Those in the Imperial Core will never understand that what they consider unbearable hardship and boredom is actually a life of luxury that the vast majority of people on Earth cannot even imagine.
The international division of labor is 1000x more important and impactful than the domestic one.
I don't think I agree with either of the positions being presented here. :grillman:
He's hardly getting crushed to death in the gears of industrial capital, but I don't think the thought-terminating cliche that there are starving kids in Africa is a good enough reason to fail to recognize alienation when it's staring us in the face every day.
Yeah this is definitely capitalist alienation. There's almost no difference between this video and Nintendo's advert for Tears playing on exactly the same emotion.
This is exactly what communist should be seizing on in the imperial core. That there is more to life than.... This. That this is not fulfilling for human beings, that we need more than repetitive daily labour to lead happy lives.
What is missing in this video? The product of this man's labour. He is divorced from it. He has no pride or fulfilment from his daily routine, he is not connected with the output of his work.
As soon as you put that into the mixture it becomes impossible to see it as depressing, because the fruit of all that work becomes an accomplishment. The issue is that we're disconnected from it so it never feels like our accomplishment, it belongs to the capitalist owner, the Elon Musks of the world. Even the person designing rockets feels this way when Musk takes that accomplishment for himself.
It probably looks like the Nintendo advert because that's the vibe the video is deliberately going for, with the music, framing, etc. For instance, in the first seconds of the video you can see a ring on his finger, but you never see his partner, nor do they ever get a mention. I don't think a 60 second TikTok is an accurate representation of the guy's life.
Nintendo’s advert for Tears playing on exactly the same emotion
LMAO why is this dude displayed as so incompetent, he puts a sail on a single log that's clearly starting to turn even before he gets on
In a society which has abolished all adventure, the only remaining adventure is to abolish that society
It's not a thought-terminating cliche, it's a Marxist analysis of the international division of labor lol. The only reason he gets to live this "empty" life is because of the billions of slaves experiencing actual deprivation. Read Open Veins of Latin America and try to argue with a straight face that a miner who's going to die at 35 when his lungs cease to exist lives the same kind of life as this guy, and that they warrant the same analysis.
It can be that and still be employed as a thought terminating cliche. The fact that this dude's PMC lifestyle comes at the expense of the global south doesn't make it any less hollow and alienated, and we do our analysis no favors by pretending you have no reason to be depressed if you're in the core and not starving.
OP is a guy who's said explicitly in past posts that he doesn't care about the suffering of people in the imperial core. This is not an argument worth having, he already has his :zizek: staked out.
Hollow and alienated compared to what? An imagined ideal that lives in the ether? A more gentle past that only existed because of even greater economic coercion in the periphery?
Sure, workers in the Imperial Core are alienated. But revolution has only ever happened at the points of greatest deprivation. Workers in the Imperial Core would benefit from a global revolution that would bring about Communism, but that's 1000x harder sell than "continue to support the status quo and get treats." People will only ever lay their lives down where present conditions are no better than death itself.
Organizing in the Imperial Core is, in my opinion, only useful in mobilizing the very bottom of the hierarchy and to lay the groundwork for what comes when Americans start to experience real hardship, and trying to turn people whose lives are basically fine into committed Communists is a complete waste of energy.
Hollow and alienated compared to what?
Compared to the experience of being in any number of AES states or even just ones where the baseline is less psychotically antisocial than America. Most places don't have a mass killing every couple days, that shit doesn't come from nowhere.
Sure, workers in the Imperial Core are alienated. But revolution has only ever happened at the points of greatest deprivation
We're not talking about revolution, we're talking about this guy. Revolution is beyond the scope of your post, which is about not liking the fact that people are feeling bad about this guy's boring life. You used another term, "life of luxury", that I agree with materially, but that you seem to be using as another thought terminating cliche to imply that this guy has no real problems resulting from this arrangement, and then ironically call that Marxist analysis. Human psychology being what it is, most people who have access to the internet will be people who are far more ready to empathize with the downsides of a life they already lead than the downsides of a life they can't imagine.
trying to turn people whose lives are basically fine into committed Communists is a complete waste of energy.
