Please explain why or why not
It shows people that communists aren't overly-serious academics with a stick up their ass. Joking about stuff is how people communicate with one another. Communists need to communicate their ideas to people in ways people will understand and accept. People are going to actually consider the ideas of a group that they can joke along with rather than a group of stuffy, overly serious people allergic to humor.
Additionally, the far right has had this figured out for quite a while now, and they try to present "the left" as utterly humourless, because they know that this is one of the best ways to get people to never want to learn about a group. Socialism is a human-centric philosophy, we need to show people our humanity.
Relatedly, Cody’s Showdy on how the right just isn’t funny, largely because they’re punching down: Why Is Conservative Comedy So… Not Very Good? - SOME MORE NEWS
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Let's be honest, political theory is painfully fucking boring to 90% of people especially when they've had propaganda rammed down their throats from birth. Being light hearted and silly is a great way to show people ideas without the mental baggage and if they're interested they'll seek out "harder stuff".
“No. Communism is when no fun. You must build the revolution every single second that you exist from birth. That brings me to point number 2: You cannot be a communist if you eat food because eating means you are not building the Revolution. You are building your intestinal tract, a reactionary part of the body that only believes in consumerism”- Average Twitter Maoist
I was radicalized because the memes were good. Back in the days of the Chapotraphouse subreddit. That site led me the yellow Parenti, GenZedong sub, etc, and then eventually here. All because I was a dummy on Reddit just laughing at funny anti-capitalist memes.
People have the internal feelings of dislike for the system. Memes give an outlet and can point people in a direction. Your brain associates the good feeling you have from a funny meme to the message within the meme. If those memes are leftist memes they will associate the left with not being so bad, good even. The same thing happens if the memes are rightoid oriented. They get pulled in the direction of the underlying message of the meme.
Furthermore, humans are curious animals by nature. When we see something we want to understand it's origins. If we see a meme that funny but don't quite understand it, many are driven to learn more about it. Take for instance, memes about yellow Parenti, or Michael Parenti in general. If it's a good, funny meme, but the viewer hasn't actually seen anything by Parenti, they might end up looking him up and watching some videos.
They are also a way to make sharing ideas and theory entertaining. Let's be honest, reading theory is boring. It's a slog, but if you can get a general idea, or the basics acrossed to them, then that's usually enough. If the people want to know more then they can look into it further.
Your brain associates the good feeling you have from a funny meme to the message within the meme. If those memes are leftist memes they will associate the left with not being so bad, good even. The same thing happens if the memes are rightoid oriented. They get pulled in the direction of the underlying message of the meme.
I don't think this paints an accurate picture of how humans work, in fact I think it paints humans as quite irrational, almost "Pavlovian" in nature. Here's a good article that tries to debunk the "emotional inception" theory Ads Don't Work That Way.
Why is this distinction important? Well for one, in order for our propaganda to actually be effective, it's important to know how and why propaganda works in general. Is agitprop just a matter of handing out good vibes or do we need to convince people in a way that resonates with their lived experience? Roderic Day has a good article that argues against "brainwashing" being a thing (which is quite related to how "emotional inception" is supposed to work).
Apart from giving us directions on what method to employ there's also a kind of problematic view of humans that's associated with this Pavlovian narrative. I will try to paint a picture: assume that humans are inherently irrational and can be emotionally incepted/brainwashed, then there's no point in educating people at all because the empire will always have more resources than us and just pump out funny memes associating that "good feeling" with empire. Even worse, if people can just gobble up stuff based on vibes, why should the working class rule at all?
I'm not dissing what you said in general or insinuating that you actually believe people are fundamentally irrational, I just wanted to push back on this particular narrative because even though it seems harmless at first glance, it can do real damage (e.g. Orwell is famous for this, arguing that the working class are stupid sheeple).
assume that humans are inherently irrational and can be emotionally incepted/brainwashed, then there’s no point in educating people at all because the empire will always have more resources than us and just pump out funny memes associating that “good feeling” with empire. Even worse, if people can just gobble up stuff based on vibes, why should the working class rule at all?
The answer to this problem is that humans don't generally believe things because they are bombarded with extreme amounts of high quality propaganda, rather they accept (and seek out) the information that gives them license to feel good about themselves and the situation they are in and ignore facts that don't fit this narrative. I'd say almost all racist/colonial narratives work by this mechanism. It's not that people turn racist because the media paints e.g. Africans/Asians as barbarians or whatever, rather people need to justify why the Global South is still impoverished and thinking of them as inferior (a racist trope) solves the contradiction. The truth of imperial plunder leads to dangerous conclusions: "I can't keep my cheap stuff!", "We'll be poor like them!"
