It’s a pretty interesting case study.
anarcho mod goes on fox news (which is not news) interview unprepared, and despite the community telling them not to.
interview lasts 3 minutes, mod does not make a coherent argument (because they did not explain any of them, just replied to whatever last point the host made).
People on their subreddit called them out on it.
Mods close the subreddit of 1.6 million members. They say they’ll be back soon.
Where did it go wrong?
If you are going into an interview, you are playing by their rules and they will break them. The host has been doing this for years and they have a team at their back. They picked you specifically for the interview, ask yourself why is that? Does that mean you should not do interviews? Not necessarily. They can give publicity. But you need to be absolutely 100% prepared and coached. Make demands of your own. You want me for an interview, I want to do it in a studio because I don’t want to show my house. I won’t do the interview myself, I’ll give you someone else who is much better prepared. They have their trump cards (pun intended), and you are allowed to have yours. Don’t play into their expectations, come up with expectations of your own.
(In the case of refusing the interview you should expect that they will publish your response as well so have fun with it. I would have told them Fox news is not real news and we only accept requests from real outlets)
But the problems started earlier when the subreddit was made by anarchists. Then they started banning MLs for being one, but had no problem accepting liberals and conservatives. This is why we say that theory is important; I read the transcript of the interview and the few arguments the host made were easily debunked. Going into a pre-written script and ignoring the questions would have yielded even better results.
Anarchism is the ideology of the petite bourgeoisie, as it promotes the liberation of the petite bourgeoisie. It is an individualist ideology, and that is how we got to an anarchist moderator thinking they were not only allowed, but right to go against the wishes of their members and do the interview and just wing it.
And now the subreddit is closed. The worst move possible, just to save the ego of a person who had no business being in that interview.
I’ve said before that the internet is not a place for organising. It’s not where the fight happens. But it is a place to funnel people towards real means. And now 1.6 million people are locked out of that funnel – but the problems did not appear after the interview, they’ve been here since the beginning.
Especially when you consider that 2021 has been amazing in terms of labour rights in the USA. The unions, the strikes.
This is, once again, an exhibit that proves we need marxism-leninism and nothing else.
Facebook has a group, “no one wants to work” which is a fairly acceptable alternative, with the caveat that it’s Facebook. It would be cool if this took off.
Mod was totally a fool but I don’t see why it really matters. It’s not like anyone was on the fence about worker’s rights and decided they don’t care about them anymore because of a short, goofy little clip. I would rather that MSM shows that we are goofy, silly, harmless little clowns than to frame us as being “antifa super-soldiers” or some such
I’m a huge fan of Bob Black’s anti-work arguments, despite his… questionable… decisions.
If you are going into an interview, you are playing by their rules and they will break them. The host has been doing this for years and they have a team at their back. They picked you specifically for the interview, ask yourself why is that? Does that mean you should not do interviews? Not necessarily. They can give publicity. But you need to be absolutely 100% prepared and coached. Make demands of your own. You want me for an interview, I want to do it in a studio because I don’t want to show my house. I won’t do the interview myself, I’ll give you someone else who is much better prepared. They have their trump cards (pun intended), and you are allowed to have yours. Don’t play into their expectations, come up with expectations of your own.
yeah, great point. OTOH I say fuck optics. Me and my housemates watched the interview last night, had some good laughs, and had a toast to the death of work.
Reading the responses from the community, it’s incredible how tone-deaf the mod team continues to be. I don’t want to claim I would have done better in their shoes, but a very basic principle of marxism-leninism applies here: the party is not here to teach the people, it is here to guide policy towards communism.
There are heartbreaking stories on their statement thread (they reopened the sub and published that), people working 80 hour work weeks since they were 17, and now that inflation has outpaced their wage, it was all for nothing and they moved back in with their parents.
I don’t want to disparage the mod that did the fox interview for being a dog walker that works 20 hours a week. This is the dream. But certainly they were not the best person to present their arguments.
In that same statement, they explained one of their mods, a long-time unemployed 21-year old (to me that means finished college and hasn’t found a job yet), gave 3 interviews that are yet to be published. Again not the best person to represent the community.
The vanguard must listen to the people and investigate and understand their problems. The problem the workers brought up to antiwork was not that they want to be lazy or focus on their own stuff (we see here again the petit bourgeois element of anarchy, work individually with your own means of production), it’s that they have to work more and more in an environment that keeps paying less and becoming more dangerous, and might be out of a job anyway soon. And then the 10 years of your life you’ve given to a company, you’ve spent sleep-deprived trying to learn a skill, they’re all for nothing. With the impending crisis, when will they find a new job?
Closing the subreddit down was news in all outlets and that is why it was the worst decision possible. It killed their reputation and showed weakness & an unwillingness to self-criticize. This begs the question: are they in it for the goals, or for themselves? If the chairman is not helping the party move towards communism, he (or she) must be replaced and we must investigate how that happened and how to go back on the right track after him.
This is a great case study of where a party can drift. The moderation team of r/antiwork has completely lost touch with their base and has no mass support left.
I think it’s not private right now as I was able to cross-post to there.
They opened it back up yesterday (I think), things are moving so fast I got lost on the timeline lol
They put out a statement at first about a new mod who ended up deleting his account over community outrage (a 21yo stirnerist who has never worked they felt was not the best representative) and now they have a whole new mod team. Not before the “new” head mod insulted the community plenty lmao
Wait, did the “new” head mod leave or are they the one in position now? Damn, things are moving fast.
Kamizukae (iir the name c) was the new head mod, or at least new leader? I didn’t have access to the mod list because I don’t have an account so I don’t know if he was the top mod or just picked by the others (which was one of the grievances the community had, that the mods decided things between themselves without ever asking or telling the public), but he deleted his account so now there is someone else fixing the subreddit, they posted a statement here: https://old.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/seechm/restructuring_recent_events_megathread/. Apparently they even managed to get the real head mod (who was inactive from what I understand) removed so they could completely remake the mod team.
This all happened over the course of 24 hours and it’s still ongoing
Huh. Guess there’s hope yet. But even then, I can’t say that I’m anti-work or that I would want to be.
I’d imagine if someone like Gun or Comrade uwu were doing the interview it would be actually be much worse.
In such a small space as Lemmygrad, please don’t harass other users like this… if there’s problems with other users you can block them or bring up grievances directly to them or with the admin team if you feel it requires action.
Fair enough I guess, but if I have harassed anyone on the platform it is most likely because they have made a few idiotic posts and/or are spreading misinformation. I have already blocked the users in question BTW.