That's fine, spend your energy wherever you want. There are plenty of people who already agree with your assessment, you don't need to studiously ignore half of a dialectic to justify it
Compared to the experience of being in any number of AES states or even just ones where the baseline is less psychotically antisocial than America.
So the world-historical rupture with all previous modes of production or Western Europe, which has its quality of life exclusively due to colonialism and imperialism. Most of the Global South experiences a whole shitload of violence, and not just at a distance on the TV or Twitter.
We’re not talking about revolution, we’re talking about this guy. Revolution is beyond the scope of your post, which is about not liking the fact that people are feeling bad about this guy’s boring life.
Alright, then I'll engage on those terms. Why feel pity for this guy, who is among the most fortunate people alive? Answer:
Human psychology being what it is, most people who have access to the internet will be people who are far more ready to empathize with the downsides of a life they already lead than the downsides of a life they can’t imagine.
Yeah this is just reinforcing what I'm saying lol. People in the Imperial Core cannot even imagine actual hardship, so a guy feeling a little mopey is what passes for that.
What's the point of even looking at this guy's "alienation?" To convince other first world workers that Capitalism isn't in their favor? To what end? If you're not talking about revolution, then anything else is pointless. If you are talking revolution, it's only ever going to come from people with nothing to lose.
If not that, then what? Self-pity from those who number among the most fortunate alive today, let alone in all of history?
Most of the Global South experiences a whole shitload of violence, and not just at a distance on the TV or Twitter.
What's the nature of that violence? Do they experience constant disorganized mass shootings at the hands of their friends and relatives, who's psyches are snapping one by one after years of everything being totally fine, according to you? Nothing about the fact that the incredibly hopeless and nihilistic act of suicide by rampage is an almost entirely American phenomenon spins any cogs in that incredibly rational Marxist head? Honestly, the immediate broadening of the topic to all violence feels incredibly like a hasty obfuscation.
What’s the point of even looking at this guy’s “alienation?” To convince other first world workers that Capitalism isn’t in their favor? To what end? If you’re not talking about revolution, then anything else is pointless
To what end? Revolution, of course. If you’re not talking about revolution, then anything else is pointless. Nevermind that this conversation started with a complaint about a tweet, I'm sure that was a very serious and communist exception.
Why are you so invested in convincing people that their alienation isn't real? To what end? What's your call to action, "fuck off out of socialism if you're inside the Imperial Core?" Because that's just "return to brunch" with a red coat of paint.
What’s the nature of that violence? Do they experience constant disorganized mass shootings at the hands of their friends and relatives, who’s psyches are snapping one by one after years of everything being totally fine, according to you? Nothing about the fact that the incredibly hopeless and nihilistic act of suicide by rampage is an almost entirely American phenomenon spins any cogs in that incredibly rational Marxist head?
No, the violence is largely at the hands of the state and American imperial concerns. I guess the fact that the violence they face is organized and serves a purpose instead of being the byproduct of aristocrats' empty lives makes it better?
Why are you so invested in convincing people that their alienation isn’t real? To what end?
I hate people whose lives are fine trying to make themselves out to be victims. It is genuinely disgusting to see some Imperial Core labor aristocrat whining about how their drugs are too expensive or whatever, completely ignoring the Columbian children who died to make their coke in the first place.
Moreover, I'm a Marxist, and I study the science of revolution. I want to analyze the places where the global mode of production fracture. That's not in the labor aristocracy.
What’s your call to action, “fuck off out of socialism if you’re inside the Imperial Core?” Because that’s just “return to brunch” with a red coat of paint.
Well since we're back to talking about Socialism and revolution, my message would be "spending literally any effort on people whose lives are fine instead of the actual acute points of contradiction is a complete waste of time, energy, and resources, and likely a reflection of profound myopia."
