I’m talking about people like Vaush, Adam Something, even Elon Musk. Hell, even people like George Orwell claimed to be socialist so it’s not a new thing. They’re not “Marxist but not Leninist”, or anarcho socialists/communists or whatever, but people who don’t even come close to being any sort of leftist at all!
It’s not like socialism is a very glamorous thing to be in the West, or ever was. The average Westerner either thinks socialism is even worse than fascism, or thinks fascism is a type of socialism. Those two are generally for people like and don’t like fascism respectively. It’s definitely not like being an athlete or being in a band or something where you stand to actually impress the general populus if you lie about it.
So I genuinely don’t understand this: if you’re a Westerner, why would you pick socialism as part of an already fake character you’re casting yourself as? What favours is it doing for you?
Like, I’m a Westerner (at least, I live and grew up in the West, not born there and not white tho), and I’m genuinely a socialist (Marxist-Leninist). And I do the opposite to these fake socialists: I keep that identity on the down low in public places IRL, because I’m worried I might actually get persecuted for it (physically attacked, probably not unless I’m in a really far right crowd, I’m mainly worried about things like job prospects). I definitely don’t do things like broadcast that identity to people who know me IRL (most probably think I’m Sanders-esque socdem at best), and especially not to random people I come across on the street. I genuinely can’t imagine anyone in the West getting brownie points for being a socialist, so why wear that hat unless you actually believe in socialism?
It’s all a part of a massive, incredibly powerful campaign that’s been going on for a century with one goal: maintain the power of the capitalists.
There is layers to it, and people will get past Layer 1 and think they “made it” to “the truth” when in reality there is a half dozen more layers ready to catch their fall before they plummet irreversibly into communism.
Funnel this person into fascism. Funnel this person into drugs. Funnel this person into rise and grind bloomer techbro. Funnel this person into terminally online faux-leftist doomer. Funnel this person into the police. Funnel this person into music. Funnel this person into religion. Funnel this person into atheism.
I’m kind of ranting cuz im tired and in a weird life circumstance but yeah. It’s like exhales cloud of smoke all connected, mannn
Yeahhhh it’s unstructured rant time
Nah but fr it’s just like one of the biggest layers, a final powerful safety net, a Boss level false consciousness, this Synth Left. The Wokeism too. These things are trendy. Sexy. They fit perfectly with the preexisting American capitalistic values ingrained in these people. The apathy, the smug condescension, the dunking. The hatred. Imagine not having to change a thing about how you think or feel or act but getting to feel so powerfully intellectually and morally righteous. The world is doomed, duh, but at least YOU WERE RIGHT. They genuinely believe there is no hope, they are Orientalists who think China is a barbaric brutalist hellscape where everyone eats their pets works for pennies and constantly attempts suicide. Americans are victims of the greatest brainwashing the human race has ever seen.
It’s all just aesthetics. It’s just a cool thing to put in a bio. They attack XYZ bigotry because they have been taught to but happily would mock someone for being ugly or their clothes or a not-famous mental illness or being poor because they don’t like people. They want to be cruel, but they want to be worshipped. They realize they can’t be cruel to Woke protected peoples so they instead channel their cruelty to the “deserving,” the filthy lumpenproles. Only. They’re lowkey scared of them. The Trump dads LARPing with ARs. These synths are (no hate) weaksauce. I have met them in real life: confrontation makes them cringe and stutter and malfunction. They aren’t Real™. They are overwhelmingly middle to upper middle class spoiled, squishy white suburbanites who think the worst thing that can happen to you is getting ratioed or having bad music taste. They’re scared of MAGA maggots so they instead take this cruelty and project it onto the vulnerable.
They don’t know the depths of real suffering. Death isn’t really on the table for them. Reading about it is one thing, truly believing it in your gut is another. They’ve never been hit, physically. They’ve never been hurt, severely. They don’t hide it because they don’t fear any reprisal. It doesn’t occur to them that if they were a serious threat to the system that they would be getting clubbed by fascists or suicided by feds or (at the very least) suppressed in every facet of society instead of lauded with their politics in media (oh, great, more fuel for Nazi conspiracy). It’s just a hobby. A social club. One day we’ll get an epic wokelord anarchist into office and they’ll make all the stinky Trump poopyheads go away and I can work 2 hours a week at a record store for $5000 an hour and I’ll donate it to some African food drive and Everybody Will Like Me.