This is a good point. I still think the curiosity bit about 201dberg’s theory works well.
Ditto to all this. Memes on gzd that I didn’t understand at first were vital to my radicalization.
It’s entertainment, even what Hakim and Second Thought are doing is producing entertainment that isn’t “building the revolution”. That doesn’t mean it isn’t useful however, just aim to do more then just create entertainment.
The distribution and enjoyment of communist memes leads people away from doomerism and thus slightly erodes the mass-psychological superstructure by which capitalism perpetuates itself
It's what got me into it :)
I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that yogthuos (I'm not correcting that) guy
He wouldn't be a good spy if he didn't double confirm information
“But there is movement and movement. There was movement in social life during the ‘September days,’ when the proletariat, straightening its back, posted memes about Feinstein’s death and launched an attack upon Twitter Libs. But the movement of preceding years, when the proletariat, under the conditions of ‘peaceful’ development, limited itself to lefty infighting memes about Bernie being a Zionist, must also be called social movement.”-JV Stalin
In the margins, definitely, spreading memes can give license to people that it is "OK" to have these opinions because they will feel that they are not weird and have company. However I would say that for the vast majority (in the core), if they do not see how they can materially/socially benefit these kinds of memes will just get ignored or even attacked. Think about the reactionary memes that you see in the wild and I'm sure you just scoff at their stupidity or moral depravity. This is probably what the average liberal also thinks when seeing communist memes.
These are my own thoughts but I believe that the right-wing pipeline (on YouTube etc) works by slowly giving you a social context which you are afraid to lose rather than convincing you directly of the facts/opinions. I'm not sure if we should employ this same tactic mainly because it's a brittle relationship. If someone finds another social context it is quite easy for them to de-radicalize because the main thing deciding is how they appear in front of their peers. For us, I think the answer lies in trying to base our "pipelines" in class. What this entails for the western proletariat (who gives license to empire to do whatever as long as they get some of the spoils) is a bit trickier. But in summary: I believe communist memes might weakly convince those on the margins but never the majority. If, however, their material circumstances or standing in society changes (for the worse) memes can be an effective tool which resonates and educates. The main problem regarding how receptive memes are to the majority is not the quality or quantity of memes (yet), but whether they believe/reason they could gain more from communism than the status quo.
I was further radicalized and had it more tied to my identity personally. It can convert people and echo chambers can make one have more faith in what they believe for good or ill.
Memes are the political cartoon of the age. So, yes. But they can't be divorced from organizing and action.
I'm king of a pessimist when it comes to Americans at least. Politics to most Americans is equivalent to a spectator sport, and that's including most leftists. I think at best posting a lot just helps blow off steam, or helps leftists not feel so alone. Lots of us feel like we've gone insane in our daily lives. Our experiences don't quite match how most people see reality, or rather, we feel the constant hammering of imperialist propaganda pounding at our heads all day, whereas most people are numb to it. Or they enjoy it.
Feeling connected is important though. It's important to not feel hopeless if you're involved in a movement, and all the memes and jokes help with that.
I don't believe posting is enough though, that's what liberals believe. They believe by just saying a lot of things, by "raising awareness" that reality will simply morph into their desires. We shouldn't ever believe that. You have to actually do things. That Shawn Fain guy, president of the United Auto Workers, he's probably way more effective at spreading leftist working class fervor than anything I've ever seen on a forum. That's the type of action I want to see more of. Winning strikes, being clear about working class victory in interviews, stating goals, planning ahead, refusing to retreat into liberal obfuscation
Nope, sharing a le epic commie meme about hating your boss doesn't change the fact that most workers in the west are still materially aligned with Imperialism and other reactionary elements. Individuals can rise above that but the economic class a a whole cannot. There have been and can be revolutionaries who come from the bourgeoisie class, Engels and Marx the most prominent, but the bourgeoisie class as a whole is not revolutionary.
Likewise, you can make and share as many commie memes as you like but it doesn't change the class character of the individuals. The only potential use is in finding comradery. Or possibly in spreading revolutionary ideals during revolutionary times. But you're not going to meme your way into communism, the best you can do is accelerate it once the conditions are ripe. If we could change the course of history solely with ideas then Marxism would be disproven.
Idealism, the philosophy not optimism, is the current brainrot of Western Communists and it will continue for quit a long time.