Also the people talking about how "alienated" the guy is off a 60 second TikTok. Someone on twitter found his account, he has a beautiful wife, and he himself looks much more handsome and less depressed in the other videos. People got baited by some emotional music and selective camera angles and shots.
https://twitter.com/VeronikaMoreau/status/1666111443404480512
I can guarantee you this guy is not alienated. Societal alienation occurs when your entire life revolves around the production of productive labor for your boss. His life, while dominated by that, is not that, because he has the time, money and energy to make well-produced little TikTok videos. Ultimately, he is in a better spot than 98% of the world right now, and he is not alienated from society. Society caters exactly to his every need, he is the ideal consumer/producer. A self-austere man who keeps to himself. The only way he is alienated is in terms of his labor value, of which I guarantee he is have less of his actual labor value stolen.
Also, most people I know don't work a 9-5 or get to go home for lunch so he can fuck off with that 'normal job' shit. If he's so fucking bored he can run on a manufacturing line.
Yeah but we’re not actually talking about this guy in particular, we’re talking about the life the video depicts
Watch the documentary Balseros about how miserable Cuban refugees became after moving to the US and some of them wanted to go back.
Do they represent a majority?
Read Open Veins of Latin America and tell me that you want to go live in the Global South (without an Imperial Core income).
Watch the documentary Balseros
Looks like it's streaming on Kanopy - I've added it to my watchlist, thanks! (Comrades, odds are even that if you have a library card in the imperial core you can stream Kanopy content for free)
I'm sorry I was flippant but your reply to me had nothing to do with what I said
Men like this used to lead legions into battle. Now he sits in traffic, on the way to the same cubicle every day. Where he will listen to some HR harpy lecture him on how he is the problem, while he watches as his society slowly decays. He may have brief moments of happiness with his pup, but these moments are fleeting.
This is the hell of modernity for a lot of men.
This is what zero understanding of history does to a mf.
Men like this used to lead legions
Who made up the legions, dipshit? Was it all women? Or were the majority of men still under the thumb of the ruling class and got no say? God I hate these people.
No no you don’t understand, I wouldn’t be one of the peasantry, obviously I would be a lord or a general or something
Skull shape says you're a barbarian slave, sorry sweaty now get back to work on the farm owned by a roman senator.
:horror: marble bust twitter users when i take them in a time machine back to 400 BC Rome and they see that 98% of Roman men are ordinary day laborers like the guy in the video and not epic masculine barbarian fighters with cool swords
Ha! Day laborers! Why do you think the Roman elites were so big on open immigration of slaves! Citizens, you have to pay them! They'll even revolt and form mobs and lynch you if you try to screw them over! Much better to import more and more slaves and give them bread & circuses so they stay calm while you're doing it.
'you should be killing and dying 1,000 miles from home at the ripe old age of 30' is not the compliment they think that is
History factoid time: Legionaries mostly lived freakishly long and healthy lives compared to the rest of the population. Apparently they generally had better food, health, and dental care than normal people, they got lots of exercise but not the kind of heavy manual labor that breaks you down, and they didn't do much actual fighting, so most of them made it through their 25 year term and retired
:the-more-you-know:
i mean relatively speaking it was the healthiest job a poor person could get involved in with the exercise and regular nutrition, but i suspect you weren't making it very long after that retirement
100% guarantee that "HR harpy" has an even worse life with less income than him. But women's struggles don't exist to these idiots I guess.
??? What the fuck the motherfucker owns a house with a waterfall shower jesus christ he's probably in the top 10% of wealth in the country.
If you don't have one, I highly recommend getting a cheap waterfall shower head and an extension arm. Huge quality of life thing, almost as big as a bidet. They're like $30-50 online and if you pull the little flow adapter out they're amazing.
I rent and can't make any changes. Someone got evicted for installing a bidet. :bawllin-sad:
Someone got evicted for installing a bidet
Wtf? Like a full on one, or the toilet attachment? Either way that's fucked.
The toilet attachment. Most tenants I talked to were on the landlord's side. It's hell here lmao.
How did the landlord even know? Can't you take put them on and take them off without even doing anything to the toilet? This is just sad.
IIRC it was during a maintenance call for something unrelated and the landlord saw it and flipped out.
So the landlord and tenants supporting the landlord were too stupid to understand that it was a temporary addition, because they never saw a bidet in their lives or something?
