ghost-of-algren:

It’s very satisfying to see that tryhard anticommunist overwhelming get notes on their post taking the piss out of them. You know, it’s very clear they’re a younger blogger who thought coming out against communism would earn them some sort of contrarian social capital. But they’re not deeply connected enough to tumblr’s capitalist libertarian/ancap/anticommunist subcommunity to get notes from there. Instead, tumblr’s communist subcommunity picked up on the post instantly (the very first note is from a commie). So, that tells you something about who they follow and interact with.

They look at what I’m sure they must think of as tumblr’s “Communist Clique” which I’m sure they envision as some sort of cool kids table they weren’t invited to but still secretly want to be part of, and are both attracted and repulsed. They want to engage but, for reasons, they can’t join in. So they try to get some sort of cred of being contrary. They think speaking with authority will make people think they are an authority as they wag their finger at “the kids who believe in communism” on tumblr, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. You know, I copypasted that chapter of the Communist Manifesto to them because it addresses what’s left out of that stupid “# literally it’s always horrible and millions always die” tag they put on their post. It addresses the history of capitalism and class struggle, history they’ll pay lip service to but won’t be able to address. They won’t discuss that chapter, because they’ll be unable to understand what it’s telling them. And they’ll resist attempting to learn to understand because it will mean surrendering their efforts to compose themselves as *An Individual* who stands apart from others while also trying to be part of a community that they clearly feel attracted to in some manner. To engage the text, they’ll have to stop peering through the window and come inside.

Maybe someday they will. Until then, it’s pretty satisfying to see their attempt to play contrarian tough talker go down in flames like that. Pretty funny and life-affirming.