this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
1059 points (96.0% liked)
Late Stage Capitalism
3437 readers
1171 users here now
A place for for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited.
A zero-tolerance policy for bigotry of any kind. Failure to respect this will result in a ban.
RULES:
1 Understand the left starts at anti-capitalism.
2 No Trolling
3 No capitalist apologia, anti-socialism, or liberalism, liberalism is in direct conflict with the left. Support for capitalism or for the parties or ideologies that uphold it are not welcome or tolerated.
4 No imperialism, conservatism, reactionism or Zionism, lessor evil rhetoric. Dismissing 3rd party votes or 'wasted votes on 3rd party' is lessor evil rhetoric.
5 No bigotry, no racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or any type of prejudice.
6 Be civil in comments and no accusations of being a bot, 'paid by Putin,' Tankie, etc. This includes instance shaming.
Introduction to Socialism (external links)
Marxism-Leninism Study Guide: Advanced Course
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
But it's fake.
It's a story, fabricated soley to farm retweets. It is fiction.
If you label it as "made up story?" Sure. That's fine. It's the truth. But then its not getting to the front page because it doesn't have the appearance of authenticity.
A parable is fake too. The point here isn't commiserating with a real person's real financial problem. It resonates with the truth of financial strain people feel in their own lives.
Do you think there isn't a person alive somewhere in the US that has been priced out of their apartment? Do you think the fees (not the amount it costs) tacked on to applying for a new rental apartment are fake?
As someone who was priced out of regular rentals: I can assure you, they are not.
Edit: and I'm not claiming we should all just repost bot farm content. I'm saying it's not surprising a populist message echoing people's struggles is being upvoted. And acting incredulous about that fact doesn't change anything.
You're dodging the issue I have. I'm not arguing with the "resonation of truth." No one here is arguing with the message.
It's presented as real.
That's the problem. This is upvoted for its apparent authenticity, and it. Is. Not. Real. It's a story.
...Look, tell me this. Lets say you're OP. You found this post yourself, you posted it, but later you found out it's a content farm account. Which would you do:
A: Edit it. Label it as such in the title.
B: Keep it as is.
C: Something else. Delete it?
And yes, you could post a comment, but the vast majority of viewers wouldn't see that. You could crop out the poster, but that's giving no indication the post isn't authentic.
I'm not dodging the issue. You even copied a quote of me facing the "issue."
It's presented as a tweet. Whether or not you trust any tweet is a personal decision. You yourself, unless you have a habit of checking the background of every tweet picture posted, decided not to trust this one.
You keep saying it's upvoted for its authenticity and I keep saying that's not the case. If this was framed as a hypothetical, it would get much the same reception because they aren't saying "wow, it's sad this destitute man is having trouble renting a new home. We should make things better for real people like Jeremy. "
They're probably thinking, "fuck yeah, I feel that. Shit's expensive out here for everybody."
I dispute this.
Post a similar Tweet, like this, but label it as "hypothetical" right in the title. Not as a comment or mention, but smack where people see it before they read the Tweet.
It might get some upvotes, but I'm positive it wouldn't make it to #1 on the front page.
I think this is disingenuous too.
...Do you really think, when most people are reading this post, their initial thought is. "Huh, a tweet. I dunno if this Jeremy guy is real, let me consider that... Eh, I like the sentiment anyway. Upvote."
That's nonsense.
No one even checked and posted about it until now, apparently.
It's not a choice. Most never knew to choose! The Tweet is worded as if a real person describing their situation, so that's what the initial assumption will be.
And this does nothing.
It removes attribution. But it does nothing to suggest the Tweet isn't authentic.
...And you didn't answer my question, I don't think.
To be clear, if you were OP of this post, what would you do now? Just remove the author, that's it?
I didn't even read the account's name until your comment (I also didn't upvote because I don't upvote a post unless it's small and/or I really like it).
I try to not extend my experience as "normative" to other people but I don't believe people are giving names much credence unless they're famous.
