The left’s retreating from social media is one of the biggest self owns. This retreat is one of the largest contributors to why the right is winning. Every time progressives “take the high road” by disengaging, they hand votes and power the right.
Joe Rogan isn’t massive just because he’s Joe Rogan he’s massive because the right knew how to turn manipulate the left into attacking him and turn that into a recruitment drive. Outrage didn’t end his reach it supercharged it.
Compare that to Brendan Schaub or Opie & Anthony on Reddit: they were turned into lolcows, and no amount of right-wing backup could save them. That’s what should’ve happened with Rogan.
Instead, the retreat handed Trump a propaganda channel, which paved the way for others like Theo and Tony to push right-wing framing on COVID, vaccines, and more. Acting like we’re “too virtuous” to engage isn’t a moral victory it’s a fucking disaster. We need to own it otherwise it’ll keep occurring.
This isn’t an isolated case it’s the same playbook, over and over. For years, bot accounts pushed “don’t wrestle with pigs” to convince the left to stop engaging, and people fell for it.
It’s like watching someone play Risk by giving up every territory except one, then wondering why they’re losing but hey, at least they still have the moral high ground, right?
You aren’t addressing my points, you are repeating your own points.
You’re talking about “alternative media” and not social media.
Who is it that you are blaming? The leftist population, democratic leadership, left leaning influencers?
Are you expecting people to dig into the right wing rabbit hole of social media just to combat it’s effectiveness? What are you actually suggesting?
I agree that some folks like Rogan & Theo should have representatives from the left engaging with them. Unfortunately, there aren’t many public faces on the left. I also can’t pretend to know who those guys are willing to even have on. They had some Democrats, Bernie and I think Pete (corporate Democrat but at least willing to consider some leftist policies), maybe others - I don’t watch their shows.
Joe Rogan isn’t massive just because he’s Joe Rogan he’s massive because the right knew how to turn manipulate the left into attacking him and turn that into a recruitment drive.
Can you differentiate “attacking him” and turning him into a “lolcow”?
Joe Rogan is massive because he’s a well known MMA personality with comic friends that is fantastic at chilling will famous people and shooting the shit without any actual deep thought. He’s leaned right because, again, it’s where the money is.
Please respond to my previous points, and consider these things:
every time progressives “take the high road” by disengaging, they hand votes and power the right.
What would engaging look like?
Acting like we’re “too virtuous” to engage isn’t a moral victory it’s a fucking disaster. We need to own it otherwise it’ll keep occurring.
You said yourself ‘there aren’t many voices on the left’ and what pisses me off is that it is as if you stop short there.
Why are there no voices on the left?
Why are there more voices on the right?
This lack of reflection is what bothers me so much because my opinion is when we reflect we all have no choice but to be fucking pissed off at the answer. The answer is the people who identify as leftist are fucking useless. It’s all hot air. It’s all platitudes and performance.
Attacking someone is different. People didn’t attack Schaub. The goal wasn’t to hurt them directly. The community goal was to have a laugh at the expense of these lolcows. That community grew to the point that it had so much reach and engagement that people were seeing schuabism pop off everywhere. It wasn’t about coming online to say “fuck Schaub he’s such a piece of shit asshole”. Instead it was about laughing at Schaub because people were digging and finding clips and content of him pissing in sinks, cam footage from clubs of him cheating on his wife, going bankrupt.
It’s what frustrates me so much about the left in general. They tend to think the attack is all that matters, call em a Nazi and upvote. But reality is that need to change. They need the approach like the o&a community had or fighter and the kid. It’s what keeps people watching and when people watch they get more content. That content can be used to grow communities which create engagement and capture. It’s what should be done with all this man sphere right wing comedy bullshit. It’s crazy to think of all the material there is to make fun of these idiots. And when that happens you hobble their ability to use them because nobody wants you listen to a fucking lolcow no matter what they say.
There are not many voices on the left because we lack engagement. We don’t have networks. We don’t share information the way the right does. It’s about capture. We don’t direct our attention towards voices and therefore there’s no money in it. If there’s no voices there’s no chance of winning anything in the near future. The only way to win would be for the right to fuck up. Which isn’t a win.
