Thunderf00t is not well in the head

I wrote a year ago about the long-time YouTuber who goes by the nickname Thunderf00t.

He has been on the platform since almost the very beginning. In the earlier years, from a bit before 2010 to about 2012 or thereabouts he was primarily making videos about various scientific topics and, quite notably, about Christianity, atheism and skepticism. His YouTube beefs with some of the most famous and infamous Christian YouTube apologists of the time were almost legendary.

Then the feminist "social justice" ideology took over the world-wide and particularly American atheist community in full force, already showing the same kind of tactics as we know today: In other words, dehumanizing, denigrating, shunning, purging and "cancelling" anybody who didn't align with their social justice ideology. Thunderf00t strongly opposed this takeover, and the social justice cult in general, and for a couple of years he became one of the strongest "anti-SJWs" in the world. He became pretty much the enemy #1 of the SJW atheist movement, which of course tried everything in their power to "cancel" him (however, those attempts were completely futile because he happened to be untouchable, as he was working as a tenured researcher in some university in Czechia, a country and university that at the time didn't care one iota about the SJW religion, so they didn't pay any attention and just ignored all the "cancelling" attempts.)

He still made many videos about scientific topics in addition to his anti-SJW videos. If I remember correctly the emphasis was still on the former rather than the latter. 

Then, some time around 2015, give or take, he suddenly decided to become an "anti-anti-SJW". Not a full-on far-leftist social justice warrior, as he still seemed to oppose that ideology to some extent, but loudly distancing himself from the "anti-SJWs" as well (even though he himself was a full-on one of them prior to that.) The reasoning he gave was mostly irrational.

Although perhaps in a way, that was a somewhat smart move, as he did it just in time to escape the more modern "woke" takeover. He has been mostly forgotten by the far left, his Wikipedia page is very neutral (which is extraordinarily rare for anti-SJWs), and nobody is trying to "cancel" him anymore, probably primarily because nobody even knows of him anymore nor remembers his "anti-SJW" past. (He quite clearly did not become an "anti-anti-SJW" who renounced "anti-SJWism" because he wanted to escape the wrath of the raising far left. His reasons were irrational. The fact that he did it just in time to escape the raising wave of far-leftism was probably very coincidental and serendipitous.)

He then continued to make videos mostly about various scientific topics, like for example dismantling fraudulent crowdfunding projects that were promising scientifically impossible things (a topic that he was most well known since the very beginning.)

Then he made a video criticizing Elon Musk and some project of his. Then he made another such video. And then another, and then another, and then another...

Something happened in his brain, as more and more of his videos were about Elon Musk. And while many of his initial anti-Musk videos were somewhat rational (mostly commenting on the technical and scientific impossibilities of some of Musk's projects), the videos started becoming more and more deranged. Also more and more repetitive, as he just started repeating the same dozen-or-so points over and over in every video, with very little variation.

This started about 8 or so years ago, and the number of anti-Musk videos he has uploaded, compared to videos about other topics, only kept increasing. For two or three years now his YouTube channel has been pretty much exclusively an anti-Musk channel. With at least 90% of the videos being anti-Musk. In fact, during the past year-and-a-half every single one of his videos has been about Elon Musk and nothing else. All of them repeating the same dozen-or-so points over and over.

Indeed, since about a year or so ago he has completely stopped making any other sort of video. Nothing. Not a single one about some other topic. And every video has become more and more deranged over time.

He is not right in the head. Something has happened to him. He has become completely obsessed with Elon Musk for some reason. He never talks about anybody else, not even other billionaires who do similar projects. It's only Musk, and nobody else.

Curiously, unlike many other similar YouTubers (particularly those who contracted Trump Derangement Syndrome and started uploading nothing but anti-Trump videos), his view counts have remained surprisingly high. I suppose anti-Musk videos sell quite well. He just keeps pumping anti-Musk video after anti-Musk video, repeating the same things over and over, and people just keep watching and giving him ad revenue for it.

I would love to give him the benefit of the doubt and accuse him of actually being a grifter. In other words, that he is not making so many anti-Musk videos because he actually hates the guy so much and is actually so obsessed with him, but solely because of the views and thus ad revenue. In other words, that he's just doing it for the money. That would make him dishonest and an opportunist, but not insane.

However, while I would love to give him the benefit of the doubt like that, I have the hunch that it's actually not the case. Having watched him for over 15 years now, I don't get the impression that he is such a grifter. I think he is being genuine. I really think that he is not well in the head.