RE: Poe's Law: Sarcasm and Satire Online
I actually really enjoyed reading this. :)
I love how you used it to help explain the rise of the alt-right on the internet and why we, the left, seem to be two steps behind them.
My only really critique is that there might be reasons why we don'twant to embrace opportunism?
I am not as clued up about the far-right online but the National Socialists in Germany were far from sincere at times. And it served them well. But they had a far less difficult task than ours and simply wanted to be voted into power and to run a planned economy and adhere to their beliefs in purity.
Whereas as anarchists we want to actually see a change from the bottom up? So if people support us bc they don't understand the depth of some of our views (bc they assumed it was a joke) then it might have a more meaningful impact on the implementation of our vision.
When I say political opportunism I don't mean absolute brutality or whatever; when political opportunism doesn't work in your favour then it's time to find another tactic. I suppose one has to be selective about opportunism.
Also, regarding your reply to your reply, satire is great when used properly. Satire is probably one of my favourite tactics to use or observe.
Agreed.
I am fully in favour of satire. And the use of what tend to be memes to spread views in an semi-serious way isn't something i'm entirely against just cautious about.
And I do think that outside of the internet (or the media) the tactic loses a lot of its value. If you were on a stall for example having a leaflet that was just a joke would be counter-intuitive. But a sign at a protest could be far more effective if it was "just a joke". So I guess it's context dependent.
Oh and its worth noting the left have been using satire for a long time. Obviously these days you have things like fullcommunism but even in the 1930s you had the KPD producing satire against the Nazis*.