Apart, But Its [sic] Really Weird"[12]
  • "Fake News Leftist Just Slipped Up Exposing Smear Campaign"[13]
  • "Hacker Conference Has Bent The Knee To Leftist Outrage Mob"[14]
  • "Obama Voter Explains Why He SWITCHED To The Republicans And Is Running For Congress, SLAMS Democrats (DEBUNKED)"[15]

Some other fun headlines:

  • "The Senate Is Being Briefed On UFOs, Its Time The Truth Came Out"[16]
  • "Mainstream Media Smears Independent Outlet For Not Hating Trump Enough" (citing the Epoch Times)[17]

For 3 months prior, Pool did not release a video critical of any Republican, whose activities included supporting a ban on flag burning and supporting a war with Iran.

Methods[edit]

Pool has a tendency to agree at length with a right-wing talking point, then pivot to a softball question about "concerns". Examples:

  • "So, I was here just over a month ago, and I was here in France for about one week, and in that week, there were six different terror attacks, two of which were anti-capitalist, but four of which were Islamic terror. … We're seeing more instances where people come out, they yell, and they'll stab somebody, commit these crimes. So, I guess, is it, is immigration really the problem, or are you more concerned with this specific culture?"[18]
  • "Look, as far as I'm concerned, if someone who is white feels like people are saying things that are anti-white, sure, you're allowed to feel however you want, and I really don't see the problem with that. However, calling you a white supremacist discredits you beyond just your concerns about what people are saying about white people. [No question asked][18]

Views[edit]

In a softball interview with Brittany Pettibone, Pool repeated numerous right-wing talking points. For example, he waffled on supporting the wall: "it's fair to say that Trump, it's one of the issues he has called out, building the wall specifically will start to address, as many people believe, uh, on the right, it will address a lot of these issues". However, because he suggested that Islam is not inherently violent, the video has a 3:1 like:dislike ratio and numerous far-right comments from his audience.[18]

Pool claims that "If you believe in white privilege you are by definition a racist".[19] To defend this truly intellectual take, Pool clarified that "Racism is defined as thinking one race is superior[.] Superior means higher in status or rank[.] White privilege assume[s] white people hold a higher status in the world[.]"[20] As should be obvious, "racism" is the belief that "X race innately holds, or should hold, a higher status in the world," rather than the recognition that whatever status they currently hold is due to social or economic conditions, which is what white privilege describes. To close his take, Pool stated that "Shoes tell you more about privilege than race does."[21]

In an interview with Steven Crowder on The Blaze, Pool claimed social media has a liberal bias.[22] Pool believes that Wikipedia maliciously mislabeled Brittany Pettibone as a white nationalist.[18]

Tim Pool supports the politics of Donald Trump.[23] During the 2021 U.S. coup attempt, Pool encouraged Trump's supporters to arrive in DC, saying that this could be Trump's "last stand".[24]

Pool is incredibly obsessed with the idea of the US being in a second Civil War, to the point where 42 of the titles for his 2022 Tim Pool Daily Show podcast reference an upcoming "Civil War". Usually this hyperbole is referenced to a political event of the day, no matter how minor. In particular, Pool will often use the "civil war" hyperbole when referencing the legal troubles of Donald Trump and some of the more corrupt members of his administration.[25][26]

Useful idiot[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Useful idiot

In 2024, Pool was mentioned in a US Justice Department indictment against a Russian front company Tenet Media. He was one of six right-wing commentators, along with Lauren Southern, Dave Rubin, Tayler Hansen, Matt Christiansen and Benny Johnson,Wikipedia who received contracts to produce content for the company.[27][28][29] Tenet Media is purportedly a project of YouTube blogger Lauren Chen and her husband Liam Donovan. Chen was fired by her other employer, Blaze TV, shortly after the revelation of her connection to Tenet.[27]

Classic moments[edit]

