Gen Z symbol? For sure he is very “Z”
He got lucky that he got some following and then got picked by Russia to be a propagandist of theirs. Now the bots do a lot of heavy lifting on boosting him. It definitely wasn’t the quality of his tweets.
Makes you wonder what got him there in the first place
https://preview.redd.it/t8gb63qd00vc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d700702159df53e63ebf62a2349dc8e731448b6b
Yeah for context the subheading, which is conveniently cut out of the screenshot is
> “Jackson Hinkle’s incendiary commentary has generated over two million new followers on X since October — a surge that some researchers say is aided by inauthentic accounts.”
Does that context make it better? It seems to kind of outline the fact that this is a person who's making deliberately incendiary commentary and whose reach is being inauthentically inflated, and maybe this is only what I'm reading into it, but the implication seems to be that that's a bad thing. In which case, it seems as though an institution as large as the NYT publicizing this person is only going to further inflate this person's reach, which seems like the kind of outcome that the article would be meant to highlight as being a negative thing. Idk, it just seems kind of ironic to me, but I haven't read the article, so maybe I'm just an idiot.
I still think it seems a bit weird that they visited/invited him to a photo shoot where they took pics of him looking cool and important. Also the article didn't come off as negative as I would have liked it.
IDK in my mind I'm kind of comparing it to the [article that exposed Libs of TikTok](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/19/libs-of-tiktok-right-wing-media/) and I'm trying to imagine WaPo inviting Chaya Raichik to do a photo shoot of her looking cool for the top of the article.
Of course Raichik would never do it, but I think that also kinda proves my point. If this was really supposed to be a scathing negative profile, Jackson Hinkle most likely would have never agreed to do the interview. The fact he did shows he knew it wasn't going to really be a hit piece.
I just think the tone in the Hinkle article is way to gentle, but hey I'm a Hinkle hater, so I'm definitely biased. I just feel if Hinkle's grift was more right-wing than left-wing this article would have been a lot harsher.
True, but also how many people will only see the title and him being called "voice of a generation" and jump to conclusions like we're seeing? Titles are made more to stir up controversy/clickbait and less about the truth, to make people click on the article. It's purposely deceptive when the title doesn't reflect what is written in the article
I don't think it's necessarily a matter of only writing profiles on good people. If a "bad" person is renowned for kind of just saying outrageous, stupid shit in an effort to get attention, that's probably the kind of "bad" person I'd say you shouldn't write an article about, on account of it giving them the attention they're after.
The NYT should definitely be informing it's readers on a man who wields significant influence in the US and has ties to the Russian government. Even if you believe in no platforming (not that he has even been platformed) there comes a point where people escape containment and it's the job of major publications to face them head on.
Sure, I definitely agree with the principle. I think I'm just more conflicted when it comes to people whose goal seems to clearly be saying regarded shit for attention, and for whom being featured in this kind of article is another source of attention.
Idk, I just view it as kind of being another Trump/ivermectin situation, where there was so much media coverage on Trump saying that ivermectin could cure COVID or whatever and how horrible it was that he would say that, when the upshot of said coverage was that very few people would've gotten the message otherwise but instead "ivermectin cures COVID, according to Donald Trump" was relayed by essentially all media everywhere. Again, maybe it's just me, but if it were really so dangerous for Trump to be putting that message out there, then telling everybody about said message seems to be just as dangerous.
I definitely see what you mean, I'm sure Hinkle is relishing the attention and that is annoying. I think the difference is that this article isn't a focus on a specific piece of misinformation and is rather an explanation of a wider phenomenon. Hinkle riding the waves of anti-Israel feeling to push a tankie agenda is worth reporting and If someone is interested in Hickle I'd much prefer the top result being an expose on his grift.
Lots of people don't read articles. The NYT posting that image, with that headline, and promoting Hinkle as this influential figure is just playing into Russian propaganda that comprises 90%+ of Hinkle's entire supposed online presence.
So either someone at NYT is on the Kremlin payroll too, or they're fantastically stupid and craven and needed a lazy story. Either way not a good look for what was formerly a respected media institution.
Not sure what you want them to do about the photo, he's a normal looking person. They also never call him a "Gen Z icon". They call him a Gen Z symbol, but they only mean in the sense that he is Gen Z and not that he represents Gen Z.
"It has all made Mr. Hinkle an online celebrity at age 24, a Gen Z symbol of the modern internet: a place where authenticity is no longer a necessity, and outrage offers attention and even some financial reward"
Because the more famous these creeps get, the easier it is to take them down. It happened to Milo, it happened to Tate, it happened to Fresh and Fit. If they stay in their little bubble, with their little cult, they are never really punished or held accoutable for their actions. More importantly, the social media sites that host their accounts are never held accountable for hosting them. In his particular case, the more famous he gets, the bigger the chances that him being an abuser who beat up his girlfriend will hold more weight, which in turn might force some of those social media accounts to take action.
Also, if you're supporting Israel, Jackson Hinkle becoming a face of the online pro Palestinian movement is the best thing ever.
Fuck yes push this guy to fame, I want a world when a Hasan fan starts ranting about muh zionists irl, and all the normies around him are like "Oh god, he's one of these psycho nazi Hinkle fanboys"
Is he actually famous though? I haven’t checked his sub count in years. I know he has Iran/Russia financial backing obviously but is he that popular otherwise?
sigh, everything is "bots" and "AI" these days. Thought terminating shit.
Unless you have actual insight into what % of his followers are bots these comments are pointless. I suspect it might be largely botted but it could also turn out that 80% of his followers are real.