That's incredible
They can't throw you out for keeping a super soaker in the bathroom :theory-gary:
Wtf. I also rent, usually you just need to hook things up to the pipes, and the landlord wouldn't even know unless you made a huge mistake or they do a zillion inspections or something. There are also handheld bidets which are really good and super cheap too. Awesome for travel. I take mine camping.
Someone got evicted for installing a bidet.
The terror. We need to start the terror.
They are huge water-wasters and I'm amazed they're not illegal.
King of the Hill was making jokes about low-flow toilets and that was 25 years ago.
Honestly, they do have a higher flow rate, but I've cut down the amount of time I spend in the shower thanks to mine by enough that it more than offsets the increased water usage. Also I live in an area where groundwater is our primary source, and the aquifer levels are rising, rather than depleting.
There are low-flow waterfall style ones, but you're sacrificing water pressure for area.
The depressing part, which libs and cons alike should be able to pick up on vibes but not be able to articulate, is how hyper-atomized his life is. This is absolutely sad, but not because he's eating freezer food, it's because we saw a whole entire day in someone's life that plausibly involved zero face-to-face human interaction.
Capitalism hurts its subjects in the imperial core. It benefits them too, but pointing out that hurt and providing a remedy is necessary for mass organization.
I think that's just a narrative choice in the video. I see a ring on his finger, so I'm guessing there's a wife or husband somewhere. Probably not shown because it wouldn't fit what the video is going for. The video was shot in a certain way, with certain music, to evoke a certain emotional response. And it definitely succeeded in that.
And if he wanted more human interaction (if you assume the video shows everything, I obviously don't), there's plenty of opportunity for it. He gets off at 16:30 and only has to be back at the office at 9:00, and can take lunch. Is it ideal? No, we all want to work less hours, and that should be goal of any movement. But there is lots of time available.
I think that’s just a narrative choice in the video.
Well yeah but we’re also really talking about the life the video represents, not this guy in particular
it’s because we saw a whole entire day in someone’s life that plausibly involved zero face-to-face human interaction.
The dude's married. Like come on.
People are calling it dystopian because of the sad music. Switch the music out and you could sell it as "a day in my life! :))" kind of video and you could even get some stans. :shrug-outta-hecks: Editing is very suggestive.
Watched it without sound and could only think “what’s the problem, this guy has it fucking made” - I didn’t know this was supposed to be dystopian? Like I get that corporate/office work can be monotonous and grey but this dude seems to get a ton of time off, lives in extremely nice conditions, has a car and a dog, is healthy…
Legit thought there would be a twist half way through and they would compare his life favorably to someone in real dire conditions but no, everyone is boo-hooing about this?!
I think people being sad makes them buy impulsively more. Video probably just exists for random product placements lol.
Change the music to "All Star" by Smash Mouth and suddenly it's an uplifting dudes rock video
I watched it with the sound turned off and that was the vibe, lol
Tantacrul calls this “Autosad”. Gained a lot of popularity with the rise of American Idol and reality TV
I still think it's dystopian I hate white walled suburban people cubes. Like look at that place, it's a box for storing your P-zombies. That man has no connections to life or culture and probably owns rock climbing shoes but doesn't drink PBR. Like he's not suffering, he has biceps and pants that fit. He may not be capable of experiencing angst. But huge numbers of people are suffering to make that specific kind of subjective void possible.
Source; I am related to these people. They seem happy and I find that both uncanny and distressing. The Stepford Wives was a documentary (about spousal abuse weirdly enough, featuring a Disney engineer as the primary villain. Great movie, definitely worth watching for insight about middle class feminism in the 1970s)
I can't go anywhere without being covered in corgi seasoning
As someone else mentioned, it's essentially an ad for various products in there, that's why it's probably so spotless. Idk why the meloncholy vibe is used, but considering outrage marketing was/is a thing, I'm guessing some brands realized making people sad and then showing them products encourages impulse buys.
I should have known. I'm suspicious of every video now that's premises on spending a day with some normal person. They all end up being ads for their employers or the stuff in the video.
