Jubilee turned arguing into appointment viewing.
One person in a chair, twenty people lined up to take them apart. Surrounded pulled millions of views doing something debate societies have done quietly for two centuries, and proved a room watching an argument is a real audience. The question that show never asks is the one worth asking: did anybody actually change their mind? So we ask it, on the same questions, and we ask again months later.
The episodes that made argument watchable
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What the format gets right, and what it leaves out
Surrounded works because it restores stakes. A seat empties when someone gets beaten, the clash is face to face, and there is nowhere to hide behind a thread. Middle Ground works for the opposite reason: it rewards finding the overlap instead of the kill.
What neither measures is movement. Views are not persuasion, and a clip that travels is usually a clip where somebody lost their temper, not one where somebody was convinced. Formal debating solved this a long time ago. The Oxford Union, Intelligence Squared and the Munk Debates all poll the room before and after and report the swing, so the winner is whoever moved the most people, not whoever was loudest.
That is the number this page is built around.
So: where do you actually stand?
One proposition, ten seconds, and you see where everyone else landed. We ask the same statement again in about ten weeks, which is the only way to find out whose mind genuinely moved.
Answering is optional and takes about ten seconds. You can skip any question.
How the panel works
One proposition at a time
A flat statement, not a loaded question. You place yourself on a seven-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, and separately say how sure you are. Direction and certainty are different things and we keep them apart.
Asked again later
The same wording comes back after about ten weeks. We do not show you your old answer, because seeing it would anchor the new one. The gap between the two is the measurement.
Sometimes after a round
Finish a debate and you may get a proposition tied to what you just argued, with room to say what changed your mind. An opinion with a stated cause behind it is worth more than a tally.
Where the room stands
Live splits across the propositions with enough answers to be worth showing. Anything thinner than that is left off rather than dressed up as a finding.
Try the format yourself
The reason this page exists on a debate product and not a blog: you can do the thing rather than watch it. Debatable puts you in the chair against an AI that argues back, takes interruptions, and does not concede to be polite, then writes you a judge's ballot explaining why you won or lost. If you would rather face a person, the queue matches you with a real opponent for a live round.
Start a round or debate a stranger.
Questions people ask
What is Jubilee's Surrounded?
A debate series from Jubilee Media where one person sits in the middle of a circle and argues against a group of 20 to 25 people who disagree with them. Opponents take the facing seat one at a time, and either side can leave the chair. Episodes with Mehdi Hasan, Sam Seder and Charlie Kirk each drew millions of views.
What is Middle Ground on Jubilee?
The companion format. Two opposed groups sit facing each other and answer prompts by stepping forward when they agree. It is built to find overlap rather than to produce a winner, which makes it the cooperative counterpart to Surrounded's adversarial setup.
Are there other debate shows like Surrounded?
The Oxford Union publishes full formal debates on YouTube, where speakers argue a fixed motion and the audience votes. Intelligence Squared and the Munk Debates run the same before-and-after audience vote. The shared idea across all of them is that the score is how many minds moved, not who talked loudest.
How can I practice the Surrounded style of debate?
Run a timed round against an AI opponent that argues back and interrupts, or get matched against a real person for a live round. An AI judge writes a ballot at the end explaining the decision.
Is Debatable affiliated with Jubilee Media?
No. Debatable is independent, with no affiliation with, endorsement from, or partnership with Jubilee Media, the Oxford Union, or any other publisher referenced here. Videos are embedded through YouTube's own player and remain the property of their creators.
What we do with it
Answers are stored against a pseudonymous panel id, never your account id. They power the splits on this page for everyone.
We also license an anonymized slice to research organizations, under exactly the same opt-in that covers debate rounds: off by default, 18 or over only, future answers only, and never for signed-out visitors. If you have not switched that on in your profile, your answers stay here and go nowhere else. The full terms are in the privacy policy, and the corpus terms sit alongside them at the research page.
Turn licensing on or off any time in profile settings. Ask us to delete your answers and we will, including from future shipments.