As an upperclassman at Binghamton University, I’ve seen my fair share of @binghamtonbarstool posts. The Instagram page is filled with videos of college students getting drunk or breaking things, and at times, these videos are admittedly funny. What isn’t funny is how often Barstool Sports repeatedly crosses the line from humor over to racism, sexism, homophobia or other discriminatory acts. After seeing yet another disturbing and offensive video make its way onto @binghamtonbarstool last week, I felt the need to look into Barstool Sports for the first, and most likely last, time. After doing so, I found that many of my preexisting assumptions about this company and its employees were correct.

Under the guise of “dark” humor, Barstool Sports has created what sports writer Robert Silverman at The Daily Beast calls a vector of “white male grievance culture” — a haven in which white men can whine about how hard it is to be called out for discriminatory behavior while chalking it up to an issue of the politically correct or “PC” police coming to ruin all the fun. Or as Barstool Sports founder, Keith Markovich, himself so adequately puts it, an internet culture where “simple misunderstanding” leads to “so many vocal minorities stomping their feet and yelling about shit.” This quote of Markovich’s was pulled from from his article titled “How Dumb People Write Hit Pieces on Barstool Sports,” where he discusses how many of the writers who criticize Barstool in these “hit pieces” just don’t understand the context of the jokes Barstool makes. All this is coming from a self-proclaimed journalism school dropout.

Given Barstool Sports’ widespread popularity, this grievance culture has become extremely pervasive, especially on college campuses. The official Barstool Sports Instagram has nearly 10 million followers, and its college affiliates easily reach tens of thousands of their own. Here at BU, the follower count almost reaches 23,000, but more popular schools like Syracuse University can total followers twice that amount. The popularity that Barstool Sports has with college students is evident: according to John Dick of civicscience.com, “a whopping 67 percent” of daily Barstool Sports users are under 30 years old, which explains their overwhelmingly college-related content. This content ranges anywhere from sports, to typical college frat parties, to — and I use the same endearing title listed on Barstool Sports’ website — chicks.

It is perhaps surprising to no one that the overwhelming amount of participants in the white male grievance culture Silverman describes are mostly conservative. Not only are 74 percent of Barstool Sports fans male, but they are also more Republican and more politically involved than the general public. This is no coincidence. In fact, the core attitudes and beliefs shared among Barstool Sports employees and fans are essential to the success of the alt-right pipeline.

The alt-right pipeline can be defined as “the individual journey to extremism online,” in the words of an academic journal article by Luke Munn. It is a gradual indoctrination process which preys upon young people. Although one of the defining factors of the alt-right is racism and xenophobia, the true gateway drug to extremism is sexism. Young men are becoming more likely to turn to social media after facing rejection and isolation, and social media giants like YouTube are there to provide validation in their vulnerable state. Barstool Sports’ own YouTube channel amasses 803,000 subscribers. Its home page prominently displays a video called, “What is Barstool Sports? The Best of Barstool in 2020.” In the first 30 seconds, the mostly white men and women of Barstool Sports describe their work as “authentic,” “unfiltered” and “real.” These words are vital to the “awakening” that alt-right organizations and groups, like Reddit’s r/TheRedPill, describe. In this so-called awakening, men are exposed to the “reality” of feminism. Rather than a fight for women’s equality, feminism is painted as a movement which “disempowers” men and ruins society for everyone, according to Aja Romano of Vox. It’s not a matter of convincing these men to be sexist — in fact, it is actually a matter of convincing men they are not at all sexist but rather, they are just being “real” and honest.

Once this notion of reality is constructed, Barstool Sports’ most prominent employees saying things like “subtle sexual harassment is fine and dandy” can be painted as irony and satire. The indoctrination process lays the groundwork for all of Barstool Sports’ discrimination to be dismissed with a simple claim that us leftists take things too seriously. Barstool Sports can especially dismiss claims of sexism by touting podcasts like “Call Her Daddy” as a resource for women when, at best, it is feminism for men. The very first description of the podcast in the aforementioned highlight video is simply one of the hosts saying she “eat[s] hot Cheetos for a living and likes to talk about getting fucked.” This wouldn’t be an issue, but the podcast consistently conflates sex-positivity with misogyny and toxic relationship advice. Not to mention, this is just at the hands of two female hosts. When male Barstool Sports employees discuss feminism, the conversation takes an even darker turn, as shown by founder Dave Portnoy saying, “Just to make friends with the feminists, I’d like to reiterate that we don’t condone rape of any kind at our Blackout Parties in mid-January. However, if a chick passes out, that’s a grey area.” The bar for their feminist content is at rock bottom.

What Barstool Sports has done is monetize and digitize rape culture. Their massive audience, combined with their popularity among college students, is not an invisible force. It is the reason behind the Barstool Sports flags in all your local fraternities or the “Saturdays Are For The Boys” signs in apartments or dorms. By posting content that is made to evoke collegiate pride, such as the recent “Best Bar Bracket” on the @barstoolsuny Instagram page, Barstool Sports even has the power to lure in viewers who don’t necessarily align themselves with conservative views or sports media. Barstool Sports’ powerful and pervasive nature allows them to continually brush off important issues of consent, sexism and racism in the name of “fun.”

Barstool Sports rape culture poses a huge threat to a campus in which almost 90 percent of BU survey respondents do not report sexual violence — a statistic which has much to do with survivors’ fear of slut shaming or disbelief on behalf of the University or its Greek life, both of which have histories of such responses detailed by outlets such as the Instagram page @shareyourstorybing. This threat shows clearly that Barstool Sports fans are not under attack for merely being held accountable, especially when they are asked to be held accountable for their oppressive actions toward marginalized groups. The mere suggestion that conservative white men could ever be the victims of a white supremacist nation is laughable. We must see through Barstool Sports’ dismissive evasion tactics in order to finally hold the company and their supporters accountable for their active perpetuation of alt-right policies.

Kaitlyn Liu is a junior majoring in English.