Tbh, you aren’t wrong. I still keep getting anti-COVID memes and stuff from the lockdowns that’s kept alive by the out-of-touch rightwing clowns in my extended family. They keep all that stuff alive even though it’s been 4 years now and nobody remembers what it felt like.
I have a guy that still hangs banners on the highways overpass. I see at least 5 stickers on bumpers every time I leave the house. It’s crazy.
And when you bring this stuff up to people on the left, they’re more interested in winning online arguments then addressing these issues and admitting we have a problem of being way behind the times.
The left really does encompass this academic mentality of losers sitting away in towers pouring over books thinking they’re the smartest and the best while everyone else is outside getting shit done. I’m just so tired of people on the left telling me how dumb the people on the right are, while the people on the right are winning in almost every arena. I’m so fucking tired of seeing thousands show up to protests while nobody is actually making content online or standing on bridges of whatever the fucking equivalent on our side would be. We’re all so ineffective.
Well. Go start it then. I’m over here challenging coworkers to actually talk about their beliefs and having confrontations when someone posts hateful stuff. Got someone to remove their anti-gay cover photo a few days ago and think about their messaging. I only have time for interpersonal groundwork, and as much as I’d love to throw it all away and rally behind Greta or someone more nationally active, I have a wife to put before everything else.
I’m over here challenging coworkers to actually talk about their beliefs and having confrontations
Got someone to remove their anti-gay cover photo a few days ago and think about their messaging.
I was there with you until I realized how gross this approach is. You can’t force people to anything, especially assholes. There’s a better approach that is proven to work. You need to shape the culture around people and they’ll figure it out.
You shape culture by searching for content and resharing it. Find podcasts like The Majority Report and subscribe. Download GIMP and make your own memes calling out the absurdity and hypocrisy on the right. Make T-shirts. Stickers. Anything. There are endless ways to push back. But trying to win hearts and minds one conversation at a time? That’s not how influence works anymore.
Think about it: protesting today feels like performance art from a past era. We’re supposedly “raising awareness” by standing in public, holding cardboard, chanting slogans, then packing up and going home. That’s it?
The internet is right there. Think how things would be if every person at a protest could instead be creating content from their couch. Not just commenting under a post on r/politic, actually running a meme page on Facebook, Reddit, or Lemmy. Posting weekly. Clipping moments from creators like Sam Seder, AOC, or Jon Stewart people who already deliver killer sound bites and pushing those moments out into the algorithm. They’re not making that content for us to passively watch. We should spread it and amplify it.
It’s wild that the left still treats raising awareness like it’s 1965. Holding signs on a street corner while ignoring the very platforms where public opinion is actually shaped every day, every hour. The right is flooding the zone with money, bots, influencers. And we’re burning gas to go chant in a park for eight hours and call it a strategy. If we all think they’re using bots to spread their views online, we should be drowningtheir efforts. It costs them money to counter our messages so wouldn’t a winning strategy be to make them spend more?? Every message they push out should be buried by ours. Like in the Untouchables, the Chicago Way.
We could counter them for free if even a fraction of us got serious about creating and sharing content. From home. With your family in the next room before dinner.
I saw this right after I posted this comment. Like this stuff is awesome. We need more of this
Also a clip like this from within the last 24 hrs. Great stuff like this is created everyday. But at least in my mind is not getting the spread it should given how many people want things to change.
I was there with you until I realized how gross this approach is.
??? It’s not like I am forcing anyone or being pushy. I’m having conversations. The person removed the image by their own volition; I made no reccomendations. I am helping people not become full asshole and critically think when they decided not to. I can make a significantly larger impact on irl relationships than making another online echo chamber. (Also that would take more time away from my irl relationships, not willing to do that.)
Also, yes I do give my views/clicks to what I think should be shared; including Jon Stewart, John Oliver, and many others.
I get where you are coming from, but I don’t think that playing their game online with bots and money is going to work out. You play defense on the opposition’s turf, and strike elsewhere. Like you already pointed out; social media empires are overrun, people get shadowbanned and worse all the time now.
Tbh, you aren’t wrong. I still keep getting anti-COVID memes and stuff from the lockdowns that’s kept alive by the out-of-touch rightwing clowns in my extended family. They keep all that stuff alive even though it’s been 4 years now and nobody remembers what it felt like.
I have a guy that still hangs banners on the highways overpass. I see at least 5 stickers on bumpers every time I leave the house. It’s crazy.
And when you bring this stuff up to people on the left, they’re more interested in winning online arguments then addressing these issues and admitting we have a problem of being way behind the times.
The left really does encompass this academic mentality of losers sitting away in towers pouring over books thinking they’re the smartest and the best while everyone else is outside getting shit done. I’m just so tired of people on the left telling me how dumb the people on the right are, while the people on the right are winning in almost every arena. I’m so fucking tired of seeing thousands show up to protests while nobody is actually making content online or standing on bridges of whatever the fucking equivalent on our side would be. We’re all so ineffective.
Well. Go start it then. I’m over here challenging coworkers to actually talk about their beliefs and having confrontations when someone posts hateful stuff. Got someone to remove their anti-gay cover photo a few days ago and think about their messaging. I only have time for interpersonal groundwork, and as much as I’d love to throw it all away and rally behind Greta or someone more nationally active, I have a wife to put before everything else.
I was there with you until I realized how gross this approach is. You can’t force people to anything, especially assholes. There’s a better approach that is proven to work. You need to shape the culture around people and they’ll figure it out.
You shape culture by searching for content and resharing it. Find podcasts like The Majority Report and subscribe. Download GIMP and make your own memes calling out the absurdity and hypocrisy on the right. Make T-shirts. Stickers. Anything. There are endless ways to push back. But trying to win hearts and minds one conversation at a time? That’s not how influence works anymore.
Think about it: protesting today feels like performance art from a past era. We’re supposedly “raising awareness” by standing in public, holding cardboard, chanting slogans, then packing up and going home. That’s it?
The internet is right there. Think how things would be if every person at a protest could instead be creating content from their couch. Not just commenting under a post on r/politic, actually running a meme page on Facebook, Reddit, or Lemmy. Posting weekly. Clipping moments from creators like Sam Seder, AOC, or Jon Stewart people who already deliver killer sound bites and pushing those moments out into the algorithm. They’re not making that content for us to passively watch. We should spread it and amplify it.
It’s wild that the left still treats raising awareness like it’s 1965. Holding signs on a street corner while ignoring the very platforms where public opinion is actually shaped every day, every hour. The right is flooding the zone with money, bots, influencers. And we’re burning gas to go chant in a park for eight hours and call it a strategy. If we all think they’re using bots to spread their views online, we should be drowningtheir efforts. It costs them money to counter our messages so wouldn’t a winning strategy be to make them spend more?? Every message they push out should be buried by ours. Like in the Untouchables, the Chicago Way.
We could counter them for free if even a fraction of us got serious about creating and sharing content. From home. With your family in the next room before dinner.
I saw this right after I posted this comment. Like this stuff is awesome. We need more of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aI8fOsX3T4
Also a clip like this from within the last 24 hrs. Great stuff like this is created everyday. But at least in my mind is not getting the spread it should given how many people want things to change.
https://youtu.be/BcAoWnr8gn0
Also, yes I do give my views/clicks to what I think should be shared; including Jon Stewart, John Oliver, and many others.
I get where you are coming from, but I don’t think that playing their game online with bots and money is going to work out. You play defense on the opposition’s turf, and strike elsewhere. Like you already pointed out; social media empires are overrun, people get shadowbanned and worse all the time now.
That Papers Please mod is amazing btw