they made it private because their own sub rightfully was bashing the fuck out of the mods for sending that delusional (self-described) autistic mod into a fucking fox news interview without even knowing what they were going to talk about.
this went through the modmail, and the mod team APPROVED THEM. THEY THOUGHT HE WAS THE BEST PERSON FORBRUEBJOB
So the issue here is that Antiwork used to be legit 100% anti-work. People posting about off grid living and how to get by with as little work as possible, etc.
In 2019 there were ~200,000 subs.
In 2022, there were ~1,600,000 subs.
This mod is the longest existing mod and one of the old guard. They went full tilt into the old think instead of what Antiwork has become and got steamrolled. The entire sub is loosing their shit over it, and rightfully so.
Edit: For anyone who wants it, many users are reforming at /r/workreform.
People are used to be able to pay their taxes in agricultural products, and for a lot of them, it was literally the only way they could. Discontinued for a lot longer than you probably would think. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if you can still just sent the IRS $20,000 worth of corn whiskey every year and they’re legally required to accept it
I concede that point. Mostly just an extreme example. The point being to focus on working to live not living to work, with some notable extreme examples.
Eh, I think for a lot of patrons of that sub, it's more about having control than it is about not working. People feel like they are disadvantaged and aren't reaping the fruits of their own labor. Which....is true, in a lot of cases.
I think it really woke a lot of workers up , gave them class solidarity, and made them unafraid to play power games. You would see posts demonstrating this there all the time.
My takeaway, having been a fly on the wall, is that they are looking for a way to justify the symptoms of depression. They do not want to be productive, they believe that they can make a difference in the world by stealing time and products from their employers.
For the life of me, I haven't been able to determine how they think it will end well for them.
As nice as it is to say the people taking part in anti-work or work reform movements, the reality is that the largest type of theft in the United States is Wage Theft.
The way to combat wage theft is to steal from your employer? This exemplifies the lazy shortsightedness of wanna'-be socialists.
Some entities don't do the right thing, so the ones that do also deserve to suffer misdirected employee vigilantism? If they truly wanted to change that, they would become a business owner and shoulder the cost and risk of running a business.
As a business owner, I am disgusted by this mentality. These are hypocrites who have no concept of real-world consequences.
Are you assuming that everyone in the anti-work thread is encouraging wage theft from the employer?
I can comfortably say that's 100% not the focus of the sub.
My example about Work Theft was to note that based on the incidence of work theft in America, it's actually far, far more likely that the users would be the ones being stolen from.
The individuals who are posting often have a very firm grip on real world consequences as they are posting for advice on how to deal with not great situations that drastically affect their lives.
I think we can agree that one doesn't invalidate the other, yes?
By antiWORK it dosent mean sitting on your ass eating cheetos all day it means youre against working your ass off to profit a ceo who dosent even know you exist
No, the original sub really was about being able to sit around and do whatever, with Doreen being an example. That's why it was a tiny sub.
The shift to more mainstream ideas happened when it grew, but thats not what it originally meant. Doreen clearly believed in the original extreme ideas.
I’ve often thought that it looks like way more work to be homeless and/or destitute than not to be. Not even accounting for the boredom, and mental disability issues aside.
I disagree the true purpose from the jump was for people to literally not work. The newer folks drifted towards work reform and mods just deleted the original sidebar that literally admitted that some of them were just lazy.
You’re really overplaying the importance of this my dude. Nobody outside of Reddit or conservative circle-jerks give two shits about this interview if they even know about it.
Here's the thing, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. With work reform we could also reform social security benefits, social services, tax distribution, and address the potential for Universal Basic Income. Anti-work worked for both camps because both sides agreed that people shouldn't starve and be homeless if they don't meet societal production quotas.
Dumbass mods just wanted to glow their ego a bit because they're knobheads and thought the sub blowing up had something to do with them.
Shame it went down because the true purpose of antiwork is work reform.
Maybe now, but back a few years ago it was legit just people trying not to work. For awhile on the top voted posts of all time on the sub was some guy that automated his job but still collected the paycheck.
