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It was April of last year since I’ve last spoken about Left Twitch and how perpetuity of conflict–supercharged by fans lustful for drama and creators hungry for engagement–was not going to advance the medium beyond a glorified platform for heated debate between ideological opposites. Today, spurred by a wave of animosity thrown BadBunny’s way by Destiny’s orbiting cluster of viewers and content creators, I’ve come to realize that the problem is different altogether–it’s not only that the Left Twitch ecosystem is of the sort to see red where there’s none; they’ve also created an entire incentive structure around it that makes it seem as if indulging their worst instincts is the slingshot that may catapult them to Twitch’s summit, as purportedly evidenced by prior patterns in conservative political media.
To paint a full picture, conservative talk radio — perhaps the first iteration of such a format — hedged its bets on provocation and the violent stirring of ideological waters even when the benefits of such an approach did not always seem so obvious. Listeners then were satisfied because of what they perceived to be a crack in the post-Civil Rights era…
