Natalie Wynn

“Transcripts (including older videos no longer available on YouTube)”

“ContraPoints YouTube channel”

“The measure of fame that I have is kind of like micro fame, relative to a certain kind of community of people. It’s awful. It’s horrible. I wouldn’t wish fame on my worst enemy.”

“Isn't caring about other people also in our nature? I do think that most of what Nietzsche says about resentment accurately describes a very real thing but it's not the only thing. There is genuine care and love in this world, I've been told. I've heard rumors.”

“[About Friedrich Nietzsche] You know I think it's interesting that a person this pathetic can also be a genius whose name will never die. He's someone who had a lot of reason to be envious and self-pitying, but his philosophy couldn't be more against that, and as a person of pathetic experience myself, that is unironically kind of inspiring to me.”

“Cruelty generally cannot conceptualize itself as cruelty, and part of the reason for that is calling cruelty what it is takes the fun out of it. [...] Cruelty is only pleasurable as long as they're able to convince themselves it's something other than cruelty, "Justice served".”

“We have a psychological incentive to believe that people whom we envy are immoral monsters because then we get to label our hatred and violence towards them "justice".”

“Men often slut-shame because they want to control female sexuality. And by female sexuality, I do mean male sexuality. Because often what they're really struggling to control is their own desire.”

“To be a famous woman is to constantly have every part of your body and soul subjected to endless critique. You know, if you're one pound overweight they call you "fatty". If you're one pound underweight they say you have an eating disorder. And if you're exactly the right weight? They call you a fatty with an eating disorder!”

“I feel like trans culture is just so obsessed with reassuring ourselves that we’re valid, that we sometimes forget that the end goal of a political movement is not validity, it’s equality.”

“Some questions should be dissolved rather than solved. That's what Wittgenstein said. (That's right, we're dragging Ludwig into this!) Sometimes the only way to answer a question is to realize you're asking the wrong question.”

“So when you reduce bigotry to a caricature of pure hatred you obscure that bigotry is a deeply human problem. [...] I believe that understanding bigots is the best defense against becoming one yourself because when you dehumanize the villains you become unable to recognize the villain within.”

“Children, if I have to crawl off the goddamn floor on the morning of November 4th, brush aside the empty wine bottles and pick up my phone to discover that Caligula Jackson is President For Life; I am going to chew my way through the bathroom tile and I will not stop until I reach the gates of Hell. [...] Don't make me eat my bathroom tile, children. There's probably asbestos in that tile, because America's so great even the floor is made of poison.”

“I feel that retributive justice is still spiritually akin to revenge. It scratches the same emotional itch. It's basically revenge by proxy. If revenge is “wild justice” then retributive justice is domesticated revenge.”

“I really wish people would pay less attention to the tweets I spend 30 seconds writing and a little more attention to the video that I spent, you know, hundreds of hours making.”

“What about YouTubers? Which side of the revolution are we on? I’m just trying to figure out where I stand here, ‘cause if the revolution starts on Twitter, my head is definitely going in the basket, and then I’ll have no choice but to do the conservative talk show circuit, you know, like most people whose brains are detached from their bodies.”

“Why does Donald Trump’s apartment look like Liberace married a Turkmenistani dictator and moved into a Cheesecake Factory? Well, because he’s trying to send a message, maybe to the world, maybe to himself.”

“We say "Look, toxic masculinity is the reason you don't have room to express your feelings, and it's the reason you feel lonely and inadequate". So, while feminism tells women "You hate your body and you're constantly doubting yourself because society did this to you and needs to change", we kinda just tell men "You're lonely and suicidal because you're toxic. Stop it!" We tell them that they're broken without really telling them how to fix themselves.”

“Existential angst is often a disease of privilege. If you're actually being oppressed you have a struggle. You have something to fight for, and therefore a purpose, but for a lot of men their lack of purpose puts them in search of a struggle.”

“Do we have a theory on why people are gay? No. They just are. The only reason we even feel like we need a theory about trans people is that society is so unaccepting of us that it’s constantly demanding we justify our own reality.”