I had to deal with some guy at work trying to do some tiktok video and including me in it so I could complement his side gig or some shit (and likely only including me because women get views). And if I complain too much about being included in their grift everyone will shit on me for being a karen or for not helping him with it. Jesus fucking christ, I hate people that try to constantly plaster their face and name on everything to make money. Fuck youtubers, fuck tiktok, fuck ads, stop stealing peoples work for a quick buck ‘by doing commentary’, leave me the fuck alone
I do indeed hate living under capitalism
Commodity Fetishization
Not what that means
It means turning everything into a commodity - every hobby, every human act, every creative endeavor, every way of life. The commodity form is fetishized and the drive to commodify everything is what OP is railing against.
No, that is not what the commodity fetish is. This is literally first chapter of Capital. The commodity fetish refers to the appearance of relations between people as relations between things, and the way that things (commodities) appear to have person-like qualities. This is not something that happens in the mind but a real abstraction that actually occurs under the capitalist mode of production.
And what observable effect does that have on the world that isn’t exactly what OP is describing?
The commodity fetish isn’t about “everyone trying to make money all the time”… The commodity fetish explains the obfuscation of social relations. Not people trying to make money. People try to make money because it can be exchanged for goods and services, believe it or not.
And what observable effect does that have on the world that isn’t exactly what OP is describing?
One could say:
- The failure of workers to identify that they are members of an entire working class, rather than employees of different workplaces
- The appearance of political/social relations as natural and transhistorical parts of the world
- Arguably, the course of pretty much every attempted socialist project.
The commodity fetish is central to Marx’s project. This book is a good argument on the significance of the commodity fetish for Marx.
I don’t understand this ridiculous anti-intellectualism. Why reference Marx if you seem to refuse to actually learn what he said?
Characteristics which had appeared mysterious because they were not explained on the basis of the relations of producers with each other were assigned to the natural essence of commodities. Just as the fetishist assigns characteristics to his fetish which do not grow out of its nature, so the bourgeois economist grasps the commodity as a sensual thing which possesses pretersensual properties.
So when OP says “fuck why are videos like this. Why can’t videos just be like that” what is happening?
Is it that OP is assigning characteristics to videos that are actually expressions of the relationship between the producers and consumers of those videos, and of the distributors and the advertisers etc?
As far as I can tell, people chasing clout for money is a human relationship, one of deprevation, desperation, and manipulation. And those relationships drive behaviors which result in the characteristics of commodities, like media.
I don’t know. Maybe I’ve misinterpreted Marx all this time. It’s certainly a topic I haven’t deeply wrestled with in concert with others. Happy to be corrected and learn.
Genuine question, have you read any of Capital? Not trying to be an ass, but Marx explains in the first chapter, and the book I linked is a good supplementary text too. You don’t have to read all of Capital; like I said, the commodity fetish gets explained in the first chapter. (Though I highly recommend taking the time to read all of Capital; it’s a great text and provides the basis of a scientific critique of capitalism and class society.)
“Fetish”, in “commodity fetish” refers to the commodity appearing to have mystical properties, when in actuality it’s an inanimate object. But it appears animate; it appears to be capable of magical things; and it also makes social relations between people appear as relations between things, e.g. the relation of domination between capitalist and worker appears as an exchange of commodities, a wage in exchange for labour-power. The wording of “fetish” comes from an old racist conception where Europeans said that Africans had a “fetish” of particular religious objects, i.e. they ascribed magical properties to these objects that they didn’t have. Whilst that old conception is racist and wrong, I think the concept of the commodity fetish still holds true.
The commodity fetish isn’t particularly related to what OP is talking about. Clout-chasing is just clout-chasing. The desire to make money is because, well, we live in a capitalist society, and more money means you can get more stuff. The commodity fetish describes properties of commodities, not behaviour of people. It describes the way commodities actually appear; there’s no mental process or actions you can take to undo the commodity fetish, because it is a description of the actual way commodities function under capitalism.
there are a lot of youtubers and tiktokers that dont do it for the money
i learned how to code from a pretty young age
Every time i particupated in a game jam or made a game or any other coding related project, i was asked by my parents if i made money from it
I was like 12 years old; i hated thatSo the guy is bragging/constantly on social media, at work, about having a side hustle?
A) report that shit to your boss. I’m sure they’d be happy to find out that instead of actually doing the job they’re supposed to be paid for doing, they’re on their phone dicking around on social media.
B) anytime they turn the camera on you, speak your mind and don’t hold back. Tell them how shit you think they are for doing this whole thing, how annoying it is for you to constantly deal with their bullshit at work, and that they’re a loser for trying to include random strangers in their shit.
C) report them for harassment. Especially if you’ve told them to stop multiple times. Your boss would like that one, too.
I don’t see why you should put your face in his video if he isn’t sharing the money. It sounds like he wants free labor to me.
i would normally tell him to fuck off but the chief leeches were there and wanted me to. whats worse is he has a somewhat large amount of followers and the chief leeches like him being there because of exposure.
Jesus what kind of hellscape of a job do you have where you’re being forced into viral marketing for something that is unrelated to your company?!
i work in a software security department at a large corporation. I HATE IT HERE.
What the fuck? I was like dead certain that you were stuck with a bunch of high schoolers at a grocery store or something. That should never be happening anywhere remotely close to a cube farm.
Best strategy is to play dumb. “Hello, [fuckface’s manager], I have some concerns about the tiktok content [fuckface] is making for the company and some questions about my job responsibilities in relation to it. [Fuckface] pretty regularly interrupts my work to request me to act in these videos and it is getting in the way of my usual duties. If my participation is required, could you please let me know in writing? I’ll also need to discuss with my manager about how this should be prioritized and scheduled alongside my other job duties.”
