Jubilee Media

Image via Jubilee Media/YouTube

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Few companies have found their way into the center of political culture as quickly as Jubilee Media, a YouTube production company centered on discourse around hot-button political and cultural issues. A growing fixture in the United States media landscape, it has hosted countless famous individuals, from late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, to former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, to billionaire John Morgan. Is Jubilee fostering productive political discourse, or is it promoting controversy and disagreement for entertainment?

On September 8th, 2024, less than a month before the presidential election, Jubilee released “1 Conservative vs 25 Liberal College Students.” In the video, the late Charlie Kirk debated college students on a plethora of topics in the first installment of Jubilee’s Surrounded series. Jubilee’s debate videos all follow the same format: the individual in the middle makes a claim, and participants race to the middle for a chance to refute it; participants are ejected when over 50% of their fellow participants raise their red flags, signaling that they want to end the debate. This format creates a tense atmosphere, as reflected in the heated exchanges between Kirk and participants. Many of these instances became sound bites that were disseminated across social media platforms, which in turn generated more viewership for the channel. The resulting 45 million views heightened Kirk’s name recognition and Jubilee’s popularity in general. 

The catharsis of watching individuals with extreme viewpoints hotly debate over election-defining issues undoubtedly led to a large part of the video’s popularity. But the inclusion of extremist figures has invited controversy, with some believing that including figures such as Kirk and internet political personality Candace Owens gave them a platform to spew hateful rhetoric and expand their audiences. For a platform meant to promote the constructive exchange of ideas, this presents a major contradiction between Jubilee’s actions in practice and its goals. In one episode with progressive journalist Mehdi Hasan, a participant self-identified as a fascist and praised interwar fascist parties as being the only ones that “properly enacted the people’s will.” This particular interaction sparked backlash from individuals like Matt Bernstein, a content creator and progressive activist, who contend that Jubilee was attempting to generate ad revenue from intentionally extreme content. A profit-driven model fueled by extremist content would again run counter to the company’s proclaimed goals of connection.

Is the consumption of this content fostering open-mindedness and productive dialogue, or galvanizing polarization and normalizing problematic viewpoints? Jubilee Media’s CEO, Jason Lee, argues that the format of the “Surrounded” episodes is meant to “provoke understanding and create human connection.” Further to the company’s defense, Jubilee has made an active effort to fact-check claims throughout the videos to ensure accuracy. The company could be acting in good faith and creating some level of understanding in this polarized world, while still unintentionally propping up individuals pushing hateful narratives. Even if one trusts Lee, it is not difficult to imagine some actors using the platform as a launchpad to grow a following.

Jubilee’s popularity also reflects a completely transformed media environment: a 2025 Pew Research Center poll found that 43% of individuals under the age of thirty get their news from TikTok, a dramatic increase from 9% in 2020. Another poll from 2025 found that 38% of the same age group regularly get their news from influencers. Jubilee seized this moment by creating a space for political influencers to come together and grow through TikTok videos. These statistics demonstrate just how powerful a platform such as Jubilee could be in shaping young people’s political opinions.

In a world of waning attention spans, outlandish moments become the most valuable. The individuals engaging in viral exchanges do not need to have the most informed takes; they only need to make a fool of or a spectacle of the other person. This incentive has made confidence more important than ever, trumping substantive arguments. Watching dissenters trip over their words and yell at the composed, sharp speaker provides a contrast that legitimizes said speaker. Kirk’s episode is the clearest example of this phenomenon: participants thoroughly succumbed to Kirk’s outrageous claims while he remained level. 

While videos like “Surrounded” have the potential to promote virality over substance, individuals are nonetheless temporarily breaking out of their echo chambers and hearing different ideas. Over the coming years, the effects of this form of content will be clearer. It may not all be bad; there is still some merit and hope for a more open-minded society, with a wide audience being exposed to a diversity of viewpoints. 

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This article was edited by Cristina Palmieri and Adam Sharqawe.