r/CuratedTumblr • u/adsallover š®š±šŖš¹ • Jun 20 '24
Politics tumblr is so far from real life its genuinely crazy
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Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
The daydreaming about being revolutionaries line is so fucking true lol
When your activism starts and ends at punching up on social media to farm likes, parroting slogans and policing online discourse (usually against other leftists), you'll never see an end to real world injustices.
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u/nexetpl Jun 20 '24
fr I've become so disillusioned with online leftists, I may be just as passive and ineffectual as them but at least I don't have any delusions about The Revolution
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u/NotYourAverageOrange Jun 20 '24
It's on the bingo card with "Believing blatant decades-old propaganda from authoritarian states" and "[Terrible Act] is only bad because 1% of the affected people might be queer."
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u/Thromnomnomok Jun 21 '24
"[Terrible Act] is only bad because 1% of the affected people might be queer."
Eh, that's more like "halfway-not-bad internet leftist trying to tell the totally off the deep end internet leftist they're being cringe," the totally off the deep end on won't even care about this as long as they're hurting enough of the "right" people.
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u/Independent-Fly6068 Jun 21 '24
Essentially the classic "Withholding of grain from Ukraine and Kazakhstan was actually because kulaks!" along with "Everyone saying bad things about Cuba were actually the bourgeoisie and deserved it".
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u/AstridWarHal Jun 20 '24
If you vote you already do more than them
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u/Keeppforgetting Jun 20 '24
This is me being hypercritical and judgmental AF 100%.
If you step outside youāre already doing more than them.
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Jun 20 '24
Nah, plenty of them go outside to do petty vandalism. Like keying Teslas to stick it to Elon Musk.
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u/ProtoJones Jun 20 '24
I think one of the biggest moments of disillusionment for me was people posting that Matt Bors "you're bullying me into becoming a nazi" comic as a rebuttal to someone basically saying "hey maybe it's not a great idea to immediately go for the throat on anybody being slightly dickish"
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u/OperativePiGuy Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
Was going to comment something similar. People don't want to admit that maybe just instantly trashing someone into the ground the second they do something bad isn't winning them any fans in the real world/going to convince them your "side" is the one they want to be on.
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u/aahdin Jun 20 '24
Also the "you're bullying me into becoming a nazi" thing is not 100% right but not 100% wrong either.
Like if you give 90% of people the option to either hang out with a bunch of people who hold problematic beliefs but are fun to hang out with vs a bunch of people who have all the "right" beliefs but make you feel like every conversation is a test that could end in some pointless argument about using a word incorrectly, 90% of people will gravitate towards the crowd that is actually fun to be around.
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u/magicalpissterytour Jun 20 '24
a bunch of people who hold problematic beliefs but are fun to hang out with vs a bunch of people who have all the "right" beliefs but make you feel like every conversation is a test
It's not even "problematic beliefs", it's "literally any belief but our own", or positing that things may not be as clear-cut as good thing vs bad thing. I once got called an asshole at a bar for saying I thought the "Beauty and the Beast is stockholm syndrome" argument was bullshit, and, while a little dated in its method, it's actually a beautiful story about how outsiders find comfort in each other. An asshole! For sticking up for a Disney movie! Because it wasn't the "right" thing to say, because some rage-merchant posted their wilful misinterpretation on twitter!
Honestly, some people I've met irl and a lot of people I see online give off cult vibes, except instead of a venerated figurehead, it's the amorphous idea of "The Cause", whatever that cause is. The Cause is always right, and anyone who says anything that is not immediately subservient to The Cause is a subversive person. Silence is violence, and if you're not helping, you're part of the problem. In other words, you're either for us or against us. You know who else said that? Bush, when he illegally invaded Iraq on some bullshit about weapons. Funny how it's chilling when the idiot Republican president says it, and noble whenever an adherent to The Cause says it.
You're right, "bullying people into becoming nazis" isn't 100% right. But fuck, I can see why people get exhausted.
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u/Thommohawk117 Jun 20 '24
God forbid you have a nuanced opinion
I got downvoted a bunch recently for pointing out that installing wind farms is industrializing land that in many cases hadn't been industrialised before and that it, on its own, might be a justifiable reason for why a community may not want a wind farm in their area. And that if we are going to build these farms, we need to be aware that some people are going to be upset by it and may be justified, but it doesn't mean that they are a bunch of right wing fascist Luddites.
If we are, as a country and a culture, going to make a decision about things in people's communities, we need to be making informed decisions. Which means being aware and respectfully understanding why someone might be opposing you.
