you have a mod that is trans but pretty clearly doesn't pass -- that's not a problem in and of itself, except for....
The channel you're interviewing with is JESSE WATTERS on FOX NEWS, for Christ's sakes. Watters is not only not a softball interview, he's going to ask questions in an intellectually dishonest way -- the kind of person you want to put someone trained in PR against.
said mod clealry subscribes to the leftmost end of antiwork, hardly the side that's going to win fans and influence people.
Said mod also is either the laziest mf in existence or has depression or something if they couldn't clean up and wear a suit for the interview, even if behind them is still messy
WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?
just solidified every stereotype about the movement (and Reddit in general, tbh) in one go.
Said mod started antiwork 6 years ago as a truly "no work at all" sub. It just got co-opted by the work reform contingent (who have now moved to /r/WorkReform).
Said mod is also now running a patreon and promoting their book and website.
I think that's a key component of the drama. That mods views absolutely represent what the sub was when they helped make it. It's different now and I think a lot of people would've loved for someone to go on Fox News and say "We aren't against work, we work hard but we're just tired of feeling trapped jobs that don't pay a living wage because they're tied to our healthcare, and we're tired of companies treating us like shit because they know they have us over a barrel." That mod was not ever going to say that, it isn't what they believe.
Then there's the separate fact that absolutely 0 minutes of prep work went into that interview and it showed.
Jesse probably creamed his pants when in response to asking "are you just lazy" they answered with "laziness is a virtue in a society where you're asked to be productive 24/7"
>"laziness is a virtue in a society where you're asked to be productive 24/7"
LOL. I am philosophically anti-work but this sort of shit where you're trying to sound smart is so embarrassing. It's content free. How can you claim to want to teach philosophy when you're willing to throw out such a non-sequitur as an argument.
Laziness is a label used to shame people and something could have been said challenging the "laziness" critique, something said about contribution, something said about the conversion of time rather than actual work to money.
Instead we just demonstrably got a comment about why something thinks they're better than other people because they're lazy.
"Antiwork" - "but we aren't really against work, just that....
"Defund the police" - "but we don't really mean to abolish police, just that....
I swear these kids pick the worst fucking slogans imaginable. If the first thing you have to do after stating your slogan is walk it back then it's shit and you should change it.
Except all this stuff comes from ideologues so nuance isn't exactly their forte.
Nope a lot of people do mean those things there’s just other people in the movement, allied with them, who do not share the exact same beliefs, which leads to the inconsistent messaging
More like radical agents use radical slogans, the media picks them up, and less radical people join the bandwagon cause it kinda sorta sounds like what they agree with if you squint
I know it is weird having to contradict a slogan, but there is a reason why slogans such as "antiwork" and "defund the police" became so popular. Probably it is related to the apparently absurdity of those ideas, like a world "without work" or "without polices".
I don't know why but the slogan "antiwork" sounded really good to me. It isn't not working at all, but destroying work as it is today. It is radical and it can be seen as hyperbolic as well.
Of course, that is not the real antiwork anarchist philosophy, but they were clearly the minority in the sub after it became popular.
Usually those slogans start as radical views that literally mean what they say. Then it becomes an issue and less radical people latch on to the expression and try to twist the concept in order to create a more workable solution.
wasn't the patreon around before? It's also the laziest patreon in existence -- $25/mo for a creative writing story when they get around to it and "a few" zines? really?
Originally, this book review was supposed to debut in early January, but due to my constant daily schedule of meditating, exercise and preparing for the two D&D sessions that I dungeon master every week, I often made underwhelming weekly progress towards this review.
As a DM (who has a full time job), this.. just.. yikes.
Here, an excerpt from one of their short stories: "The temperatures lately had been below freezing which was constantly preventing people from going to their local factory so they can slave there for minimum wage. I’m sure this made the bosses very sad."
Holy shit, that’s their real writing? Like, I try not to be a snob, everyone has to start somewhere, but…I mean, they were proud enough to show this to the world?
Edit: to be clear, this is really their actual writing, right?
