I haven't listened in a long time, and I know they aren't really a fan, but the banning of a large sub for basically no reason except for socialism is kind of a big deal, right?
They reject the parasocial relationship, instead of doing the cool thing and explicitly advocating for listeners to arm thremselves and engage in guerilla warfare against the state.
Feel like if any pod does that it's either going to be Rev Left Radio or a very heated Citations Needed News Brief
Dave Anthony has pretty much been doing this on the last few episodes of The Dollop. Ends of the John Brown episodes (which are very good) have gotten heated.
I mean when the man says the crimes of this country can only be washed away with blood it's hard to argue
They really don't seem to understand that the hundred thousand very active users on the sub are just seeking an outlet for discussion and guidance on how to act to develop socialism, right? Like, there's a lot of people and a lot of energy there that could be guided to fight fascists.
I get it, they didn’t sign up to lead a socialist movement, they signed up to do a dumb podcast. Facilitating exposure to leftist histories, ideas and people is a lot safer than facilitating leftist action.
Being barely left insufferable bougie radlibs is far safer for their bank accounts
Strangely enough, about a week before the ban, the soundcloud algorithm led me to an interview with Matt, in which he talked about how he misses to be able to read a lot since he is on twitter all the time nowadays, how certain tech ceo posters know nothing to do with their riches and are also addicted to posting... and how he is amazed by their listeners since the subreddit was encouraging ppl to volunteer for aoc and that was quite powerful.
It was surreal
Hating the subreddit is clearly at least mostly a bit and it's disappointing that more people don't see that. Also the subreddit was on Reddit therefore it deserved nothing but scorn, anyway. Reddit sucks.
Also they mentioned the AOC stuff on the main show sometime shortly after her win, I think Virgil and/or Will mentioned being at victory party and a campaign worker mentioned that they recruited from the subreddit.
Will's hatred of the sub was one of my favorite things about it, I only hope he grows to hate this place just as much
Dude I can't wait for the follow up to "They know they can just make another forum right?" to be "I can't believe these losers made another forum"
Thanks. These are pretty lame takes overall, I shouldn't have expected more though.
They hate the sub lol. They've been wanting it banned for years
Those motherfuckers are straight up reactionary about the subreddit and had a half-jokingly celebratory episode when it was banned.
Celebrating and gloating about the removal of one of the largest online socialist spaces on account of weird personal hang ups you have about it being loosely associated with your podcast/personal brand = reactionary, IMO. Doubly so if it was removed because it rubbed private, corporate interests wrong (i.e. Reddit & its admins). Anyone can have reactionary beliefs about a broad range of things. Not clear on why someone's views on an online community are uniquely exempt.
Look, I still mostly like the hosts (at least Matt and Felix), and think they have a place in the "left media pipeline," so to speak. But their views on this were dogshit, and came across as having a greater commitment to maintaining a sneering aloofness than actually using their platform for any kind of good.
Y'all are too sensitive about this shit. The subreddit was always going to be banned. You think reddit was going to tolerate a growing leftist community forever? Of course not. We knew that and posted about it even before the quarantine (the reddit one, not covid). Everyone in the community saw this coming, or should have.
And we (well, not me, but the devs) did make a new space and it's not on Reddit and that's a fucking win.
Hating any and all subreddits is the good and correct position, because subreddits are of Reddit, and hating Reddit is the good and correct position.
Ok, I listened to this. I forgot just how bad their takes are. For a couple of guys who have never had jobs and met on social media, they really have massive contempt for people they think are below them.
"Just set up a new subreddit" entirely misses the point that, first of all, that's impossible as it will get banned, and second of all, this was a massive number of people that they are just brushing aside.