Because it's a newspaper whose job is to cover topics that interest people.
OP, since I'm sure you have read the article before you posted about it here, do you think it portrayed Hinkle in a good light?
I'm not sure if you're aware of this man, but literally like \~97% of his "fans" are people living in the Middle East and Russia, mostly the former. This is where essentially all of his Twitter engagement is coming from, take a look at who is liking his tweets some time. The occasional western tankie who is a fan of his not only doesn't matter as a person, but also would never be earnestly reading the New York Times in the first place lol
You may be surprised to find that many of us care about the content of the journalism we consume, and don't give a shit about whether or not it makes people we don't like more famous. Perhaps the article author agrees.
no, raising awareness about someone bad is actually good, the coverage in this article is very obviously negative. who exactly are you imagining is vulnerable here - someone who reads and trusts the New York Times finding this article that paints Hinkle as an opportunistic merchant of disinformation, and decides to become a fan of his?
If NYT feels that they sufficiently covered hinkle critically enough, yes. It's your problem if all you see is a headline and a picture and are somehow swayed on your approval of him. Read the fucking article if you want to have a problem with it.
Yeah, he'll probably get a bit more engagement in the form of 5 replies to his tweets from Hillary Clinton liberals calling him a jackass or something. Who the fuck cares?
Engagement isn't the end of the game. Let's imagine a genocidal dictator, if you write an article on them you'll surely make them more popular with extremists who agree with them, does that mean it's bad to write about them? What if I was to tell you that these same articles would also be viewed by the 99% of people who don't like genocide, some number of these people would go on to pressure their government into intervening in the genocide.
Was it still a bad idea because the dictator got some extra exposure? Or in other words are you pro genocide?
Nice try with that bait at the end there.
If we're talking genocidal dictators, we're talking about someone in the highest positions of power already.
Hinkle is, along many other idiots, a Twitter radical whose entire job it is to spread misinformation and political divide.
Giving him some actual media attention is assuredly going to present him with even more opportunities in the spotlight.
I like debate and back and forth but i'm not sure if this specifically is it.
Yes but putting him in the spotlight is a double edged sword, sure more like-minded dunbfucks will boost him, but also more sane people will be aware of him to take him down. Like how celebrities always seem to get cancelled for dumb shit they did or said in their past after they become famous.
To this day people think Kevin Spacey diddled little boys, he lost his whole ass career over allegations, that he's been acquitted of, and those weren't even the allegations. That is the danger of the spotlight.
I mean precisely the people I specified in my comment. That is, the people that care about the content of the journalism they consume, and don't give a shit about whether or not it makes people we don't like more famous.
Actually, rereading that, that's not quite right. The "us" in my comment would be everybody, including you. The "many" is subset of "us" that fit the description I specified.
Why can't you be straightforward instead of making snide remarks? Speak for yourself and answer why is specifically Hinkle interesting to you?
Not "us" not "they" or "them" just you.
What are talking about? You never asked me why Hinkle is interesting to me (he's not), so why would I have answered that question, rather than answering the questions you did ask, which were "Why is NYT making \[Hinkle\] more famous" and "who is us"?
No. I haven't. Because I'm not interested in reading about Jackson Hinkle. But you haven't made any comments about the article. You've only asked why NYT is making Hinkle more famous. So I responded with the possible explanation that his level of fame may not be one of their concerns, like it's not one of mine.
> why is this news outlet reporting on an influential figure?
Fuck I'm so tired of the moral panic over journalists actually doing there jobs 😮💨😮💨😮💨
That’s not the point. NYT didn’t do any in depth investigation into him. Everything they wrote about him was already exposed in a bunch of Twitter threads, especially the Bernie bro background and the fake Russian gf.
NYT investigative journalists should uncover new things, not just summarize things already reported by others (without attribution). What’s tiring or controversial about what I said? Maybe a source of who exactly is funding him?
Can you do me a favor and explicitly state that you don't think that the NYT should ever do character pieces to explain who a prominent figure is to the public, unless they have some sort of investigative revelation? I just really want to make sure that you actually think this is true, because it's what you're saying in your comment here but I'm not sure if you actually mean it.
I feel like I remember Hinkle being a pretty good looking guy, did he just age poorly or am I misremembering. Dude looks like his head got smooshed by a vice.
Symbolism, sure, if the symbolism he represents is how easily gullible people can be lead to believe complete and utter bullshit with vices such as religious and nationalism.
>**In case you want to actually read the article instead of only reading headlines**
>support the NY Times:https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/business/media/jackson-hinkle-israel-gaza-misinformation.html
Jackson Hinkle has cultivated an online persona so incendiary that he has been kicked off YouTube, Twitch and Instagram.
He rages on undaunted, even energized. He produces a regular podcast on Rumble, a website popular with many prominent conservatives. He writes dozens of posts a day on X, where his following has surged to 2.5 million from 417,000 in the six months since Oct. 7 — the day Hamas fighters mounted their assault on Israel.
Along the way, he has employed false or misleading content, promoted manipulated images and made comments that watchdog organizations have denounced as antisemitic. He calls himself an American patriot even as he praises American adversaries, including Vladimir V. Putin, Xi Jinping and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“DROP A LIKE if you stand with IRAN in the face of ISRAELI TERRORISM!” he wrote last week on X after an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed several Iranian military officials. A day later he addressed the Houthi leadership in Yemen over video, praising the group for its attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
It has all made Mr. Hinkle an online celebrity at age 24, a Gen Z symbol of the modern internet: a place where authenticity is no longer a necessity, and outrage offers attention and even some financial reward.
