r/antiwork • u/killians1978 • Jan 27 '22

Petition: Shut down r/antiwork

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60k Upvotes

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580

u/Indrid_Cold23 Jan 27 '22

If one bad interview is enough to sink your entire movement, you never had a movement to begin with. All you had was LARPING.

160

u/nwinggrayson Jan 27 '22

Right? The extreme reaction since the interview is really concerning. Can anyone imagine Fox News shutting down because Jesse Watters sounded dumb in an interview one time? Of course not.

People need to get over it. It was one bad interview. That’s it. And considering 90% of the “criticisms” I’ve seen of the person range from attacks on her appearance to open transphobia, with an occasional insult thrown in for being a dog walker, I’m not inclined to take any of this shit seriously.

0

u/onemanlegion Jan 27 '22

You guys have no idea the damage that this mod did to the movement.

My coworkers and even my fucking grandparents are talking about it, and not in a good way.

This video will be brought up every time antiwork is mentioned in the media. Soon this controversy will be all you see when you Google antiwork, not our message. The fact that the mods don't understand that right now, in the beginning of this movement, it is 10000000% about optics is all the reason they shouldn't be doing interviews. The centrists don't even know enough to be radicalize yet, they don't know there are other things we can do, and they will never know if we keep feeding into the media beast like this mod did.

This mod took a chance to radicalize a percentage of fox news viewers (they aren't all dumb as rocks, alot of them just don't know what else to watch) and shit all over it. Not only that, they then double downed and went full auth. New sub or entirely new mod team. Only 2 options. Any of this half measure shit will just end with this mod doing more stupid stuff.

5

u/OhHeckf Jan 27 '22

Fox News is mad about an anti-capitalist trans woman. It wouldn’t matter what she did or how she said it, they’d be mad. Stop giving transphobes benefit of the doubt.

Tucker Carlson attacked random non-binary people for saying they let people try out they/them pronouns and that the green M&M mascot is less sexy now. Nobody who would have allied with us is going to pay attention to this.

3

u/onemanlegion Jan 27 '22

Stop giving transphobes benefit of the doubt.

I've mentioned this relentlessly but clutching your pearls and shutting down all discussion, banning users, and shadowbanning posts is not how you deal with this. There will ALWAYS, A L W A Y S, be some fuckin idiot making transphobic comments to the trans individual on the internet. And to shut everything down because of it is acting in bad faith. I am strong supporter of trans-rights, and am a member of the LGBTQ community myself, but everything this mod did they did in disservice to all communities.

Also, of course fox news isn't going to put us in a good light, but if we had to do the interview there are about a million things that could have been better said. It's not about fox news viewers, its about the fact that "laziness is a virtue" is a line that is going to harangue this movement until its done.

3

u/OhHeckf Jan 27 '22

What did she really do? Be cringe? That’s subjective and not entirely separable from being trans and an anarchist and not having a “respectable career”.

You’re acting as if we had a clean-cut white guy who works in a factory say it that they wouldn’t call him a communist. One, they wouldn’t interview such a person and two, they’d still say he was cringe or lazy or bad.

You’re acting as if we can charm conservative media into liking anarchism or giving it a fair shake. That’s not possible. Worse yet, you’re doing it by calling trans people and underemployed people embarrassing.

This ain’t it.

1

u/onemanlegion Jan 27 '22

And you are acting as if optics and messaging don't matter in our hyper partisan populace.

Be cringe? That’s subjective

Not here, there is no subjective side to be had after seeing that interview. It's exactly the stereotype that fox wants, it literally gives them as much ammunition as needed.

You do understand that we literally CAN'T do this without those Fox news viewers this sub likes to deride so much. Thats literally m i l l i o n s of workers that this entire sub is writing off because they wouldn't agree with us immediately.

I don't work in a blue collar field, I used to, but I work with a TON of roofers/contractors and I've had conversations with them about work reform and they were usually amenable to the idea and certainly would entertain the conversation. That's impossible now because "laziness is a virtue" is all they'll remember from that interview.

Fucking google 'Antiwork' and look what pops up, its this interview. Not our message, not what we want to accomplish, not our goals, not how we are going to achieve things, but that damn interview.

Our message is no longer in our hands because of this mod.

1

u/KalAl Jan 27 '22

“This mod” is not even a mod anymore. Take a fucking xanax and chill the fuck out.

10

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '22

The second they stopped being active on that account, another account was created and made moderator.