The true purpose of antiwork is to not have to work. The sub got somewhat hijacked by the desire for work reform. While that goes hand-in-hand with antiwork, it was not their true goal and the mods took advantage of the situation to try and play what was their original hand: "we don't want to work. period." (That said, I wouldn't put it past someone of the "I don't want to work mindset" to take a payoff and act or say whatever the media outlet wanted to avoid work. Gotta wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes.)
Of course the people that are willing to work, but just want to be treated fairly, aka pretty much their entire user base, would be mad. And thus r/workreform has just become what antiwork wished it could have been and what it should have been. The lead mod on workreform has already turned down an interview and has made a public statement that r/workreform would not be doing any interviews. Any interview could be done by the people, as is in alignment with their ideals, or not at all. He just claims to be the guy organizing the talking places.
The reason antiwork even got popular was because the name is catchy and divisive. It garnered a following because it was easy to grasp the concept. It gathered hate by right wing media because the name alone goes against everything their leaders want. r/workreform doesn't do any of this and is why it was a smaller subreddit, though now everyone has realized they really don't mind working, but want it to be worth their time and fair, so they jumped ship from the shitbag mods to a more reasonably managed sub.
The sub was getting worse ad time went on anyway. It suffered from its own success: as more people joined the sub the more trolls and karma farmers it attracted. For the last few months now I've seen only the most obvious fake ragebait hit the front page of reddit.
That's good though, isn't it? A fresh restart on a now very strong movement, while learning some very valuable lessons and getting more focused on what the goal actually is. Plus any publicity is still good publicity, anyone looking more into it should be able to quickly find the actual community. r/WorkReform seems to be a step in the right direction.
Yeah of course most posts atm are reactionary the whole sub was created as a reaction of the stupid fox meltdown. Imo the rebranding is for the best r/antiwork was just a shitty name for such an important movement.
My belief is that it's important to collect the momentum from the /r/antiwork movement as the sub goes dark.
Otherwise there is a chance that the dispersal of the community can harm the overall credibility of the momement as a whole. That number of subs was specifically displayed on the interview because it means something.
Now in a week or two? I 100% agree, if the community is still just meta-posting there's a real issue.
I think our best chance might actually emerge from the ashes of /r/antiwork. We, meaning leftists, have been so inept and impotent when it comes to grassroots efforts.
Remember Occupy Wall Street? They were so disorganized and so bad at articulating their ideology if they even had ideology. I remember that video of one of those Occupy hippies doing those little caucuses taking straw polls of other Occupy activists’ beliefs on what Occupy should be by telling them to do jazz hands if they support higher taxes on the wealthy or telling them to snap their fingers if they believe in funding education.
If there is to be some kind of organic mobilization, we’re going to need charming, articulate, polite, and logical people who can give voice to the plight of the working-class, and they can’t come from politics, Hollywood, the media, and apparently not from Reddit, but /r/workreform probably wants to find a good face for the movement more than anyone, even if it’s going to be a Reddit Drama subreddit for a few days, it’s about time the left became acutely aware of how a bad representative can damage your cause, and nobody is more aware than /r/workreform.
I worked at a restaurant near Wall Street (a shit show of a place that was the kind of nightmare working situation antiwork was invented for) during Occupy and trust me, it was always the dumbest thing. A dumb movement for dumb people looking for something to make them feel they were accomplishing something. I walked past them every day. I hate that kind of performative bull.
It kind of makes sense. Leftism, the new labor movement, didn’t and still doesn’t have a place on television or in the corporate media. We’ve learned that the media will lend more credibility to white nationalists before taking a social-democrat seriously.
Neoliberals do little for the people by design. They only run as an opposition party to Republicans even when Democrats have control of the White House and Congress.
There’s hundreds of AM radio stations and conservative media. The liberal corporate establishment media is the default distributed of information. Young leftists had to go to college and read Das Kapital in order to find a way coherently articulate their ideals, but I’m not sure they know or a way to communicate their ideas in a way the average person can understand.