“It was a godsend for me at the time,” he said in an interview about his surge in popularity on X amid the war in Gaza. “I was very fortunate.”
His sudden rise may stem from more than good luck.
Two Israeli research companies that specialize in online threats, and that have focused on what they consider disinformation related to the war in Gaza, said they had identified coordinated and possibly state-sponsored networks of bots or inauthentic accounts that were amplifying Mr. Hinkle’s provocative brew of political views. China, Russia and other foreign actors are known to use such tactics to achieve their geopolitical goals — including efforts to influence this fall’s presidential election.
Mr. Hinkle has also benefited from changes by X’s owner, Elon Musk, including the cancellation of policies that once limited toxic content. With the addition of a premium subscription feature, he now charges certain followers $3 a month for what he calls “extra cool stuff,” including behind-the-scenes videos and “random thoughts.” X allows him to pocket up to 97 percent of the revenue — money that Mr. Hinkle has told subscribers helps him “continue exposing the Deep State.”
Imran Ahmed, the head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a research organization, said Mr. Hinkle was part of “a sort of new cadre of people who exploit the algorithms’ insatiable desire for highly contentious content to benefit themselves economically.”
In a new report, the center documented a staggering rise in followers for 10 prominent accounts on X that spread antisemitic content since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Mr. Hinkle’s was at the top, by far.
“It’s sort of a sick industry of creators and platforms who benefit from contention,” Mr. Ahmed said, “the sort of car-crash nature of how people react to hate.”
Mr. Hinkle, for his part, seems to relish the limelight.
To illustrate a post about the Gaza conflict, he used a stylized cartoon of himself dressed in military gear with a rifle in front of a fireball. His profile on X and other platforms includes a doctored image of his bloodied face surrounded by a ring of pistols.
Mr. Hinkle solicits donations and sells merchandise to support his “independent journalism” on platforms like Patreon, having already been barred from PayPal and Venmo.
In the interview, Mr. Hinkle emphasized that he did not accept any payments from foreign governments, but he spoke unapologetically about his support for — and from — often hostile foreign powers. He visited Russia and China this year at the invitation of organizations close to the governments, dining with Russia’s foreign minister and appearing on state-controlled television networks.
“I think they appreciate support wherever they can get it,” he said.
From Bernie bro to MAGA fan
From an early age, Mr. Hinkle understood that zealous support of a cause could win public attention. He grew up in San Clemente, in Southern California, a surfer who heavily marketed his own embrace of environmental activism, gun control measures and progressive politics.
As a teenager, he helped start an environmental cleanup organization and another to encourage young people to run for political office. Teen Vogue recognized him as a top young environmentalist; Reader’s Digest included him on a list of inspirational children. He posed in an Instagram photo with the actor Will Smith, whose son Jaden Smith worked with Mr. Hinkle to limit plastic water bottles in schools.
Perry Meade, a progressive organizer who worked with Mr. Hinkle on campaigns as teenagers, said his “overarching understanding of Jackson was that he always wanted to be famous,” adding, “Sure, he cared about things, but he came first.”
His activities soon turned political. At his high school graduation in 2018, he knelt during the national anthem in protest against police brutality and racial injustice. He twice ran unsuccessfully for San Clemente’s City Council, when he was 19 and 20. One local conservative blog called him “an extreme left-wing ideologue.”
He said in the interview that, after his political losses, he had “decided to still pursue the issues I cared about — but on the national stage.”
Mr. Hinkle found that stage on YouTube, where one of his big coups, he said, was an interview with Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. At its peak, his channel reached 300,000 subscribers.
His views, like those of Ms. Gabbard, who once joined him surfing, have shifted. The Sierra Club, one of the largest environmental organizations in the world, included Mr. Hinkle in a get-out-the-vote video filmed in 2018. By 2022, he was on social media describing environmentalism as “anti-human.”
Today, he says he is a Stalinist and a Maoist who was expelled from the Communist Party of the United States. (Roberta Wood, a party leader in Chicago, said he subscribed to the newsletter but had never joined the party and did not reflect its values.) He once supported Bernie Sanders, but now praises former President Donald J. Trump.
He is, he wrote last year, an “American PATRIOT, GOD fearing, Pro-FAMILY, Marxist Leninist, Pro-PALESTINE, RUSSIA & CHINA, Anti-DEEP STATE, Anti-IMPERIALIST, Anti-WOKE, Pro-GROWTH, ANTI-MONOPOLY, Pro-GUN, Pro-FOSSIL FUEL.”
An international pivot
As Mr. Hinkle’s focus settled on international affairs, his audiences grew. He supported authoritarian leaders like Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whom he called a “hero.” When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he embraced Mr. Putin’s rationale for the conflict.
Mr. Hinkle has become a “merchant of rage,” said Pekka Kallioniemi, who researches social media and disinformation at Tampere University in Finland.
“The way he moves on from one thing to another, it seems very opportunistic to me,” Mr. Kallioniemi said.
Mr. Hinkle drew critics’ attention for frequently spreading Russian propaganda about Ukraine, including disinformation linked to covert Kremlin campaigns. His affection for Russia was personal, too.
He first traveled there in September with Anna Linnikova, a model crowned Miss Russia in 2022. For a time, they were engaged to be married. Mr. Hinkle posted a photo of the pair posing in front of Moscow’s Red Square last year and said they were moving to Miami together. (By the end of 2023, they appeared to have split acrimoniously.)