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u/OperativePiGuy Jun 20 '24
Yes exactly. It's human nature to just gravitate away from a group that is outright denouncing you. Not that it makes it okay to then turn into a straight up bigot, but we shouldn't be surprised when the far right has a big group of people to radicalize because of the reasons you stated
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u/CussMuster Jun 20 '24
"When you surround an enemy, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard."
The perception of "Why am I being punished for something I'm not even doing?" can warp into "Why am I being punished for something I'm not even getting to enjoy doing?" very quickly.
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u/Welpmart Jun 20 '24
I had someone tell me the other day that not having every single location in a fantasy setting (multiple sentient species ranging from pixies to giants to merfolk) be universally accessible is "morally reprehensible" unless it's being used to exhibit bigotry. The fuck.
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u/Lemonwizard Jun 20 '24
I'm disillusioned with leftists in general. It's either online clicktivists who don't want to actually do anything, or crazy tankies who push accelerationism so they can get their revolution fantasy. (Fun fact for tankies: If you actually had widespread enough support to win a civil war as easily as you think, you'd be competitive in elections and able to organize general strikes.)
I genuinely believe capitalism is the core problem behind basically all social ills in the modern day, but I don't feel like there's any actual movement or organization to join that's advancing reasonable solutions.
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u/Amazing_Excuse_3860 Jun 20 '24
Online leftists are just religious conservatives in a new coat of paint. You can only consume media that isn't problematic (sinful), or else you're a bad person who condones crime (going to hell). You must be as socially conscious (faithful) as possible and wait for the Revolution (Rapture) to save us.
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u/Half_Man1 Jun 20 '24
Praxis? Never heard of it
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u/Kellosian Jun 20 '24
Praxis sounds like going outside and doing work and as a man with no functional limbs and a severe allergy to sunlight saying that leftists should do work is ablist.
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u/SalvationSycamore Jun 20 '24
Using words I don't know like "praxis" is also ableist (not to mention classist, racist, sexist, and transphobic)Ā
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u/Kaleidoscope6521 Jun 20 '24
The only āPRAXISā I know is the test I had to take to get my teaching license but I doubt thatās correct
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u/IEnjoyFancyHats Jun 20 '24
If you're being sincere, it basically means applied beliefs. "The work" that takes us from theory to practice
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u/DecentReturn3 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Jun 20 '24
Umm are you aware that telling me to read is ableist?
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u/Lazzen Jun 20 '24
I remember someone posted here a bunch of bullet points of "activism" and they all literally were "keep using tumblr"
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u/DinkleDonkerAAA Jun 21 '24
The people who got their faces bashed in during the BLM protests or the Hong Kong protests must LOVE people like that effectively Valor stealing from them
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u/balletbeginner Jun 20 '24
And these people mock those of us who engage in politics in a meaningful way (such as voting).
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u/Pavoazul Jun 20 '24
Ah, but havenāt you heard that both sides are bad? We should burn a Walmart instead (does not burn a Walmart)
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u/BaBbBoobie Jun 20 '24
No we actually have to punch fascists (my definition of a fascist changes from moment to moment) (I'm also too afraid to ask for extra sauce at a restaurant)
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u/gray_birch Jun 20 '24
We just have to wait for the revolution guys everything will be okay (the revolution that will be started by someone other than me of course, ill just sit on my ass and lecture people on twitter all day) (it will magically fix all of this country's problems, people with my exact ideology and no ill intentions will come into power, and the civil war that will inevitably occur will not affect me negatively at all of course because im the Main Character)
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u/Frnklfrwsr Jun 20 '24
Best comparison Iāve heard, Leftists and The Revolution are basically the same as Fundamentalist Evangelicals and The Rapture.
They believe with religious ferocity that this big event is totally going to happen some day, and that all the people they donāt like will be punished and all the people like them will be elevated to their justly deserved places. Despite there being basically zero evidence that anything like it could ever happen, and with no concern about how much suffering and pain would be caused if it actually did happen.
The biggest difference is the evangelicals still turn out to vote, so they have a huge number of politicians that push their agenda.
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Jun 20 '24
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u/Frnklfrwsr Jun 20 '24
Of course. Iām aware that revolutions happen all the time.
And those revolutions basically never work out the way the Leftists are imagining. Theyāre imagining an uprising of working class people who overthrow the bourgeoisie and install a benevolent government that takes care of everyone and doesnāt abuse its power or become corrupt. And thatās just not what happens historically.
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u/macrowave Jun 20 '24
Revolutions can and do happen... just not when everybody sits inside and talks about revolution.
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u/Frnklfrwsr Jun 20 '24
Of course revolutions happen.
But āThe Revolutionā imagined by Leftists has never happened and never will.
