My favorite YouTuber goes under the rather awkward username of Styxhexenhammer666, although I myself and most of his other subscribers know him simply as Styx.
Now, you’re probably assuming from his username that his channel is occult orientated and I wouldn’t blame you in doing so, but in fact the occult aspect only takes up a relatively small percentage of it.
Styx, a resident of Vermont, came to prominence last year during the heated US presidential election with his political analysis being uncannily accurate and in the process defied the predictions of most political pundits. Because of this, he quickly built up a following which has continued to grow to this day.
I’m sure his journey to becoming a YouTube sensation, as sorts, wasn’t an easy one because he’s been hammering away as a prolific YouTuber since its early days ten years ago. Whereby other content creators would have given up long ago, Styx kept persevering in promoting his own rather unconventional brand and last April the turning point came when his perceived realistic goal of reaching 50,000 subscribers was instead eclipsed by the magic 100,000. This resulted in Styx receiving the much coveted Silver Button, which is awarded to all YouTubers who have reached this milestone. Now he is already on his way to doubling his subscribers, once again.
I discovered Styx about a month or two before all this happened and I must say I love his content. When you first view one of his videos, you might be taken aback by his rather eccentric appearance and expect him to instead be discussing Marilyn Manson or Black Metal, rather than analyzing political and current events. In fact, on viewing his channel you will soon discover that he is extremely articulate and knowledgeable and his ability to talk in depth about any given topic with such lucidity is something that is quite extraordinary. For me and many others – and that includes other YouTube commentators who have many more subscribers than Styx – Styx is the first person we go to at the start of each day to get informed opinion on what is currently in the news.
It’s not all politics with Styx because occasionally he might deviate from his regular format to show you how his garden is progressing or to see him eating and reviewing a military MRE (Meal, Ready-to-Eat ) sent to him from one of his viewers somewhere overseas. Because of this, Styx can be quite a breath of fresh air on YouTube.
One thing I love about him is his enthusiasm for freedom of speech and the decline of the old style legacy media, such as cable TV, as it competes against the rise of the new alternative media. There really does seem to be a revolution of sorts taking place against the old guard who want to control our access to information, and Styx seems to have his finger firmly on the pulse of what is happening. Because of this, Styx is sensibly spreading his own content across these other alternative platforms and this has been given added impetus with the heavy handed censorship now taking place on the likes of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Styx’s contempt for Mark Zuckerberg is quite entertaining and not without good reason. Check out his channel next time you visit YouTube – you might like it.
But wait! There’s more to Styx than just YouTube…
As well as being a prolific YouTuber, Styx is also an author and publishes books under his real name of Tarl Warwick. This is where he specializes in his interest of the occult and it was while browsing through his large selection of books that one stood out for me. The book was on the subject of using memes, such as Pepe the Frog, to manipulate public consciousness over the Internet and in the process affect political discourse. The book examined this from the rather unusual occult perspective, so I decided I would give the book a try to see what his writing was like and whether it was as infectious as his YouTube commentary.
Stay tuned because my book review will be coming in my next post!