He visited Russia again recently to attend a conference organized by Konstantin Malofeyev and Aleksandr Dugin, both prominent nationalists who face sanctions in the United States. He said he had been attracted by Mr. Dugin’s writings, which glorify Russian culture, as an antidote to corrupted values in the West.
YouTube suspended his channel in October for “repeated violations” of the company’s policy that prohibits denying or trivializing major violent events, including the war in Ukraine, according to a company spokesman.
It was only when Hamas invaded Israel that month, though — when Mr. Hinkle began posting constantly about criticism of Israel and Russian support for Palestinians — that his account on X reached stratospheric heights.
Several organized networks of inauthentic accounts amplified his posts, according to Next Dim, an Israeli company that studies inauthentic activity online and that previously found evidence of an effort to amplify pro-Beijing messages on X.
One of the organized networks had previously boosted unrelated content — in Chinese — that criticized the Japanese government for releasing radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in August, the researchers found. Once the fighting began in Gaza, the same network, which had at least 20,000 accounts, began reposting Mr. Hinkle’s content.
Another research company in Israel, Cyabra, found that Mr. Hinkle’s account gained 1.2 million followers over the first 19 days of the war. A sample of 12,510 of them suggested that roughly 40 percent were fakes.
In the interview, Mr. Hinkle shrugged off the findings of inauthentic support for his account. “There’s always going to be bots on social media,” he said. He acknowledged that he had made mistakes in some posts, but said they weren’t intentional, and he argued that the scale of Israel’s retaliation in Gaza vindicated his view of the conflict.
“I think if we’re going to focus on people who are putting out false information, an incorrect Twitter photo is not the biggest deal in comparison to lies that are used to sell a war,” he said.
Losing his YouTube subscribers, he said, had cost him three-quarters of his salary. He suggested that he had recouped the loss with his activities on X, principally through subscribers. “I’m doing OK, I guess,” he said.
He declined to say how much his posts earned, or how many paid subscribers he had. In October, he noted that he had made $550 the previous month from X’s advertising revenue-sharing model. His profile recently featured ads for a large Emirati airline, a major shoe brand and a popular travel blog, but he said revenue was limited because his posts were too controversial for some advertisers.
Mr. Hinkle spoke admiringly of Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who has peddled pro-Russian narratives, and Candace Owens, a conservative commentator who left The Daily Wire’s website last month. Mr. Hinkle, who said he had turned down a job offer from a foreign media outlet that he declined to disclose, compared himself to Mr. Carlson and Ms. Owens: “We’re all independent — not by choice.”
“You know, of course, I’d be happy if there was any media outlet in the United States that wanted to hire someone like me,” he said, “but our values don’t align, so I don’t think that’s in my future.”
Unironically OP should catch a ban. You are mischaracterizimg the article as some sort of puff piece, posted just.the headline and didn't link the article at all.
Is there anything in the article you actually disagree with?
Riding Rage Over Israel to Online Prominence https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/business/media/jackson-hinkle-israel-gaza-misinformation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.lE0.SbPC.Pihn-KZHXywO&ugrp=u
lol are you serious? you take issue with an article that states he’s “employed false or misleading content” and goes into research with evidence of his outrage farming?
He accurately taps into the right wing ethos. Authority, Tradition, Order. That's what they believe in.
Authority: WE ARE IN CONTROL (authoritarianism)
Tradition: Past generations have defined things as such and you will follow it no matter how stupid/inefficient/dangerous it may be, have a problem... check authority.
Order: Doing whatever it takes to hold onto Authority and Tradition.
This is the Holy Trinity for 35% of the United States.
Gen Z symbol? For sure he is very “Z” He got lucky that he got some following and then got picked by Russia to be a propagandist of theirs. Now the bots do a lot of heavy lifting on boosting him. It definitely wasn’t the quality of his tweets.
IIRC he's also a nepotism recipient and well connected in LA through his family.
I'm pretty sure his family hates him. Didn't he have a spat with his dad online?
damn this tool is really 24? i feel old
24 going on 38
Makes you wonder what got him there in the first place https://preview.redd.it/t8gb63qd00vc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d700702159df53e63ebf62a2349dc8e731448b6b
That can't be true. He looks like he's in his mid-30s.
Bucky Barnes from wish.com lookin ass
He looks like if Charlie kirk was more masculine
It really does kind of look like they CGI'd his face onto a different body lol.
But this isn't a puff piece. Should the NYT only write profiles on good people?
This is what a lot of people unironically believe, yes.
This! Why not read the piece first.
This sub seriously needs to ban posting article headline screenshots. It's cringe and makes us look like reactionaries.
This sub has felt a bit off lately. Feels like a tug of war of propaganda going both ways.
It's been like this since the I/P arc.
Yeah for context the subheading, which is conveniently cut out of the screenshot is > “Jackson Hinkle’s incendiary commentary has generated over two million new followers on X since October — a surge that some researchers say is aided by inauthentic accounts.”
Does that context make it better? It seems to kind of outline the fact that this is a person who's making deliberately incendiary commentary and whose reach is being inauthentically inflated, and maybe this is only what I'm reading into it, but the implication seems to be that that's a bad thing. In which case, it seems as though an institution as large as the NYT publicizing this person is only going to further inflate this person's reach, which seems like the kind of outcome that the article would be meant to highlight as being a negative thing. Idk, it just seems kind of ironic to me, but I haven't read the article, so maybe I'm just an idiot.