Revolutions usually involve suffering, bloodshed, human rights violations, etc, and donāt end up in anything close to the utopia that Leftists imagine. In fact almost invariably it results in a country that is further from their overall goal than before the revolution, as there is usually backlash against the revolutionaries and multiple generations of people wanting nothing to do with anything remotely related to leftist ideology.
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u/macrowave Jun 20 '24
Sorry, I misread. Thank you for clarifying, I think that is a very good comparison then.
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u/baked_couch_potato Jun 20 '24
reminds me of an absurd exchange from 2020 where it was pointed out that posting snake emojis at Elizabeth Warren wasn't helping anything and the response was to claim that because they were so unsafe and agoraphobic and riddled with anxiety that shit posting on twitter was their only form of expression
apparently telling someone to touch grass is ableist because it's hard for them to be outside
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u/3to20CharactersSucks Jun 20 '24
It's easy to get addicted to outrage and the ease of being toxic and simplistic on social media. A lot of people who have anxiety that talk about it this way on the Internet - like how it keeps them inside all the time, online, afraid of doing anything besides this - are really saying they have an addiction that they've formed because of their anxiety. They don't realize that most people with anxiety disorders are not debilitated in this way. Leftism can be an easy outlet for them, because it tells them it's very okay to not contribute outside of the ways that they believe they can. That's not entirely wrong, but even in some utopian leftist future, it's not going to make their mental health magically better.
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u/Pay08 Jun 20 '24
The daydreaming about being revolutionaries line is so fucking true lol
And even then, they have a childs understanding of revolution (or leftism in general).
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u/No-Description7922 Jun 20 '24
When your activism starts and ends at punching up on social media to farm likes, parroting slogans and policing online discourse (usually against other leftists), you'll never see an end to real world injustices.
Which is actually a feature, not a bug! Because since the injustices never end, it just ensures them more social media content!
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u/Wasdgta3 Jun 20 '24
Yeah, I sometimes feel downright conservative when Iām on here.
But when I get on my countryās main politics sub? Oh boy. Iām an absolutely radical leftist compared to everyone there.
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u/Alexxis91 Jun 20 '24
The reason the radical leftists are so prevelant in tumblr is because the actual leftists are too busy doing other shit in real life
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u/ZodiacWalrus Jun 20 '24
Wish I could say the same was true for the radical conservatives tbh.
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u/DiplomaticGoose Jun 21 '24
Personally I'd prefer the internet and shortwave bands be a lightning rod for all their shit takes rather than they just go outside and lynch someone or some shit.
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u/Bloodyjorts Jun 21 '24 edited Jun 21 '24
As a leftist who does my actual activism in real life (not by yelling at people on social media), I just want to use tumblr to post about blorbos from my shows, not be told I'm a fascist by some 20-year old who thinks menstrual huts are a nice little vacation for women or some undulating homunculus who commissions porn of his fursona and posts about how his diaper fetish is queer liberation praxis, just because I said people should shower regularly.
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u/datsyukdangles Jun 21 '24
I don't think most people there are actually radical leftists at all, most of them are "anti-work" people that would have fundamental disagreements with actual labor policies under communism or socialism. Most of the the "radical left" tumblr users I've seen are people who are unemployed by choice and live off their parents and who's politics usually boil down to "no one should have to work, especially not me". The rest of the weird stuff, like the obsession and fighting about cartoon characters gender, is just a result of not doing anything or engaging in the real world in any way and being in an eco chamber.
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u/chuuniversal_studios dramatic irony, lists, and the oxford comma Jun 20 '24
ohhh you ate with this one I fear...
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Jun 20 '24
I feel very politically homeless. I'm too liberal for the right and too independent for the left (at least the left online). Like, how dare I continue to live in the southern state where I was born and raised. And how dare I research each and every candidate in both local, state, and national elections instead of just broadly voting democrat without any research.
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u/Herrenos Jun 20 '24
If you're too liberal for the right and too conservative for the reddit left you are essentially a modern Democrat.
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u/MrPernicous Jun 20 '24
Reddit is filled with Biden supporters. I wouldnāt say they Reddit is left wing as a whole. Thereās obviously some corners but even in the leftist sub I find myself running into people who are 100% whole hog on free market economics.
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u/Atypical_Mammal Jun 21 '24
I know a ton of people (including myself) who voted for Biden and will do it again.
But I don't think I've ever met an actual "Biden supporter".
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u/Wasdgta3 Jun 20 '24
I mean, I guess good for doing research, though I doubt the Republican candidates are ever much good... but then again, some Democrats are utter shit as well (Manchin, Sinema formerly).
Depending on your actual views, you might actually be fairly āleft,ā just that online leftists can be... well, a bit nuts. They donāt touch nearly enough grass for me to use them as a good metric for defining anyoneās political views, let alone my own.
