In the margins, definitely, spreading memes can give license to people that it is “OK” to have these opinions because they will feel that they are not weird and have company. However I would say that for the vast majority (in the core), if they do not see how they can materially/socially benefit these kinds of memes will just get ignored or even attacked. Think about the reactionary memes that you see in the wild and I’m sure you just scoff at their stupidity or moral depravity. This is probably what the average liberal also thinks when seeing communist memes.
These are my own thoughts but I believe that the right-wing pipeline (on YouTube etc) works by slowly giving you a social context which you are afraid to lose rather than convincing you directly of the facts/opinions. I’m not sure if we should employ this same tactic mainly because it’s a brittle relationship. If someone finds another social context it is quite easy for them to de-radicalize because the main thing deciding is how they appear in front of their peers. For us, I think the answer lies in trying to base our “pipelines” in class. What this entails for the western proletariat (who gives license to empire to do whatever as long as they get some of the spoils) is a bit trickier. But in summary: I believe communist memes might weakly convince those on the margins but never the majority. If, however, their material circumstances or standing in society changes (for the worse) memes can be an effective tool which resonates and educates. The main problem regarding how receptive memes are to the majority is not the quality or quantity of memes (yet), but whether they believe/reason they could gain more from communism than the status quo.
In the margins, definitely, spreading memes can give license to people that it is “OK” to have these opinions because they will feel that they are not weird and have company. However I would say that for the vast majority (in the core), if they do not see how they can materially/socially benefit these kinds of memes will just get ignored or even attacked. Think about the reactionary memes that you see in the wild and I’m sure you just scoff at their stupidity or moral depravity. This is probably what the average liberal also thinks when seeing communist memes.
These are my own thoughts but I believe that the right-wing pipeline (on YouTube etc) works by slowly giving you a social context which you are afraid to lose rather than convincing you directly of the facts/opinions. I’m not sure if we should employ this same tactic mainly because it’s a brittle relationship. If someone finds another social context it is quite easy for them to de-radicalize because the main thing deciding is how they appear in front of their peers. For us, I think the answer lies in trying to base our “pipelines” in class. What this entails for the western proletariat (who gives license to empire to do whatever as long as they get some of the spoils) is a bit trickier. But in summary: I believe communist memes might weakly convince those on the margins but never the majority. If, however, their material circumstances or standing in society changes (for the worse) memes can be an effective tool which resonates and educates. The main problem regarding how receptive memes are to the majority is not the quality or quantity of memes (yet), but whether they believe/reason they could gain more from communism than the status quo.