Comic Strips

You're behind the times. Censorship and capitalist exploitation is mainstream now.

I haven't been for weeks, but got sent there today from Lemmy and saw this https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1cv9g73/after_recent_fuckup_from_reddit_what_is_decent/.

The last bullet point rule of this community says:

Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.

However, the cute little piggy is literally being eaten alive - look at his cute whittle frowny face! Why, he is shocked, shocked I say, shocked! ... but perhaps capitalist piggy should not be quite so shocked, hrm?:-P In any case, it is "gore":

Murder, bloodshed, violence.

What makes it "funny" is the dehumanization - the play between how piggy wanted to devour the wolf('s work product), but instead got devoured himself, the implication being that the turnabout is fair play. I get it, I do think it's funny, it is an inspiring message, and if I had seen a gore warning I would have clicked past it and enjoyed it. Although, I will say that the gore portion does seem unnecessary - if capitalist piggy had been like on a treadmill hooked up to make electricity for the wolf, that would have worked almost as well to convey a message, without escalation. Anyway, I'm not here to criticize the author in any way, and the latter suggestion in particular does seem to spoil the purity of the vision, where what is best for the wolf is decided by himself (the carnivorous, apparently hungry wolf), not by either piggy or the external viewer. It's the ultimate anarchist freedom - maybe wolf will get shot in the evening, but this afternoon he dines on piggy!!

My points though are: (1) intellectual honesty - we can do whatever we want but why can't we follow our own rules that we claim to follow, in the rules tab? Is this truly "fun for people of all ages", REALLY? and (2) If we want to grow the Fediverse, e.g. to get more content, then like it or not we must either restrict ourselves to post solely more mainstream stuff (booo - yes that's right I'm booing this suggestion, bc I very much like an eclectic variety of message content and format), or else label the things that most "average" people are going to find objectionable. Like porn, I'm not suggesting to ban it, only label it so that it doesn't catch people unawares. Otherwise, back to intellectual honesty, we should just give up trying to claim that we want to grow the Fediverse, and accept that we don't really mean it - this is what it is, apparently, and we are never going to invest efforts to change it.

Right now, I am too ashamed to continue recommending the Fediverse to anyone else, as I have done several times in the past, if it is going to remain something that only the MOST extreme among leftists are going to be able to enjoy, and even among that crowd, the subset that ignores our own rules set up for our very selves.