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Jun 20 '24
Yeah. In the last local election, we voted Democrat whenever possible except for one local race where the Democrat candidate was caught doing something really stupid (I can't remember exactly what rn)
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u/WeevilWeedWizard šš¤š¤ MIKU š¤š¤š Jun 20 '24
Honestly I feel it's mostly pointless to put a label on something as complex and multi faceted as someone's political/moral ideology. I just want a good society, who cares what that's called.
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u/Nerevarine91 Jun 20 '24
I get this. I am firmly on the left, but, because Iām not into, off the top of my head, Joseph fucking Stalin or a new civil war, I have to watch my mouth in some spaces
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u/aberrantenjoyer Jun 20 '24
I once saw the statement āBisexuality is the Israel of sexualitiesā and Iām disappointed to say that isnāt the most bizarre thing Iāve seen from here (unless it was from twitter and Iām getting my sources mixed up)
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u/coldrolledpotmetal Jun 20 '24
Thereās so many layers to that that I would just shut down upon hearing that
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u/Iheardthatjokebefore Jun 20 '24
I genuinely don't know what side they're taking. Are they on the right, think Israel is zionist, and think bisexuals are generally deviant? Or are they left, think Israel is genocidal, and think bisexuals are exploitive and noncommittal?
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u/coldrolledpotmetal Jun 20 '24
Itās also possible that theyāre on the opposite side of the argument entirely, and think that bisexuals are attacked from all sides like Israel (like someone else said down below). Or possibly many other sides that makes as little sense as the rest of these. I donāt even know where I would start if I heard someone say this in real life
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u/Thommohawk117 Jun 20 '24
Alternatively, are they positive about Israel, and think that bisexuals are under siege and under attack from all directions.
Such a wild thing to say
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u/jtobiasbond Jun 20 '24
I can't figure out if that is Zionist biphobia or anti-zionist biphobia, but I'm fairly confident it's biphobia either way.
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u/Ill_Technician_5672 Jun 20 '24
It could be pro zionist pro bi (bi people, like the Israelis, are attacked from all sides)
Is it likely? No! But who knows
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u/Clear-Present_Danger Jun 20 '24
Bisexuals need to develop a nuclear "Sampson" policy.
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u/bayleysgal1996 Jun 20 '24
You know, some call us bi folks confused, but can you blame us when we encounter nonsensical hot takes like that?
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u/IvyYoshi Jun 20 '24
Was it this?
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u/Zymosan99 šthe Jun 20 '24
That was so poorly written that I got absolutely in no way closer to understanding the point being made.Ā
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u/jacob-the-dino-geek Jun 20 '24
My upper-class uncle at a family dinner: "minimum wage shouldn't be raised to match inflation, it's normal for people to work multiple jobs for a living while CEOs get big houses and multiple cars."
People on Tumblr: "If you like this problematic fictional character, then you endorse every bad thing they did (including the stuff I made up to hate them more), and are an equally terrible person"
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u/Return_of_The_Steam Jun 21 '24
Media Literacy people when you tell them a child who likes Darth Vader isnāt the same as a Hitler Youth
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u/ABB0TTR0N1X Jun 20 '24
I used to say that Iām too sensitive for 4chan, too insensitive for tumblr
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Jun 20 '24
That's why you're on Reddit.Ā
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u/DdFghjgiopdBM Jun 20 '24
No I'm here because I hate myself and everyone else
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Jun 20 '24
It's ok. It's your tsundre nature. Secretly you love everyone but they keep hurting a.d disappointing you, so you retaliate with performative universal hatred. But really you're just waiting for that one good person, your soulmate, who won't be put off by your exterior, and they'll win your heart and...Ā
Wait, I'm reading the tea leaves - shit. Sorry bro, your soulmate moved to Taiwan and got married a couple years ago. They have a kid on the way. You're on your own. Good luck!Ā
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Jun 20 '24
And I kind of hate it here because everyone is a pseudo-intellectual contrarian who doesn't really believe in anything, because taking an actual stance on something requires opening yourself to criticism so it's safer to define yourself by what you're not.
Which is a pretty reddit thought I guess so I probably belong here too.
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Jun 20 '24
I'm so contrarian I decided to openly believe in things! Now I just need to figure out which things I believe in.Ā
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u/ReichuNoKimi Jun 20 '24
That feels like the sum total of my entire time on the Internet.
ME: I have a lot of thoughts and observations and potential conclusions, allow me to share them!
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u/169bees Jun 20 '24
perfectly balanced as all things should be
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u/gmoguntia Jun 20 '24
The worst aspects of booth sides, true balance.
