Is Jubilee still creating meaningful conversations, or just staging spectacles for clicks?
The digital media company has built its YouTube Channel on provoking understanding and empathy through debates, social experiments and storytelling, hoping to spark candid conversations regardless of political, cultural and personal boundaries. As an earlier viewer of theirs, their aim felt genuine as the channel provided a platform for thoughtful and humanising exchanges, which pushed boundaries. Recently, however, their initial aim has increasingly become overshadowed by a hunger for views and virality. Their content seems to increasingly become less about understanding and more about provoking, supporting my hot take thatJubilee is starting to promote more harm than good.
A recent “Surrounded” episode, “1 Progressive vs 20 far-right conservatives,” featuring broadcaster and writer Mehdi Hasan, marks an official turning point, for the worse. The video format, referred to as “a gladiatorial one-v-many debate” by The Guardian, generated rage-fueled discussions rather than a balanced conversation. Among the many, Hasan debated a man who was revealed to be involved in extremist protest groups and another debater who received applause from others when manically laughing and declaring he was a fascist.
Jubilee’s ‘Surrounded’ episode with Mehdi Hasan which has sparked mainstream controversy with over ten million views.
The nearly two-hour conversation was snipped into problematic clips manufactured to be reshared and create controversy, leaning into the clickbait-driven format that currently dominates online discourse. The lack of screening of the debaters and the promotion of their harmful ideologies, platformed through Jubilee, created major social media buzz, especially through TikTok and Instagram, propelling Jubilee into mainstream media headlines. However, the response to the video focused more on the outrage produced, becoming a spectacle instead of fostering mutual understanding.
Compare this with Jubilee’s earlier video “Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life: Can They See Eye to Eye?” as part of their “Middle Ground” Series, where debaters from both sides showed curiosity about each other’s perspectives rather than trying to interrupt one another.
One of Jubilee’s most well-received videos as it offered a balance of the differing views and sparked genuine conversation.
The editing style itself prioritised substance over sensationalism, showing the audience moments when common ground developed rather than today’s format, which feels constructed for conflict.
Comments reacting to the above video and appreciating the conversation, compared to the controversy of their newer content.
This shift in content isn’t just about Jubilee, but it’s reflective of a larger cultural media problem where controversy continues to sell and the algorithm rewards conflict over connection. Jubilee is actively participating in the clickbait trend that has taken over internet culture, by trading the long-term value of thought-provoking conversations for the short-term gain of viral controversy.
Although this controversy generated clicks, it came at the cost of the channel’s original ethos. If platforms like Jubilee don’t rethink their approach they’ll continue the outrage cycle, making the internet a noisier, less thoughtful place.
Kathrynf 
Alexander Hanjin De Filippo 
Eabha Quinn