• happybadger [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    If I had a kid, spectacle would be a big teaching priority. Something akin to "We can consume images faster than words. Images are very powerful and can make us feel certain ways or believe certain things without thinking about what we're being told by those images. Powerful and popular people use images like a carrot and stick to take advantage of us. They tell you that boys do certain things that girls don't, that money buys happiness, that some people are better than others, that you're part of a group that you don't actually belong to as an equal member. Because the world is a sad place and people don't have the things they need to be the best version of themselves, they crave images that replace the things they're missing and worship people who give them that fulfilling image. That can be an authority figure, an institution or business, or a celebrity. Celebrities use the image of friendship, but a one-sided friendship where they don't know you exist, to sell you the images that benefit them personally. Because your life is very different from theirs, what benefits them hurts you and makes you need that imagery more."

    Just a basic sense of alienation, parasocial relationships, propaganda, and simulacra. If a kid can tell that images have stories behind them and ask what those stories are and where they're coming from, they're at least distrustful of the shit they're sold.

      • happybadger [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I mean Hasan is my friend and he loves me and we watch youtube together and I wish he were my dad because he works too much but Hasan just likes hanging out with me.

        • Llituro [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          I hate the prevalence of parasocial relationships, but damn, I can't help but love Hasan.

          • happybadger [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            I don't like what he represents structurally and eventually his class interests will probably turn but I like agents of chaos and he's the only streamer I bother watching. He's hosting at least some of the things I'd want Twitch kids to watch and is actively hostile to toxicity in the kind of bullying way that I like about this community. If Twitch must exist and it must be a radicalising force, may as well be someone saying/doing most of what I'd say/do in his shoes.

            • Llituro [he/him, they/them]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Yeah I'd turn on him in a heartbeat if he stopped drawing attention to the structural contradictions that allowed him to be profoundly successful. I do think he does a good job trying to break the communism is when no money attitude of a lot of internet leftists. That, and he rapidly attacks transphobes, which is great.

              • happybadger [he/him]
                ·
                edit-2
                3 years ago

                His breaks that stereotype while constantly framing it within the labour theory of value. I'm not sure what actual monetary value should be assigned to entertainment, especially as someone who thinks modern art is invaluable, but whenever I hear him talk about it he's saying that it's all value he is generating. No employees and hates the idea of having them, no capital beyond the channel and hates the idea of investing, gives his IP away for free so that the message is extended by every small channel cutting up clips. Mods and twitch backend employees should both get a cut at his expense but otherwise it's a one-fella operation. I take more of an issue with Chapo for paying their editor a wage.