Siren TychoDec 23, 2018
Ol' Minecraft Dick

Imo, one of the most damning aspects of capitalism is that it encourages people to have consumptive hobbies over creative ones.

It actively seeks to bar people from doing things like cooking, or writing, or making pottery, or anything else of that nature. Activities in which you are making something

Things like that are made either too expensive (in terms of money, or time, or both) or framed as something not worth wasting time on, because you can't support yourself doing art/writing/etc

Dec 23, 2018 at 4:26pmWeb
Show threadOl' Minecraft DickDec 23, 2018

Inversely, consumptive hobbies are encouraged to excess, despite being far fewer. Hobbies where the whole point is Getting Things, and Having Things. Wether that be shopping for clothes, or spending hours and hours consuming contents you can gain an encyclopedic knowledge of a movie or series, or collecting all ten thousand of those god damn funkopop figurines.

Things like that, where at the end of the day all you really have is a lot less money, and a lot more stuff that you didn't make.

Show threadOl' Minecraft DickDec 23, 2018
In a capitalist's ideal world, everyone would have consumptive hobbies, and no one would have creative ones. This slots cleanly into their worldview of having everyone define their identity by what they consume, so that there will always be things to sell, and whatever's being consumed or sold is wholly irrelevant.
Show threadOl' Minecraft DickDec 23, 2018
Thankfully, this is impossible. There's not a force on this Earth that can stop people from consuming things, and even with the artificial barriers capitalism has created, many people still do have creative hobbies, because creating things is enjoyable and satistfying on a deeply human level. Consuming things is not.
Show threadOl' Minecraft DickDec 23, 2018
This is part of why I think it's so good to create things. It lends a deep satisfaction that literally cannot be bought or sold, and that's the kind of thing that makes capitalists tear their hair out. Think about how many things you otherwise wouldn't have wanted if you hadn't been barraged with ads and media and such, telling you that You Should Want These Things, literally every day you've been alive. Self-satisfaction is the penicillin to capitalism's disease.
Show threadOl' Minecraft DickDec 23, 2018
So go! Spit in the eye of those who would have you lie consumptive and dead, another listless source of profit! Bear the power of your own hands, and the ten thousand year legacy of humanity's shared desire to make! Revolt! Create!
Show threadOl' Minecraft DickDec 23, 2018
Aaaaaagh so many typos
Show threadjk I'm all about that breadDec 23, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw
I imagine you looking like your avatar when typing this.
Show threadfloppyplopperDec 23, 2018
@danishcookies @Dayglochainsaw
I imagine him shouting it all into a cup so he sounds like Darth Vader.
Show threadCybre RickJan 5, 2019
@Dayglochainsaw
There are no typos, only handy accidents 
Show threadTEETHTEETHTEETHDec 23, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw Thanks for sharing this, it reminds of something G K Chesterton once said: “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”
Show threadTonnerre LDec 23, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw so much this! We keep having people in our hackerspace who say “Why are you building this yourself? You can just buy it. It's also cheaper if you count in your time. How much are you paid per hour? It's never worth it.” Like, isn't building things yourself the point of a hackerspace?!
Show threadHyperlink Your HeartJan 5, 2019

@tonnerre
@Dayglochainsaw

I've really internalised this attitude to a frustrating degree regarding electronics and software projects. It's a real barrier to learning to feel like I have to constantly be doing something innovative rather than just doing something fun or that already exists

Show threadMK ⛄Dec 24, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw I will add to this that, personally, there is absolutely nothing which makes me happier than writing. It's SO grounding for me to have made something instead of consuming or deconstructing it.
Show threadMK ⛄Dec 24, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw It's helped me find community, it's forced me to work with people with genuine passions who have my back in a way other kinds of friends never have because we're all working toward a goal and share an experience. Consumptive hobbies feel WAY less grounding and relationship-building.
Show threadFeathersongDec 24, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw There's a whole thread in this idea too that forcing people to be consumers takes away their power. If you are a pure consumer, you can't create anything, and you are a) not in any danger of usurping their power, and b) still consuming because you have nothing else to do. Capitalism is about concentrating power, and in capitalism, money is power, and someone who can't get it any other way than producing only for a capitalist is totally unempowered.
Show threadfloppyplopperDec 23, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw
Big mood.
Every time there is a dance show on TV everyone asks if I'll be watching it. Er no, I can't watch TV when I'm in the dance club. Same with football. I know a few people who play football and watch EPL. Most people who obsess about EPL seem to have none of the knowledge you get from playing. The countries with the most cooking shows also sell the most ready meals. And so on.
Show thread"Online"Dec 23, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw this aligns with something I’ve thought for a long time: consumption based activities inherently breed toxicity (eg gamers) bc when you consume the only thing that sets you apart and gives you social currency is making a demonstration of how narrow your tastes are (anyone can love a lot of things, after all, but your palette is so refined you hate it all). When you create you’re defined by ability rather than tastes, and your ability doesn’t require excluding others.
Show threadOl' Minecraft DickDec 23, 2018
@elchapo
Holy shit I'd say this is definitely very true
Show threadSnapai Dec 24, 2018

