videos
Breadtube if it didn't suck.
Post videos you genuinely enjoy and want to share, duh. Celebrate the diversity of interests shared by chapochatters by posting a deep dive into Venetian kelp farming, I dunno. Also media criticism, bite-sized versions of left-wing theory, all the stuff you expected. But I am curious about that kelp farming thing now that you mentioned it.
Low effort / spam videos might be removed, especially weeb content.
There is a cytube that you can paste videos into and watch with whoever happens to be around. It's open submission unless there's something important to commandeer it with at the time.
A weekly watch party happens every Saturday (Sunday down under), with video nominations Saturday-Monday, voting Monday-Thursday. See the pin for whatever stage it's currently in.
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I don’t know anyone that thinks theory can exclusively be learned by literally reading a book. There’s countless ways to learn, the key is self education of the proletariat is necessary.
Even if that wasn’t true I don’t find “Americans don’t read” to be a very compelling argument. Americans are the most lazy, stupid and propagandised population perhaps in human history. I think they could stand to learn how to enjoy reading tbh.
However true, calling people dumbfucks and telling them to do something they don't want to do is not effective.
Not everyone needs to be a thought leader of the vanguard. Instill basic principles, encourage further exploration, provide resources. Some people will get curious/interested enough to read theory.
Exactly, we need a pipeline, an infrastructure, an ecosystem, that gets our basic ideas out to essentially the whole population, and then draws people in to engage more deeply, one tiny step at a time, until a few become a cadre of real theory nerds, and then actual thought-leaders and contemporary theorists. (And note that the theory nerds and theorists are not necessarily "the vanguard" but can/do overlap.) It's up to us to find the best way to reach different audiences who are at different levels. And as a movement we're not nearly good enough at this but we are gradually improving. I think the original video is basically correct, but arguing against a bit of a strawman, we've mostly moved beyond that point at least.
I mean, I'm a "dumb, lazy, stupid, and propagandized" American, and I actually enjoy reading theory. This is from somebody who used to tell people, "I'm not a reader". Most of that stems from the fact that I went nearly 28 years without knowing I had treatable ADHD, and then another 10 years to realize America is built to keep people like me from getting the help I needed.
Lazy is a word I also can't fucking stand, because it's a whesel word; it's not a real description of the reasons why people behave how they do, and it allows you to avoid doing the real work of actually getting to the root of people's behavior, be it an individual or a group.
This is true, I think "laziness" (in the sense of an ongoing aspect of someone's character) doesn't really exist. People can be unmotivated or unable to do certain things due to many factors (ideology, personal feelings/situation, mental health, etc.), none of which are "laziness".
No one wakes up in the morning and thinks "hmm, now I will choose to live my life as uselessly as possible because I am lazy" outside of liberal propaganda. People are ideologically motivated to avoid things, or overworked and burnt out, or depressed, etc.
Americans read plenty. There's still millions of books being sold. Americans will read pages worth of social media slop.
It's just those books are young adult fiction, romantacy and other forms of entertainment. A stressed out full time worker with kids at home and stress over paying the bills, who might be doordashing at night to make ends meet, isn't gonna want to curl up with Capital when they finally have some time to relax.
I know it's cathartic to complain, but as organizers our job is to find solutions and meet people where they are, not hope they will come to us. So what do you suggest we do about this?