The host defends her own positions according to the same principles. Wynn takes on the strongest version of her opponent’s argument, acknowledges when she thinks her opponents are right and when she has been wrong, clarifies when misunderstood, and provides plenty of evidence for her claims. Wynn is a former Ph.D. student in philosophy, and though her videos are too rich with dick jokes for official settings, her argumentative practice would pass muster in any grad seminar.

While Wynn faults what she sees as the incompetent philosophy of her right-wing opponents, she critiques many of her leftist allies for being bad at persuasion. The latest ContraPoints video dramatizes how people with progressive beliefs often fail to change minds on an issue, even when they have all the basic moral and empirical facts on their side. In “The Apocalypse,” the Doctor forces Marie to watch a video-within-a-video that makes a well-reasoned case for serious action on climate change. But Marie is frustrated: “You want me to go vegan, drive a Prius, and vote Democrat. You’re basically asking me to completely change who I am as a person and become everything I hate.” The Doctor’s response: “Yep, pretty much.” Marie raises some skeptical counterarguments (“Weather changes sometimes”), but quickly abandons them when pressed. Marie is not so much a climate skeptic as a climate indifferentist. She’ll accept the possibility of an apocalypse, but will never give her adversaries the satisfaction of doing as they suggest. Though Marie is a caricature, Wynn’s real target in this video is the Doctor, whose facts-only approach is a logical success but a persuasive failure.

The lesson of the video is that rational argument, even if it “destroys” the opposing position, usually isn’t enough to convince. In one of her early videos, Contra pokes fun at a long series of obscene comments she received that used anal rape as a metaphor for victory in argument. She asks rhetorically, “Is tearing your opponent’s butthole to shreds really the aim of rationality? ... Socrates wasn’t arguing with the citizens of Athens because he wanted to blast their buttholes—ah, actually, he did want to do that—but wasn’t there also a thing about, like, truth? And justice?” The reference to Greek pedagogical pederasty is crude, but it also has a deeper meaning: Wynn shares Socrates’s view that persuasion, desire, and reason are inextricably related.

Socrates knew that anyone who wishes to win minds must also win hearts. He didn’t just earn the intellectual respect of his students; he inspired love, too. His acolytes followed him around the marketplace, hanging on his word, and one of the most moving speeches in the Platonic canon is the description by Alcibiades of his hopeless infatuation with the older philosopher. And of course Plato’s dialogues themselves are, along with being philosophical masterpieces, early examples of fan fiction. In other words, Socrates persuaded by both the logic of argument and the dynamic of fandom. Wynn is beginning to grow a dedicated following of her own: Members of online discussion groups refer to her as “mother” and “the queen,” produce fan art, and post photos of themselves dressed as characters from her videos.