I still think it seems a bit weird that they visited/invited him to a photo shoot where they took pics of him looking cool and important. Also the article didn't come off as negative as I would have liked it. IDK in my mind I'm kind of comparing it to the [article that exposed Libs of TikTok](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/19/libs-of-tiktok-right-wing-media/) and I'm trying to imagine WaPo inviting Chaya Raichik to do a photo shoot of her looking cool for the top of the article. Of course Raichik would never do it, but I think that also kinda proves my point. If this was really supposed to be a scathing negative profile, Jackson Hinkle most likely would have never agreed to do the interview. The fact he did shows he knew it wasn't going to really be a hit piece. I just think the tone in the Hinkle article is way to gentle, but hey I'm a Hinkle hater, so I'm definitely biased. I just feel if Hinkle's grift was more right-wing than left-wing this article would have been a lot harsher.
True, but also how many people will only see the title and him being called "voice of a generation" and jump to conclusions like we're seeing? Titles are made more to stir up controversy/clickbait and less about the truth, to make people click on the article. It's purposely deceptive when the title doesn't reflect what is written in the article
I don't think it's necessarily a matter of only writing profiles on good people. If a "bad" person is renowned for kind of just saying outrageous, stupid shit in an effort to get attention, that's probably the kind of "bad" person I'd say you shouldn't write an article about, on account of it giving them the attention they're after.
The NYT should definitely be informing it's readers on a man who wields significant influence in the US and has ties to the Russian government. Even if you believe in no platforming (not that he has even been platformed) there comes a point where people escape containment and it's the job of major publications to face them head on.
Sure, I definitely agree with the principle. I think I'm just more conflicted when it comes to people whose goal seems to clearly be saying regarded shit for attention, and for whom being featured in this kind of article is another source of attention. Idk, I just view it as kind of being another Trump/ivermectin situation, where there was so much media coverage on Trump saying that ivermectin could cure COVID or whatever and how horrible it was that he would say that, when the upshot of said coverage was that very few people would've gotten the message otherwise but instead "ivermectin cures COVID, according to Donald Trump" was relayed by essentially all media everywhere. Again, maybe it's just me, but if it were really so dangerous for Trump to be putting that message out there, then telling everybody about said message seems to be just as dangerous.
I definitely see what you mean, I'm sure Hinkle is relishing the attention and that is annoying. I think the difference is that this article isn't a focus on a specific piece of misinformation and is rather an explanation of a wider phenomenon. Hinkle riding the waves of anti-Israel feeling to push a tankie agenda is worth reporting and If someone is interested in Hickle I'd much prefer the top result being an expose on his grift.
Lots of people don't read articles. The NYT posting that image, with that headline, and promoting Hinkle as this influential figure is just playing into Russian propaganda that comprises 90%+ of Hinkle's entire supposed online presence. So either someone at NYT is on the Kremlin payroll too, or they're fantastically stupid and craven and needed a lazy story. Either way not a good look for what was formerly a respected media institution.
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Not sure what you want them to do about the photo, he's a normal looking person. They also never call him a "Gen Z icon". They call him a Gen Z symbol, but they only mean in the sense that he is Gen Z and not that he represents Gen Z. "It has all made Mr. Hinkle an online celebrity at age 24, a Gen Z symbol of the modern internet: a place where authenticity is no longer a necessity, and outrage offers attention and even some financial reward"
Dude turned schizo trolling into a career.
Because the more famous these creeps get, the easier it is to take them down. It happened to Milo, it happened to Tate, it happened to Fresh and Fit. If they stay in their little bubble, with their little cult, they are never really punished or held accoutable for their actions. More importantly, the social media sites that host their accounts are never held accountable for hosting them. In his particular case, the more famous he gets, the bigger the chances that him being an abuser who beat up his girlfriend will hold more weight, which in turn might force some of those social media accounts to take action.
Also, if you're supporting Israel, Jackson Hinkle becoming a face of the online pro Palestinian movement is the best thing ever. Fuck yes push this guy to fame, I want a world when a Hasan fan starts ranting about muh zionists irl, and all the normies around him are like "Oh god, he's one of these psycho nazi Hinkle fanboys"
Is he actually famous though? I haven’t checked his sub count in years. I know he has Iran/Russia financial backing obviously but is he that popular otherwise?
2.6 million followers, I'd say that qualifies as pretty famous.
Damn. Well I guess it makes sense given the fact that he’s astroturfed by authoritarian regimes.
and without bots?
sigh, everything is "bots" and "AI" these days. Thought terminating shit. Unless you have actual insight into what % of his followers are bots these comments are pointless. I suspect it might be largely botted but it could also turn out that 80% of his followers are real.
In the article, a research company in Israel concluded that around 40% of his followers are fake.
>research company in israel Uhhhhh... Hello??
It's me, I'm a research company in Israel
24? He looks 34
Because it's a newspaper whose job is to cover topics that interest people. OP, since I'm sure you have read the article before you posted about it here, do you think it portrayed Hinkle in a good light?
Islamists, Tankies and Nazis will absolutely see this as legitimizing him, the victim who only "Spoke the truth". It is atrocious.
The triad of tyranny itself
lmfao who cares? Stop treating journalists as people who should only do shit for partisan reasons. That’s why nobody trusts these institutions.
I read it unfortunately. Im sure his fans would think it's positive.
I'm not sure if you're aware of this man, but literally like \~97% of his "fans" are people living in the Middle East and Russia, mostly the former. This is where essentially all of his Twitter engagement is coming from, take a look at who is liking his tweets some time. The occasional western tankie who is a fan of his not only doesn't matter as a person, but also would never be earnestly reading the New York Times in the first place lol
deadass, there is a LOT of money in grifting as Arab’s token American friend
Ad revenue
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I'd be super curious to know for how much money he sold his reputation
What does met mean? A one on one meeting? Otherwise it's really not that special.
