American Political Influencers ... In Eastern Europe? (The Globalisation of the Culture War)

In this wide-ranging interview, Romanian streamer and VTuber Romanian TV discusses his journey from early 2000s leftism to opposing modern identity politics and censorship. He explains how Reddit bans during the Gamergate era radicalized him and why Eastern European perspectives differ sharply from those in the US and UK.

The conversation covers algorithmic suppression replacing old-school bans, the rise of safety rhetoric as a control tool, digital ID schemes, and the coming privacy scandals around home robots. Romanian TV also shares insights on Romanian culture, immigration, historical Muslim integration, and why anime themes now align more with right-leaning values than Western entertainment.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: Hello. I’m excited to be here with VTV or Romanian TV, the guy who used to VTube as a troll. I don’t know if you still do that. But he is one of the as I hear from everyone, one of the longest streamers in, like, the right wing online sort of YouTube space. And when our channel before we were even a right wing channel, he was one of our most overlapped channels in terms of subscribers, which I always thought was very interesting. And that’s actually where I first found his channel, and I started watching it. It’s fantastic. And somebody suggested we have him on, and I’m really excited to talk. And what I wanted to start with was you have become a somewhat large figure in within right wing, you know, Internet tubing or whatever you wanna call it, American politics, but you are Romanian. When did you start focusing and and, like, living in Romania, not, like, ethnically Romanian. When did you start focusing on American politics, and how did that happen for you?

Romanian TVee:Yeah. Well, I didn’t start calling myself as a right wing at first. I I just didn’t like this whole culture that was coming from, I I guess, The United well, not really The United States. It was more like the Anglosphere, this this feminist culture where there is no room for disagreement. It is full on identity politics. It was being pushed everywhere, gaming, TV shows, every type of medium. So I didn’t start as, like, here’s my, political body

Malcolm Collins:for Actually, I I wanna pull apart this because this is something Okay. This is something that we’ve had with, like, pretty much everyone who we’ve had on our show who is now considered, like, a far right Internet YouTuber. And they all started, us included, as even us, I wouldn’t say maybe you weren’t a leftist at the beginning, but I was definitely. Simone was definitely. And when we go to other people, like, we go to Leaflet and we have her on stream, she’s like, the thing that woke me up was streaming Hogwarts legacy. And then people came and attacked me for that, and then I began to radicalize. And with a lot of people, it’s like there was this one moment where they’re like, Like, maybe I actually do have a political side in this fight. Do you remember what that moment was for you when that happened?

Romanian TVee:Well, I mean, I was a leftist as well, but a leftist in the early two thousands was something completely different than what a leftist is now. In 2000, if you didn’t hate homosexuals and you were an atheist, you were labeled a leftist.

Malcolm Collins:So yeah.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Yeah. So I

Malcolm Collins:and we definitely fit into into that category of leftism. But do you have a a moment or, like, when you began to identify politically, do you remember anything that pushed you in that direction? Was it, like, people were attacking you for something or, you saw something that just seemed so ridiculous?

Romanian TVee:I think it was, when Reddit started censoring. there was a conversation with TotalBiscuit that, was very polite. It it had absolutely nothing rude done to it. And he was discussing I think it was, like, the Zoe Quinn scandal at the time. And everyone was getting banned around him. Like, at the time for in in the Internet to see something like that was unthinkable. And I was like, okay. Who are these people? What do they want? And they were left wing. And it’s like, well, if that’s what left wing is, then I should stand against it because I I don’t agree with the fact that the Internet should be controlled and censored to the point where political opinions cannot be discussed anymore.

Malcolm Collins:He he was discussing the what scandal? Sorry. This is a part of Internet history I’m not aware of.

Romanian TVee:So there was this indie game developer that was called Zoe Quinn at the time, and she

Malcolm Collins:was Oh, the Zoe Quinn. Oh, you’re talking about the original game stuff. Yeah.

Romanian TVee:It was way back. Right? And he basically I was trying to understand what was going on, and Reddit was just banning everyone around him. Like, there were hundreds of accounts banned. And then you you you realize their idea was, like, no platform for fascists, and they would define who a fascist is. And so yeah. And, actually, this

Malcolm Collins:this has me realize something that I didn’t really fully like, this is my first time realizing it. But back in the day on Reddit, I’m talking, like, ten years ago when I voted all all leftists, even after this point, I ran a leftist political organization essentially that, like, took donations and worked on campaigns. And yet when I was on Reddit, my primary subreddits have today all been deleted. They were things like Tumblr in action and fat people hate and the red pill. And I I loved these types of subreddit, but I never considered myself right wing because I didn’t consider these types of views right wing. And I think that they were defined as right wing. I think today if you told this to somebody, Tumblr in action was not actually a right wing subreddit. Fat people hate was not actually a right wing subreddit. The red one wasn’t even a right wing subreddit. Right? If you told people that today, they’d be like, that can’t actually be true, but it was actually true for a period.

Romanian TVee:Yeah. To be a right wing at the time, I think, you needed to be, like, in support of George Bush, the paperback. you needed to be in support of, Middle Eastern conflicts that, you know, like, America is chosen by God in order to bring democracy to the Middle East. Like, those were the talking points. And it was also against, you know, like, standing against gay marriage, standing against atheism. Completely different than what right wing ended up. Right? And this is kinda normal, like, you look at different points in history, like, wing and right wing, the politicians at the time support as policies. And they they can change and shift. Like, they have the same general idea, but you couldn’t be a right wing, for example, and be an atheist before the Bush era. Right?

Malcolm Collins:No. No. It is very true. Very true.

Romanian TVee:Yeah. Like, right now, nobody cares if you say, yeah. I’m a Trump supporter, and I don’t believe in god. They will be like, well, I mean, okay.

Malcolm Collins:Let me like, Sargon of Akkad is one of the biggest figures in our space, and he’s an atheist.

Romanian TVee:He is an atheist. Yes. Yeah. I mean, he promotes Christianity because he likes the cultural aspect but he doesn’t believe in, like, life after death. What? He’s gonna be so right? And so nobody has a problem with that. Like, nobody is saying, like, why is an atheist leading a right wing movement now? Of course, course, that can change. Like, at some point, maybe people will say again, but, like, right now, it’s it’s definitely so