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ziq wrote (edited )

Contra is clearly a millionaire.

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ziq wrote

And notice she doesn't do shit with her money to help the people that need it. She could have bought an island for homeless people to live on with the money she made last year alone.

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remeranAuthor wrote (edited )

It's correct, but it's not helpful. We don't live under socialism, so they don't do socialism. We live under capitalism so they do capitalism. Do they want capitalism? The tone of their videos would have me believe they don't. I don't think they're grifting, I think they're just successful. You can't go down to your local socialist bread commune and get some bread if there is no local socialist bread commune. Capitalism rewards being bad and doesn't reward being good.

What did most of the communists from history do prior to the revolution? Most of them were bourgeois. Kropotkin was born to an aristocratic family. So what? He advocated for good.

Purity test nonsense is going to rot your brain. Look at what a person advocates for and try to sense if there are hidden assumptions and implicit biases that make the thing they are advocating for not-good. If the message itself is good, where it came from is a novelty and nothing more.

Diogenes's youtube channel would have bad audio quality and nobody would want to listen to it. You put some money in his patreon, he might use it to upgrade his equipment, but then he'd stop being Diogenes and would start being a hypocrite so instead he spits in your face and continues to use the shitty hardware he found in the trash. Awesome. His audio still sucks. Nobody wants to hear his message because his production values aren't as good as HBomberguy. See the problem here?

So yeah, you can call them Capitalists, but I don't see why you'd want to do that.

That being said, feel free to tell bigJoel's workers to unionize or whatever. That sounds hilarious.

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[deleted] wrote

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remeranAuthor wrote

I don't understand the difference. Do you think there are rich people who don't exploit their workers? I guess lottery winners?

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Ennui wrote

People who exploit their place in the market by extracting scarcity rents technically fit the category of rich people who don’t exploit their workers.

Celebrities too, but it’s common that they’re indirectly exploiting workers due to the medium they are famous on or their means of monetization. In a sense, being a celebrity is a form of scarcity rent, since they are the good being sold and there’s only one of them.

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ziq wrote

I think any celebrity or rich person is exploiting workers directly since they need maids, cooks, nannies, drivers, pilots, gardeners, private tutors, tailors, private security, etc to maintain their lavish lifestyles and vast estates.

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[deleted] wrote

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remeranAuthor wrote

What means of production are you talking about? Like they should all democratically decide who clicks the "Upload to Youtube" button? That everybody who does a favor for HBomberguy should permanently receive a percentage of the royalties from his patreon in accordance to how much percentage of the total effort put into his entire channel is?

The point of my big rant above was that it isn't helpful to attack the people advocating for what you want to happen for not doing things they wish they could do and be better rewarded for it. It's like if you tell AOC that if she wants to raise taxes she should just donate all of her money to the federal reserve. This wouldn't raise Bezos's taxes, this would only make AOC poorer. While we continue to exist under capitalism, playing by rules other than capitalism's rules just makes you fail while the people who play by capitalism's rules succeed.

Regarding receiving help from friends and family... like... for real, seriously, tell BigJoel's girlfriend to unionize against him. It'll be amazing.

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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masque wrote (edited )

When it comes to the topic of "free labour," I think it's sometimes tempting to frame this as exploitative in cases where I'm not sure that characterization holds up.

I mean, consider captioning. Realistically, PhilosophyTube is not going to pay for translation to, say, Czech; it's simply not reasonable to suggest that a creator who makes work available in one language inherently has a responsibility to make it available in all languages. But given that Olly does not have a duty (or intention) to provide Czech translation, does it really make sense to frame Olly as the person this labour is for, suggesting that it is exploitative for him to not pay for it?

There are basically three possible arguments for why captioners are working for Olly:

  • Olly benefits from their work
  • Their work improves Olly's product, rather than standing alone
  • Olly is in a position of power which makes the situation not truly voluntary

With respect to the first point, I doubt Olly benefits more from Czech translations than, say, his Czech viewers do. The only reason we pick him out as the beneficiary in particular is because the benefit to him comes in monetary form, but suggesting that the work is therefore "for" him and not the Czech viewers kinda reflects a capitalist thought process where the only "real" value is monetary value.

With respect to the second point, we have to ask: does it really make sense to suggest that anyone who improves on your work is entitled to compensation from you? I'm not sure it does. Should game companies be paying modders? Should authors be paying fanfic writers for helping to grow the "fanon," which is essentially an extension of the original canon?

With respect to the third point: Olly's fans are not relying on him for financial support (as in the case of an employer/employee power dynamic), or even some sort of academic or career advancement (as in an unpaid internship), so it's not clear exactly what power dynamic he's exploiting - the best bet is some sort of "parasocial relationship" explanation, but even then it's not clear why accepting free captioning is more exploitative than, say, accepting fan mail that includes gifts.

I kinda want to make a separate post about the concept of "free labour" more broadly (e.g. also discussing FOSS software, which is another place this often comes up), although I've already committed to one probably-ill-advised separate post about gender that isn't progressing very quickly, so maybe I should stop saying I'm "going to make a post" about stuff?