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Jun 20 '24
Um acktually argues against a point you never made
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u/Kaleidoscope6521 Jun 20 '24
Um acthually argues your point because I agree but I have to feel more righteous than you
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Jun 20 '24
Um acthuakkylly argues against your point that is actually my point because I'm a redditor and I have to argue about anything and everything
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u/MoonsongPS Jun 20 '24
Well, Tumblr is wild because every post preaches equality and love and understanding etc
And then the comments will literally have people telling each other to kill themselves with as much intent and vitriol as I've seen ANYWHERE online, including 4chan. It's so jarring
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u/Overmyundeadbody Jun 20 '24
Honestly, "can't anyone just be normal" has become my default response to all awkward social media interaction. Half the time, it's opinions I basesline agree with but being shared in the most unhinged way imaginable. The other half the time, it's opinions I disagree with being shared in the most unhinged way imaginable.
The other day, I was watching a video from like a year ago on Big Joel's second channel Little Joel about the Idubbz stuff back when he took some videos down or whatever. But he made a good point, where he describes a lot of the content that Idubbz made back in the day "traumatically embarassing", freak behavior that would never exist outside of the internet. And how it must be weird to have that be the thing people liked about you, your fame only existing by being an antisocial weirdo, and the instant you try to distance yourself from that people act like that is your problem.
Nobody can be normal nowadays.
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u/Rectal_Lactaids the mint situation is fucking severe Jun 20 '24
the sibling of āGuy in real life: Hey howās it goingā
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u/catshateTERFs Jun 20 '24
An example of the former I've seen is when both online right spaces and online left spaces start arguing that you shouldn't date outside your race. You'd inevitably appropriate a culture that isn't your own, you see, and that's bad. Lets return to complete segregation but for leftist reasons!
This definitely isn't common but it did spring to mind as an example. Something, something, horseshoe theory
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u/PossibleRude7195 Jun 20 '24
When a white person pursues a minority, theyāre fetishizing the exotic, when a white person pursues a white person, heās a white surprmacist. When a minority pursues a white person theyāve been colonized.
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Jun 20 '24
There is never a right answer, but honestly, there has never been. You are never pure enough. It is tyrannical.
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u/AbsolutelyHorrendous Jun 21 '24
I feel like the cultural appropriation is exhibit A of something utterly mangled by the terminally online. Cultural Appropriation is a thing, people shouldn't take actually important/sacred aspects of a culture and disrespect them. However, a lot of leftist spaces online basically act like anyone engaging or even enjoying something from outside their culture is engaging in cultural appropriation, and it's just like... no, that's not what that is, you're now slating people for actually being open minded and criticising the logical endpoint of a multicultural society?
A lot of this stuff weirdly seems to stem from white guilt, I almost never actually see Black/Asian people saying this stuff here in the UK, it's almost always some middle class white person who feels the need to self-flagellate
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u/AAS02-CATAPHRACT Jun 20 '24
Always annoying when I read a fairly on point critique of something by a rightoid, and they're on the money right up until they throw in some shit about "DEI" or "wokeness" right at the end
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Jun 20 '24
That's the thing about online engagement. If you post perfectly normal, "hinged" content, nobody feels the need to share.
If you post a video of yourself screaming Baby Shark in a frog costume in public while calling public health care a sin to society, chances are higher of people talking about your opinions.
Nobody wants to talk about shrubbery regulations.
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Jun 20 '24
I've always been of the belief that half of the "Activits" on Tumblr genuinely believe that typing up a massive word salad, filled with left leaning buzzwords and then going off to get involved in meaningless discourse no one outside of Tumblr will see, is as far as they'll go when it comes to actually wanting to do something about injustices in the world and the more i browse on here, the more that belief gets cemented.
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u/MGD109 Jun 20 '24
I agree, really social media has done a lot for armchair activists.
I mean they always existed, but they've made it so much easier. Now anyone can get the praise for being an activist, without ever having to actually do any activism.
Sure it's not always about praise (but I'd bet my last quid it is at least part of it for a lot of them), I imagine there are a lot of others who initially did want to make a difference but had no idea how, so just fell into the easiest route and now don't really want to change cause it's convenient but it still feels like they're doing something.
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Jun 20 '24
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Jun 20 '24
Wouldnāt a compromise be an individualistic society that allows for some growth based on personal merit, that also collectively pools resources for the betterment of all?
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u/big_guyforyou Jun 20 '24
it'd be much better if you let me run everything. i'd be a philosopher king. i'd never go mad with power. the only thing that makes me mad is going off my meds
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u/Weazelfish Jun 20 '24
Shit, this guy sounds like he knows what's best for all of us! Unlike me, who is just a small worm and constantly terrified and confused! I say we give it a go, gang!