  • Pool claimed that the media "took the bait" on the 4chan fashtag hoax. They didn't.[30]
  • Pool jumped to support Jacob Wohl's allegation that Robert Mueller had raped Carolyne Cass.[31] Said allegation was a spectacular hoax.[32]
  • On 5 November 2018, Pool claimed Republicans would retain a House majority, because the "polls are wrong".[33] He was wrong.
  • Discussing the NPVIC,Wikipedia Tim "liberal btw" Pool stated that "one of the problems with the Democrats and many people on the left, and it's true for everybody, but something I've seen repeatedly among left-wing activists and the far-left, is that they don't think about what the result will actually be". Pool also claims that, because (thus far) all NPVIC signatories are blue states, "this opens the door for California to give 55 electoral votes to a Republican should they win the popular vote. This plan will not help Democrats, it will only help Republicans."[34] In reality, the NPVIC only goes into effect once member states have 270 votes (an absolute majority) to avoid this exact scenario, because its designers weren't fucking idiots.
  • In response to a joke tweet by a joke Twitter account,[35] Pool created a video titled "Socialist OUTRAGED Says Capitalism Is BAD Because We Don't All Own Factories"[36]
  • Despite interviewing far-right personalities for two years, Pool doesn't know what the Great Replacement conspiracy theory is[37]
  • Pool got owned by the /r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM subreddit.[38]
  • Pool openly praised Adolf Hitler as "a certain World War Two-era hero".[39] He later edited this comment out of his video.[40]
  • Pool admits that Alex Jones fans and the mentally ill have a lot in common[41]
  • Pool can't decide if social justice is good or not[42]
  • Pool touts his support of public healthcare in an attempt to garner himself some lefty street cred and duck charges of being a right-winger. Then, attacks AOC's green new deal because it includes public health care.[43]
  • Pool can't decide if Amazon pays taxes[44]
  • Pool doesn't understand how box plots or percentiles work and fails to understand what graphs are telling him.[45]
  • He can't even quote his "sources" on President Trump's aggregate poll ratings for impeachment and then fails to bring up the correct favorability rating when debating Sam Seder.[46]
  • After Steven Crowder was demonetized following repeated racist and homophobic statements towards Vox's Carlos Maza, Pool white-knighted for Crowder on his channel by describing the problem as Crowder saying "mean things" and exaggerating Maza's response.[47]
  • During the COVID-19 pandemic, after Trump suggested injecting disinfectants like bleach as a treatment[48], Tim assumed the story was "fake news".[49][50]
  • During the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuring lockdowns, Tim, on numerous occasions and in several of his videos, accused the lockdowns of being an ineffective police state that would make no difference in stopping the spread of the disease (despite overwhelming evidence of the contrary) while supporting the "Reopen America" protests and even made a tweet calling people hypocrites for supporting the Occupy protests but opposing the Reopen America protests.[51] Even though, you know, the Occupy protests didn't spread a deadly disease.
  • Pool thinks that police brutality can be justified as long as it's against protests that he doesn't approve of.[52][53]
  • Pool made a few videos saying that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could lose her congressional seat's primary election.[54][55] A few weeks later, he made a video saying the same thing about Ilhan Omar.[56] They both ended up winning their primaries in a landslide.
  • In May of 2020, Pool showed that he didn't understand what "per capita" meant and became upset as several Twitter users calmly explained it to him.[57]
  • Leading up to the 2020 US presidential election, Pool stated on countless occasions that Trump was going to win the election, sometimes even going so far as to claim that he would win in a possible 49-state or even 50 state landslide.[58] Needless to say, this didn't happen.
  • Pool blames everyone else for his lack of a sex life.[59]
  • Pool stated in a debate with Sam Seder that utilitarianism is bad because supervillains in movies were utilitarians.[60]
  • Pool defended videos promoting disinformation about using hydroxychloroquine as a treatent for COVID-19 from Stella Immanuel, a religious nutcase.[61][62]
  • Pool claimed that he could not communicate using teleconferencing software to debate people but did so with Ben Shapiro.[63][64] When Vaush took up the offer regardless and traveled to Pool's studio to debate, he did not have access to a computer to verify claims or support his arguments while Pool did.[65]
  • After Trump lost the 2020 election, Pool, like many other Trump supporters, started shouting accusations of voter fraud.
  • Pool thought that people are too wealthy and are becoming leftists out of boredom. Then, he called breadtuber Cody Johnston a Nazi for sharing a photo of him with actual Nazis.[66]