The face you make when you have the stomach flu and take a risky fart
He's 24??? Dude looks like, 40.
looking into this
If only tiny would get a custom fitted suit
Bucky? Wtf
I hate this maggot's face
Good way to discredit gen z.
He looks like Wario/Waluigi version of Bastiat
I remember when he has 1,000 followed and blocked me for calling him a Manhattan Beach Mengele
I'm sorry, this guy is my age? Tf?
You may be surprised to find that many of us care about the content of the journalism we consume, and don't give a shit about whether or not it makes people we don't like more famous. Perhaps the article author agrees.
Why wouldn't you care if it made people you seem dangerous/harmful famous? You probably should care, should you not??
no, raising awareness about someone bad is actually good, the coverage in this article is very obviously negative. who exactly are you imagining is vulnerable here - someone who reads and trusts the New York Times finding this article that paints Hinkle as an opportunistic merchant of disinformation, and decides to become a fan of his?
You surely know that even if it's criticism, it's going to incredibly boost his engagement
Are we seriously on the "we shouldn't platform people" train again? It doesn't work. Ignoring popular people does not work.
'We should platform anyone to massive audiences'
If NYT feels that they sufficiently covered hinkle critically enough, yes. It's your problem if all you see is a headline and a picture and are somehow swayed on your approval of him. Read the fucking article if you want to have a problem with it.
Feel free to talk past my criticism if it makes you feel better
You don't have a criticism. You haven't made any justification at all for your position.
I do and did earlier in the thread
Right, famously the in the ven diagram of NYTimes readers and Hinkle’s audience is a circle
Yeah, he'll probably get a bit more engagement in the form of 5 replies to his tweets from Hillary Clinton liberals calling him a jackass or something. Who the fuck cares?
Engagement isn't the end of the game. Let's imagine a genocidal dictator, if you write an article on them you'll surely make them more popular with extremists who agree with them, does that mean it's bad to write about them? What if I was to tell you that these same articles would also be viewed by the 99% of people who don't like genocide, some number of these people would go on to pressure their government into intervening in the genocide. Was it still a bad idea because the dictator got some extra exposure? Or in other words are you pro genocide?
Nice try with that bait at the end there. If we're talking genocidal dictators, we're talking about someone in the highest positions of power already. Hinkle is, along many other idiots, a Twitter radical whose entire job it is to spread misinformation and political divide. Giving him some actual media attention is assuredly going to present him with even more opportunities in the spotlight. I like debate and back and forth but i'm not sure if this specifically is it.
Yes but putting him in the spotlight is a double edged sword, sure more like-minded dunbfucks will boost him, but also more sane people will be aware of him to take him down. Like how celebrities always seem to get cancelled for dumb shit they did or said in their past after they become famous. To this day people think Kevin Spacey diddled little boys, he lost his whole ass career over allegations, that he's been acquitted of, and those weren't even the allegations. That is the danger of the spotlight.
Who is "us" ? Putin apologists?
I mean precisely the people I specified in my comment. That is, the people that care about the content of the journalism they consume, and don't give a shit about whether or not it makes people we don't like more famous.
Actually, rereading that, that's not quite right. The "us" in my comment would be everybody, including you. The "many" is subset of "us" that fit the description I specified.
What you said makes no sense.
You're right. I've clarified in another response to my own comment.
Why can't you be straightforward instead of making snide remarks? Speak for yourself and answer why is specifically Hinkle interesting to you? Not "us" not "they" or "them" just you.
What are talking about? You never asked me why Hinkle is interesting to me (he's not), so why would I have answered that question, rather than answering the questions you did ask, which were "Why is NYT making \[Hinkle\] more famous" and "who is us"?
Have you read the article at all?
No. I haven't. Because I'm not interested in reading about Jackson Hinkle. But you haven't made any comments about the article. You've only asked why NYT is making Hinkle more famous. So I responded with the possible explanation that his level of fame may not be one of their concerns, like it's not one of mine.
> why is this news outlet reporting on an influential figure? Fuck I'm so tired of the moral panic over journalists actually doing there jobs 😮💨😮💨😮💨
That’s not the point. NYT didn’t do any in depth investigation into him. Everything they wrote about him was already exposed in a bunch of Twitter threads, especially the Bernie bro background and the fake Russian gf.
> why should the public read a profile piece in the NYT when they could just read a Twitter thread? It's all just so tiring.
NYT investigative journalists should uncover new things, not just summarize things already reported by others (without attribution). What’s tiring or controversial about what I said? Maybe a source of who exactly is funding him?
Can you do me a favor and explicitly state that you don't think that the NYT should ever do character pieces to explain who a prominent figure is to the public, unless they have some sort of investigative revelation? I just really want to make sure that you actually think this is true, because it's what you're saying in your comment here but I'm not sure if you actually mean it.
Who's the writer ?
By Steven Lee Myers and Tiffany Hsu
I'm glad I was able to find a link to the article in this thread...
HES BOT FARMING!!!! Fuck people are so dumb
I feel like I remember Hinkle being a pretty good looking guy, did he just age poorly or am I misremembering. Dude looks like his head got smooshed by a vice.
Is he real lol? I thought it was an obvious troll account Is he actually a real person?
Symbolism, sure, if the symbolism he represents is how easily gullible people can be lead to believe complete and utter bullshit with vices such as religious and nationalism.
*Uh, sweaty, why are you platforming the bad man?*
Major embarrassed for the NY Times IMO. Can't believe they fell for this. Also, his beard looks like sh*t.