The divide between the “REAAALLL” leftists and the nasty redfash genocidal tankies (ew, gross) has been purposefully stoked by CIA and friends for decades. They want us to be bogged down in academic gridlock. They want us picking each other apart to pieces, endlessly criticizing and reacting. They want us to hate the lumpenproles instead of appreciating how we are all victims of brainwashing. They want the Revolution™ to be ill defined and for this to be taken for granted. A vague idealistic idea. The world starts and ends with your following online. It’s all just the path of least resistance.
I would apologize for this but…you’re the one who read it. You fool.
no u )':
Fools need to take their medicine: https://youtu.be/34Ig3X59_qA
I have dqw4w9wgxcq memorized but it was all for naught
😈😈😈😈😈
This is why I have autoplay disabled in Firefox.
Fucking piece of-
Ungrateful!
2real4meirl. True story
Best thing i read all day
“ All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!). “
-V. Lenin
Nearly 100 years later and we still laughing with him
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Honestly I’m an ML cuz reading marx and Lenin feels like they’re talking about right now. They weren’t right about everything, but it’s funny that 100 year old books know the plays of the current bourgeois before they even make them.
I call myself Marxist because I am still studying and its the stage I’m at. Used to call myself a leftist but have mostly evolved from that.
I can’t give a one-size-fits-all answer, but for each one in part, I think it might suffice:
- Vaush: grifter, only cares about the money, his goal isn’t to spread correct information, it’s to misinform his audience, to keep them tied to his channel
- Adam Something (also an addendum to Vaush): like most “reformed fascists”, Adam has chosen the wholesome social democrat persona to try to make his fascistic ideals more palatable
- Elon Musk: seeks to distort the meaning of the term, claiming that socialists don’t support unions; obviously he doesn’t give that much of a shit about this persona, since he adopts it and drops it quickly
- George Orwell: from what I know he actually was a member of some socialist organizations, but ultimately was little more than an idealist who had no issues betraying his comrades for some government cash
TL;DR: In most cases it’s “social democracy”, either out of gullible idealists, or out of fascists with a half-functioning brain who try to conceal their real ideology
I think in the shallows of Vaush’s head he sincerely believes what he does. He’s just a smug punk who thinks he can never be wrong.
Deep, deep down I do wonder if perhaps he questions it all, and knows that possibly something isn’t adding up. But his entire personality, both as a streamer and as a person from what I can glean, is built off of being always right.
It’s a shame. I really hope we can demystify and destigmatize the idea of being wrong. It’s not a big deal. I’ve been wrong plenty. I still think I’m smart. Being wrong didn’t destroy me 🤷♂️ but I think in the heads of people like this they genuinely are scared their entire life would collapse if they let even the tiniest thing slide.
He’s a streamer, drama is his job. And he’s there to entertain, not inform. I doubt he would ever seriously admit fault because the only way he could truly apologize is by ending his career lol.
I can see this but I can also see him genuinely believing he’s, like, a leader in the fight for socialism. He’s done videos trying to teach people rhetoric and politics 101 because he claims he sees it as valuable (please for the love of Gawd don’t ask how I know this)
How does he reconcile that with his douchey debatebro antics? And the many times he’s been demonstrably counter-revolutionary? I’m guessing that he doesn’t.
Possible! But also possible he just…you know…thinks his antics are heroic and counter-revolutionism is against, “red fascists” or whatever. We should ask him 😂😂😂
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I will say it really boils down IMO to instinctual fear which is exacerbated by capitalism.
The instinct is from caveman times: I admit I’m wrong, I’m seen as fallible, I lose my spot in the tribe, wander across ice an exile and get eaten by a saber tooth.
Even one removed in my defenses (to my id) can lead to my demise.
Of course, this is an animalistic way of thinking. We must rise above it. But in a capitalist society where one too many mistakes will land you unjustly imprisoned, homeless, or otherwise dead or impoverished, this instinct is still legitimized. We cannot grow past it until people feel comfortable failing and being fallible, which is nigh impossible for many in such a cold, uncaring, ruthless society.