  • Pool thinks critical race theory is leading to the downfall of the west but couldn't even define it.[67]
  • Pool believes that Squid Game, a show that its own creator described as a critique for capitalism, is actually a critique of communism.[68]
  • In late October 2021, Pool attended a maskless event at a local bar and grill, where Pool's producer gave a much-applauded shout-out to people who refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Shortly after that event, the unvaccinated Pool, along with several members of his production company, contracted a bad case of COVID-19. Naturally, one of Pool's responses to "the worst experience" he ever had with an illness was to reach out to noted broscience woo pusher Joe Rogan for treatment advice.[69]
  • In August 2022 claimed Biden bowed to Xi Jinping and called it the right thing.[70]
  • In August 2022, The Daily Beast found that Pool's news site was riddled with plagiarism.[71] Ironically enough, Timcast.com copied entire paragraphs from the very same mainstream media outlets Pool rails against.
  • Pool responded to the November 2022 Colorado Springs nightclub shootingWikipedia by blaming the victim. In a series of online tweets and videos, Pool suggested that the club and the shooting victims were somehow to blame for the shooting by falsely accusing the venue of having a "groomingWikipedia event" and implying that the LGBTQ+ community was full of pedophiles.[72][73]
  • The perpetrator of the 2023 Allen, Texas outlet mall shootingWikipedia was a big fan of Pool's podcast.[74] While there is no evidence that Pool directly inspired the shooter's radicalization,[75] the association seemed to make Pool uncomfortable enough to call the shooter's pro-Nazi online footprint a "PSYOP" and blame mass shootings on "multiculturalism".[76]
  • Pool is also pro-theocracy. [77]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Dinner with these guys. 😁, Brittany Pettibone, Twitter
  2. ↑ some 4chan troll: instead of saying the n-word let's do, idk, the πŸ“Ž emoji anyone else: that's stupid tim pool: *bouncing up and down, pointing* you fell for it! you fools! once again the left epic fails by reacting at all, in any way, to anything!, Shaun, Twitter
  3. ↑ like owning guns Why should I lose my guns? by Tim Pool (6:38 PM Β· May 28, 2022) Twitter (archived from 29 May 2022 00:00:54 UTC).
  4. ↑ I'm a social liberal. I believe in opposing authoritarianism I support LBTQIA+ rights I support a public option I support environmental regulations I am pro-choice I support(ed) Bernie Sanders I agree with most of Ocasio-Cortez's Campaign I am on this list for some reason., Tim Pool, Twitter
  5. ↑ "Tim Pool"[a w], YouTube
  6. ↑ "Timcast"[a w], YouTube
  7. ↑ "Tim Pool @TimCast"[a w], Twitter
  8. ↑ https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/timcast/tim-pool-daily-show/e/65186085
  9. ↑ "Feminists Outraged That The Line To The Mens Bathroom Is Shorter"[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  10. ↑ "Regulation Will END Censorship Online And Of Course Leftists Complain"[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  11. ↑ "Brett Kavanaugh Has Proven Himself Against The Leftist Outage Mob"[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  12. ↑ "Democrats And Far Leftists Are Tearing Each Other Apart, But Its Really Weird"[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  13. ↑ "Fake News Leftist Just Slipped Up Exposing Smear Campaign"[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  14. ↑ "Hacker Conference Has Bent The Knee To Leftist Outrage Mob"[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  15. ↑ "Caught Lying? Tim Pool's "Obama Voter Turned Republican" Video Doesn't Add Up. Timcast Exposed!"[a w], Tim Pool Exposed, YouTube
  16. ↑ "The Senate Is Being Briefed On UFOs, Its Time The Truth Came Out"[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  17. ↑ "Mainstream Media Smears Independent Outlet For Not Hating Trump Enough"[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 "AMERICAN TRUMP SUPPORTER IN FRANCE, MEETING BRITTANY PETTIBONE"[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube. See here for wall quote. See here for Wikipedia quote.
  19. ↑ If you believe in white privilege you are by definition a racist suΒ·peΒ·riΒ·or /sΙ™ΛˆpirΔ“Ι™r/ adjective 1. higher in rank, status, or quality[a w], Tim Pool, Twitter
  20. ↑ Racism is defined as thinking one race is superior Superior means higher in status or rank White privilege assume white people hold a higher status in the world[a w], Tim Pool, Twitter
  21. ↑ Shoes tell you more about privilege than race does. Probably too complicated to hash out on twitter though But my point was mostly a semantic jab and only half serious[a w], Tim Pool, Twitter
  22. ↑ Ep 496 | Tim Pool Uncut: Social Media's Liberal Bias | Louder with Crowder
  23. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G62oPzl-FTs
  24. ↑ "β€˜Red wedding’: Video shows far-right promoting plans for β€˜wild’ protest after Trump tweet, Jan 6 hearing told" by Eric Garcia, Independent, 2022 July 12