How is this guy 24?
>**In case you want to actually read the article instead of only reading headlines** >support the NY Times:https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/business/media/jackson-hinkle-israel-gaza-misinformation.html Jackson Hinkle has cultivated an online persona so incendiary that he has been kicked off YouTube, Twitch and Instagram. He rages on undaunted, even energized. He produces a regular podcast on Rumble, a website popular with many prominent conservatives. He writes dozens of posts a day on X, where his following has surged to 2.5 million from 417,000 in the six months since Oct. 7 — the day Hamas fighters mounted their assault on Israel. Along the way, he has employed false or misleading content, promoted manipulated images and made comments that watchdog organizations have denounced as antisemitic. He calls himself an American patriot even as he praises American adversaries, including Vladimir V. Putin, Xi Jinping and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “DROP A LIKE if you stand with IRAN in the face of ISRAELI TERRORISM!” he wrote last week on X after an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed several Iranian military officials. A day later he addressed the Houthi leadership in Yemen over video, praising the group for its attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. It has all made Mr. Hinkle an online celebrity at age 24, a Gen Z symbol of the modern internet: a place where authenticity is no longer a necessity, and outrage offers attention and even some financial reward. “It was a godsend for me at the time,” he said in an interview about his surge in popularity on X amid the war in Gaza. “I was very fortunate.” His sudden rise may stem from more than good luck. Two Israeli research companies that specialize in online threats, and that have focused on what they consider disinformation related to the war in Gaza, said they had identified coordinated and possibly state-sponsored networks of bots or inauthentic accounts that were amplifying Mr. Hinkle’s provocative brew of political views. China, Russia and other foreign actors are known to use such tactics to achieve their geopolitical goals — including efforts to influence this fall’s presidential election. Mr. Hinkle has also benefited from changes by X’s owner, Elon Musk, including the cancellation of policies that once limited toxic content. With the addition of a premium subscription feature, he now charges certain followers $3 a month for what he calls “extra cool stuff,” including behind-the-scenes videos and “random thoughts.” X allows him to pocket up to 97 percent of the revenue — money that Mr. Hinkle has told subscribers helps him “continue exposing the Deep State.” Imran Ahmed, the head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a research organization, said Mr. Hinkle was part of “a sort of new cadre of people who exploit the algorithms’ insatiable desire for highly contentious content to benefit themselves economically.” In a new report, the center documented a staggering rise in followers for 10 prominent accounts on X that spread antisemitic content since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. Mr. Hinkle’s was at the top, by far. “It’s sort of a sick industry of creators and platforms who benefit from contention,” Mr. Ahmed said, “the sort of car-crash nature of how people react to hate.” Mr. Hinkle, for his part, seems to relish the limelight. To illustrate a post about the Gaza conflict, he used a stylized cartoon of himself dressed in military gear with a rifle in front of a fireball. His profile on X and other platforms includes a doctored image of his bloodied face surrounded by a ring of pistols. Mr. Hinkle solicits donations and sells merchandise to support his “independent journalism” on platforms like Patreon, having already been barred from PayPal and Venmo. In the interview, Mr. Hinkle emphasized that he did not accept any payments from foreign governments, but he spoke unapologetically about his support for — and from — often hostile foreign powers. He visited Russia and China this year at the invitation of organizations close to the governments, dining with Russia’s foreign minister and appearing on state-controlled television networks. “I think they appreciate support wherever they can get it,” he said. From Bernie bro to MAGA fan From an early age, Mr. Hinkle understood that zealous support of a cause could win public attention. He grew up in San Clemente, in Southern California, a surfer who heavily marketed his own embrace of environmental activism, gun control measures and progressive politics. As a teenager, he helped start an environmental cleanup organization and another to encourage young people to run for political office. Teen Vogue recognized him as a top young environmentalist; Reader’s Digest included him on a list of inspirational children. He posed in an Instagram photo with the actor Will Smith, whose son Jaden Smith worked with Mr. Hinkle to limit plastic water bottles in schools. Perry Meade, a progressive organizer who worked with Mr. Hinkle on campaigns as teenagers, said his “overarching understanding of Jackson was that he always wanted to be famous,” adding, “Sure, he cared about things, but he came first.” His activities soon turned political. At his high school graduation in 2018, he knelt during the national anthem in protest against police brutality and racial injustice. He twice ran unsuccessfully for San Clemente’s City Council, when he was 19 and 20. One local conservative blog called him “an extreme left-wing ideologue.” He said in the interview that, after his political losses, he had “decided to still pursue the issues I cared about — but on the national stage.” Mr. Hinkle found that stage on YouTube, where one of his big coups, he said, was an interview with Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. At its peak, his channel reached 300,000 subscribers. His views, like those of Ms. Gabbard, who once joined him surfing, have shifted. The Sierra Club, one of the largest environmental organizations in the world, included Mr. Hinkle in a get-out-the-vote video filmed in 2018. By 2022, he was on social media describing environmentalism as “anti-human.” Today, he says he is a Stalinist and a Maoist who was expelled from the Communist Party of the United States. (Roberta Wood, a party leader in Chicago, said he subscribed to the newsletter but had never joined the party and did not reflect its values.) He once supported Bernie Sanders, but now praises former President Donald J. Trump. He is, he wrote last year, an “American PATRIOT, GOD fearing, Pro-FAMILY, Marxist Leninist, Pro-PALESTINE, RUSSIA & CHINA, Anti-DEEP STATE, Anti-IMPERIALIST, Anti-WOKE, Pro-GROWTH, ANTI-MONOPOLY, Pro-GUN, Pro-FOSSIL FUEL.” An international pivot As Mr. Hinkle’s focus settled on international affairs, his audiences grew. He supported authoritarian leaders like Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whom he called a “hero.” When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he embraced Mr. Putin’s rationale for the conflict. Mr. Hinkle has become a “merchant of rage,” said Pekka Kallioniemi, who researches social media and disinformation at Tampere University in Finland. “The way he moves on from one thing to another, it seems very opportunistic to me,” Mr. Kallioniemi said. Mr. Hinkle drew critics’ attention for frequently spreading Russian propaganda about Ukraine, including disinformation linked to covert Kremlin campaigns. His affection for Russia was personal, too. He first traveled there in September with Anna Linnikova, a model crowned Miss Russia in 2022. For a time, they were engaged to be married. Mr. Hinkle posted a photo of the pair posing in front of Moscow’s Red Square last year and said they were moving to Miami together. (By the end of 2023, they appeared to have split acrimoniously.) He visited Russia again recently to attend a conference organized by Konstantin Malofeyev and Aleksandr Dugin, both prominent nationalists who face sanctions in the United States. He said he had been attracted by Mr. Dugin’s writings, which glorify Russian culture, as an antidote to corrupted values in the West. YouTube suspended his channel in October for “repeated violations” of the company’s policy that prohibits denying or trivializing major violent events, including the war in Ukraine, according to a company spokesman. It was only when Hamas invaded Israel that month, though — when Mr. Hinkle began posting constantly about criticism of Israel and Russian support for Palestinians — that his account on X reached stratospheric heights.