Literally the life of any number of lanyard dorks out there.
And if people are depressed about how he spends his free time, well firstly I'm sure he didn't show everything, and secondly, you could choose to do it differently if you were in his shoes. He's working 7.5 hours a day, and that's with taking lunch. It's not like he's grinding 80 hour weeks at Amazon or anything. It's not ideal, obviously we all want to work less, but there's time to do stuff.
Someone help me manage my schedule, I have no free time
- 7 hours work
- 1.5 hours lunch
- 1 hour gym
- 1 hour commuting
- 9 hours jackin' it
- 1 hour playing with dog
lmao they think this shit is depressing? He gets to go home for lunch, he gets off at 4:30, has a nice house, and a dog that he has time to care for. I worked 9am-10pm yesterday, which was longer than usual but usual is still 10+ hours. This dude is living in a dream world to me.
married
owns his own house (landlords don't like pets and tenants rarely take care of lawns like he does)
cute dog
physically fit
<15 minute commute time (assuming he spends half an hour at the gym and the gym is right between his workplace and his home)
1+ hr lunch
<40 hr workweek
physical exertion is pushing keyboard buttons and carrying a light backpack
close to the gym
takes the elevator to punch in while taking the stairs after his shift is over in order to squeeze more exercise, meaning he probably isn't suffering from some existential crisis
plenty of disposable income
has enough time and energy to keep his entire house in pristine cleanliness, enough money to hire a maid to do it for him, or has his partner clean for me so he doesn't have to do shit
has a company laptop, meaning he either spends at least half his workweek teleworking from home or is at least middle management bringing home $120k+ a year.
He's living the life. Literally the only improvement in his life is if he completely teleworks instead of partially telework from home, where he can save the <30 minutes driving to work plus gas money and have a 8 hour lunch instead of a 1.5 hour lunch. He even manages to avoid the pitfalls of labor aristocratic life (not really alienated because he has a married partner and a pet dog, not adversely affected by a sedentary lifestyle because he has time, energy, and money to go to the gym everyday, probably doesn't have a micromanaging shithead supervisor if he can get away with 1+ hour lunches).
People are getting baited by the sad music, his house being clean, and his sad expression. Please have the awareness of reading between the lines instead of taking everything at face value.
I'm too poor to understand whats supposed to be sad about this video.
It's basically the theme of the movie "Fight Club". Material prosperity but spiritual poverty. He has everything a man could want...except fulfillment. "The things you own end up owning you."
Tyler Durden: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.
We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars.
Originally, the American settler-colonial class structure had a fluidity to it which allowed the underclasses to adopt a petit bourgeois character throughout the course of their lifetimes. As American capital’s ability to prop up this fluidity via genocide, slavery, and imperialism has faded, what was once labeled the American Dream has become increasingly performative and hollow, and the American class structure has calcified much like the Old World before it. People who would have previously been able to leave a meaningful inheritance to their offspring now find themselves struggling to not simply leave behind debts. The culmination of this process in the superstructure is social media, a place where the performative aspects of celebrity and wealth can be imposed on us, acting both as consumer and producer in a constant fractal loop, all without providing a material base for the wealth being hinted at. This is the re-proletarianization of the American economy.
I grew up in an upwardly mobile striving family and I know a lot of those people, and they're happy. Freakishly, frighteningly, bizarrely happy. They know nothing, they believe nothing. They go through life without any understanding and without understanding that they have no understanding. They don't care about anyone or anything except themselves and people they view as possessions or accessories.
Like Fight Club and it's consequences, yadda yadda, but Pahlniuk wrote one of the most on the money "Are the straights okay?" books of the 20th century. What makes Jack so relatable to so many disaffected white young men is that they recognize the absolute emptiness of this kind of life, a life without politics, without passion, without a past or a future. Pahlniuk recognized that most straight white guys, lacking any positive cultural or community influences, turn to self-destructive nihilism in a desperate attempt to escape the profound meaninglessness of their lives. Like lots of white suburbanoids are perfectly happy in their comfortable cages. They have no self awareness, no curiosity, and no angst. They have never stared in to the void. They don't even know there is a void. But if you're just self aware enough to know there is something profoundly wrong with your existence, you're in hell, because you're utterly alone surrounded by stepford robots who will turn on you if you start showing evidence of non-compliance with the required social and cultural uniform. Like these guys have no theory. They have no narrative to explain why their lives are empty, why they feel a yawning gulf even though they have everything society says they should want. They don't know capitalism exists or what it is anymore than fish are aware of water, but they know they're drowning.