  25. ↑ Tim Pool Daily Show Episode List, 2022
  26. ↑ "The road to civil war is paved with Tim Pool's clickbait" by Jay Mackenzie, Did Nothing Wrong, 2022 September 9
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 DOJ alleges Russia funded US media company linked to right-wing social media stars by Zachary Cohen et al. (September 5, 2024) CNN.
  28. ↑ Well-known right-wing influencers duped to work for covert Russian operation, U.S. prosecutors say (Sep 5, 2024 10:24 AM EDT) PBS.
  29. ↑ Hadas Gold, How some of the biggest right-wing social media stars became unwitting mouthpieces of Russian propaganda. CNN, 12 September 2024.
  30. ↑ Media Takes 4Chan Bait, Runs Hashtag Hoax Story[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  31. ↑ https://archive.fo/jnC8b
  32. ↑ This is how Jacob Wohl created a sexual harassment accusation against Robert Mueller, Gus Garcia-Roberts and Christal Hayes, USA Today
  33. ↑ Republicans Will Win Midterms, Polls Are Wrong[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  34. ↑ Democrats Move To Bypass Electoral College, This Is A HUGE Mistake[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  35. ↑ dudes be like "i love capitalism" like okay wheres your factory? wheres your capital? you dont even own your car, Comrade Valentina, Twitter
  36. ↑ Socialist OUTRAGED Says Capitalism Is BAD Because We Don't All Own Factories[a w], Tim Pool, YouTube
  37. ↑ Tim, it's extremely weird that you're a journalist who talks to and about "white identitarian" movements and the contents of the Christchurch shooter's manifesto, which was literally called The Great Replacement, yet you seem to not know what the "Great Replacement" theory is., Cody Johnton, Twitter
  38. ↑ Tim Pool, renowned centrist, missing the point of this sub., Reddit
  39. ↑ https://streamable.com/gs1o3
  40. ↑ You can clearly see the edit at around 18:28.
  41. ↑ https://blather.io/fallacies/tim-pool-defending-alex-jones-55
  42. ↑ https://blather.io/fallacies/tim-pool-cant-make-up-his-mind-about-social-justice-668
  43. ↑ https://blather.io/fallacies/813
  44. ↑ https://blather.io/fallacies/tim-pool-cant-decide-if-he-wants-to-help-amazon-680
  45. ↑ https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1124804639562584066
  46. ↑ https://twitter.com/RationalDis/status/1185754353308712963
  47. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF4JsPT7YJw
  48. ↑ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-disinfectants-covid-19/
  49. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRdybiEpIjg
  50. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p53kPyooh0s
  51. ↑ https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1257011041520816135
  52. ↑ https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1268388211086278656
  53. ↑ https://twitter.com/RationalDis/status/1284151003999350791
  54. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tghpI40r5vg
  55. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCfuAdGs1cY
  56. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsnKSzob2Yw
  57. ↑ https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1258770475427213315
  58. ↑ https://twitter.com/TimPoolClips/status/1325191294734331906
  59. ↑ https://twitter.com/CopingMAGA/status/1326709737979719682
  60. ↑ https://youtu.be/3pvNDpuWs_M?t=310
  61. ↑ https://twitter.com/hasanthehun/status/1288541042040401920
  62. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Immanuel#COVID-19_misinformation
  63. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ0dPvOS6y8
  64. ↑ https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1314765669825761280
  65. ↑ https://youtu.be/V3TadmWxnOg?t=249
  66. ↑ https://twitter.com/cons_owned/status/1331344008942063618
  67. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bNNBnQn3K0&ab_channel=TheSerfTimes
  68. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSNiGrO5V8c
  69. ↑ "Tim Pool Caught COVIDβ€”and Joe Rogan Offered to Pay His Medical Bills" by Robert Silverman, Daily Beast, 2021 November 4
  70. ↑ In August 2022 claimed Biden bowed to Xi Jinping and called it the right thing.
  71. ↑ https://www.thedailybeast.com/tim-pools-news-site-timcastcom-plagiarized-from-the-mainstream-media-he-claims-to-hate
  72. ↑ "YouTuber Tim Pool responds to Club Q shooting by using β€œgroomer” slur, accusing LGBTQ communities of harming children" by John Knefel, Media Matters, 2022 November 23
  73. ↑ "Right-wing influencers and media double down on anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in the wake of the Colorado shooting" by Ben Goggin and Kat Tenbarge, NBC News, 2022 November 23
  74. ↑ "Why some people are spreading false rumours about the Texas gunman" by Shayan Sardarizadeh and Mike Wendling, BBC, 2023 May 9
  75. ↑ "The Texas Mall Shooter’s Radicalization Is No Surprise" by Lance of the Serfs, Daily Beast, 2023 May 9
  76. ↑ "Tim Pool calls the Allen, Texas, shooter's pro-Nazi online footprint a β€œPSYOP” and blames mass shootings on β€œmulticulturalism”" by Media Matters, 2023 May 9
  77. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1b4r6h1/tim_pool_with_a_great_take_as_always/?sort=new