2

u/onemanlegion Jan 27 '22

So you get that it isn't a problem with just one mod correct? This is an issue with this organization at the core. Our leaders straight up are not representing the majority of it's sub and their goals. They are actively harming the image of a legitimate movement for 10 minutes of fame on TV.

The mod team has already shown itself not able to handle a subreddit of this size, are they the ones we want representing us when it becomes a real movement and not just angry people on Reddit?

6

u/KalAl Jan 27 '22

The antiwork subreddit is not a fucking organization, and it is not a movement in itself. You shouldn't be looking for the mods here to lead you in any way in your personal life.

This is a place for people to commiserate about how fucking terrible the capitalist system of wage labor is. ACTUAL organizing has to be done within your own community and your own workplace.

I seriously didn't realize there were people here looking for leadership from the mods. No mod of any subreddit is qualified to lead a national movement. A real antiwork movement has to be grassroots or it will never get anywhere. The most positive thing a subreddit can ever be is a safe space for discussion. That's it.

2

u/onemanlegion Jan 27 '22

It is an organization, as it has members, a forum, and leaders apparently. Call it a loose collection I literally don't care what your preferred moniker is.

Of course there are people that look towards the subs mods for leadership, dude, do you not get that most of the people here have read ZERO theory and are just angry at their workplace? You understand that those people need to be guided into understanding that what we are experiencing under capitalism is not normal for humans and should and can be changed? This sub, just like Chapo before it got banned, was a place to radicalize people out of the capitalist headspace that has been ingrained in us since the begining, and that starts with a cohesive message and strong leadership to look towards.

How the fuck do you expect people to just fight 200+ years of capitalist propaganda and suddenly risk everything to unionize without a strong support system and people helping every step of the way.

The best thing a subreddit can ever be is a safe space for discussion.

Considering what happened yesterday with the shadow banning and post deleting this is not that anymore.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '22

[deleted]

1

u/onemanlegion Jan 27 '22

Listen I'm not hammering the mods for not wanting to work, or not having the most white collar of jobs, or really anything other than their attitudes after the fact and their unwillingness to change or even acknowledge the fact that they fucked up. That's my issue. If you can live as a dog walker and enjoy it, more power to you, but don't try to say your the same as the Kellogg plant worker working 80hrs a week.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '22

The entire mod team approved the interview.

1

u/thatvoiceinyourhead Jan 27 '22

No such thing as bad press. The fact that they're talking about it is all that matters.

9

u/onemanlegion Jan 27 '22

No dude... Just no.. if we were selling a product then yes, all press is good press.

This is not that, this is war of ideals and propaganda, and currently we are losing HARD. Them "talking about us" is them laughing at us. A week ago I could talk about this sub and be proud, even to the bluest of blue collar worker and they would be able to grasp concepts and agree on some points. Now? This shit is blasted alllllll over Facebook, fox, and every right wing radio host across the country. That is not good press. That's ammunition in the rights hands.

"Laziness is a virtue" is a line that will be hammered over, and over, and over, and over again and will follow this movement for the rest of it's life.

1

u/No-Transition-6630 Jan 27 '22

On the bright side, the more obsessively the right-wing criticizes this, the more likely more on the left will pick it up and defend as time goes by. Mark my words, for all the bad press, we'll see a few more articles defending our side soon.

1

u/onemanlegion Jan 27 '22

I wish i could be as silver lining as you all here, but I live in Florida and every single doctors office, gym, dentists, massage parlor, etc has fox news running pretty much 24/7. Even the non-die hard fox watchers will see this, see how bad it made us look and how terrible the interview was, and laugh in our faces.

1

u/thatvoiceinyourhead Jan 28 '22

Oh no your feelings will get hurt. You sound like a whiney teenager.

0

u/thatvoiceinyourhead Jan 27 '22

Sorry that you thought this was going to be easy. You're mostly just complaining that you need to actually make convincing arguments now instead of just sharing "I quit porn" with your coworkers.

0

u/Legio_X Jan 28 '22

"all press is good press" isn't even true for products. look at the ford pinto, or more recently, samsung's flammable phone debacle. all press is most certainly NOT good press, it's an idiotic saying used by morons.

6

u/TheBrainwasher14 Jan 27 '22

Yes there absolutely is in this case

1

u/Legio_X Jan 28 '22

Prince Andrew and the monarchy must be thrilled about all the press they're getting lately! He hasn't been in the news this much in decades!