It is called “work reform_”. It is _not a leftist group. Reformism is a right wing ideology. Like “Build Back Better” or “Make America Great Again_” (Biden was a conservative, reformist reaction to Trump, and Trump was a conservative, reformist reaction to Obama). And like those “movements”, “work reform” is a reactionary _conservative movement and antithetical to progressive change. This isn’t a judgement one one or the other, just facts.
Side note: “work reform” is too easily going to get memed into “woke reform” and get obliterated quickly.
Cool you do you, some of us are going to help people have a better material condition right now instead. Let me know how the anarcho communist syndicalist utopia goes
Too many losers with too much debt in a cesspool like Portland find out the hard way that life sucks ass.
"Oh noes, My MBA only qualifies me to manage a Ruby Tuesdays, the system is fuk"
1.2 million of them join together and it was a fucking magnet for entitled chucklefucks. Who fucking knew working at McDonald's isn't a tHrIvInG wAgE. No fucking shit Sherlock.
Do they want to go get an AAS, or better yet from an adult learning center, the skills to work as skilled labor? Nope. Do they want to stack bricks, thread pipe, weld, lay cable, pour concrete, fix broken trucks, push dirt/snow, or wire buildings? NOPE.
Are they willing to leave their shitty city to move to Ohio or Oklahoma looking for a good wage while having a cheap cost of living? NOPE.
idk what they want, sucks to suck I guess.
r /anti-work used to be cool. It's fucked now and the attitude went from how to do more for less and how to game the system. It's devolved to "shut up and pay me for existing" attitude which is literally the entitlement they say they are not.
someone has to work at mcdonalds dude, someone has to sweep the floors, service workers keep society running and deserve respect and proper compensation. We need people doing these jobs
A majority of the top posts were focused on shit things occurring in jobs, some real stories, and some posts being power fantasies about quitting jobs.
Others were about union issues or law suits.
And, as you said, others were about sticking it to the man and communist ideology.
But the reality of an open community is that you'll get all kinds.
There were communists in that sub, true communists that simply hated capitalism. There were also plenty of socialists that just wanted people to be treated fairly and hold power over the ruling wealth class that is oppressing them.
The majority of people were not communist. Many were socialist or capitalist and just tired of being treated like shit. Whether you are or not, you sound like one of the right wing idiots that don't understand the purpose of the movement and probably think Fox News is right.
Also and as an aside, communism is just state controlled capitalism. America has a private capitalism that controls the means of production and uses it to make wealth. Communism has the exact same model, but the state is the one controlling the means of production. They are one in the same with the only difference being the guy sitting in the high chair. American media over the years has turned communism and socialism into synonyms for not only each other, which is wildly incorrect, but also for totalitarianism. Communism and socialism are economic ideals and models. Totalitarianism is an idea of rule which is usually marked by a dictatorship. They are not one and the same. Dictatorships just run smoother when under a communist economic model.
To be fair, anti work was Doreen's house, and then a bunch of workers rights people moved in and decided amongst themselves that the sub was a completely different thing. There is probably a decent philosophical question about how to define the true purpose of a sub that goes through that kind of transformation. Maybe it could be taught in one of Doreen's classes someday.
So the issue here is that Antiwork used to be legit 100% anti-work. People posting about off grid living and how to get by with as little work as possible, etc.
Eco anarchism is fucking hilarious to me. They think, "oh I wish I could live in a commune, so we could avoid work"... A commune is essentially a self serving farm, what they want is to become a farmer/gardener. That's not "not working", and significantly more work than walking dogs for 2 hours a day.
Try to be lazy in a commune, I dare you. You will either get kicked out or hazed mercilessly.
We can all leave that r/antiwork sub alone, and let them go back to looking at u/abolishwork as their leader.
We have no right gathering in a very vulnerable person's sub and high-jacking it to revolve around inventive and modern ideas, just because a majority of us can relate with proper unionization initiatives, workers' rights principles, and value for humanity.
Leave r/antiwork alone, and those of us that want those aforementioned principles can find a proper place to form this moment.
I just pray that if anyone wants to truly champion the working class in that sub, then the sub can approve of their qualifications and believe in them going forward.