And don’t worry, I might say I’m wrong often but as an ML I’m still more right than most people ;)
Vaush is a fed
I don’t think he’s a fed, but I do think he’s a fascistic little shit, using the whole “libertarian socialist” (lol) thing to try to present himself as more innocent than he really is
Libertarian socialist I know don’t think he’s like them. And he doesn’t seem like one to me either. I think he’s a troll. Probably not a fed, but definitely useful to them.
“Libertarian socialist” that wants Julian Assange to be imprisoned for life in the US because “hes right wing” apparently. Literal CIA psyop
I think a lot of it comes down to being stuck in the capitalist media and culture bubble while at the same time cluing in to the fact that capitalism is the root of our problems. Then you end up with a sort of “radical centrist” who force themselves to think a middle ground is the only “reasonable” option. Something along the lines of “I know capitalism is bad, but we can’t replace it with communism because Stalin and Mao were demons, there has to be a different way.” There aren’t any other serious alternatives so you end up in this wishy-washy ultimately pro-capital middle space with anarchists and socdems and rad-centrist crypto-fascists (ok maybe they’re just grifters) and of course none of them have read any theory so they don’t have the analytical tools to get out of that rut.
Pretty much what my answer would be. Sometimes I’ll run into someone way off the deep end on the right and I’ll ask ‘how did they get like this’. The answer is “why would they be any different”. If your whole life is just church, AM radio, fox, its hard to end up any other way. Something really has to knock you off course.
It’s the same on the left. Chomsky, Orwell, etc are the “safe” “reasonable” avenue you’re presented if you lean left and aren’t satisfied by mainstream politics. Anarcho-bidenism is where you’re supposed to end up, why would you be any different?
Yup, that was me 2-3 years ago. A “progressive”. But thankfully I kept reading and learning and became an ML, because the liberal idealistic explanation of the world didn’t satisfy me.
Lenin wrote about this so much, its nothing new, they are just revived kaustkys and likewise
You’re giving these people a lot of credit thinking they actually read texts written by philosophers that their ideology is based off of
Most just recognise capitalism is shit and “I’m a socialist but not a communist” is very trendy rn so they identify with it
Mfs don’t understand that capitalism will even commodify the revolution itself for money
Just as our Lord and savior Marx intended.
As you point out, fauxcialism is nothing new. The Vaushes and Bernie Sanders gain noteriety because true socialist voices are censored, silenced, or, in the case of where I live, the CP is made illegal.
Bourgeois socialists as Engels described. Socialism as a movement isn’t particular enough to be a threat to the ruling class. There could be many reasons why. Maybe they want to siphon rebellious spirit into their own feckless organizations. Or maybe it’s part of a bigger agenda. I don’t trust democratic socialists.
The Capitalist class is willing to redefine words and misappropriate Socialism for deception so Capitalist government do support fake Socialists to get fake credibility to their Capitalist misinformation and to give an illusion of political diversity.
they are victims of this: https://youtu.be/fH2TfECsEsw
I think it is a bit different in Europe, specifically the UK. I don’t think many people associate it fully with communism. Thus it’s easy for people who have no aspiration or knowledge about seizing the means of production to label themselves socialist because they feel sorry for poor people etc.
The term “champagne socialist” is popular in the Uk as a mocking descriptor because a lot of well off people like to espouse socialist views, as far as alleviating the pressures on poorer people or relaxing immigration controls. However that’s about it. There is no intention to alter the real state of affairs and institute actual socialism.
It also doesn’t help that we in the west generally greatly benefit by the unfair exploitation of the rest of the world. As a result socialism in Europe really just means improving wages or increasing government help. Nothing to do with achieving actual socialism which might mean actually giving up our privileged position.
I won’t deny though that some of the American craziness is creeping in.
Just because some mushroom maliciously or not misinterpreted some idea doesn’t mean that you have to either misinterpret it or disregard it.
With Orwell in particular it maybe has something with Stalinists causing infighting in Republican Spain, allowing fascists to take over, idk.
