On Monday, Oct. 28, all Upper School students gathered in their respective advisories to watch Mónica Guzmán’s TEDxSeattle talk, titled “How Curiosity Will Save Us.” In the video, she detailed just how important it is to find a common ground—not necessarily by finding a compromise, but by focusing on shared values that underlie political positions. This approach to understanding where beliefs intersect can create actual connection, even when the ‘middle ground’ might seem elusive. But what happens when this concept is manipulated for entertainment?
Speaking of middle ground, let’s talk about Jubilee, a current leading YouTube channel, amassing nearly 10 million followers, and the role the channel plays in this pivotal election. Jubilee’s content oversimplifies complex issues into entertainment, making nuanced discussion nearly impossible. It might not seem harmful to record or post debates like these, but giving a platform to extremely radicalized perspectives legitimizes them, and allows Jubilee to promote discussions that don’t yield true middle ground results. Additionally, the channel skews perspectives on many issues while presenting itself as non-partisan, which goes hand in hand with America’s current rightward lean in politics.
Jubilee began as the Jubilee Project—a way for young adults to share their short films and emotions on a publicized channel. However, their content quickly evolved from personal connection to political battlegrounds, and their role in shaping public opinion became much more significant—especially as we approach a pivotal election. Today, Jubilee isn’t just showcasing debates but influencing them in ways that matter to undecided and impressionable voters.
This year, the election cycle has been monetized and used for profit reasons by nearly every major news outlet, talk show host, and radio station out there, so what exactly makes Jubilee’s commercialization of this so different? An important thing to note is that most forms of media pander to the same demographic they always have: a liberal talk show host, say Jimmy Kimmel or Steven Cobert, will continue making videos for liberals. A right-wing podcaster, like Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson will still make videos for their same audience. But Jubilee makes videos for undecided voters, videos that will and have already changed many opinions and decisions for votes in this election.
This September, Jubilee dropped one of their most talked-about videos ever, reaching 25 million views in one month, already making it the 5th most viewed video on their channel. The theme: Surrounded. One conservative against 25 liberals—it should have been a bloodbath, right? Interestingly, the channel itself forgot to mention to the students participating in the debate that the conservative, Charlie Kirk, was a right-wing, media-trained political activist, who has made a living off of debating college students.
The choice to place a heavy conservative with consistent talking points as the person in this situation raises concern about the channel’s true intent. If videos like these are truly meant as a way to create discussion, why invite in a speaker who recycles the same 5 points throughout debates, and clearly hasn’t gone in with the intention of ever changing their opinion? By putting a trained debater, like Kirk, against younger and less experienced voices, Jubilee creates a false sense of balance that doesn’t reflect the true commonalities or shared values between Democrats and Republicans—the very foundations of what real common ground could be. This setup not only skews the perception of the views held by both parties but also subtly influences viewers to associate political power with one side over the other. It doesn’t create a fair debate as the people debating aren’t willing to search for commonalities with the other party.
I was relieved when I saw that the channel had posted a reverse version of the same video: one liberal against 20 Trump supporters. However, the video itself had immediate inconsistencies against its counterpart—the one liberal was a college student himself, 19 years old compared to the 31 years Charlie Kirk has. Additionally, the 20 people he debated were across all ages, there was no limit on how old they were, unlike the previous video.
This video was recreated again, this time with Ben Shapiro as the conservative debating 25 Harris supporters. The choice to pick Ben Shapiro, a 40-year-old conservative debater and self-proclaimed ‘political pundit’ is a clear one, and it highlights an obvious disparity in the content produced by the channel. Casting these seasoned political personalities against untrained students isn’t actually creating any debate—it’s stacking the deck in favor of shock value over genuine understanding, which is not only misleading but intellectually dishonest.
Any YouTube account masquerading as a centrist, non-political leaning channel, while actually editing and casting videos to favor a specific viewpoint, is simply unacceptable—misinformation spreads like wildfire, and subtly casting a hidden ideology on videos creates horrible side effects. There is no real attempt to find a middle ground in these videos—only people coming in from both sides—with preexisting values, hoping to scream and lie about their points with the intention to somehow change everyone else’s minds while never changing theirs. When political tension is at an all time high, and the United States itself is slowly shifting more towards the right, pitting side against side and influencing viewers in a specific direction is the worst possible thing the channel can do.
The harsh effects of Jubilee’s facade of a middle ground are exemplified even more by America’s shift to a farther right perspective. What we view as a true middle ground is no longer the same as it used to be: there are no radical leftists being considered for high government positions, and most definitely none to contrast the sheer amount of extremists on the right. There is a common myth perpetuated all throughout the United States that the left has full control over all media systems, but academic studies have found that the media itself is a full-rearing conservative force (see, Robert Lichter, Columbia Journalism Review, Pew Research Center). We can see this criticism of the media being left-leaning from almost all conservative voters during Jubilee debates—yet it is never fact-checked by the staff at Jubilee, despite them having fact-checks throughout all of their debates.
Our idea of a middle ground changes over time, because we ourselves adjust to the current political climate. In past decades, the “middle ground” might have included policies like balanced budget initiatives or moderate welfare expansions that both parties could reasonably support. However, today’s political middle has shifted rightward. Ideas once considered moderate, like universal healthcare or stronger environmental protections, are now often viewed as “leftist” or “progressive.” Meanwhile, more conservative ideas, such as deregulation or tax cuts for the wealthy, have moved closer to the center of mainstream debate. As we all start viewing radical right viewpoints as the norm for the party, what used to be centrism is now far more right-leaning. The last true radical democrats who have run for high positions completely died out after the 2016 election, and Harris herself has policies that would have been deemed as far too conservative for the democratic party decades ago. Unfortunately, this just adds fuel to the fire of Jubilee debates, as not only are the videos influenced by Jubilee staff themselves, they are also shifted by America’s right-leaning political climate at the moment.
To conclude, Jubilee’s portrayal of political extremes under the guise of “middle ground” reflects a problematic trend of sensationalism over genuine discourse. Through the channel’s choice to amplify polarizing voices rather than genuinely look for authentic dialogue, they inadvertently contribute to a media landscape where political entertainment takes precedence over informed debate. As we navigate a charged political climate, it’s more crucial than ever for platforms to promote responsible engagement and create unity over common grounds without falling into the trap of false equivalencies—something Jubilee absolutely fails to do.
