Who is Dean Withers? Viral political debater becoming left-wing poster boy

One of the most viral videos shared countless times on social media this year features 20-year-old Dean Withers debating young conservatives. But who exactly is this liberal content creator and how has he blown up so quickly?

In the build-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, in which current vice President Kamala Harris is going up against former President Donald Trump, content creators are an increasingly important part of the discourse.

Over the years, we’ve seen various streamers and YouTubers, on both sides, have their moments in the spotlight: for example, in the lead-up to the 2020 election, Twitch streamer HasanAbi became the number one creator on the platform.

Now, though, the left has a new young star attempting to run rings around the conservative side of social media, and 20-year-old Withers is quickly becoming a household name. Here’s what we know about him.

How has Dean Withers become popular?

In 2024, Withers has gained over 1 million followers on TikTok by sharing clips of himself debating right-wing or conservatives, typically around his age.

This exploded further, though, when he appeared in a Jubilee video titled ‘Can 1 Woke Teen Survive 20 Trump Supporters?’

In it, he had to debate against 20 different Trump supporters on various topics, each on a timer, and had to come up with concise arguments against anything they said – or strong arguments in favor of his opinions.

This followed a similar style of video in which Jubilee brought in conservative social sensation Charlie Kirk to debate 25 liberal college students.

Dean’s video has surpassed 10M views at the time of writing, on top of millions more across platforms such as TikTok and X/Twitter, where his clips regularly go viral.

He has also been invited to various livestreams for debates, including featuring on Adin Ross’ Kick channel.

He also appeared on One Night With Steiny and debated a “hot Trump supporter,” with several of those clips now going viral.

Notably, Dean spoke in that podcast about how his upbringing was actually conservative, with a pro-Trump mother that has been banned on Facebook multiple times due to her “trolling”. This, he says, was important for him when educating himself on political and societal issues.

Past controversies: Racism & homophobia accusations

Despite his liberal views, Withers admitted to past wrongdoings when they started to surface on social media, including using racial and homophobic slurs historically.

“Screenshots of me saying the f slur in 2022 and the n word in 2019 have been doing their rounds here on X,” he said. “First I would like to confirm that both of these screenshots are 110% real.

“I made a pretty long post about my past use of slurs on my Discord some time ago. I want to share a part of that with you all now.

“I am putting this announcement out not only to hold myself accountable but hoping you guys will hold me accountable as well … The use of slurs is deplorable, harmful, and disgusting and I am ashamed of my past actions.

“As I speak about on my live streams often, the reason I host my debates is because I was once in a position where I lacked critical education surrounding the topics that I now adamantly preach about, and I now hope to share that same education that brought me to the truth with AS MANY people as I can. I am ashamed of the boy I used to be and this is something that will continue to haunt me.”

Dean was also accused of running a university “scam” similar to that of Andrew Tate, called “E-Rich University,” in which he said he would teach people about influencer management, advanced cryptocurrency trading, and how to make money online.

He later said that “the Andrew [Tate] sh*t was just a failed marketing ploy I used for a few months.”

While Dean is still a pretty new name on social media and has been thrust pretty quickly into the limelight, he’s certainly taking the ball and running with it.