I’ll challenge this to you. There’s clips of Marc Maron shitting on Rogan. Where do I post that here on Lemmy?
Not having a good place to post something like that is a serious problem.
The right has literal millionaire and billionaires funding it’s alternative media.
Daily Wire
After the duo secured several million dollars in seed funding from billionaire petroleum industry brothers Dan and Farris Wilks, The Daily Wire was launched in 2015.
Other “stars” of right wing alternative media literally made a fortune on TV or talk radio and funded their own alternative media companies, like Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson. Literally we’ll paid conservative TV personalities transitioning to web-based alternative media.
There are fewer people from the left doing the same and they tend to have smaller audiences that right wing counterparts - that is disappointing. I watch many of them but I have no idea how to fix that audience issue.
A willingness to submit to authority
The left isn’t easily led. Herding cats, as they say. Personally, I suspect there is an aspect of conservatism that caters to authoritarianism. I think right wingers like the simplicity of being told what to think and what to do, as long as it makes them feel good. I don’t believe the left is motivated the same way. It makes it hard to propagandize if everyone isn’t on the same page.
I’ll challenge this to you. There’s clips of Marc Maron shitting on Rogan. Where do I post that here on Lemmy?
Seriously? If you can’t find a place it’s because you aren’t looking. Will it become viral or wildly successful? I couldn’t tell you.
Money in social media is used to replicate what we do naturally. We do it for free everyday. We also have the ability to make the money they spend exponentially increase. The “money” you’re talking about goes to buying views, bots to pollute comment sections, reach and engagement. Every comment section or piece of media that produced costs money. If we drown that out, they have to pay more. We can blow up their costs with minimal effort, but we have to be aware of it. Same way we all were on the same page with “dont wrestle with pigs” a message that weirdly propagated among the left.
That money is used to replicate what we all do for free which is my point. Our attention is money. We all can beat money if we actually sat and thought about it for half a second. Money isn’t the reason they’re winning. They’re winning because what that money buys gives them an advantage.
The left are just as easily led. The problem is they don’t have awareness. Something I’m coming to realize is the right might actually have a lot more self awareness. They are in it to win. That’s why they don’t care about Trump and what he says or does.
The left’s retreating from social media is one of the biggest self owns. This retreat is one of the largest contributors to why the right is winning. Every time progressives “take the high road” by disengaging, they hand votes and power the right.
Joe Rogan isn’t massive just because he’s Joe Rogan he’s massive because the right knew how to turn manipulate the left into attacking him and turn that into a recruitment drive. Outrage didn’t end his reach it supercharged it.
Compare that to Brendan Schaub or Opie & Anthony on Reddit: they were turned into lolcows, and no amount of right-wing backup could save them. That’s what should’ve happened with Rogan.
Instead, the retreat handed Trump a propaganda channel, which paved the way for others like Theo and Tony to push right-wing framing on COVID, vaccines, and more. Acting like we’re “too virtuous” to engage isn’t a moral victory it’s a fucking disaster. We need to own it otherwise it’ll keep occurring.
This isn’t an isolated case it’s the same playbook, over and over. For years, bot accounts pushed “don’t wrestle with pigs” to convince the left to stop engaging, and people fell for it.
It’s like watching someone play Risk by giving up every territory except one, then wondering why they’re losing but hey, at least they still have the moral high ground, right?
You aren’t addressing my points, you are repeating your own points.
You’re talking about “alternative media” and not social media.
Who is it that you are blaming? The leftist population, democratic leadership, left leaning influencers?
Are you expecting people to dig into the right wing rabbit hole of social media just to combat it’s effectiveness? What are you actually suggesting?
I agree that some folks like Rogan & Theo should have representatives from the left engaging with them. Unfortunately, there aren’t many public faces on the left. I also can’t pretend to know who those guys are willing to even have on. They had some Democrats, Bernie and I think Pete (corporate Democrat but at least willing to consider some leftist policies), maybe others - I don’t watch their shows.
