How Rudyard Lynch Won
The Unbelievable Recovery of Whatifalthist
Nearly a year has passed since Chudyard’s original ten-hour, three-part crash-out compilation was released and then wiped out in the wake of the community’s self-inflicted implosion. Most people thought including myself that it was the end of Chudyard’s career, because recovery after this was practically impossible, at least by community standards as they existed in the 2010s.
A man who outed himself as a delusional, self-obsessed and quirky narcissist who was a loser before starting his YouTube career would certainly fall in the eyes of his audience. However that is not what happened.
Already two days after the 10-hour mental crashout, Rudyard releases a pre-planned video on modernity which was received fairly well despite the audience making fun of him in the comments section.
These comments would go on being at the top for about a month after the crashout, indicating that a good portion of his audience is aware of him being a schizo. Nonetheless, within a couple of months his like-dislike ratio would return to his pre-crashout era at around 97% (up from 93% post crashout) and comments making fun of his derangement would become a rare find.
He was not doing IRL shows and collabs for a good period of time before coming back a couple of months ago and the reception that he’s been getting is overwhelmingly positive with zero comments mentioning his crashout.
His monthly viewership has indeed flatlined a bit, but partially that has to do with the fact that 2023-24 were really successful years for him.
It’s clear that his views surged for nearly six months after the crash-out series at the end of December 2024, and then began a steady decline, though the viewership he pulls per video remains respectable.
The quality generally remained similar, as in they were vibes and feelings with poor editing that he probably does himself (maybe I should chudyard maxx myself). But most important, he kept producing the exist same content that his loyal fanbase wanted, among whom is Elon Musk, and a group of millionaires who spend time with him in private clubs outside of YouTube (I was told of it by a person personally attending such clubs).
As you can see, the most powerful man on the planet is really fascinated by by the God’s killer. I would assume that is because they are both highly autistic, anti-social and generally vibe at the same brain frequency.
At this point, I would expect Rudyard to release a fourth part to his crashing out series and Elon Musk replying with “That was the actual truth” or with his usual one worded replies bestowing Emperor’s grace rather than an actual thoughtful engagement with the material (which I don’t doubt happened in his head).
Obviously, when you are influencing the most powerful man on Earth, it hardly matters who or what you are—you’ve already won, because his action are now being shaped by the thought patterns he absorbed from you. I said as much on Twitter.
That being said, many of his regular listeners are well-informed of the mental state of their Gandolf. My video documenting his mental decay is only the fourth watched video on the topic and so I would estimate that the amount of people who is aware of his persona off-camera is likely around half of his total subscribers. Furthermore, multiple people closed to Rudyard have reached out to me after the video and said they still keep consuming his content despite all that happened.
This certainly creates a cognitive dissonance. If a good portion of his audience is laughing at him, why do they keep coming back to his content?
How He Won
I think that we tend to overestimate the degree to which people are intellectual creatures. What I have noticed in my YouTube career and observing the YouTube careers of others, loyal following is key.
The quality of your content doesn’t matter as much as the relationship that you’ve built with your audience. Take a look at Nick Fuentes as an example. He practically has a cult following. He is able to maintain ideological flexibility and make a good case for it to his very Conservative and right-wing audience, while a less charismatic person would have significant difficulties in doing so as well as appealing to the general population.
But Nick is probably a bad example. Although, like Rudyard he is very authentic, he also has strong charisma, is not an autist and possesses strong verbal intellect to property articulate himself in a way that his target audience identifies with him. A better example would be Candace Owens, and although, she like-wise is significantly more charismatic than Rudyard, the amount of retarded bullshit that she spews on a daily basis is much more severe than the regular non-schizo uploading schedule of Rudyard.
Nonetheless, no matter how many popular Conservative influencers turn on Candace Owens over latest disinformation and grifting campaign, she still manages to come on top in the eyes on her loyal audience, who have built a mental relationship with her and not with Tim Pool, Daily Wire, TPUSA, Steven Crowder or Nick Fuentes.
Once you have established a good connection with your audience, an influencer may as well get away with anything they want, because the audience has this initial and special trust that they don’t have with other influencers.
A useful case study is the reaction of many Groypers to Ye releasing a song in which he admits to having had gay sex with his cousin. Because of his earlier Heil Hitler hit, no Groyper publicly attacked him for it (although had it happened to somebody else they absolutely would), whereas many of the ‘Vitalists,’ who never had a loyal relationship with Ye to begin with, did.
All of these scandals and bad PR get ignored or disbelieved on the subconscious level due to the fascination with the object with which they are associated and this is why these people get away with things regular people would have not been able to.
The result of this is the natural realization that one can pretty much say anything on the internet without worrying about their own following if they maintain a good connection with them. It only becomes bad when one acknowledges to themselves that what was done was bad and to my knowledge not a single person that I have listed has ever caved in to the mob.
Rudyard has released a half-baked reflection on what happened on Twitter in which he pretended that nothing big happened and that was mostly it.
And so since the social survival of Rudyard VVilliam Lynch was due to his unique relationship with his audience, what is so special about the messenger that he resonates so well with his followers?
Grandiose Narcissism
What I’ve noticed is that people generally gravitate toward narcissists, especially those with a grandiose ego and towering ambitions. They may despise them if they were living with them on the same floor, but from a distance they remain fascinated and often even want to be led by them.
Rudyard is a fascinating type of narcissist, because unlike Nick or Candace, he is actually a rizzless chudcel, which make him an atypical cult leader (much like Shoko Asahara or the Indian guru who famously said “democracy is….”), but nonetheless one that has established a big connection with his followers through promises of redemption through his unique psychological insight that was attained by him going on Ayahuasca trips to Walhalla or the Spirit World.
Rudyard is bold enough to claim that he’s got all the answers to pressing political, social, economical and spiritual concerns of this generation and seeing his self-confidence, people gradually began converting into followers.
Resonation of Message
Another important characteristic of Whatifalthist’s sociological analysis, is it’s summary of semi-related books combined with Chudyard’s simple and superficial delivery which appears logical if looked at isolation.
It is without a doubt that Rudyard has a talent at crafting a simple but logical narrative from information noise that resonates with his audience on the emotional level due to them both sharing the same aspirations and the moral foundations which reaffirms their own worldview in a semi-intellectually sophisticated way, which is why Elon Musk is so drawn to Rudyard.
In other words, people come for an emotional validation of their worldview, and Rudyard is masterfully providing it to them from each angle on a regular basis.
Authenticity
Finally, you may hate him or think he’s an idiot, but you cannot deny that he’s authentic. I’d wager that a significant number of people actually gained even more respect for him after the ten-hour crash-out series was released.
Not only did some of them probably related to that, many thought that he has a strong character since he is not ashamed to show his raped weak side.
I would assume that for many of them, this is like a deity humbling themselves and pretending that he’s a regular man just like his viewership, because at the end of the day, no matter how cringe you are, if you have a big following you will command respect due to its subconscious association with power.
Conclusion
Ultimately, this Rudyard has gamed the algorithm and he is talented at what he does, which is providing his listeners like Musk (and maybe even Peter Thiel) with emotional comfort that others could not. This I believe is the main reason he still exists. Were there a proper competition to Chudyard, his relevance would evaporate overnight. Yet he remains fortunate, for he is singular within his niche, distinguished by his monotone voice, original choice of topics, his editing style, and his peculiar mode of delivery that is truly outmatched (even though it’s lame).
He truly has won and with him is my understanding of audience capture which I appear to have achieved on X but not on YouTube, which is why I will give my YouTube channel one more try in December by providing them with exactly what they want as opposed to with what I want.