Sargon of Akkad

Sargon of Akkad
Gender: Male Type: Far-Right Influencer Date Joined: October 13th, 2010. Status: Active Subscribers: 903k

Carl Benjamin, better known online as Sargon of Akkad is a political YouTuber, who joined on October 13th, 2010. He would gain popularity by critiquing feminism, social justice warriors, and figures like Anita Sarkeesian and so on. He's also one of the prominent figures of GamerGate, along with Internet Aristocrat (now Mister Metokur), Harmful Opinions, MundaneMatt and so on, as he was able to lead the movement to success and declare victory.

Despite himself claiming to be center-left (and now centrist), most of his talking points are pretty much right-wing, and occasionally leaning far-right, and due to his support of Trump and Farage.

Why He Sucks

1. As mentioned above, despite claiming to be a center-left, classical liberal and centrist, most of what he says are extremely right wing, to the point of leaning far-right, not to mention, he had no problems associating himself with figures like Richard Spencer (a white nationalist who attempted to bring the Alt-Right to the mainstream) and Stefan Molyneux (initially centrist before becoming far-right himself).
2. He once helped manufacturing the outrage surrounding Doom Eternal back in 2018, making it seem like a lot of SJWs were triggered over the game, even though the complaints were very different and only a handul of them were actually triggered.
3. He only manages to debate people who really aren't good at doing that or make lot of fallacious arguments. The result of this is that he himself was not able to debate other YouTubers who had much stronger points than him, such as leftists like Big Joel, hbomberguy, Shaun and even Destiny.
4. Much like TL;DR (Teal Deer) and Black Pigeon Speaks, he sometimes promoted misinformation.
5. He clinged too hard on GamerGate after it lost its relevance, likely due to the fact he was also losing relevance himself, as he attempted to do anything to bring discussion of it again. He even went as far as proposing to get Donald Trump to defend GamerGate.
   1. He also excessively criticized Anita Sarkeesian, even after she lost relevance. While she deserved to be criticized, he couldn't stop talking about her all the time.
6. He had really bad takes throughout his career. Perhaps one of the most infamous examples was when asked by someone who raped a child and asked him if it was ok, he literally said that it depends on the child.
7. His involvement on UKIP was a disaster. He joined the party just because his friend Count Dankula was willing to join. But upon that, his past came back to haunt him, as one of the most talked things about his involvement was the fact that he once told a feminist "I wouldn't even rape you". Despite this, he willingly defended his comment, which led to more people shrouding him. In fact, the scandal against him led to UKIP losing several members, and having its site shut down because of Sargon.

Redeeming Qualities

1. He did an overall good job leading GamerGate
2. Despite point 4, he did overall have good critiques about Anita Sarkeesian's points in gaming.

Legacy

The Alternative Influence Network shows the connections between many reactionary channels, and Sargon has plenty of them.

Despite his many flaws, he managed to have a really big influence on YouTube, especially with the rise of GamerGate in 2014 and 2015, as many people felt distrusted by mainstream media due to the movement, especially after the GameJournoPros leak back in 2014 by far-right British tabloid Breitbart News. He was one of the biggest figures of the so-called Alternative Influence Network, an analysis that shows the connection between multiple reactionary YouTubers between 2017-2018, although it does show its flaws. (they somehow connected Chris Ray Gun and Richard Spencer together, despite both of them having nothing to do with each other, not even politically, as the former is actually left-wing despite being anti-SJW). The analysis shows his connection with many reactionary channels, making him one of the bigger gateways to the Alt-Right.

Since 2020, Sargon of Akkad has become a relic of the past, and became one of the biggest examples of anti-SJWs leading to the alt-right pipeline.

In 2023, he wiped out most of his old content, likely to not get demonetized due to the current state of YouTube. He now focuses on his Locus Eater Podcast, but was able to return to his main channel on February of 2024.