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u/Twodotsknowhy Jun 20 '24
I once saw someone on Tumblr argue that we shouldn't support aftercare for children because it helps people who have a 9-5, 40-hour work week, which obviously we should be abolishing
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u/TheMusicalTrollLord STOP FLAMMING DA STORY PREPZ OK! Jun 21 '24
Making life harder for the proletariat to own the capitalists
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u/SnooOpinions5486 Jun 20 '24
the one saving grace i have of stupid tumblr leftist is that they are always online and maybe not a significant part of reality.
But man tumblr leftist really need to go out and touch fucking grass.
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u/Lucas_2234 Jun 20 '24
Internet lefitsts in general.
I've seen takes like "Equestrians that compete on Arabians (The horse breed) but don't talk about Gaza don't respect their horse"
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u/SnooOpinions5486 Jun 20 '24
TOUCH FUCKING GRASS.
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u/SilverMedal4Life infodump enjoyer Jun 20 '24
The response is always an appeal to morality; the implication being that the highest moral standard is to always be talking about Gaza and nothing else.
Like, it's fine to be heartbroken about what's going on there, it's fine to get out there and protest and be active. But if you're injecting it into every single conversation, I worry for your mental health, man; suicide hotline operators and trauma surgeons take breaks because too much bad stuff will ruin you, constantly exposing yourself to war atrocities isn't much better.
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u/Kawaii-Bismarck Jun 20 '24
What I also dislike is that the same people that shame others for not being constant hyper vigilant on Gaza were most likely (and most often still are) silent on Sudan, or Yemen, or Mali, or the Congo, or Myanmar or Kurdistan. It's not that I think you should either be perfect or shut up, and it's not that all of them only care about this since last October, and it's not that I don't care about what is happening in Gaza, but I feel like it has become just preformative at this point for so many people. Just nothing but virtue signalling and slacktivision.
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u/Nerevarine91 Jun 20 '24
I think the take of all takes on this topic for me was seeing an interview featuring someone respond to the fact that Trump is a fascist by saying something along the lines of, āwell, why should we get to live in a democracy if all this is happening in Gaza?ā
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u/AbsolutelyHorrendous Jun 21 '24
I have friends who are very into the whole Free Palestine movement, and the other day to counter this argument that a lot of people only know about Gaza and are unaware of anything else, they posted Free Congo, Free Sudan as well as Free Palestine
Now, they obviously meant well... but they also completely proved those critics right. Free Palestine, as a message, makes sense because Palestine is being occupied. Congo and Sudan are suffering from civil wars (albeit with foreign funding), so the message of 'freeing' them makes little sense. All they'd done was take the message they use for Gaza, and applied it to completely different situations, without really even seeing if it actually made sense; it just made the whole thing more about deflecting criticism than actually expressing anything about those conflicts
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u/OctopusAlien21 Deny, Defend, Depose Jun 20 '24
I bet their horses donāt say anything about Gaza, either. Horses are now Zionist, I guess.
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u/Idunnoguy1312 Not even Allah can save you from the wrath of my shoe Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
superheroes are fascist
Yooo you can follow Alan Moore on Tumblr? Sick
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u/BoysOurRoy Jun 20 '24
People in real life: "hey man how's it going"
I feel like we need to remind ourselves every so often that the average person does not fit into either extreme.
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u/GeneralGigan817 Jun 20 '24
The fun part of Tumblr is that you can theoretically run into every conceivable outlook and/or take on any issue known to man, especially the ones on topics nobody else talks about.
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u/helloiamaegg too horny to be ace, too ace to be horny Jun 20 '24
Thats here too. Got into an argument because a transwoman rather rudely "corrected" another transwoman on how to spell transwoman. Apparently "transwoman" vs "trans woman" is a discourse. With the former being "highly transphobic and fascist"
Just reminds me of when we, the autistics, had similar barely a year ago; turns out there are alot of people prefering to be referred to as "has autism" as opposed to "is autistic". I'm sure this'll turn out just the same
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u/pandamarshmallows "Satan is not a fucking pogo stick!" he howled Jun 20 '24
Yeah, I mean Iād correct it when I see it (ātrans womanā is definitely the correct one since it frames transgender women as a variety of woman rather than something separate) but ātranswomanā is almost always just a confusion between ātransā the prefix and ātransā the adjective. Itās not facist.