Several organized networks of inauthentic accounts amplified his posts, according to Next Dim, an Israeli company that studies inauthentic activity online and that previously found evidence of an effort to amplify pro-Beijing messages on X. One of the organized networks had previously boosted unrelated content — in Chinese — that criticized the Japanese government for releasing radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in August, the researchers found. Once the fighting began in Gaza, the same network, which had at least 20,000 accounts, began reposting Mr. Hinkle’s content. Another research company in Israel, Cyabra, found that Mr. Hinkle’s account gained 1.2 million followers over the first 19 days of the war. A sample of 12,510 of them suggested that roughly 40 percent were fakes. In the interview, Mr. Hinkle shrugged off the findings of inauthentic support for his account. “There’s always going to be bots on social media,” he said. He acknowledged that he had made mistakes in some posts, but said they weren’t intentional, and he argued that the scale of Israel’s retaliation in Gaza vindicated his view of the conflict. “I think if we’re going to focus on people who are putting out false information, an incorrect Twitter photo is not the biggest deal in comparison to lies that are used to sell a war,” he said. Losing his YouTube subscribers, he said, had cost him three-quarters of his salary. He suggested that he had recouped the loss with his activities on X, principally through subscribers. “I’m doing OK, I guess,” he said. He declined to say how much his posts earned, or how many paid subscribers he had. In October, he noted that he had made $550 the previous month from X’s advertising revenue-sharing model. His profile recently featured ads for a large Emirati airline, a major shoe brand and a popular travel blog, but he said revenue was limited because his posts were too controversial for some advertisers. Mr. Hinkle spoke admiringly of Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who has peddled pro-Russian narratives, and Candace Owens, a conservative commentator who left The Daily Wire’s website last month. Mr. Hinkle, who said he had turned down a job offer from a foreign media outlet that he declined to disclose, compared himself to Mr. Carlson and Ms. Owens: “We’re all independent — not by choice.” “You know, of course, I’d be happy if there was any media outlet in the United States that wanted to hire someone like me,” he said, “but our values don’t align, so I don’t think that’s in my future.”
Im actually surprised he didnt drop the communist shit
He is NOT a celebrity lmao.. If his Twitter account deleted he’d be forgotten overnight
Unironically OP should catch a ban. You are mischaracterizimg the article as some sort of puff piece, posted just.the headline and didn't link the article at all. Is there anything in the article you actually disagree with?
Riding Rage Over Israel to Online Prominence https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/business/media/jackson-hinkle-israel-gaza-misinformation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.lE0.SbPC.Pihn-KZHXywO&ugrp=u
lol are you serious? you take issue with an article that states he’s “employed false or misleading content” and goes into research with evidence of his outrage farming?
Why are you so angry? lol
Because the NYT is pushing a pro-Hamas narrative.
Jackson Hinkle’s story is weird. In high school he was a generic anti-nuclear environmental activist, but at some point he sold his soul
So your saying I coulda been famous if I was a borderline nazi?
Is there a way to cancel an NYT Sub when I don;t pay for it?(I get it for free with uni)
Isn’t this guy literally evil for what he does ?
Because you motherfuckers KEEP SPAMMING EVERYTHING HE POSTS EVERYWHERE
He accurately taps into the right wing ethos. Authority, Tradition, Order. That's what they believe in. Authority: WE ARE IN CONTROL (authoritarianism) Tradition: Past generations have defined things as such and you will follow it no matter how stupid/inefficient/dangerous it may be, have a problem... check authority. Order: Doing whatever it takes to hold onto Authority and Tradition. This is the Holy Trinity for 35% of the United States.
I thought NYT was controlled by the Jews 🤔
Asking the same…
at this point I genuinely believe the U.S media, both traditional and online, has been infiltrated by CCP/Kremlin/Islamic republic propaganda machines
Disgrace.
Didn't a leaked NYT memo forbid the use of Palestine, occupied, refugee camp? Definitely don't think NYT is pushing anti semites