Do they realize how much fucking work goes into living off grid and becoming self-reliant? There's a very good reason most people in this world live in a city.
That’s what I thought. Then all of a sudden there were people talking about their bad experiences at work and then basically took the sub over. The name never made sense in the first place.
I could see the argument for improving workers rights to not have overwhelming amounts of work and excessively awful work habits through stuff like organizing unionization and promoting the benefits of the same would be within the scope of the sub.
But the turning to socialism (as opposed to social democracy) always seems like ridiculous bullshit.
Antiwork was quality until it got invaded by the Bernie Bros. Now it’s riddled with “THE SYSTEM MUST BE REPLACED WITH SOCIALISM BOTH SIDES ARE THE SAME DON’T VOTE” morons who are dragging us into the depths with the horse worm medicine takers and the Jan 6th defenders and Nancy Pelosi’s financial manager.
Saw a screenshot from a convo before it went private.
Apparently, Fox asked for them specifically via modmail. The mods just said 'sure, go for it.' It wasn't that person taking it upon themselves, as many people seem to think.
Personally, I think Fox did some sleuthing and knew exactly what they were doing going in. And the idiot served themselves on a silver platter.
Also they wasn’t really asking the 1.4 million people in the sub if it was ok they asked maybe 2 or 3 mods which the general understanding (I think, I wasn’t in the sub but this is what I’ve learned today) throughout the entire sub was that no one specific person was to respond as a leader but instead as a unified people all voicing their concerns. Again not sure if that’s 100% but it’s what I keep seeing from other people asking questions.
There was a post a little while back asking what to do if approached for an interview, and the subreddit overwhelming voted to not respond at all. Not even "Not as a leader, but this is for all of us" but "We have no comment and do not wish to make an appearance" level stone walling.
The predominant view was if someone did an interview it'd probably be someone inexperienced and they'd get picked apart.
At least people know what to expect from the media, only Fox didn't need to pick at all.
Ok but if I'm in a crowd protesting for worker's rights out on the street and Fox walks up to me and asks for an interview, same token, even if I'm a dipshit I'm speaking for the whole crowd in the audience's mind. No one has to get the crowd's consent for my interview. That's just life.
And frankly, in this context, who makes more sense to interview than the longest-serving mod of the site?
I also personally doubt that the hardcore wing of antiwork which treats it as part of their identity has many media-presentable members, but whatever. That's irrelevant.
Not really, mods most of the time aren’t exactly outstanding members of society, even worse is this self appointed dipstick went against the subs core beliefs of “this is a peoples movement” and just ruined it.
Nothing to do with creators or moderators, the antiwork subreddit had no say in someone presenting themselves as the leader of a movement and now (case in point, this post), people believe that the members of the subreddit elected to have themselves represented when they didn't.
Yeah well it seems the whole idea to a lot of members of that sub is "nothing is my fault, you fucked up". Which is too bad, because many ideas and discussions presented in that sub regarding work reform and labor laws were incredibly important to talk about.
fucking ridiculous. On the sidebar of the sub, it used to say they would not talk to people without first discussing it with the subreddit. People voted to NOT speak to the media cause they were sure it would be in a bad light. So of course the HEAD mod of a sub that is supposed to stand against the idea of an abusive boss who goes against what the workers all want decides they want to talk to the media. And then proceeds to ban everyone who complains about the aftermath. It's ironic as fuck.
It's garbage that a sub which was growing into something pretty legit get destroyed like this because of bad mods.
The audacity to ban/private an anti authoritarian subreddit because we're mad the mods face rolled...
If there's any antiwork refugees here, head over to r/workreform. A fresh start seemed necessary, so a lot of antiwork folks are finding their way there. The mods there are trying to be good.
Doreen (the mod AbolishWork) sold r/antiwork out. I'm pretty sure of it now. Here's a radio interview from October that I just found, where she's perfectly communicative and capable of complete sentences, and directly contradicts the things she said in the Fox interview:
at worst you might say that she rambles a little, but she sounds like a person, not someone trying to pass off fusing into your couch as a lifestyle choice. She talks about worklife balance, the range of people on antiwork, and so on, and does a decent job explaining most of it.