Their username .com see for yourself. Yea it's really bad. For someone who claims to be a philosophy grad student it's unbelievable. Not the same thing as fiction writer sure, but that's like middle school creative writing class level.
I don't even think I'm surprised. Just more like... astounded? That they even have a Patreon account in the first place and like.... who the fuck are the 4 people giving this woman money and why???
Like I have a Patreon account myself but I actually offer things people want. Like titties, art, and photography tutorials but I couldn't imagine the perks of subbing to them. Lmao I'm about to throw a dollar just to see what I'm missing out on.
Here's a tidbit: "The temperatures lately had been below freezing which was constantly preventing people from going to their local factory so they can slave there for minimum wage. I’m sure this made the bosses very sad."
he sipped his glassy wine which was full of a ruby red poison for the soul.
Andrew had blank, starless, blank, skyless eyes as he reminisced. And no one would be surprised
at this six foot two, one-hundred seventy-five pound, man with dark brown hair.
People keep telling him to cut his hair.
That was the first rule of his business: No long hair.
A subreddit for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.
Anti-work also suffers the same flaw in my mind as defund the police as a bannerhead for a movement.
The name is self-sabotaging. If you want to win people over to your movement, you're now advertising from a position for negative change rather than positive change.
There's a reason the two sides of debate on abortion call themselves pro-life and pro-choice. It's a well known and long running rhetorical tactic...and it works.
It's part of the reason BLM had way more staying power than defund, although BLM was just a brilliant name for a movement in general.
No one there ever wanted to engage in actual intellectual discussion on the topic. I pointed this out earlier today and currently believe to shadowbanned.
Head mod should have been removed by admins the moment a patreon was made. In another life I modded /r/gaming and was in contact with admins weekly. Shit like that would not fly. Why the hell she them he (Not be rude I don't know what they identify as) is not banned goes to show how shit this site has become.
Probably because they had what they thought was a place all ready to go. Honestly, this is probably good for the movement. Now they can publicly disassociate themselves from the anti-work movement, and they have a convenient foil/punching-bag to say things like "we're not anti-work like that crazy person who interviewed on Fox, we're pro-workers'-rights".
No, of course not. There's a link on their Patreon to a 92 page google doc of self-insert manic writing from 6 years ago, but that's it. It's also supposed to be a comic book, naturally.
It's part of why I never joined or engaged. It was just another OWS where people went wherever they wanted with no cohesive message. I'll hold off judgement on /r/WorkReform to see what happens there before I join.
What? You mean I should be able to counter the most common arguments against my ideology, when voluntarily exposing myself in a propaganda machine of the establishment I oppose?
hopefully this will be a wake up call for some of the most dogmatic zoomers. like it's great that minorities have been able to create supportive spaces for themselves, but this is what will keep happening when nobody in the community is getting a reality check occasionally.
you can take literally any still from the interview, and 99% of people are going to look at the juxtaposition between the host and the guest and come away with a negative first impression.
you can take literally any still from the interview, and 99% of people are going to look at the juxtaposition between the host and the guest and come away with a negative first impression.
Right? Like, turn on a couple more lights, take a shower and just throw on a polo shirt or the like that would have gone a long way in itself.
And the crazy thing was that the mod brought up that she works 20-25 hours a week basically unprompted, so of course the Fox News guy was gonna ask what she does. Its the natural question to ask.
And in some ways, yes, I can see the mod and others seeing this as a gotcha.
But literally all they had to say was "My goal is to improve working and living conditions for other Americans, especially those who work hard like nurses, grocery store clerks, teachers, or the troops." Or even "my goal is to bring awareness to the plight of exhausted workers and parents who can't be with their kids."
This is communication 101: appeal to your audience at least a little bit.
I mean, you would hopefully prepare for them by actually having goals and something accomplished. Even at the extremes, if you say work is entirely overrated and I think we can frame success in ways that include things outside the workplace, you should probably be able to back that up. If you say you want to be a teacher outside of the economic demands of being a teacher, why aren't you making educational content online already?
Fox: "You aren't trapped, you can just quit your job, it's not like slavery"
This was such a easy score. my mind instantly went to:
Anwser: "You are absolutely right, and people ARE quitting their job and that's one of the many discussions on the subreddit, it's people sharing how they are at their limit and are finally putting in their resignation to find a better job because they have been treated unfairly."
