The abundance of “hashtag activism” has created a false sense of importance for the everyday individual being driven by weaponized empathy to speak out about a cause or injustice happening internationally. This false sense of importance, brought on by the use of hashtags as awareness, is ignited by already held biases about the colonized world, which inevitably leads to both overt and covert calls for western intervention to “save” whoever has been deemed needing of saving. The use of hashtag activism has certainly all but replaced in-person community organizing. It has allowed an array of people across the country and . . .
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TikTok, Fascist Mythmaking, And ‘Comedy Journalists’
This essay is Part 1 of the second part in Devyn’s Patreon series exploring digital trends, themes, and analyses; the first, “on TikTok, can be found here. We were trying to find the movie “All Dogs Go To Heaven” for his niece, a giggling smile with a couple of missing baby teeth and enough energy to power a small village. Released in 1989, All Dogs Go To Heaven was one of the animated films that captivated us both as children, and I had faith that it would do the same for her. He says he coulda swore that it was . . .
Information Warfare for the Revolution
There are many comrades amongst the socialist, anti-imperialist, and world-wide pan-African movements doing great propaganda work on social media right now. Among the cacophony of celebrity worship, consumerism, individualism, and roasting you can find here and there gems of information – well researched and presented. Invitations to conversation and deeper exploration. A light in the dark shown by principled revolutionary socialists, revolutionary nationalists, and anti-imperialists across the globe. These comrades are to be commended for making use of these platforms in this way. But what the last three weeks have revealed is that lights in the dark here and there . . .
TikTok & “Anti-Social” Media
Short videos have the ability to effortlessly expose mundane ills of capitalism. On the other hand, the premise of these exposés are often to make viewers laugh or make the creator profit, thus overshadowing the actual ills and exploitations they seek to illuminate; or, in other instances, the videos are simply so decontextualized and seemingly ‘random’ that viewers find themselves simply saying “that’s horrible” before swiping up. . . .