So Caleb Maupin is now labelled a Nazbol. That seems to be the newest buzzword that means ‘bad person’ And i say that, because if you go look at the comments, not one person mentions anything that he did that is nazbol-ish.
And now Thought Slime, the Serfs, and now apparently Luna Oi, and Noncompete are attacking or cancelling or cutting ties with him.
So, opinions? On Caleb, or the others?
I value your opinion as communists, because something similar happened to me, involving alleged communists.
I read a tweet a while back that went “tankies have no power: all the best youtubers are varying shades of anarchists”
Which just about summed up their entire petit-bourgeois, individualistic and faux revolutionary world view
If youre not in a communist party then you have no political power anyway and no amount of youtube celebrity (only a slight step up from Youtube comments) is going to change that
Im sure there is a definitive question of who is right and wrong in this ‘struggle’ to which i reply they are both worse
That sure clarifies things. Thanks.
So i googled the first on your list as i had a bet with myself hes plugging a patreon like so many other ‘left’ grifters
Oh what a surprise
Tbf explicity ML youtubers have Patreon too. Not much wrong in wanting to make some money.
IDK who any of these people are, and it can be a sign of grifting to be collecting on Patreon, but to play devil’s advocate, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are. To be honest, just looking at that screenshot it does look HD and professional so I’d guess that they are well-off with YouTube and Twitch money alone, but just saying if you’re a full-time content producer, you can have a Patreon without being a grifter.
Workers should be compensated for their labor. Yes, that means that communist and anarchist YouTubers could, and I think, should, have Patreons. Especially if you refuse to run ads, which Thought Slime does.
How are you supposed to make leftist content? Running ads? That seems hypocritical. Working a day job? That’s fine, but you’ll but have less time to make content. Honestly I think Patreon is probably the best way because everyone gets the content for free, the creator gets compensated for their labor.
Of course, once we live in a classless, moneyless, stateless society, then the conversation would be different, but YouTubers got rent due every month, too.
Ive got no problem with anarchists or communists being paid for their labour
But in the workers movement there has always been a petit bourgeois strata that has always wanted to make a ‘living off being a marxist’ and in doing so set about organising their life about selling their petit booj views out in a book (or YouTube channel in this case)
My comments in this thread is only to say that people shouldnt care what these people say and if they were serious about organising for socialism they would organise within their communist party, funnel their funds to their communist party and seek an average workers wage from their communist party like…Communists always have
It speaks to their individualism that they dont
And thats fine…but communists shouldnt take them seriously
Correct take
I just think people should be evaluated by what they say. Like, I tried looking up Michael Parenti’s net worth, and it seems to be somewhere upwards of a million? Although I only found two sites that gave a number without me enabling javascript, so idk how reliable that stuff is. One site said $1 million, another said $8 million, I dunno, it’s a lot, whatever the number happens to be. And I don’t mean to elevate thought slime to same level as Parenti, or equate book sales to Patreon subscriptions, so this is a very loose analogy, but the point is: people can make bank and still be worth listening to. Not all the time, but Michael Parenti shows that it’s true at least once. I just find it distasteful to screenshot someone’s patreon links to discount them. Whether or not someone is a grifter should be determined by their words and actions, not just their income. But being wary of grifters is good.
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I mean, he doesn’t ask for donations, but also he doesn’t give out his books for free. (Unless he does, if so, lemme know, because I want a physical copy but don’t very much want to pay for one)
Do you think a better model for monetizing content would be to put videos behind a paywall? To make the analogy more 1:1 with book sales. From an ethical perspective, I mean. I think you’re likely to make less money by charging for videos than giving them out for free and asking for donations.
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I dont think its distasteful - on the contrary im sure Comrade ThoughtSlime appreciates the free advertisement for his patreon and kofi tips!