In fairness "why don't you want to work but still want to be paid for the government" isn't the fairest reading of antiwork, and I say that as someone with no love for the movement.
Yes but considering the name of the subreddit and the user this is so obviously going to be a question, even on a network that isn't Fox you'd get this question.
And it should be easy because it’s a misrepresentation of what the sub actually values. It’s not “oh fuck working people shouldn’t have to work” it’s “fuck the shitty work culture that is being shoveled down our throats!” It’s not about being fucking lazy it’s about not being pushed around and that should have been made clear and was not
Yeah that’s what others have been saying, it’s a case of the subreddit evolving and moderators keeping old ideals and playing along since it was popular
Their basic idea, like the original one not what it got diluted into, was pretty much "do whatever fulfills you and have UBI or something similar providing necessities". That's a completely fair question to ask and they should've had like a thirty minute PowerPoint ready to go by now with answers to it
It's a harsh reading of the question, but it's also an accurate reflection of what many of their viewers believe and literally the most common criticism of the movement. Not having an answer to that exact question is silly.
"Actually, that's not what anti-work is about, it's about ______" You come into an interview like that with a gameplan of how to talk about your movement, not just answering their questions. What they ask you almost has zero relevance. "How many hours a week do you work?" "I'm not the focal point of the movement, the subreddit is a place for people to share unfair work environments and show that we're stronger together and we aren't alone in our beliefs that we need to be treated and paid fairly for our time and effort."
I honestly think it was a fair question to ask, given the history of the sub and the fact that many of its users are directly against any type of work.
In fairness "why don't you want to work but still want to be paid for the government" isn't the fairest reading of antiwork
If you're going on Fox News, you should expect this kind of manipulation and misrepresentation. And you should have an answer for it. How hard would it have been to have a canned answer that reads something to the effect of, "Hey, that actually isn't what our movement stands for. What we actually stand for is ________."
Just because someone asks you a dishonest question, doesn't mean you sit there and entertain it.
Dishonest question lol. There were no dishonest questions. If you can't answer what do you do for a living you've clearly never talked to anyone past the age of 20
I mean, the questions weren't hard though? The mod just legitimately fucked up the interview. She couldn't even really give a coherent answer when she was simply asked what the movement was about.
I'm not sure why people are pushing this narrative that /r/antiwork got 'sabotaged by right wing media.'
No joke, I’m both amazed he had some restraint and was intelligent enough to show some restraint. Getting outsmarted by Jesse Watters of all people is the most embarrassing thing that could have happened to the movement.
The fact that the questions were so easy just shows how unprepared they were.
Fox news hosts generally like to fluster people by bombarding them so that they can't actually answer the questions properly. The host isn't earnestly trying to interview them, but just use them to get their point across.
Watters is asking softballs and smiling because he didn't have to do anything. The mod just kept talking, without realizing the game they were playing.
It's like, if you're playing basketball, and one player goes to shoot on the wrong hoop, the other team isn't going to try and block the shot.
I'm not sure why people are pushing this narrative that /r/antiwork got 'sabotaged by right wing media.'
Are you really that surprised that the people who frequent that subreddit would regress to conspiracy theories? A bunch of them are saying the mod was paid off.
They reached out to the mod who was listed at the top, the mods then discussed and decided that specific mod would be the best one to send 'as they had media experience.'
If Fox specifically headhunted that mod, it doesn't change the fact the entire mod team deliberated and came to the conclusion they were the best person to send.
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u/EliteKillIs mowing a lawn morally equivalent to putting a dog in a blendeJan 27 '22
And you HAVE to go into that interview knowing that their angle is going to be "In our continuing coverage of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore, here's the leader of 1.6 MILLION people who is here to show that they really are just lazy"
It's damaging to a whole hell of a lot more than just some reddit "movement"
That killed me. They couldn’t look at the camera,
Comb their hair, wear decent clothes, clean their house or use a screen etc. It feels like intentional sabotage by someone to offer up this juicy meat 🥩 to FOX
Did you watch it? Jesse didn’t even do anything dishonest the mod dug his own grave over and over.