@Dayglochainsaw @elchapo

Competition, aka "For me to win, you have to lose" also has a lot to do with this. There was a sharp deterioration in, for example, the quality of the Overwatch community the moment they added a competitive mode/league to the game where you had a ranking relative to other players. It only took a week or so for what was an surprisingly nice gaming community to turn into vicious edgelords fighting for prestige.

Show threadHyperlink Your HeartJan 5, 2019

@elchapo
@Dayglochainsaw

The perfect illustration of this is the contrast between the culture of gamers and that of hobbyist game developers and jammers. I have found the latter to be overwhelmingly positive

Show thread_&Dec 23, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw Counterpoint: 21st century capitalism loves getting people to do creative hobbies. ESPECIALLY art and writing. Because when they're hobbies, you can use the amateurs to undercut and proletarianize the professionals.
Show threadOl' Minecraft DickDec 23, 2018
@_ampersand
Valid counterpoint! I'd still say this is an attempt to gut the enjoyment of those hobbies tho, by overworking people to the point of creativite exhaustion
Show thread_&Dec 23, 2018

@Dayglochainsaw Thing is, capitalism really only cares about your productive power. The basic structure of capitalism is "you make 50 dollars of stuff, boss pays you 10." If they could pay you 0 (aka end consumption), they would.

But, turns out that it's a pretty iron law that consumption increases production. So they obsess over your consumption, not because they want you to consume, but because they want you to consume THEIR stuff. It's recycling, basically.

Show threadKatherine M. MossDec 23, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw I have a server at my house, I pay about $150 a month for two more in FL, and I've not made a single penny on anything running up there. My main project with which I'm involved is all open source. Sure, we accept donations, but we don't require nor force them. We love doing what we do because we love doing it.
Show threadAmelia 🖤Dec 23, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw If you do have a hobby that produces -things- you’re pressured into monetising it as well
Show threadNuisance AnimalDec 24, 2018

@Galdrakinn @Dayglochainsaw Yes! I play and record improv noisegrind, with a guitar and a drum machine, for myself, alone, with no intention of selling anything. It's intentionally uncommodifiable. It's just nonsense jokes for myself and a couple friends. AND YET, that weird internal voice is always there, asking me where I'm going with it, what I need to do next, how I need to improve to "get somewhere," etc.

It's horrifying how deeply ingrained that shit is.

Show threadEthan 🌒Dec 23, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw this is something I think about often, as a writer who is very often too fried from working retail to sit down and work on a story.
Show threadkavbojkaDec 23, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw
I'd remove the word hobbies and just say "It encourages people to consumptive rather than creative in all aspects of life." The winners are those who can consume and publicly display that consumption the most ostentatiously.
Show threadMara HuldraDec 24, 2018

@Dayglochainsaw yah and when 'capitalism' encourages creative activities it always obsesses about what tools someone uses

"she can't be a real photographer with THAT camera', 'what, you're drawing and don't have the latest photoshop', always pressuring people into buying new, more expensive stuff as of course that's what makes them 'good, productive artists'

Show threadMK ⛄Jan 3, 2019

@alkahest @Dayglochainsaw Writing is awesome because, while there are a few nice tools, you can do it without them.

Pretty hard to be part of a wider community without publishing, though. :(

Show threadenchantedsleeper 🌈⭐Dec 30, 2018
@Dayglochainsaw o h
Show threadMarquis Kurt | Now on Ko-fiJan 3, 2019
@Dayglochainsaw I guess this is part of the issue as to why writing has its issues nowadays. Or, as I like to put it, 'writing sucks': https://cwp.marquiskurt.net/project/2018/12/07/project-4.html
Writing Sucks - Writing Portfolio

Show threadLadyCranberryJan 4, 2019
@Dayglochainsaw fuck capitalism, feed birds