this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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I’m tired of being surrounded by propaganda. Do better.
Everything you consume is propaganda and has an agenda, you just see this as propaganda because it counters the propaganda that's already internalized and invisible to you
Shitposting isn't propaganda
This may counter propaganda, but is also clearly propaganda itself.
Literally anything that causes an idea to spread is propaganda. Advertising, calls for help, gossip, commentary, analysis, storytelling, hell public art or theater or even just public conflict. That's what the word means, the means of idea propagation.
Absolutely.
So calling anything propaganda is pointless, because everything is propaganda.
Exactly. And saying this meme is counter-propaganda is pointless, since it itself is propaganda.
Ok, sure. It's exactly as propaganda as anything else
Propaganda is just messaging, there's nothing inherently evil about it. The question is what message is being propagated.
Absolutely - I did not mean to imply that this is evil propaganda.
China executes pedophiles and America elects them and worships at their churches. It's really not a complicated comparison. There is no gotcha here
Fair, though I'm not sure it's as simple as that. I'm no fan of the US, but what do you think is the biggest issue plaguing China right now from a humanist perspective?
Maybe both countries should stop executing people given that a non-negligible number of them are entirely innocent. Maybe capital punishment should have been abandoned long before the 21st Century and any country that continues it be a pariah state.
Again, there is no cultural artifact that does not serve a propaganda purpose or espouse a worldview
Indeed - Riverside's claim that this is not propaganda is therefore false.
It's not propaganda as we've been made to understand it in the west, because that's a meaningless vibes based category
Hmm, maybe I misunderstood you.
If all cultural artifacts serve a propaganda purpose, but this post is not propaganda, does that mean that this post is not a cultural artifact?
I'm saying we've been taught that "propaganda" is just another word for "lies" when the reality is that it covers basically any piece of art, culture or commentary. It's just any art or information that advances a specific view of the world. As a category it's hopelessly broad, so it's better to understand it as a function rather than a thing.
Then you might want to get off the internet and live in the woods
Tempting
Tell that to your pedophile rulers
we do
lmao the fuck you do
Once I stop reading "two things can be true at once" whenever your nazi pedophile rulers tell you something bad about the next country they want to destroy maybe I'll believe you
You don't do jack shit
I would, but the various factions of the left keep getting hamstrung by memers and zingers who would rather post hot takes and play “more leftist than you” instead of figuring out how to take real action. Meanwhile the right accepted that a pedophile was their path to power and won. You think the right knows, or cares, about the difference between a tankie, a socialist, an anarchist, or a liberal? They don’t give a fuck but our refusal to coordinate or compromise on any strategy to fight back benefits them. We still going to be arguing over commie utopia vs anarchist utopia when we’re stuck next to each other in a boxcar?
Leftists have regularly been advocating for organizing:
The problem with liberals is that they still think the democrats are a path to progress, rather than slow death.
Cowbee I like the chart, but respectfully a lot of the rhetoric on ML instances reads closer to trolling than engaging to build a “sympathetic base” , just my 2 cents not worth much more than that ;-)
Lemmy.ml isn't an org, I'm not trying to suggest that it is. Leftists make memes and shitposts here, but when it comes to actual action, organizing in real life is always recommended.
Yes. Agree. And I would suggest it is counterproductive to the point of being counter-revolutionary
I don't agree with the idea that shitposting is counter-revolutionary. Seems a bit much.
No worries. But making a movement into a farce of itself and encouraging infighting is right out of the 1970s cointel playbook.
Even better if you can do the above to the point that the original ideology is no longer decently reflected in the current discourse
(Note this is consistent with most online leftists spaces, so not throwing specific shade on ML, and gets into a whole greater problem with the role social tech platforms play in shaping discourse)
I dunno, I just don't see the same problems you do.
Fair.
Every time I see Cowbee in a thread like this, it's like I walked into a restaurant to see someone trying to explain to somebody else why their friend who just spat in their food is actually a cool dude doing great solidarity because the owners of the restaurant treat their employees poorly.
ML in my experience has very little to do with engaging with leftists and more to do with bashing the "decadent West." Anytime I see memes.ml pop up in my feed, it's a 50/50 shot between me finding something funny or something that makes me debate blocking the instance as much as I can at an account level.
Lol you have not seen a single person say this, you're just reaching into a grab bag of dialogue tropes you've heard in old movies or maybe a Red Alert game. Fucking nobody says "the decadent west" outside of Bond movies from 50 years ago. Quit lying.
I didn't mean that as a literal quote but as sarcastic air quotes to evoke the exact imagery that you came up with. Although, I have actually seen a Hexbear or (what's the other one, Beehaw?) user use that phrase. Of course, they also said that only capitalist pigs die in China, so it's hard to tell if they were serious or if it was full commitment to the bit. That part of Lemmy is fairly indistinguishable from a leftist version of 4chan.
Like I said in another comment, ML has an issue common to many leftist communities in that old saying of "nobody hates leftists more than other leftists." And that can manifest as behaving like more moderate leftists (not liberals - actual leftists) may as well be centrists or conservatives, or treating Europe as being just as bad as Trump's regime. Purity tests and trolling rather than the mutual cooperation that Cowbee posted.