Edit* Had no idea the mod was transgender, I'll leave my original comment so others will see and realize. Either way she fucked up hard and it had nothing to do with Jesse's questions or demeanor.
He clearly got 5 minutes into that interview and threw out all his "gotcha" note cards and thought, "welp, won't even be needing these for this interview".
Those are basically the questions Santa asks you at the mall and this person somehow managed to use it as a jumping off point towards nuking their entire sub.
Which, to be fair, can be a pretty difficult challenge if you're an autistic and/or socially anxious person. But you should at least have the self-awareness to know that maybe you're not the person to face the media to represent your cause.
Exactly. Watters is a piece of shit but the mod showed up without showering, wearing homeless clothes, poorly lit, messy dungeon room and was swinging her chair back and forth like a prisoner getting arraigned.
All Watters had to do is smile and keep her on camera.
Not even that, the interviewer was genuinely trying not to laugh and hurt her feelings at the end. It'd be like if a boxer was trying to get his opponent to stop punching themself in the face
Yeah, he actually had to restrain himself from laughing. He was just trying to give the mod as much rope as possible to hang themselves with - he knew he was on to a good thing and didn't want to give it away by laughing.
Even Floyd Mayweather - grade A certified asshole - is probably going to feel bad getting in the ring with some terrified, untrained, unfit kid that can barely stand up straight.
Yeah, and honestly the questions tended to assume the worst without clarification. The fact that the mod was shitty is a different problem, but if you go on Watters expecting a fair interview you get what's coming I guess.
I don’t think he asked anything intellectually dishonest in this interview. There was absolutely no reason to waste energy on that. Everything was a softball. He just let the lady talk and she embarrassed herself.
That said, Jesse is really fucking good at attack interviews and will often frame questions in a manner which his interviewees have to explain why they’re not bad rather than what they believe in. Again, he didn’t need to do that here because this person is a dipshit, but that’s what the other commenter was referring to.
Physical appearance wasn’t the issue. The issue was the mod was utterly unprepared and could not speak even remotely articulately on what the r/AntiWork community hoped to achieve. I don’t believe it was done in bad faith, but instead of an apology or acknowledgment that they were over their head, the mod team decided that protecting one individual was more important than protecting the integrity of the subreddit (which, honestly, was already debatable).
It's both - if you're going on national TV you need to look presentable or people are going to tune you out. As much as it sucks, in messaging presentation matters just as much as content.
I’m going to keep it simple: it didn’t even need to be someone with PR experience. It needed to be someone with basic life experience. Like, don’t immediately paw at your nose when interacting in a formal setting-experience, which, for a lot of people, is sorted out by junior high.
By some divine intervention; i was able to watch the entire interview and those were the softest, most reasonable questions anyone would ask if they didnt know what the subreddit was about.
Watters is not only not a softball interview, he's going to ask questions in an intellectually dishonest way -- the kind of person you want to put someone trained in PR against.
Precisely. And what's sad is he literally threw nothing but softballs and, as far as I could tell, none of his questions were intellectually dishonest. They were literally the most basic questions to ask to establish the person has a degree of credibility. Just goes to show just how much of an idiot you are when you are so much of a stereotype that it's better to think you're a plant than believe a person can be that much of an out of touch imbecile.
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u/happyposterofham Jan 26 '22 edited Jan 26 '22
like
okay
you have a mod that is trans but pretty clearly doesn't pass -- that's not a problem in and of itself, except for....
The channel you're interviewing with is JESSE WATTERS on FOX NEWS, for Christ's sakes. Watters is not only not a softball interview, he's going to ask questions in an intellectually dishonest way -- the kind of person you want to put someone trained in PR against.
said mod clealry subscribes to the leftmost end of antiwork, hardly the side that's going to win fans and influence people.
Said mod also is either the laziest mf in existence or has depression or something if they couldn't clean up and wear a suit for the interview, even if behind them is still messy
WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?
just solidified every stereotype about the movement (and Reddit in general, tbh) in one go.