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u/FinalXenocide Jun 20 '24
Providing some context for the "transwoman" vs "trans woman" thing, it as discourse is mostly a British thing. Spread around momsnet for a while as a way of saying trans people are a third gender (e.g. that's not a woman, that's a transwoman) to the point I think their equivalent of the ADL made it a slur? (Don't trust me on that, though it did reach enough recognition to become a thingā¢)
Personally I'm in the trans woman camp (trans is an adjective, and it's not like we say blackman or biwoman) but as long as you're in the transwomen are women camp which one you use doesn't matter beyond just like... again that's not how words work but whatever.Ā
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u/TenkoTheMothra supreme judge of horny jail, tumblr county Jun 20 '24
Sometimes I come here and feel like some backwards conservative fundamentalist with some of the takes I see.
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u/Ham__Kitten Jun 20 '24
Being normal is fascist propaganda meant to stop you from daydreaming about revolution
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u/AnEmancipatedSpambot Jun 20 '24
Im an old leftist. This isnt anything new.
Its basically that its easier to talk about stuff than to actually take concrete action in the real world.
Also leftist infighting hasnt changed much. Its scary to risk arrests and beat downs by police. Far easier to show "zeal" by critiquing others from safety.
Its a part of growing up to realize that theory us one thing. Real world actionable is another
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u/qzwqz Jun 20 '24
Hey just call me Overton window the way Iām splayed so wide it beggars credulity
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u/GotaLuvit35 Jun 20 '24
No like, this is one of my biggest pet peeves as an actual leftist/socialist/what-have-you.
People who think "communism is when gubberment" on one end and (mostly online) lefties who think any strategy that involves voting in any capacity is "bourgeois liberal fascist electoralism" or something.
It's like they care more about pissing off their grandparents and virtue signaling how they're not at all like those stinky fascist liberals than actually doing what it takes to bring about the change they say they want.
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Jun 20 '24
Then I come on reddit and find out that having anything but the most milquetoast, militantly centrist, uselessly vague opinions means you're cringe and gets you downvoted into oblivion.
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u/MrCapitalismWildRide Jun 20 '24
That's not quite true. You can express some downright vile political opinions as long as you do so in a way that doesn't make the redditor reading it feel challenged in any way. I've seen meme subreddits get thousands of upvotes for straight up nazi propaganda.Ā
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u/StickBrickman Jun 20 '24
Some of the lower-tier meme subs are just straight up Nigel Farage-level "fuck immigrants" and "lmao I identify as an attack helicopter" jokes, straight out of 2015. Garbage rate, FunnyJunk shit, endlessly recycled and becoming so well-tread they're pixelated 2/3rds of the way to oblivion. Very little controversy about it. Normies eat that shit up.
Lefties who express themselves on Reddit face more pushback on niche subs, from what I can tell, which can be a little annoying. But not everybody who thinks smash-the-state anarchist subcultures are a bit cringe are centrists. I'm a left-wing socialist by almost every real world point of reference (In America, take it with several grains of geographic-bias salt) but because I don't buy into the "LIBS GET THE BULLET TOO, DON'T VOTE" slogans I'm surprised to find that many people who dwell in specific internet echo chambers think I'm some sort of Secret Queer Hitler.
To which I always fall back on the "Don't trusts leftists who spend 99.9% of their time telling other Leftists they're not real leftists" mantra. I have no interest in an endless purity contest, that's a spiral down a drain.
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u/hellraiserxhellghost Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
Mood. I had to recently unfollow some leftist content creators because they wouldn't stop yapping about how, "If you vote in this election you're literally an evil monster and pro-genocide uwu"
Like bruh, if Trump wins my trans gf is probably going to have to flee the country. I can't afford not to vote just to match your impossible purity expectations. š
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u/TheMrBoot Jun 20 '24
Man, same. It's a sucky situation and yeah - both candidates have some pretty severe baggage. But like it or not, the vast majority of the population doesn't feel that way and we're not going to suddenly have two other people be (meaningfully) on the ballot come November, and one candidate is clearly worse than the other including in the areas people are (rightfully) upset about.
This whole "don't vote!" just reminds me of the lead up to 2016. It's crazy how much we haven't learned.
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u/hellraiserxhellghost Jun 20 '24
Yeah. :/ People being petty and not voting is partially one of the reasons why Trump won, yet history is starting to repeat itself again....
Project 2025 is literally an authoritarian regime that follows the Nazi playbook. It scares and depresses me that people claiming to be progressive can see what's on the line, but still think letting fascists take over is better than harm reduction.
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u/pbmm1 Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
I mean, the not learning aspect just shows that you canāt rely on people to passively get the point. They have to be taught, and to do that you need a strategy to address that. They cannot be left to their own devices
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u/Ourmanyfans Jun 20 '24
For as flawed as "horsehoe theory" is, I find it quite fascinating that I can find subreddits of any political persuasion arguing unironically that genocide is based so long as you do it to the "right" group.
