Right after the ban, I had this thread opened in a tab that hadn't been refreshed, so I captured it. Had forgotten to post it until someone mentioned it yesterday. Glad it was this thread that I captured.

  • MichelLouise [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    She did an interview where she talked about the sub being banned.

    I don’t think anything about the Internet is fair. Why would it be? It’s capitalist media. It’s naive to expect otherwise. I literally don’t care about reddit, nor do I believe that the internet can be relied upon as any medium for left movement-building. It’s not a democratically controlled industry; it’s barely subject to law. You might as well be talking about Exxon mobile not being “fair.” [...] Fuck reddit, this entire thing is a frivolous spectacle. None of it rises to the level of political significance and the platform itself isn’t worth fighting for. It’s politically and socially corrosive and if it’s your chosen political battlefield then you’re doomed to lose at a game that doesn’t even matter. Fighting over the right to be heard on Reddit is like fighting over the right to live in a dumpster.

    Discussion here. She hated the sub as much as the sub hated her, but I think that many of her arguments in this interview (about the insularity of online communities, the toxicity of fandoms, etc...) were pretty relevant .

    • grisbajskulor [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Mixed take for me. I mean yes absolutely, looking at a subreddit to be a proper organizing platform is a terrible idea, or to see it as a vehicle of change. And it's a fair diagnosis to say many of us are far too online. But I also think it's naive to entirely dismiss the ability to congregate and get news / takes / memes like we do on here.

      I will say my own experience colors my perception a lot, but to offer my anecdotal evidence, I was fully radicalized by the subreddit. As a socdem I thought many of the anti-amerikkka & John Brown memes were hilarious, while others I thought kinda 'went too far.' Certain discussions in the comments delved into territories I hadn't even considered before. Part of my reading Lenin for the first time was to better understand what people were on about. Idk man, it's cringe but I'm sure lots of people on here feel the same.

      Did my experience have any meaningful material change in the world? Absolutely not. Sure I started donating to some groups and yelled at some cops this summer, but no other real impact other than on my ideology. Which IMO is exactly the entire point, and the subreddit / this website is largely responsible for triggering this for me.