oh wow another hoi4 twitch streamer. how novel. I’m so tired of these grifters that make a “job” out of making “ermmm akshually” dunking and reaction videos between two sessions of whatever paradox game.
Yeah bro you dunked on an online reactionary good on you. There are protestors being killed by police in Kenya but it’s vitally important that you post about this youtube guy sure.
The moment you make money from your streaming stop calling yourself a communist or divide the two completely. One side of you is a communist, the other is a streamer. You simply cannot reconcile making money from this, because you will self-censor yourself very quickly in order to chase more money.
But this isn’t even about the money aspect. I’m so tired of online “communists” in general. Lemmygrad and PW are the only reasonable places left. Prior to 2020 I learned a lot online in those spaces but now it’s just devolving into a flanderization of itself. It’s all about the post-irony “ermm what did he mean by this??” types of posts that even the OP doesn’t know what they mean by it, they just wanted to post. You make your own meaning because they’re on 5 levels of irony and clearly saying their point would cancel at least 4 of those layers and we can’t have that. It’s a contest to be the cleverest smartass all the time.
And when you point people to fully-owned spaces like the aforementioned, they don’t want to join. They keep getting banned and driven off the lib platforms but they want to stay there. One argument is that the people are there, sure, but nothing is forcing them to exclusively use one platform. Imo they just want either the money and the fans.
They don’t want to be part of a collective platform because that entails work, and rules, and giving up your name to an extent. It pays more to be doing their own thing.
It’s very individualizing. People start getting followings of fans that will defend them just because they like them. You see that any time one of these guys gets called out for being a sex pest. Thus instead of building a movement they are building a cult. If what you’re doing ends up being a Logan Paul then you’re not really doing communism.
A ton of maoists and ultras too on social media, and very vocal too. They don’t know what they’re saying either, just like the rest. Before the internet these are people who would have thought “gosh maybe if I’m the only one that thinks like this I might be wrong”. Now they find each other and they get to stroke their brain to Bordiga all day long on their armchair. Then once in a while post something that a trotskyist would say (but still claim they’re not trots).
I was going to make a short little quip and agree about a few things, but like a good communist, I started really analyzing the shit out of my own thoughts and feelings about “influencers” and internet discourse. And then typed it out as I thought about it. Lol. Just a warning I get a little long winded and rambly.
spoiler
I agree with a lot of this and get where you are coming from. There are a lot of trash tier “Left” wing channels popping up, but honestly, after thinking about it, the only ones I really complain about are the obvious psyops shit and other fake left, libshit types, and the “purity test”ers that just want to be divisive (although a lot of those probably fall into the first category). I feel we need less low effort shit but we do need MORE influencers in general that are all doing the same, or similar, communist influencing. I mean, decently put together content. Idc if 10, 20 other communist podcasters are talking about the same anti-capitalist stuff. The more “quality” voices, the better. This not only helps prevent the “cult” like mentality but also helps fight the reactionary bullshit. If there’s only a handful of “good ones” and one turns out to be a turd, people will stay because there’s not that many other options. If there’s a dozen or more other options though? If because of those options, people don;t feel like they have an allegiance to one, or a few figures?
Then there’s the reactionary influencers we have to deal with… We NEED people online to combat them. The simple truth is, people don’t go outside. Hell, in the west there’s barely anyplace TO go. SO people sit at home and watch media on their phones, and people want their “slop.” People want content. They CRAVE content. Because they don’t want to FEEL alone, but our society promotes individualism. It all but forces it. If we want to grow our own movements and actually get people outside we need influencers and we need voices so people don’t feel like they are alone in their beliefs.
Movements don;t grow without voices and they don’t grow by retreating from the greater online spaces. They grow by influencing them. The right is out there throwing cash at any POS willing to spew their propaganda. And it’s working. That shits everywhere and it doesn’t just make more fascists, it is encouraging the existing ones. Making them feel less isolated, and emboldening them to go out and do fascist shit. People are way less likely to do that when they feel alone and isolated. The more voices we have pushing back against them, and the more we have giving a general feel of pro communist sentiment the better for us and worse for them.
As for why people don’t leave Rddit (I mean there’s other sites but lets be real here, you meant rddit)), simply put, there is more content there. As said before, people crave content. They crave interaction. Lemmygrad is wonderful. I love it here, but I still go to reddit. Why? Cause I see a wider range of news and viewpoints even though I do stick to the mostly left subs and stay out of mainstream subs. There’s more posters and more news getting shared. There are fewer true communist subreddits but more commenters, and I have seen some subs grow from being more radlib to leaning much harder communist. It’s good to see. And its good to keep influencing. Which leads into another point.
As long as I’m there, I have the opportunity to actually tell people about lemmygrad. The average person, or new baby communist, isn’t going to know about lemmy, but damn near everyone knows about reddit to some degree. If we want people to come to lemmy we have to not only tell them about it but try and push them here. So, I wont retreat from reddit just because there are libs there. I think using both sites is the best approach. We need to make reddit commy subs a pipeline to lemmy. Not cut it off. So i wont give people crap for using reddit… IF the still come by lemmy more because, to be blunt here, we tend to lack engagement a lot. Posts with 50 upvotes are considered pretty high here and you won’t see a single comment. It feels dead here sometimes.
As for making money off their streams or podcasts…. Honestly, the grifters are gonna grift. But we also have to realize that good content takes time and planning… and money. If we attack every person for trying to get funding to produce GOOD communist content, we won’t have any.
And I wanna follow all this up with, I’m not saying give up on going outside and talking to people, or to not go to protests or whatever, and to just sit online and argue with libs and bots. I’m just saying, like it or not it’s here, it’s staying, and if we want to influenced and grow the movement, we are going to have to use it and suffer in it.
A very good argument. One of the drivers of parasocial attachment to online leftist content creators is there are comparatively quite few so people develop an unhealthy defensiveness about the ones that do exist. This is not good for anyone.
Absolutely. It does nothing for our cause as communists to retreat into isolated spaces. That is how you become irrelevant, sectarian, and eventually shrink out of existence. It may feel good and comfortable to distance yourself from everything and everyone who isn’t “pure” enough but it is totally counterproductive.
As much as i dislike reddit i also have to agree with this. We certainly need to have our own spaces like lemmy, but communists should always also go to where the masses are. Even if it’s hard, even if it’s uncomfortable. This applies both online and offline.
For the Global North, your comments make sense and it is still important to keep a presence in imperialist dominated spaces. However, for the Global South, that strategy is no longer working and the demand for an alternative to Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, X, Reddit, et al in the playing field grew radically.
For what I have seen as an example of this, the growth of usage for Telegram from Cuba/Nicaragua/Venezuela was intense due to the constant bans on anti imperialist voices to the point that even Maduro asked people to opt out of Whatsapp to use Telegram and WeChat.
If Cubans with the aid of China and Russia(see the promising initiative of the tech hub) put an alternative out there to the yankee owned social networks, I am confident that people will flock there. From my perspective, comrades from the Global South like me have to push for this change. We need this change urgently so our marxist voices could flourish without any imperialist meddling.
True. Countries in the global south very much need to develop and use their own domestic alternatives to western tech and services, the way China has done. It is a matter of national security first and foremost.
CPUSA needs to consider rural poor outreach and accept volunteer hours in lieu of $20 plxkthxbai.