• MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]
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      edit-2
      4 years ago

      We'll never be able to do that. That's capitalist driven top-down astroturfing that only works because of concentrated capital. What we have to do is figure out how to beat that using our own strengths, not inevitably failing to beat them at their own game.

      I think we'd have something akin to company PR voices such as you find on twitter that do that part of the labor. There's a whole team behind that, though, and part of that team's job could be following up strategic tweets with more targeted recruitment/organizing. Say someone leaves a positive comment, wouldn't it be cool if someone were to reach out and say, "Hey, we appreciate your support out there. Would you like to hear about opportunities to get involved in your area?" And then similar to like the Bernie campaign or existing orgs that already do this kind of work, they spoon feed the contact the information necessary to get involved.

      These are people who would not be responsible for the overall memeing, nor would they be responsible for the stupid bad-faith arguments that spring up in every single internet space. A bot network will never have that kind of personal follow up- but as leftists armed with conviction and genuinely appealing theoretical analysis, we can. We'll build actual mass participation this way. Capitalists can only ever purchase the veneer of it.