I see hate from liberals for leftists pointing out the truth, which is somehow intolerable to liberals who claim to be leftists.
I think what you're describing is the difference between leftists shitposting online and actual real-life practice.
Meme communities will be like that, right?
Why not block this community and engage with other communities in the instance?
I guess? I don't think I've ever really stayed in a memes community where that's the case, though on Reddit I was largely in places like egg_irl and traaa, where everything was focused around a shared experience of a minority group.
Besides, it's not just the memes community, the memes is just where it appears the most blatantly and loudly. As the person above me said, it's an instance wide thing. ML is nowhere near as bad as Hexbear (or I have yet to see any targeted harassment campaigns against an instance for failing a purity vibe check come from ML, at least) but, as they say, "nobody hates leftists more than other leftists." Leftist spaces tend to have a bit of an undercurrent of only being welcoming to the "right kind of leftist." I used "decadent West" up there very purposefully. There's a bit of a vibe to ML that's less "uniting various leftist groups" and more "preaching The Good Word to those poor ignorants" proselytizing.
Spreading memes on the internet is the weakest form of “advocating”, it’s just anonymous virtue signaling to people you’ll never meet or coordinate with for the satisfaction of an upvote. Advocacy means nothing if all it never amounts to action in person. China glazers would rather black and white, this or that authoritarianism and anything less is “liberalism”.
Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, 3%ers, boogaloos, the KKK, and all the rest of the right-wing memers managed to get their shift together and stormed the Capitol to little resistance or consequence, then got jobs murdering the opposition in the streets. Meanwhile Democrats vainly hope it can be voted back to the back and forth bargaining of progress as a reward for peacefully protesting once all permits are secured and so long as everyone only uses words. The far left lets it happen because instead of connecting and planning they bounce back and forth between attacking one another and “advocating” for unity.
When’s the last time you had a realistic discussion of strategy with hot take tankies online vs the last time you had one with a leftist or liberal in real life? The anonymous memes and the China dick-riding are as useful to the fascists as their own propaganda. If it isn’t about finding common ground it’s about further dividing what is already a minority of people who might be willing to take real action if they could unite.
Your entire argument is based on the idea that shitposting online is the primary means by which leftists organize. I organize with a communist party in real life, online memes and shitposting are by no means what people advocate as "practice," it's just a thing to do in free time. Take a step back and rethink what you believe is going on.
If you only organize with in real life are other communists and use the global reach of the internet to spread and defend shitposts that serve only to elevate your tribal worldview over that of other leftists, you’re not organizing the “left” in the face of a united right that’s going to grind us all under. You use your free time to shitpost, I use mine to point out why shitposts and the subsequent arguments they start among otherwise likeminded individuals are detrimental. Your entire argument is based on the idea shitposting has any purpose other than to post shit.
What in Earth are you talking about? All real communist orgs use online agitation, newsletters, social media, and more. I'm not saying that shitposting is valuable, I'm saying it's not what I mean by practice. You're deeply confused.
Who exactly are you trying to agitate? The right? They are agitated by the mere existence of anything but themselves and are currently mass incarcerating, murdering in the streets, and bombing the shit out of those who they think agitate them.
As far as among leftists, I’d remind you that commies don’t have sole claim to “the left”. There’s plenty of anarchists and socialists just as left as you but opposed to Chinese style bureaucracy and authoritarian structures. But I’d say in the face of Christian nationalism since all of our ideals are in the minority and facing political extermination because we’re all classified as terrorists these days, perhaps we should put arguing over our utopian differences and focus on what we have in common. Your agitation posts stir the wrong pot because anytime someone disagrees with you it’s “pedo”, “liberal”, or the dismissive “anarchy is for Hot Topic”.
Imagine if all the free time spent making commie shitposts for the purpose of agitating an enemy that doesn’t know (or care) about the differences between leftists and liberals and commies and anarchists was used to encourage solidarity between anti-fascists on what we do agree on rather than revert to political tribalism.
It's idiotic to suggest you stop debating. Theory isn't optional. It's the framework that separates effective action from performative gesture. You want to bypass clarification for the sake of "unity," but that's precisely how movements get absorbed, diverted, or broken. Action without theory isn't courage it's idiocy. And your theory contradicts itself: you call for a broad front while dismissing the most successful actually-existing socialist project that has lifted the most people from poverty, challenged imperialist containment most effectively, and created the most material space for the Global South. It's incoherent nonsense. Also side note, but every single even semi successful revolution has been some flavour of Marxist Leninist, this clearly isn't a fluke or luck.
You're correct that shitposting alone achieves little. But a coalition that includes those who uphold the imperialist state achieves less. The Chinese revolution for example didn't succeed by treating all anti-Japanese forces as equals. It succeeded by applying a materialist analysis to the principal contradiction at each stage, coordinating tactically when interests aligned, and never surrendering political independence. Unity isn't an abstract good, it's a conditional tool. Its value depends on clarity about objectives, adversaries, and the balance of forces.
So debate continues. Not for its own sake, but because sharpening theory is how you avoid repeating errors, co-optation, and strategic dead ends. You should organize with those who share a material commitment to dismantling imperialism, not just those who oppose fascism in the abstract. That isn't sectarianism, it's the precision necessary to build something successful.
I can't see what you are replying to, but thanks for putting this down properly.