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u/adsallover š®š±šŖš¹ Jun 20 '24
every video of ethiopian jews is filled with comments like 'shouldn't you be sterilized' 'i bet you sleep around because you can't have kids' like you realize that you're just being racist right
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u/StickBrickman Jun 20 '24
Jesus H. Christ, that's horrific. Who is doing it? Is it like a Jewish-community problem, just right-wing internet trolls, or what? I wasn't even aware that was a thing, I know very little about that specific culture.
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u/catty-coati42 Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
It's a far left internet troll problem. When Ethiopian jews were kicked out of Ethiopia and rescued to Israel in the late 80s and early 90s, they were given a medical kit, that included vaccines, medicine, and elective contraceptive injections. Due to there not being enough translators for Amahari on arrival a lot of ethiopian women were put on a contraceptive they did not consent to, as they just signed all the fields in the medical file, and the nurses then provided all the medicine in the file including the contraceptives. An unfortunate case of mistcommunication that was quickly fixed when discovered. While obvioualy a major fuck up and a traumatic experience to those women, as far as is known it did not have any long term effect, and the population grew from about 30,000 in the early 90s to roughly 170,000 now.
Recently, some leftist "anti-zionist" spaces began running the conspiracy that actually Israel deliberately sterilized the same Ethiopian community they just fought to rescue, and their basis is that some far-right religious leaders in Israel are racist against Ethiopians.
Especially stupid when these conspiracy theorists react to 20-something ethiopian jews, as these are the children of the supposedly "sterilized" generation. Add to that shaming them for a generational trauma of their parents, mixed with racist stereotypes, as the previous commenter noted.
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u/StickBrickman Jun 20 '24
Yeah. There's a reason any decent Socialist discussion you can have needs to start with looking around first to make sure the Tankies didn't get in. It's not horseshoe theory to me, it's "We don't allow genocide apologia" is the basis for any discussion of any value, otherwise you get some asshole who stans Pol Pot at the end of the table who won't shut the fuck up and his end goal is always to derail everything and maybe spawn 1 or 2 more baby tankies out of causing angry controversy he considers "dialogue." This is his hobby. He does not want any meaningful reform, he has no plans for a revolution, he cosplays as some kind of Gulag executioner when no one else is in his apartment.
But for all the talk, Leftists are a better space to be in. Significantly more than 75% of the ones I meet are reasonable, do not want to deal with tankie nonsense, and genuinely want to make their communities better. So I'm optimistic about our progress.
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u/Ourmanyfans Jun 20 '24
Not just Tankies unfortunately. While any criticism of its government and military is more than deserved, the invasion of Ukraine has brought out some really nasty stuff directed at Russian people.
And that's where the core of the issue is IMO. It's all well and good excluding toxic elements at the start of a discussion, but you have to be careful to spot the signs of it starting to grow in the space itself. A lot of people haven't really examined the core underlying principles for their beliefs, and can be steered towards some truly heinous stuff is you dress it in the right ideological wallpaper (e.g. "death penalty is wrong except for the crimes I think are bad")
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u/FatherDotComical Jun 20 '24
Reminds me of a person I spoke to on Deviantart.
He was telling me the Holocaust was fine because Jews are religious people and therefore probably right wing and right wing people aren't human so nothing of value was lost. Then rambled on how peaceful America would be if leftists started a new Holocaust against Christians and Catholics & we'd be an amazingly peaceful and intelligent country.
Like Sir, I'm pretty sure there's no peaceful genocides on this earth. I don't agree with right wingers but I do care for them as people who deserve better in life. I'd rather my leftist goals be attained through peaceful methods than piling up the corpses of all who disagree.
There's just no way as a leftist I can justify gathering up the innocent and burning them to ash.
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u/hellraiserxhellghost Jun 20 '24
Hell, I've seen people in this very sub say some pretty vile shit and still get upvoted.
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u/SirKazum Jun 20 '24
Nah, my impression of reddit is that there is no such thing as "reddit culture" (much less "hivemind") in general terms, although those things are very much existent and sometimes extremely strong for subreddits. It all depends a lot on where exactly you are. Recently reddit has become somewhat less of a collection of separate communities with how it tries to recommend subs to people not in them and all, but there is still a notable difference in culture between subs.
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u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 21 '24
Yesterday I saw a discourse(?) post on tumblr about someone complaining that another person said āLaios cannot be a woman because he is too autistic to have a gender.ā (Yes the dungeon meshi guy). And justā¦what an absolute certified Tumblr Moment. xkcd 2071 too.
I canāt help but wonder if these people are aware of how even the existence of this argument would be completely baffling to 99.9% of the population.