As I’m sure many readers can relate, I’ve recently been overwhelmed by clips from a viral Jubilee video titled “Can 1 Woke Teen Survive 20 Trump Supporters.” Highlight reels, direct uploads, and even fan edits of the participants have found their way onto my TikTok for-you page in the past few days.
The video, posted on YouTube on Sept. 20, has amassed 8.2 million views since it’s been uploaded. What’s more, its counterpart, “Can 25 Liberal College Students Outsmart 1 Conservative?” posted on Sept. 8 has racked up a total of 16.3 million views. These two videos, which are a part of Jubilee’s newest series “Surrounded,” have seemingly struck a chord with YouTube and social media users.
Not only is the “Surrounded” series a hit, but the Jubilee channel is generally a fan-favorite on YouTube. Jubilee has a staggering 9.15 million followers (me included) and earned 29 million views on their most popular video. While their videos range widely in topic, it’s their series that explores political, social, and personal debates and values that are worth taking a closer look at.
The Series: A Deeper Look
Jubilee’s series include “Middle Ground” inaugurated in 2017, “Spectrum” inaugurated in 2019, and the newly added “Surrounded” series. All 3 series bring in participants with different opinions on a given subject and have them interact with one another and discuss their similarities and differences in various formats.
Despite their difference in structure, all three series have similar missions which can be broken down into two major objectives: bringing people together despite their differences in opinion and modeling what real discourse looks like amongst “ordinary” people. The determination of whether Jubilee effectively accomplishes these goals is highly nuanced and subjective; as often, it is the biases viewers have formed before engaging with media or information that influence their evaluation of its integrity and effectiveness. This phenomenon is commonly known as confirmation bias.
The algorithm by which YouTube (and most other social media platforms) operates re-enforces this phenomenon, often recommending videos on the home and shorts pages based on those you’ve previously interacted with. Consequently, this increases the likelihood of users interacting with content (political and others alike) that speaks to their interests and values, a concept known as selective exposure. This increased exposure to bias-affirming political information can potentially create even more polarization on various political and social issues.
Jubilee’s True Impact
Therefore, we must ask the question, do content creators like the Jubilee channel hold any real value if they don’t necessarily accomplish unity or a degree of consensus? When trying to answer this question myself I reflected on the first-ever Jubilee video I watched: “Can Israelis and Palestinians See Eye to Eye.” Watching it at the age of 14 years old, I had little to no knowledge about the Israel-Palestine conflict and thus this video was my first real exposure to it. As I further explored the Jubilee channel, time and time again, I found myself learning about topics and events I hadn’t previously given much thought to.
Between the “Middle Ground,” “Spectrum,” and “Surrounded” series, Jubilee covers hundreds of topics that dominate current political and social discourse such as domestic and global politics, gender and sexuality, religion, health, and education. What’s more, they share opposing perspectives regarding each topic. It is this exposure to diverse political perspectives that provides a flame of hope in the face of the oftentimes bias-affirming algorithms of social media platforms.
Research indicates that exposure to and interaction with varied political and social opinions is associated with heightened cognition, increased efficiency, and higher voter turnout. Therefore, while some critics argue the Jubilee series fails to accomplish any real agenda, it is its mere function as a space for diverse opinions to be shared that makes its presence in the social media space so vital.
Considering YouTube is the second most-used social media platform in the world, with 81% of the entire adult population using the platform in the U.S. alone, content creators like Jubilee hold great power to share heterogeneous political and social perspectives with a wider audience than ever possible throughout most of modern human existence.
Therefore, while we may laugh at clips of Jubilee participants on our for you pages, finish one of their videos feeling re-affirmed in our beliefs, or still fail to agree with any opposing opinions, merely hearing different perspectives holds immeasurable value. Social media, if used properly, holds the power to help us become more critically thinking, informed citizens and voters, so why not take advantage of it?