Like obviously your pity is better spent elsewhere, but Pahlniuk correctly identified that this kind of profound alienation tends to produce nihilistic reactions. The end is very poignant - Jack realizes that what Tyler promises isn't liberation but a spiral of self destruction and tries to escape, only to find that Project Mayhem is everywhere, that the disaffected, angry young men are everywhere, that there's no way out for men in his social and economic class. The end of the book is much bleaker than the movie - Jack wakes up in a stretcher having blown a big, ugly hole in his jaw, thinking he's finally safe now that Tyler is dead, only to realize that the EMTs treating him are Project Mayhem fanatics.
And like this is all very 90s shit. These guys don't exist anymore as far as I know. Or maybe they do and I just don't move in those circles anymore. Now we've got what comes next, the angry reaction, the right wing radicalization, the lashing out as they look for someone to blame, for a cause to believe in, for something that promises the dynamism and change they instinctively want but have been denied by the smothering weight of neoliberal capitalism. After the .Com boom collapsed, after 2007, all these guys had lost even the middle class eternity they were consigned to, and the rise of the alt-Right and then overt Fascism was at least partially a result of this type of guy becoming politically conscious in the absolute worst way. The 90s era guys are all like me - middle aged, over weight, long past their best fighting years, but their younger brothers or older children grew up expecting to at least inherit the conformist hell of suburban liberalism, only to find they wouldn't even get that, and they need someone to blame and someone to hurt for it.
post an "average day" video
WHY DON'T YOU HAVE A GF WHY DO YOU ONLY DO BORING THINGS WHY DON'T YOU HAVE MORE TIME OFF-
like guys, I'm pretty sure this guy with this job gets weekends off and can do other stuff too.
Also there's literally a ring on his finger, props to this guy and his wife for baiting everyone with emotional music and depressed looking camera shots.
https://twitter.com/VeronikaMoreau/status/1666111443404480512
idk what y’all are talking about the way that dude poured that beer instantly made me want to kill myself
While I was watching this video I thought horrible things would gradually get revealed. Instead I just got envious. This guy has a house? And a cute dog? And a clean place? And he gets a 90 minute lunch break where he can go home? He has a job where he can sit down all day?
He has the time, energy, and mental fortitude to go to the gym? This dude makes at least $80k per year. He's fine.
Are these things just kind of taken for granted or what? I work 3 hours more per day than this guy, I'm on my feet, and I can't afford a house.
Of course they're taken for granted, a lot of people that grow up comfortable just assume that's the baseline. They don't know that there's a whole other world out there. It's just something that other people live, to them.
This guy spends 6 hours in the office a day and people are acting as if it's the apocalypse or something.
So do most I guess. Including me. The depressing thing for me is that this video is deliberately edited to look and sound sad and dreary, and I still think he has it very good.
university education, nice big house, cushy job, disposable income, fridge full of food, cute dog, can afford a car
god i wish that were me
He fucking just drives home for lunch and fucks off for a while! No fuckin way
For 90 minutes lmao. And he clocks out early! Man is spending 30 hours a week at the office and living the good life.
Man is spending 30 hours a week at the office and living the good life.
Nope, he has a company laptop, meaning he probably spends a decent amount of time teleworking from home. He probably spends less than 20 hours onsite.
He lives close enough to work to drive home for lunch.
And lives in a house.
Same lol. I'm on zero for five there. Hopefully I can go back to university one day and get a degree. Then I can get one out of five haha.
Don't forget that he has a wife or husband, that ring is not there for show lol. So we're on zero for six 😭.
I’ve diagnosed his problem, he’s not using any of that disposable income on drugs
