Honestly, this was basically me.
Removed by modI feel like MLs have a tendency to do this.
Espeically when it comes to the topic of "liberals" and "AOC."
People act so weird when you offer the most flaccid criticism of pop culture. Given its role in reproducing capitalist ideology, you would think alleged leftists would find ways to divest from pop culture and find other hobbies that are comparatively removed from pop culture.
you... can't actually do hobbies that are comparatively removed from pop culture, though?
Gardening, cooking, biking, hiking, camping, fishing, surfing, exercising in general, woodcarving, knitting, dicking around with Linux, dicking around with microscopes, dicking around with backyard telescopes, tinkering with old appliances, stamp collecting, raising an ant farm, traveling in general, trainspotting, birdwatching, home brewing, and the list goes on. I've listed both low brow and high brow hobbies that don't rely on you being plugged in to pop culture.
If your idea of what a hobby is is restricted to just playing videogames, watching movies, watching TV, watching anime, reading manga, following celebrity gossip, following e-celebrity gossip, listening to podcasts, watching Twitch streams, pretending podcasters are your friends, and dicking around in social media, that's on you. And I think it's no accident that people are groomed into picking up hobbies that are completely at the epicenter of pop culture where ideological reproduction of capitalist realism can do its magic. Gardening will never be sexy, and it'll never be sexy because it's comparatively removed from pop culture on top of requiring your full attention if you want to do it right. You being preoccupied with what should go to your compost pile and how to prevent rats from scavenging your compost pile means less space in your brain for some bullshit CIA-funded propaganda film about how China bad.
No one says you have to seethe every time you see someone play AAA games or watch MCU films. Just find better hobbies.
Gardening, cooking, biking, hiking, camping, fishing, surfing, exercising in general, woodcarving, knitting, dicking around with Linux, dicking around with microscopes, dicking around with backyard telescopes, tinkering with old appliances, stamp collecting, raising an ant farm, traveling in general, trainspotting, birdwatching, home brewing, and the list goes on. I've listed both low brow and high brow hobbies that don't rely on you being plugged in to pop culture.
Most of those are very involved hobbies that take up a lot of time and energy. People occasionally need to wind down with a movie or a book or whatever, and most of those are involved with pop culture.
People occasionally need to wind down
Sure, but "find ways to divest from pop culture/find hobbies that are less steeped in pop culture" doesn't mean "no mass media ever". Just like, maybe pick something historically interesting instead of Obama's memoir, or some ursula leguin instead of Orson Scott Card (he was the fascist one right not Herbert?).
And yes capitalism leaves us with less time and energy to get into more rewarding activities, but it also produces treats that are specifically designed to be low-friction and high-dopamine, which makes them highly habit forming if not addictive. Many people feel like they couldn't possibly get into cooking or sports or whatever but then spend hours a day on tiktok or watching TV and justify it as needing to wind down. Its not like leftists are immune to the allure of that stuff but it's worthwhile to strive for a more fulfilling life that is less reliant on capitalism and its treats. People aren't worse for liking the treats, or even for being addicted to them, but engaging in higher-friction hobbies isn't about depriving yourself, it's recognizing that there are more rewarding things to do in life than consoom treats.
People occasionally need to wind down with a movie or a book or whatever
I don't. I used to wind down before bed with Lichess against the computer.
Hobbies vary in how much community participation is necessary. Many competitive hobbies require you to keep up with the meta to have a chance. If you want to travel or garden you can just do that and not engage with the community. If you want to watch a TV show you'll get the most enjoyment out of it by discussing it with other people, irl or online. I think this is some element of how "pop culture" a hobby is. Probably need a definition to get any further.
You also forgot playing any sport
I've played a ton of football and table tennis in my life but never watch any games except for the upper World Cup and Olympic matches
a "disney adult" (yet another made up reactionary concept, can explain if needed
I would like to hear this, if you don’t mind
It's the thing where people get really into something when they first find out about it
Like how everyone became a bread expert during the early days of Covid
I think there's also a crushing realization at some point where you're like, if we actually want to successfully bring the modern world closer to Marxism it's likely going to take generations before it's at a place any of us are happy with. Life is short, and while you should always keep driving towards your beliefs, it's ok to stop and enjoy things from time to time, even if those things are products of and reinforce capitalism to some extent.
Death To America
I Can't Enjoy Anything
I Will Burn The Nation
Waaaaaa
Politics is everywhere, but besides that, yeah you will get exhausted pretty quickly, if you put yourself through emotional mortification for every wrong inflicted by the capitalists.
I'm critical of things I enjoy, and that's okay. It's not just to be a downer on things, it's fun and useful to analyze media.
Wholeheartedly agree. But we should also point out that even your mildest analysis is going to make some people unhappy.
Yeah, there's also a time and a place for it. Every interaction about entertainment does not need to be analytical.
This is the thing I have trouble explaining to people sometimes. Sometimes I want to talk about the political dimension of a media or pop culture thing, or analyze its craftwork or artistic merit. But a lot of the time I just want to be like
"yeah that was a good movie, I had fun watching it".Even liberal/ relatively apolitical people get caught up in all conversation around media needing to be styled as Media Analysis and it gets so annoying. Just taking a thing at face value and enjoying it and not overthinking it is not a crime, and its not a lesser form of enjoyment, it's completely normal and actually the intended way to consume most mass media. Sometimes there is some really pernicious falsehood or ideology being promoted that might prevent me from simply taking it at face value, but usually it's just the usual ambient cultural stuff and can be safely ignored unless/until the topic of discussion actually is ideology in media.
