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I will be so pissed if, somehow, communism becomes a commodified identity in lifestyle branding like rich LGBTQ communities were sold back to the rest of us.
Not entirely on topic but it was my first thought reading the image.
lol are you kidding
Go take a look around the Haymarket books offices sometime. Leftism has been a trendy commodified lifestyle already, it's just more relegated to certain geographic areas. And it's been like this since at least 2008.
Although I should point out it's defanged, liberal, academic style leftism that's commodified. Actually endorsing revolution or saying nice things about the USSR? That's still taboo.
I hate how The Last of Us TV show had left baiting where they have a communist small town, but then people carrying out revolution in a city against the military junta are labeled bad guys who do bad things for reasons.
Shouldn't have surprised me considering one of the show runners also directed Chernobyl. While it was a good show from a storytelling and acting standpoint, it was absolutely filled with brainworms about the Soviet Union.
This type of commodified leftism goes back decades. It's just more upfront about the leftism, rather than whitewashing leftwing figures.
The vibe I get is if Americans do it, it's less scary than what foreigners do. Americans did try having little utopian socialist societies out in the wilderness. It's how large swaths of Ohio were settled by whites and it's how the city of Dallas was founded.
Going out into the woods to have a little communal town isn't politically threatening, so that type of leftism gets sold and commodified. You'll also see bands like RATM play at huge festivals. You'll see movies with anticapitalist themes or critiques, like anything by Ken Loach, maybe stuff like the Truman Show or even Barbie or the Lego Movie. But that's as far as it goes, vague feelings. The Matrix movies are some of the highest grossing films of all time and they're commodified backwards and forwards.
I don't see much in the way of making a consumer identity out of genuine Marxism, or any kind of anarchist mutual aid group. No one's selling an identity of doing shelter work. No one's selling an identity of promoting the causes of revolutions in the third world, the average westerner still thinks that makes you insane.
I will be so pissed if, somehow, communism becomes a commodified identity in lifestyle branding
Something something Mark Fisher
I love lo much how this experience (I won't call it a game) has infused itself so perfectly into the zeitgeist. The racist lorry driver concerned about a 'cultural victory ' lol, YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT MOTHER FUCKER WE WIN
Yeah damn, next we'll see Che guevara t-shirts
It already is, but it's the watered down version of communism of course. But there's a reason video essayists are getting traditional media gigs now, and there's a reason shows like Succession and Severance are made.
You're probably on to something. It would definitely removed the movement towards socialism. In the short term, that is. The seeds however, the seeds have been planted.