Idk if you can hotswap the content of a post. If I learned after posting, I'd probably just delete the post because I don't feel strongly enough to put the work into editing and reposting. I wouldn't have even posted this in the first place because I don't think this is novel enough to be posting. That's almost besides the pount but you asked for personal opinions.
If I knew beforehand (and was possessed of a desire to share this), yeah, I'd just cut out the account name.
I agree the tweet form factor drives engagement for some reason, but if the username were "fake-anti-capitalist-tweets" with a blue thumbs up icon, I'm certain it would have moved in much the same ways.
If it was actually impossible to miss, I disagree.
Well this is admirable, but:
I think this is where you and I have a fundamental difference of viewpoints, that's not going to be resolved.
To me, this would be the same as filing the author off an article I knew was fake, and reposting it with no context. It's disingenous. I'd interpet it as presenting something to the internet as authentic, and hiding that its not. And if it needed the "hypothetical" label, I just wouldn't post it at all, because what's the point of that? Just post the thought directly.
The source comes before the message, for me.
You won't believe this but literally every parable and nearly every single thing written in history is made up. There was no Sodom and Gomorrah, there was no Ark, there was no giant horse to invade Troy, Cleopatra wasn't hot, Alexander wasn't that Great, Paul probably didn't exist, etc.
But the reason humans tell stories is to illustrate something. This may have been a bot just reposting sentiment, but it still got that sentiment from somewhere. In fact this "story" as you call it has been going around the internet longer than you've been alive based on your comments in this thread. It's a common problem. And one ignored by pretty much everyone in power and their fans.
That's the most defeatist argument I've heard. "The stories of history are fake, most of the internet is fake, so we're justified in presenting a made-up story as real, like we've been doing all along."
I'm sorry. I'm not supporting an obvious engagement farm just because it "illustrates something" worthwhile. That's the fundamental reason why the internet is in such a horrendous state right.
To be clear, I have no problem with stories, or even "embellished history," if they're labeled as such. I mean, I know history is a interpreted construct with embellishment, that was middle school history class.
But this is presented as an example of a real human being's experience. It's why people are upvoting it.
And that's a straight-up lie.
No, people are upvoting it because they can relate with it, and it is factual, regardless of it if happened to a real human.
There's a word for made up stories misleadingly presented as an authentic human account, and its not "factual."
I'm not saying it hasn't happened to a real human either. I agree with the seniment of the story.
The 'sentiment,' aka the circumstances being lamented, are 100% factual.
The story might not be.
If I write about how I tried and failed to move faster than the speed of light by lighting my farts on fire, the story is fake, but it's factual. I would not ever be able to move faster than the speed of light by lighting my farts on fire. Everyone can understand that, as long as they have a reference of the amount of energy generated by flaming farts and a reference for what the speed of light is and the amount of energy that it requires to get there.
Renting in the united states requires at minimum 3x the monthly rent to be paid upfront, usually 4x the monthly rent, along with a non-refundable application fee which often is just lost and denied. If I write a story about how a anthropomorphic bunny is having a hard time renting due to not being able to raise enough money on only fans to handle these ridiculous requirements, the story is still factual and makes a point about the real circumstances in this world regardless of the fact anthropomorphic bunnies have not been proven to exist yet.
So yes, it would get upvoted despite taking liberties with the exact details and thus being a fictionalized version of reality that uses facts from reality to make a point.
I suppose the real problem I have with your critique is that it's pointless to attack an AI version of a meme because of the content of the meme which has been reposted in a million ways by humans before you found your way onto the internet, instead of attacking the fact it's just an AI powered repost of a true meme.
I call nonsense.
If you replaced "Me" and "I" and "Jeremy" in this post with "anthropomorphic bunny," making it clear the text is not from a real person, there's no way it would be on the front page of Lemmy. It wouldn't have even made it wherever OP saw it.
I find this implausible too.
If it was a meme with a message you didn't like, would you have issue with an "AI powered repost of a true meme?" You can't tell me you wouldn't. Just because you like the message, that its sentiment is true somewhere doesn't make presenting a fabrication as a real anecdote ethical.