Please explain why or why not
Who knows? It probably doesn't hurt, and propaganda works; Folks will see this shit, get pissed off about it, go read about what happened so they can epicly own a commie, and end up picking up The Jakarta Method or something.
Memes were the first time I was positively introduced to communism. Over the course of a couple years I started actually engaging in theory as a result. So yes memes have some positive effect.
It's been ages since I read about this, so all the names have been forgotten. Sadly this turns a true tale into a moralising myth, but please listen anyway.
In the 90's a neo-nazi movement robbed a bunch of banks in the us. The movement used this money to fund other movements and minor terrorist actions. Before the group got busted, one of its members donated 10.000$ to some rotten little alt-right rat we all know of today. The purpose of this donation? To set up a solid internet connection, give them a good computer, and make them go online and spread right-wing agitprop.
Thru the years the operation has expanded, gotten more complex and - some would say - effective. Right wing memes and terminology have become the norm.
No other group noticed the potential of the internet to spread propaganda peer-to-peer as early as the Nazis did, and that can be felt.Is that little endowment the reason for racism online? Of course not! Did it have a meaningful impact? Maybe. At that question we are moreso discussing wether agitprop works at all.
I believe it does.
Was that 10.000$ donation the best use of that money? I believe that at the the time, it was a very good investment. Though I doubt I would think so if that was all they'd donated to.Memes are, in some sick sense of the word, culture. Culture shapes the way we perceive and interact with the world, and so making culture can help push people in one direction or another (24Hours got quoted by lawmakers to justify torture for a quick example).
However it is not the artists of the world that are currently fighting the IOF. It is not artists making shells, smuggling arms and aid into Gaza. It is not artists that turned a desert into a forest in China. It is not artists that developed Cubas Healthcare or taught kids to read.
So to answer your question: Yes they do help, but how helpful they are depends on the time and the place, and if you ask me, these days there's much more directly helpful stuff able to be done by most. We should not give up discourse to the right, so that they can shape the story how they want, but much more importantly we should not give up the real worldMemes are, in some sick sense of the word, culture.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Yes.
Memes are how ideas are normalised now, like it or not. Communities like /r/historymemes have done more to damage communists than anything else in the last 30 years. But by the same token, r/cth and subsequent spaces that became its children like genzedong and hexbear have created tens of thousands of new communists.
Everyone here says only material conditions convert someone to communism but the truth is that material conditions only create the material basis for someone to be receptive to communism. Something still has to reach them.
The online space has significantly more capability to reach and educate people than any other space. Converting people from the online space into offline contributions is a step the movement hasn't mastered yet, but it will get better at it.
surprisingly enough, r/philosophymemes is a very marxist sub that dunks on liberals a lot
But are you doing anything in the real world? It doesn't matter that we're all communists, if we only ever post about it.
I think in the technical sense it actually does, in that it provides a low-stakes entry point for radicalization.
However, I think making and sharing memes and content also has the insidious effect of feeling like productive work and can give people a false sense of satisfaction that they're part of a left movement when in fact they've never left their house.
I think that's why so many people here gave a knee-jerk response to answer "no", despite many being radicalized by people sharing this same content. It is technically true that it matters, but if that's all you do then you're doing so little as to round out down to zero.
Beautifully said. I wrote something similar and deleted it after I spiraled into a rant about how my options for actual meaningful praxis in the imperial core have largely been limited to feeding people, and even that gets harder and harder as time goes
Yes. If someone can make you laugh over theoretically sacred subjects (9/11, Hillary getting rekt by Trump, Jan 6, etc,etc), then memes might trigger introspection. 8-10 years ago (maybe more?) I knew I was done with Western-styled, imperialistic politics but I pretty much chuckled my way into seeing things from an ML perspective, which forced me to read theory and rethink nearly everything.
Posting is praxis.
Frankly, if it keeps more proletarians from dying deaths of despair, it's worthwhile for that alone. Before we can win the world, we must stay alive another day.
We need to occupy online spaces, because otherwise all that other people will see are lib and reactionary memes. It might sound ridiculous, but we shouldn't dismiss things like that as just silly jokes, think of it as a form of propaganda and of normalizing/spreading leftist ideas to the public consciousness. I think we can all remember how in 2016 memes turned a bunch of teenagers into fascists. Obviously, you should also organize irl, but posting is not entirely useless.
Can you build a car without a chassis? No. But if you have a chassis and nothing else, all you have is a piece of useless metal.
Memes, social media, forums, podcasts, videos… this is how you reach a lot of people (but not everyone) in 2023. It’s an important part of building a movement. But it’s just one part that’s useless unless combined with the other parts - organizing, understanding theory, applying both those to local conditions, etc etc.
It’s agitprop, not organizing.
Everybody learns about communism from passionate writers so everyone wants to emulate them. Organizing is hard work and no one learned from it so they don’t wanna do it.
Hard and dangerous work that could land you in prison and take away any job prospects that you’ll ever have
I still got my job and so far the fed hasn't really given a shit where I'm working
No, it means you're just using your paranoia to justify your inactivity.
Feds only really go after you if you're a part of the national security apparatus and in proximity to state secrets as you're an employee at-risk of deliberately leaking sensitive information.
For example, only pissed off management and shareholders will be after your ass if you're a part of one of the Chevy automotive plants because you'd probably be there educating and organizing the workforce to seize their rights, whereas if you try the same thing at an Oshkosh plant, the DHS and FBI will be ordering the management to terminate and blacklist your ass because you are too close to sensitive information on American armed forces mechanized armor schematics.
why are you assuming i meant not to do it
you are agreeing with me
100%
Why risk your well being when you can just read stuff and talk about it.
The real question is how to ensure the well being of all people so we are able to organize without that danger.