Can you differentiate “attacking him” and turning him into a “lolcow”?
Joe Rogan is massive because he’s a well known MMA personality with comic friends that is fantastic at chilling will famous people and shooting the shit without any actual deep thought. He’s leaned right because, again, it’s where the money is.
Please respond to my previous points, and consider these things:
What would engaging look like?
Again, what does not disengaging look like?
You said yourself ‘there aren’t many voices on the left’ and what pisses me off is that it is as if you stop short there.
Why are there no voices on the left?
Why are there more voices on the right?
This lack of reflection is what bothers me so much because my opinion is when we reflect we all have no choice but to be fucking pissed off at the answer. The answer is the people who identify as leftist are fucking useless. It’s all hot air. It’s all platitudes and performance.
Attacking someone is different. People didn’t attack Schaub. The goal wasn’t to hurt them directly. The community goal was to have a laugh at the expense of these lolcows. That community grew to the point that it had so much reach and engagement that people were seeing schuabism pop off everywhere. It wasn’t about coming online to say “fuck Schaub he’s such a piece of shit asshole”. Instead it was about laughing at Schaub because people were digging and finding clips and content of him pissing in sinks, cam footage from clubs of him cheating on his wife, going bankrupt.
It’s what frustrates me so much about the left in general. They tend to think the attack is all that matters, call em a Nazi and upvote. But reality is that need to change. They need the approach like the o&a community had or fighter and the kid. It’s what keeps people watching and when people watch they get more content. That content can be used to grow communities which create engagement and capture. It’s what should be done with all this man sphere right wing comedy bullshit. It’s crazy to think of all the material there is to make fun of these idiots. And when that happens you hobble their ability to use them because nobody wants you listen to a fucking lolcow no matter what they say.
There are not many voices on the left because we lack engagement. We don’t have networks. We don’t share information the way the right does. It’s about capture. We don’t direct our attention towards voices and therefore there’s no money in it. If there’s no voices there’s no chance of winning anything in the near future. The only way to win would be for the right to fuck up. Which isn’t a win.
I’ll challenge this to you. There’s clips of Marc Maron shitting on Rogan. Where do I post that here on Lemmy?
Not having a good place to post something like that is a serious problem.
The right has literal millionaire and billionaires funding it’s alternative media. Daily Wire
The right also has foreign actors trying to destabilize the US with more astroturfing.
Other “stars” of right wing alternative media literally made a fortune on TV or talk radio and funded their own alternative media companies, like Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson. Literally we’ll paid conservative TV personalities transitioning to web-based alternative media.
There are fewer people from the left doing the same and they tend to have smaller audiences that right wing counterparts - that is disappointing. I watch many of them but I have no idea how to fix that audience issue.
The left isn’t easily led. Herding cats, as they say. Personally, I suspect there is an aspect of conservatism that caters to authoritarianism. I think right wingers like the simplicity of being told what to think and what to do, as long as it makes them feel good. I don’t believe the left is motivated the same way. It makes it hard to propagandize if everyone isn’t on the same page.
Seriously? If you can’t find a place it’s because you aren’t looking. Will it become viral or wildly successful? I couldn’t tell you.
Money in social media is used to replicate what we do naturally. We do it for free everyday. We also have the ability to make the money they spend exponentially increase. The “money” you’re talking about goes to buying views, bots to pollute comment sections, reach and engagement. Every comment section or piece of media that produced costs money. If we drown that out, they have to pay more. We can blow up their costs with minimal effort, but we have to be aware of it. Same way we all were on the same page with “dont wrestle with pigs” a message that weirdly propagated among the left.
That money is used to replicate what we all do for free which is my point. Our attention is money. We all can beat money if we actually sat and thought about it for half a second. Money isn’t the reason they’re winning. They’re winning because what that money buys gives them an advantage.
The left are just as easily led. The problem is they don’t have awareness. Something I’m coming to realize is the right might actually have a lot more self awareness. They are in it to win. That’s why they don’t care about Trump and what he says or does.