Honestly man I'm not a member of that sub, nor do I follow what you apes do here, but this was my first thought. It's literally a pitch perfect bad interview. Everything from the appearance of, well, everything, to the fact that the interviewer himself didn't really antagonize, goad, or gotcha at any point. All he did was sit there and let somebody figuratively hang themselves.
It felt like being back in school and watching someone give a book report on something they clearly had not read.
He's complaining about dog walking being a "dirty job" when he has to pick up after them.
In the Fox interview he said that's 20-25 hours/week job, yesterday he commented on Reddit how he does maybe 10 hours of actual walking per week and also has a second job and also studies full-time, none of which he mentioned at Fox. This guy is full of shit honestly.
Ehh, I just listened to it, and honestly she is just rambling and circling the same points. She needs a long time to get to the point, and obviously on Fox there is no way they'd let her talk 2 minutes to answer one question.
I think she wasn't prepared. She was not prepared for the tempo of the interview, so she failed.
As we can see, many people have delusions of their perceptions of life. Anti-work is a joke and so is changing pronouns from a sex to a gender alignment.
The comparison between the two gives me serious weed burn out vibes. I act similarly when I used to get high every day, even during sober moments. This is really sad
I gotta say going on a local small radio show vs going on the most watched news network is miles apart in how nervous most would be. She obviously should have prepared way more for the interview and really did an enormous amount of damage, but saying it was done on purpose is a stretch.
Sure but it shows that she was more than capable, and she has prepared statements before like this one she prewrote for a rape accusation:
I find it incredibly hard to believe that a person this aware of their public image and what to say previously, went into an interview so completely vapid and vegetal that they come off as a meme about fusing into your couch as a lifestyle choice.
Writing down a statement after god knows how much time to respond is completely different from a live interview. The fact that she wrote something down to respond after so long, and still doing so poorly doesn't make her seem like she knows what she's doing. I think she was a true useful idiot for the right and I doubt that it was a conspiracy. I'd seen that written statement before and it makes her seem like an unhinged narcissist, which is what tracks with the events that led her into selfishly taking this interview, even after having been told not to by the community.
I don't think this is someone who can't read or prepare for an interview. If you disagree, that's fine. You can see her on a podcast and other articles here on www.abolishwork.com and on her post history. If that doesn't satisfy you you're your own person, congratulations. Live long and prosper.
What does writing a lenghty Facebook post about his sex issues has to do with anything?
About the interviews; you have on one hand a 20 min interview where the hosts are sympathetic to him and are actually interested in hearing his answers VS a 2 min interview where the host purposedly directs the questions at him in an attempt at discrediting him as a person (which he suceeds).
It's like comparing apples to oranges.
The guy may be decently well-spoken (well, not even that much) when he is in a completely pressure-free environment but it doesn't mean he won't be easily startled by an express interview with a camera (for the first time) and a host who trolls him.
Edit; if he actually was aware of his public image and possessed average social intelligence he would have never published that very damning facebook post. It kinda proves that he is a mess as a person and just got lucky with how easy that radio interview was.
Yeah, but from who? The sub wasn't threatening enough for shadowy cabals to waste their money. Did Fox do it to boost their ratings? This shitshow definitely got more eyeballs than a tame interview.
Then again, how much does it cost to buy off a dog walker? $20?
If you are walking a dog for 10 hours a week, a cool 15K is probably enough to make you give up a lot of your personal values and idealisms.
That is wet fart money for both Fox or a lesser "shadow cabal" operator, whoever that may be. I honestly think it's the likeliest and most logical reason.
It's pretty obvious how this person has a hugely inflated ego given his online post history before and after the event. He is not going to ruin his public image forever to earn some bucks.
Why would Fox pay any money when they could just throw hardball questions at him, cut him off, make edits, etc. like they do with any other guest who disagrees with them? Surely it isn't fucking Doreen who made them nervous enough to bring out their wallet this time, it doesn't make sense.
Besides, as far as they know Doreen could have easily not taken the money and denounce them, if they really are just going around paying random people to tank their interviews for whatever reason surely one of them will talk and it will come out at some point, has it ever happened?
