Up until a few months ago, I had never heard of the expression "Dunking on someone". I mean, it makes sense, and since I used to play basketball semi-professionally, I kind of love the visual, but I don't know if the action of doing so is helpful at all. Yes, the fact of it is, I'm not talking about sports right now.

Joe Rogan brought it up

I can't remember the episode, but maybe that's not that important. The truth is that the point he was trying to make, to me, made perfect sense and truthfully it needed to be said. You see, there's a type of online content that fits the category, and there's an extensive list of youtubers who participate of various dunkings.

In the context of the conversation, Joe Rogan brought it up as it pertained to the constant dunking that @samseder constantly does on Dave Rubin. Truth is that it's become pretty much a staple of the Majority Report to dunk on libertarians, and it's a crucial part of the show I must say.

All that being said, as fun as it may be for viewers to watch some dunking, it's also not unreasonable that Rubin is not willing to sit down and have conversations with @samseder about "the ideas". Which is to say, if someone constantly made fun of you, and that someone's co-host does an impression of you implying a mental discapacity, you would not be too motivated to appear on their show or invite them, right?

The Sam Mob

I'm not entirely sure when this began, but for a while now, the fans of Sam's show have been piling on Dave Rubin on any chance they get. It's become somewhat of a game, who can sneak in to a presentation, a livestream or what have you and demand:

"DEBATE SAM SEDER"

I don't have solid numbers per say, but I've caught a few shows where people call in showing off the fact that they managed to shout to Rubin or ask him "Why don't you debate Sam?" - at a live event. It's a highlight of the show, and if there's video footage of "the jab", you can almost bet it will be shared.

Sam Intervened

Not too long after the comments made by Rogan and other voices online, Sam felt it necessary to clear the air. He appeared on his show and expressed the reason for his focus on the Rubin Report. To be honest, he has some good points for attacking Rubin's ideas. Dave Rubin seems to be a bit of a grifter at times, and double talk needs to be called out.

That being said, Sam attempted to say his critiques were exclusively on Dave's ideas and not on the person itself. I'm paraphrasing here, but something along the lines of "I don't care about the person, I care about the bad ideas being spread... Someone who has the audience, the financial backing, is saying harmful stuff".

Again, I don't have to agree with Sam here, but if that's his reasoning it's not flawed per say. The whole point of debating ideas is to allow the best ones to win. Censorship, as we know, almost always backfires. So bad ideas should be confronted with better ones.

But, and here is the big but, Sam is not being entirely honest. In other words, the attacks are personal, and the audience expects them to be. I think Sam would have fared better if he admitted so. Truth is that it can be a business model, maybe not a productive one for political discourse, but good in building an audience.

Let's not forget that plenty of comedians today make a living dunking on Trump, and if one of them would attempt to torero step this truth, we would probably laugh at the attempt.

Deny, deny, deny

This is my current pet peeve on the subject. I think it's time to just admit it. Yes, people dunk on people, not everything is about ideas and we live in a world where "cult of personality" is the proper theme song that should be playing in the background.

I should add, that I'm not saying this is productive, and that we need it as a society for better democracies. I'm just stating that we should be more honest about the entertainment we consume, and yes, Opinion shows are entertainment.

We don't just read bullet points of facts, we watch people react to the facts, get angry, rejoice, insult or flatter. That's the fun, that's the reason why we love the "online arena" so much, right? Let's not kid ourselves and say we are participating on highly educational behaviors, because we endorse all forms of intellectualism.

Ironically

After just a few days of Sam denying that he attacks Dave Rubin personally, a T-shirt design made it to the Majority Report's instagram. It's somewhat of an inside joke, but it's based on something Rubin said a while ago that Sam and his crew made fun of.

Will these T-shirts get actually printed? Well, there seems to be a demand for it, which again, The Majority Report is a business, and as such should always consider staying profitable. So I would not be surprised if they actually release the shirt.

But again, let's cut the crap. This whole notion that "We are not making fun of Dave, we are making fun of his ideas" is simply not true, demonstrably not true. Now, if Dave can't take the punches, if he's being a snowflake about it (online personalities all get punched), that's a whole different conversation. But Sam doesn't seem to be dealing in honestly when he claims complete innocence and it's tiring.