Ask Lemmygrad

the core of right wing politics is that its easy to understand, relies on quick, memorable slogans while left wing politics gravitate toward more long term knowledge, literature, introspection and theory. people often describe being brain melted by tiktok into joining the far right but nobody says that about joining left wing politics. people describe adopting a left wing worldview through more long form media.

I'm sure it depends some on the algorithms and moderation (aka: the ideological bias). Because I'm pretty sure TikTok played a part in awareness of the genocide of Palestinians, so much so that it got vilified as "dangerous Chinese tech" and then the imperialist class asserted more control over it. But in its current state, would it still be able to do a thing like that? I honestly don't know, but I'd figure it's in a worse state than before the fear-mongering and crackdown.

In other words, is it the form of media itself or is it who controls the messaging? Is short form video fundamentally different in some important way or is the difference negligible next to the influence of ideology and culture? After all, some of the worst acts in history came about long before computers were a thing, let alone TikTok.

Personally, I don't think it has had much of an impact. Plenty of people got their info from social media before short form content and held reactionary viewpoints. Certainly true that these people aren't willing to hear pushback, but this also isn't anything new. There were plenty of men denying the existence of patriarcy, whites denying the existence of white privilege, and liberals running defence for the bourgeoisie before tiktok and being completely unwilling to deal with even mild pushback in good faith.

Personally, I believe all this can be explained as the result of these people following the logical conclusion of their own sef interest. Obviously whites deny white privilege because they are beneficiaries of the oppresion they have meted out, for example. Social media did not create misogyny, "colour-blindism", or liberalism. These things are products of living in a society where capital is the eternal dictator and has a vested interest in maintaining reactionary and idealist dominance. The internet is just the primary machine through which incorrect ideology is disseminated, but lets not pretend this is unprecedented given that this was preseded by a century or more of bourgeois-owned tv, radio, and newspapers.

powerful tool to capture the attention of the masses for good politics and bad politics, so you cant just dismiss it out of hand. yes its not good to get all of your political understanding from an app based on the attention economy but it’s still an incredibly effective tool to disseminate knowledge n propaganda. however it’s also still in the hands of the bourgeoisie and their interests. would also like to say the on the ground reporting and footage i saw from palestine in 2023 did radicalize me

People always look at Americans having overdeveloped some aspect of their lives and want to reject it unilaterally. The videos need to be better. It's the algorithms these companies have set up making them shit.

Making political theory bite sized can be a great challenge and easily digested. It can also reduce things down and cause a lot of misinformation from well meaning people. There's also a financial incentive for people to sell you their intelligence which means the lessons could be twisted to be more interesting than meaningful.

In the end maybe it's more like protests. They don't cause change but create relationships and get people in the swing of things.

My personal feelings is social media can be a net good, and have allowed underserved and isolated communities (remote indigenous nations, disabled people without accessible community spaces, children and elders without much freedom) to expand their worlds and learn. But it comes with several catches, and is always under the influence of capitalism. So revenue for monopolies runs the structure of these platforms and make them tainted.