Force their awareness in a way that doesn’t immediately look like an assassination. The more you can get in writing the more rope this guy makes to hang himself with. If somehow they claim it’s actually work related, keep pushing the edges of “I just want to be sure” until his channel is company property or he shoots himself in the foot.
Alternatively, get paid to intentionally do bad acting. “Oh, I’ve never been good on camera, sorry!”
Why would software security need (or even want) “exposure?”
the corporation has a large financial wing, why they think im a good target to include in some idiots tiktok video is your guess. i dont speak linkedin or tiktok
They like this until he accidentally leaks something classified like the idiots that would upload their “Day in the life of” videos typing in pincodes and passwords and the wrong person sees it or goes back to see it an old video. Some horrible long term thinking for a software security team to allow
They probably see it as “woman in tech is rare, we show we have one”
Makes sense. Sadly.
Sounds like they aren’t paying you enough if your role includes being a performer.
“You know what my side hustle ad needs? A GIRL”
“Hey, I think a girl works for me. Let’s just use her.”
“Great thanks bro!”
Shit like this makes me want to become a terrorist. I wont, but I’m starting to get why other people do.
At a random time, when nothing is happening, hand him a “paid talent release form”.
If you look up “talent release form” it’s what allows a creator to use materials with another person. As it stands now, he asked you to participate but did not have you sign a release (with no fee), so you own partial rights to income from that video.
Say to him: “Since you are a pretty big creator I assume you’re familiar with releases. I grabbed a standard one to give you rights to my previously included videos, and here’s another for any future videos including me for a 50% share. I’ll sign them after you approve and sign unless you have a standard set you would like to use”
This makes it a business transaction, vs a “leave me alone”. He won’t want to figure out how to pay you, so he’ll probably stop.
And if I complain too much about being included in their grift everyone will shit on me for being a karen or for not helping him with it.
I don’t think this is true at all, most people absolutely feel the same.
Probably depends on plenty of demographic factors, but I wouldn’t say “most people absolutely feel the same.”
You must be an influencer. I promise that most people don’t want to be in your videos and hate when you come around with your phone out
It is exactly because of those wide generalizations and assumptions that I disagree in the first place. Do you know what platform you happen to be on? This isn’t Instagram
…you think influencers aren’t on lemmy? 🤦♂️
Yeah I did. It makes me want to scream. Everyone just shut the fuck up.
It’s infuriating when you look at the online content creator landscape:
Everybody’s got a course. Everybody’s sponsored. Every channel pitches scams with a promo code. Even many anti-capitalist channels are pushing you to sign up for some program. It’s absurd.
At least Cody Johnston drinks the green supplement crap satirically?
The job market sucks and it’s only getting worse. A full-time job doesn’t provide the same standard of living it did for previous generations. I don’t like how there’s so much pressure to have a side hustle that makes money versus just having a hobby you enjoy, but for some people that’s their only option. But I don’t hate them, I hate the system.
That being said, it wasn’t cool for him to include you in his video. You have every right to push back and avoid this in the future.
Not really. People are in really bad spots and need money. While I roll my eyes at grindbros and hustle culture and all this pointless/asinine tiktok influenza crap, it’s pretty disingenuous to deny that people actually do need additional income outside of their main job.
That said, what you have described seems pretty annoying.
I don’t know any of those people fortunately
Funny part is, if we only bought necessities we wouldn’t encourage this behavior
Yeah. Moreso the institutions and structure but even youtubers I like it sorta disgusts me when they get into shilling for ground news or nord vpn. I think their pieces are honestly good and I try to treat it like old time tv with ad spots in the middle of shows but ugh. its sooo… man this is a phrase that im to old for but it just fits. cringe.
Sometimes I get annoyed at the crowd that sees me doing something they think is cool and be like “you could sell or provide [x hobby]”
This took the joy out of everything.
“Oh you write music? You should make an album and sell it” “oh you cook? You should make a ghost kitchen/foodtruck/marketplace” “oh you do 3d printing? You should model stuff for people or make a print farm” “oh you do open source stuff? Why don’t you work in coding or at least do fiverr coding jobs?” “Oh this home server is cool you should set these up for people for money”
FUCK YOU
And then when they find out I just like, post recipes or code or models or whatever online for free because I want to contribute back to the communities that taught me a lot they’re like “you’re crazy”. Maybe I don’t want to fucking monetize everything. Maybe I’m sick of everything being monetized. Maybe I believe information should be free and this hustle culture tech bro bullshit that took over the Internet post 2006-08 or so where everything has to be paywalled or monetized is absolutely cancerous and should be destroyed.
Our greed will destroy us all
It’s not just the monetisation. If you turn a hobby into a job you end up having to do a lot of stuff you don’t actually want to do or care about, because the people you do it for care about these things.
Exactly. I made code for our school project open source and some of them said we could like sell this. I’m like bro, this is mostly youtube tutorial code with some modifications, who will you sell this to?
List of ways in which this would be illegal under a sensible government:
- affiliation with a banned for-profit privacy violation scheme known as “TikTok”
- attempting to compromise someone’s privacy by persuasion to permit the placement of their likeness on the aforementioned “TikTok” in spite of the human right to privacy
- participating in discriminatory sexism by attempting to encourage toxic forms of distinguishing between “women” and “men”
- prioritizing personal financial gain over human rights
- solicitory harassment
- attempting to recieve ad revenue from illegal forms of advertisement