YouTube video essays destroyed so many people's ability to not over analyze everything and anything
Yeah I noticed it in myself first, and then in other people. it's interesting I guess but you need to be able to shut it off lol
The most relatable part of Disco Elysium is how you're caught in a guy's brain just as he's in the "everything is reactionary" phase. He can't help himself. He'll talk about hanging imperialists to anyone within earshot. And Kim is just there like
As a wise sage once said "It is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy
mediastuff while also being critical of itsmore problematic or pernicious aspectslibness"personally im just a hypocrite, do as i say not as i do. i will enjoy the treats while making everyone else feel bad for enjoying the treats.
Me when there's a big pile of problematic slop, just absolute garbage, placed in front of me: yim yum inject this directly into my veins
Me when someone else likes problematic slop:
holding contradictory opinions is like half of my belief system. i would have a fucking aneurysm if i was actually forced to confront the contradictions in my beliefs, its much better this way, i get to eat ben & jerrys ice cream and listen to my favorite left wing streamers, and that helps me forget about seeing a guy at work today just casually watching hentai with a visible hard on in his khakis.
nobody hates treats, everyone loves treats, we all might collectively suffer because of treat production but the treats themselves are awesome. me being a zealot all the time allows me to secretly secure more treats for myself, and that directly translates into me having more happiness.
and you know what the biggest treat of all is? political outrage, the theater of it all, people spend their entire lives obsessed with an institution they have absolutely no power over, the government is like a force of nature that cannot be controlled by a single person, neither can popular movements be controlled, some people may hold the reigns now and then but should they veer off course they lose control quickly.
people have no control whatsoever over society, so they complain, they form communities of likeminded dissatisfied people, these too cannot be controlled, they all eventually fizzle out or metamorphize into something else but whoever controls the reigns, they get a lot of treats.
and thats why i became a political streamer! /s
I thought this was a reply to my domestic violence comment in the megathread and thought the tone was really weird o_O
I do it too, nobody can be 100% consistent, we live in a society, blah blah blah, but ultimately this is a liberal thing and we should strive to do it less. Thinking that beliefs matter instead of actions: it's OK if I buy this thing if I dislike it in the correct way or make the right tweets acknowledging that it's problematic. As Kamala says: we hear you, we see you, we understand you, but we're sure not gonna do anything about it
I like this. It's like being the guy on the right but feeling like the guy in the middle
"Why haven't you eliminated the commodity form in your household yet?"
Espeically when it comes to the topic of "liberals" and "AOC."
Wait what. "it's okay to enjoy <politician/ideology> and not force politics into it?"
I assumed, since it doesn't make sense that way around, but I guess I was hoping for some clarification. Especially when you add the fact that the meme is putting this over an IQ graph, what you meant by any of this is sorta unclear to me. Which one was basically you? Which one is MLs @ AOC? how does "it's okay to enjoy things" map onto politicians ?
I was talking about making "hating something" your whole personality and never shutting up about it.
Right-wingers tend to often complain about how "everything is political". What they usually mean is that "someone criticized the status quo [and was not a nazi])!
Please don't say anything about my capeshit or overproduced Mattel commercial guys. I'm totally a leftist but I get annoyed as if people insulted my family when I take the slightest criticism of it.
I feel like we have to expand on the idea of "you're annoying" here. I feel the annoyance comes from criticism, not the attitude. We have regularly annoying people all around us for every possible discussion, but they come into consideration only when the topic is these very interesting forms of media.
Also, as a rule of a thumb I don't ever accept the point of "you should see it first". You don't have to do that for anything, and this is coming from someone who has seen the capeshit and the Barbie. We all discuss the terrible aspects of many terrible things, but now we have to take part in those activities to do so? When the shit bits are the whole point of the movie, you can obviously see through the charade without even watching it.
I haven't seen Top Gun, but I can directly say it's a "cool American pilots" movie. I have seen Avengers, and Captain America is the "Big Brother USA" person. Why is my first opinion invalid all of a sudden?
I haven't seen Top Gun, but I can directly say it's a "cool American pilots" movie. I have seen Avengers, and Captain America is the "Big Brother USA" person. Why is my first opinion invalid all of a sudden?
both opinions are correct but whether a secondhand opinion is valid depends on how surprising it is. it's universally accepted that Top Gun is a "cool American pilots" movie. If you claim that it's a subversive and erotic Marxist noir masterpiece that would be ridiculous and you'd need to back it up by having seen it and being able to give specific examples and stuff. I haven't seen it but I think there's a fairly large audience that just likes Barbie unreservedly so to criticize it effectively you need to have seen it.
I think people will definitely annoy if they pretend that not partaking in popular culture is some sort of virtue, like some sort of buddhist cleansing of the soul. I understand and even empathize with people who are unable to, and I certainly love to be a hater of popular stuff. But if you're some sort of Morrisey-type hipster that has to change the lyrics from Satellite of Love and mess up the metric and the concept of a lovely song just so you can cram "I cannot stand the TV" because that's just who you are now and the words "I love to watch things on TV" can't escape your lips anymore without them threatening your brand identity, then you're a bit annoying.
I've never seen a communist obsess over AOC. The only person I remember taking her seriously was LiberalSocialist, the former main character of Hexbear
iirc liberalsocialist is they/them
I think they actually still have an account on matapacos, bcs they like make a post once every blue moon and then disappear again
links? I'm only on this website and I only see her come up when the topic is either how fatally useless the dems are, or when she does something awful.
be normal with 
never stop explaining i suppose
