I'm reading through Talia's book and a lot of it is "oh I knew that" because, like... I was there, Gandalf. 3,000 years ago when these fucking orcs invented gamer gate and the current cycle of extremely online misery and bullshit started. But seeing her lay out all the bullshit the online right spews out I sometimes wonder if we haven't been infected by them, sort of a "the abyss stares back" thing. Y'all ever wonder about shit like that when we make chad memes or joke about being volcel?
I think the idea that you will become your enemy by using their jokes is dumb. I think it comes from an ideological weakness. Similar to people who think you're tainted by speaking with the enemy or by being amicable with reactionaries with which you share a common interest (like Iranian theocrats wrt anti-imperialism).
I think so, but I'm also in favor of the necessity of a cultural revolution eliminating reactionary ideals. A good way to start that in your own life is to not talk like a reactionary. Avoid servile/domineering language, and avoid bigotry of all kinds in your speech!
Nah, I think this idea that stealing rw terms (like calling rwingers cucks) is bad is so stunting and stupid. I really don't think it changes the core of our beliefs (and if it does, then call it out, obvs, but I don't think it necessarily does). Like remember how "fake news" was a term invented by liberals to describe legit problems? And then the right immediately started using it for news they didn't like? Rhetoric and language is a battle, and reclamation is a fun part of it. When the left starts using right wing terms it probably feels to them similar to how it feels when your parents use contemporary youth slang (if you are a "youth" that is, I'm assuming here).
Personally I don't think so others might disagree, we joke and may take certain jokes from them. But our ideas or still toward the left, and I don't think that will change just cause we make Chad memes sometimes.
I too am uncomfortable with this. We're the creative ones, we should be using our own terms to communicate the alienation of modern life.
The one that I really dislike is "normie". Tbf I hear it rarely here, but it makes me uncomfortable.
Its only dangerous if the beliefs that created the jokes are adopted, I think. Most jokes, ESPECIALLY internet jokes, are more a template for a joke that can be expanded upon infinitely. Co-opting the framework might honestly be a good thing because chuds hate when people on the left use their jokes and they abandon them. As long as we dont start doing shit like calling trans people attack helicopters, I think we're good.