Is big joel's girlfriend getting paid or are they doing free labor to help Joel?

I feel like introducing personal relationships complicates things even further. Are we really suggesting that people in a close personal relationship have to either be completely uninvolved in each others' work, or else form a formal business relationship? Do gifts and favours for your loved one become problematic "free labour" as soon as they involve a business or profit? This is all ignoring the possibility of a serious long-term relationship in which assets are pooled, which renders the issue of payment kinda moot.

If they are getting paid will them breaking up take away one of cubmoths source of income?

To be honest, I'm not sure this is meaningfully different from a marriage or long-term relationship in which one partner earns substantially more and supports the other partner financially. In theory, this is the problem that alimony etc. seeks to alleviate.

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Artma wrote (edited )

im so confused. free labor. people are volunteering to add captions. they arent being forced to. its a community thing. this is what social anarchy is about. it is for people who need them. youtube is removing them and forcing youtubers to pay for captions. pay youtube. youtube is shifting the blame onto the creators to provide captioning instead of letting the community provide for their own, all for money. sorry to get riled up but this is honestly the dumbest comment ive ever read

youtube is taking away a feature for the community to provide for those disabled or impaired for the sake of money, and youre calling it free labor and that this is a good thing? this is literally capitalistic greed. this is like calling charity work free labor.

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[deleted] wrote

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Artma wrote

I wouldn't care if there wouldn't be evidence that many breadtubers are being exploitative in other ways.

I'm very uneducated on the subject can you explain how else they are being exploitative?

Volunteering to improve a product for someone who makes six figures or more living a lavish life of luxury is exploitation.

Possibly, yeah. I wouldn't call it exploitative but I would say that at that point they could afford to do it themselves, but as a whole removing community captions for a paid alternative is 100% worst for the community and more money for YouTube. For small youtubers who cant afford to pay for captions or non youtubers who just post songs or anime episodes, they wouldn't be able to pay for captions. I think that makes sense, they should be providing for their own but it is 100% an awful choice for the whole platform.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

I don't know much about them. Breadtube seems like it has its own 'industrial complex'. My only real care is whether their work sets others on the path to anarchy, and I would have noticed by now if it did.

Breadlectiva?

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[deleted] wrote

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ziq wrote (edited )

in my experience these breadtube people always go tankie and bring their audience with them

they're also largely responsible for the justified hierarchy plot

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celebratedrecluse wrote

if they own the means to production (control the channel login info, cameras, other equipment) and pay fixed wages rather than a dynamic proportion/stake in the enterprise, they are capitalists who are exploiting the labor of people who have nothing except their labor to sell.

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Ganggang wrote (edited )

Fuck breadtube, it’s all radlibs, but I think people kinda oversell the wealth of them.

Like Does Shaun even have workers. Last I checked he was a cartoon skull and a rant.

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[deleted] wrote

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masque wrote

I had the impression that Shaun & Jenn was a partnership, not an employer/employee relationship.

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[deleted] wrote

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masque wrote (edited )

I don't use twitter, so I guess I'm behind on, like, 90% of internet-celebrity-related-drama.

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Artma wrote (edited )

Heads up, I don't know much about this topic except what I've read here. If I get something wrong please inform me! If the workers are freelance then I imagine they agree to do what work they are asked to do and have an agreed upon price, I'm not sure if this is the case but if it is then the freelancers would obviously have no control over it. I think, on one hand it's rash to judge someone because they're rich and don't openly disclose what they do with it and label them a capitalist, on the other I feel like if you are going to be a political commentator online you should at least expose your practice and walk your talk. I think it's fair to criticize someone for not being open about how they spend their money but labelling them something without evidence or really anything other than an assumption is rash, reminiscent of cancel culture.

Edit: Someone I talked to brought up a good point, these people could also have debts or medical bills or something like that, that would be too personal to share. It wouldn't be reasonable to assume all of these people do and that they don't make that much money when it comes down to it, but it is something that should be kept in mind for why a creator may not fully disclose their spending. Still standing by my original point that creators should still be held to a standard of practicing what they preach.

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[deleted] wrote

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Artma wrote

but she is still quite a hyper consumer.

How so?

Yeah I dont think there is enough evidence to prove most breadtubers are capitalists. Though I would call T1J, kat Blaque and xanderhal capitalist because they sell products made using sweatshops in undeveloped countries. Though it is possible maybe even likely that popular breadtubers are capitalist. They just haven't released enough info to know.

Yeah, that makes sense. If there's evidence like that then 100%. but we shouldn't to call people capitalists who we just don't know enough. I appreciate that you are looking out to see if there is info to say whether or not they are. Also, can you source that sweatshop stuff? New to this subject, haven't heard anything about that stuff.

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[deleted] wrote

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Artma wrote

That is unacceptable. Do they know this is going on? They should have done their own research but they still might know about this.

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transvot wrote

breadtube more like farttube

cus its.shit

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BioWokefarePosadist wrote

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Ganggang wrote

Who is stanning slurs or their users? What are you talking about?

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