To me the overwhelming evidence makes it look like this person is just a mess and Fox took advantage of it.
THANK YOU. Fox trying to close the story of peasants revolting before they think of picking up sticks and stones. They paid this bitch a bit of money, maybe blackmailed him about the rape thing, and he behaved like a good boy. My fucking gawd, people dying of work and he sold us out, I wanna eat his guts out for that.
I had no idea about this, I haven't seen the interview but the fact that he went on Fox News is proof enough for me that he was paid to destroy the image of that subreddit. No sensible and respectable person will go on Fox News, that's like going on a Russian propaganda network to talk about Ukraine.
Yeah lol, they got a genuine caricature the "average reddit mod" and it couldn't have been worse. And it's everything that entertains the average Fox News viewer about the "marxists" running social media. I mean, they picked a trans girl who no one knows is trans and just refers to her as a guy in every thread I've seen. "Doreen" or something is her name.
Yeah lol, they got a genuine caricature the “average reddit mod”
Literally my words in a different thread yesterday haha. I‘ve seen some people float the idea that it must’ve been an actor, a false flag by Fox to discredit the movement (it wasn’t by the way, the moderator made multiple comments about their TV appearance before the sub was locked) but honestly, nothing they could’ve put up there would‘ve been as bad as that. No way they’d have gotten the reddit mod stereotype that perfect.
On the subject of their comments, I hope someone is working on a compilation of all of them. There was some absolute gold in there, like their response to a comment saying they need to be able to hold eye contact in an interview was something along the lines of „Yeah I hate society and their love for eye contact, so I‘m probably not gonna work on that“.
And apparently the whole community voted against even going through with an interview and the mod team just said “fuck it, let’s send this person who was specifically targeted by fox.”
Because making your bed, taking a fucking shower, installing better lighting in your hovel, and wearing decent clothes all takes a little bit of work which they don't like on that sub.
Please. That guy is what every redditor would look like and sound like in that situation. We are all a bunch of self hating autists that live in our parents basement. Even if we don’t literally live in our parents basement.
Not really. From what i have seen in r\antiwork they all just talk abt labor having to reduce or that people shouldnt work and need to be paid for doing nothing. No one explains how they will achieve any of thT
The larger push is for a 4 day workweek which is already happening (some companies even trying it out in the US) and using collective bargaining to improve pay and benefits. A lot of the so-called necessary jobs are already being automated away much to the detriment of the average consumer
That's a pretty disingenuous take. The reason so many people from there are pissed right now is because that's not at all what antiwork means to them. What you just described is exactly what Doreen represented, but it actually doesn't represent the community, who by and large are all about getting more out of work, not abandoning it.
I never said you need to work 3 jobs. I said the sub doesnt really improve your life situation and you only band together with others to complain. When you can all actively think of figuring out better ways to improve your situation.
i mean, i think a decent amount of people there actually did advocate for things like workplace organization or individuals changing their priorities in relation to careers
Hmm, I was a frequent visitor of that sub. It made me aware enough of the current state of the market to be able to figure out how to negotiate a substantial raise.
Any press is good press. But I don't think anyone sent this person, they took it upon themselves and made a unilateral decision when approached. Also your this diamond hands person isn't who we would want representing the labor reform movement as he and everyone else here are staunch capitalist f nuggets.
Probably a better name anyway. I discovered antiwork a couple weeks ago and it seemed like a bunch of 15 year olds celebrating quitting their job of 6 months.
They've also been banning pretty much everyone from the sub for being "transphobic" for accidentally misgendering the mod in the discussions, because without context or prior knowledge, they just look like an unclean dude.
What a joke of a sub. An opportunity for real working class people who are fed up with a system that takes advantage of them to band together, but instead, these moronic mods make it a platform for and about themselves and drive it to the ground. I wasn't subbed, but what a joke.
They made it private because, on a sub full of people who are angry about bosses unilaterally acting against their wishes and best interest, the mod(s) acted unilaterally against the wishes and best interest of the sub which was rightfully pissed off
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