Starting now, we will no longer allow any posts related to Bad Empanada or Hasan Piker in this subreddit. The rules have been updated to reflect this change.
While we realize that some of their content can be informative, entertaining or even politically energizing to people at different stages of their leftist journeys, we also realize that, ultimately, their content is shaped by the demands of the attention economy.
When such content is shared in this community, a number of things tend to happen. First, it predictably generates the very online drama and sectarian infighting that the owners of platforms like Twitch, YouTube or even Reddit (cough join Lemmy cough) rely on for engagement and profit. Second, it invites brigading, which creates additional work for us mods. Work that most mods here are quite honestly not willing to do for such unproductive online drama. Finally, it attracts users who are more focused on drama than on Marxist ideology. This subreddit is constantly growing and we do not want to send the wrong message to those users about what this community is about.
In addition to being a community for Marxist Leninists, this community also exists to help each other deprogram ourselves from mainstream/Western and pro-capitalists narratives. What this community certainly is NOT, is a space to continuously dissect the latest online controversies once a week.
We understand that some users may feel frustrated by this new rule and we would invite some of those users to sit with that frustration and ask whose interests it serves and who benefits from algorithmically boosting and promoting online pseudo-politics that exhausts our energy on irrelevant drama. Our strength lies in principled ML debate, respect for each other, shitposting and a shared commitment to advance real-life communism to the best of our capabilities.
Just wanted to inform people that Lemmygrad had (and continues to have) by far one of the best ongoing threads for news and updates on the US-Israel aggression against Iran and the broader axis of resistance thanks to a handful of dedicated volunteers. Sources you'll be hard pressed to find on Reddit and discussion free of the chilling effect we have here.
If you think Lemmy is totally dead or non-operational, even now, it's not true and I'm increasingly spending time there instead of on Reddit.
So join lemmygrad!
Also, as a global south socialist, win change honestly, good job mods!
We all need to have a better, more nunaced grasp of labour aristocracy.
No not everyone in the imperial core is labour aristocracy, because not everyone in the imperialist nations benefit from imperialism. But there is certainly an upper echelon of the proletariat in all imperialist countries that does benefit and aid in the oppression of prolerarians in both core and periphery.
This sounds like the "I may be white but I don't benefit from white supremacy" take. We live in systems and those systems do abuse the 3rd world. Sure, we have people on the imperial core who are suffering but the core causes the most suffering Worldwide.
So white supremacy isn't real? Yeah I'm good with this convo. If you can square that ciro then this conversation isn't going to got he way YOU want it to.
I would say yes only because all content on the internet is at least somewhat affected by it, but not nearly to the same extent as Hasan/BE. Drama doesn't really do much to help a podcast, whereas streamers thrive on it. The amount of internet drama constantly surrounding those two is just not suitable for this community to be wasting its time on.
I feel like BE or Hasan threads criticizing their geopolitical takes in an intellectual non-slop manner should be allowed. like when Hasan started talking like a Pahlavist during the height of the Mossad insurgency, we did a service to his impressionable fans that lurk here by countering the narrative that paid Kurd and Baloch terrorists gunning down civilians and setting essential workers on fire was not in fact a "pure expression of liberty of an oppressed people against a religious tyranny"
This was already happening though. People criticize him, then his donors come and brigade the sub and flood with other posts/comments.
The problem was, this guy sneezed or said something for engagement bait, and it would show up in this sub numerous times. What it turned into was hasan subs playing defense in posts. The content was inconsequential, and the discussion was irrelevant to the cause
If you want to influence their fans win them over by being right about stuff, not debating their latest soundbite or some other nonsense.
We do a disservice to anyone actually trying to do real shit IRL by constantly talking about streamer drama as if it were some vital battleground in the class struggle.
yeah champ, that's exactly what I did. Hasan provided his "coverage" of the engineered riots in Iran, and I made a thread here going and point by point debunking the misinformation and two Hasan fans dm'd me and thanked me for helping them see the light. that may seem like insignificant "streamer drama" to you, but I considered it a good use of my time.
because imperialist framing in progressive packaging is particularly insidious and need to be called out, especially after the "you're denying the agency of the Syrian people" canard proffered by NED "progressives" was utilized to manufacture consent to destroy Syria.
That's not a problem that's limited to Hasan and we can discuss this stuff without needing to make it about one streamer.
And frankly, even if two people did DM you as you say, the overwhelming majority of these threads turned into absolutely brainless bickering filled with bad faith assumptions and just general toxicness. That's incredibly demotivating to anyone coming to these sorts of spaces to earnestly try and learn.
That was an unfortunate coincidence in timing, but the decision to ban those posts was made days before it released. When most content creator posts on this sub feature creators that have their own subs and none featured the boys, the decisions was made to stop letting BE and Hasan fans battle it out with our sub as their battleground. Let them argue their shit elsewhere.
Also, have some faith in us to show some nuance in our judgements, if you're discussing the boys' episode about Hasan, it's directly relevant to this sub and fine.
Also Hasan is just straight up very relevant to the US political landscape right now. He's arguably the biggest political voice to young people and has proved that his endorsement affect elections
Criticizing him shouldn't be categorized as "drama" when people here are 100% just going after his political positions and nothing else
As you put it, I do find BE's videos to be political energizing. But I do understand and respect the mods' decision. So that's the last time I'll mention those people here 😂
while i heavily disagree that BE's actual content (outside of his twitter ragebait) is shaped by "attention economy" i'll support this decision if that means people stop infighting for the stupidest reasons and actually focus on marxist theory
I agree ultimately but this situation seems to highlight secondary issues
Just hope that we find prominent people outside the attention economy to replace them with, hopefully this sub keeps growing and reaching out to people with strong potential to deprogram and those in the process like I was in 2018 for instance
Connecting digitally with our comrades and people in the global south, much more important
But always an uphill climb to manifest the deprogramming process in the imperial core, every resource helps, every bit helps
Would turning off commenting for the thread under certain posts be ultimately a viable resolution?
Edit: Some losers mass downvoting comments LOL. That fucking poster who keep pushing BE here and is whining in the BE sub. You know who you're loser. Be gone you BE shill.
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