(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Jonathon explores the role social media influencers have in spreading gender ideology, focusing on the case of gender-confused YouTuber Chris Tyson.

Last spring, Tyson revealed he was “transitioning” to become a woman, leaving his wife and three-year-old son. He has worked with Jimmy Donaldson, also known as MrBeast on his eponymous YouTube channel, since Donaldson’s first forays into YouTube about a decade ago. The channel is now the second most-subscribed channel on the platform, with videos often having hundreds of millions of views.

Jonathon posits that it is possible the transgender movement managed to make inroads in the culture because of the role celebrities had in its promulgation, pointing to the cultural significance of Bruce Jenner’s announcement that he considered himself a woman in a widely seen ABC News interview.

Looking to the cultural significance of Tyson’s “transition,” Jonathon notes that most people under 20 years old will likely have heard of the MrBeast channel.

“MrBeast is consistently cited as one of the top YouTube influencers in the world, and kids follow this channel obsessively,” Jonathon observes. “They relate to and feel as if they know the star and cast.”

“YouTube and social media videos and influencers are a profoundly more intimate space than TV and Hollywood ever was,” he continues.

Jonathon examines this idea, explaining that social media influencers are more “accessible” than most Hollywood celebrities, with the ability for consumers to comment on videos and speak with them directly online – something he maintains makes people more invested in this kind of celebrity, whereas fans of 90s sitcoms could only identify with one of the characters or imitate a hairstyle.

“Internet celebrity is fundamentally different in many, many ways than Hollywood or TV celebrity was,” says Jonathon. “Now, why is this important? Because online influencers are just that – they’re influencers. They’re called that for a reason. They wield enormous social and cultural clout, and yet their social and cultural clout is not understood nearly as well as the pull of celebrities on reality shows.”

YouTube influencers, Jonathon contends, have remained relatively unnoticed by socially conservative commentators, in his opinion, because most have not paid attention to the popularity of certain YouTube channels. However, Jonathon is also interested to know what parents think their children are watching when they themselves are scrolling through social media on their phones, also observing that most adults are unaware of what younger generations view on social media, let alone how much of it they consume.

Compounding this, Tyson recognizes his social media clout. Jonathon cites an X post in which Tyson defended the alleged benefits of hormone replacement therapy for gender “transitions” – a post shared over 1,400 times. Donaldson, meanwhile, has voiced his support for Tyson’s decision and continues to allow Tyson in his videos, and Tyson himself has posted pictures of his “progress” on social media. The LGBT movement, further, has taken notice Tyson’s “transition,” with LGBT publications marking a year since Tyson has been on hormone therapy.

“[People like Donaldson] wield so much influence that we’re unaware of, and most gender-critical or anti-transgender health professionals or experts have been warning parents for years that online influencers play a key role in introducing transgender ideology to children,” says Jonathon. “Thousands of parents have discovered, to their horror, that their child’s identity has been shaped by the online content they consume.”

“There is no way that we are going to win the culture war at home if we are not monitoring the culture that is consumed in our home.”

“I’ll always remember the one high school I spoke at when the adults in the room realized that roughly a quarter of the kids in the high school, of a very conservative … Christian high school, thought that it was rude not to use the preferred pronouns of a transgender person,” he concludes. “They had no idea where this came from, but the reality is that when they have a smartphone, if they’re spending time on the internet, they’re spending time in a parallel universe with very, very different values.”

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