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
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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 probably see it as “woman in tech is rare, we show we have one”
Makes sense. Sadly.
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
Sounds like they aren’t paying you enough if your role includes being a performer.
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.
It does suck. Watching all my highschool friends slowly lose the light in their eyes as the economy tightened its grip, becoming all more desperate just for basic necessities. The only way any of us can fix this is by making sure no one is run ragged by the fear of this fake ass scarcity.
The only way any of us can fix this is by making sure no one is run ragged by the fear of this fake ass scarcity.
By getting rid of capitalism, right? Right?
Hear me out, what if we use capitalism to fight capitalism. I’m sure it’ll work this time guys.
Most certainly! :)
May we cast off these chains as comrades :)
Yes! :)
At least you have empathy. My family deride me for struggling with affording housing my whole adult life. At least I dont have to see them more then a couple times a year. Love those douchebags.
It’s not you, I can tell you that. I won’t lie I feel that empathy because I was simply exposed to the horrors of capitalism before they were, my father losing his job, my family losing their house and having to work in a factory as a child. I can’t blame them for the conditions we’re all in.
My sister is so into this mindset but doesn’t do anything about it, it’s so annoying.
Every conversation with her ends up being about how to monetize something. Fucking A, I’m not gonna start a food blog and sell ads, I just wanna make dumplings!! I’m not gonna stream my boyfriend and I playing games, we’re just trying to relax! I’m not a brand or a product I’m just a person, get off it.
the thing that gets me is these people don’t realize there’s a much easier way to make $ not working…just play the stock market, that’s what all the big rich fucks who don’t do any real work do. it’s one big casino that most people buy into passively, especially in bubbles like this…it’s incredibly easy to make shitloads of $. it’s so easy that you quickly lose any interest in “grinding”.
it’s certainly not fulfilling though…gambling is no way to make a living.
I hate that so much. “Oh, this hobby only brings you joy and happiness? Don’t you know you could make money out of it?”
I’m that neighbor thats really, really into Halloween. My whole family is. We do a pretty big yard thing every year and this year we had the scene change every week to tell a bigger story. On Halloween handing out candy and goodies, everyone was stoked and wanted to stop and say how rad it was and how much fun it was to watch over the course of the month. Except one person. She just kept on going about how I should charge people to see it. Dude, first and foremost, I’m not going to make one of the few things I find true joy in doing another goddamned chore. Also, how the fuck would I keep people from just looking at my front yard? How do you expect me to manage that?
One good thing came of it though, after her insistence again and again I told her the only practical way to charge admition would be to do an actual walk through haunted house in my back yard. So the neighbors and fam and I are going to do just that. But for free because fuck that. I might charge her a dollar though because I’m super petty.
I hate the idea that you shouldn’t freely provide joy to those around you for the sheer satisfaction of making it. The mammonite brain rot runs deep in a lot of people unfortunately
Capitol cuck mindset we need to get off it
Sorry if this is too personal, but does she have, or has she had in the past,
membership in a communist partya hobby which she did as only an amateur? It’s hard for me to take the perspective of someone who doesn’t seem to understand how monetizing a passion can completely ruin it.My one friend is the same. He laments how little ambition I have for being so creative.
I create beautiful things for fun and for people I care about. Any time I’ve done it got money, it has slowly but surely sucked the soul from it. No thanks. I’ll be happy with my creativity over here without a ton of money.
It’s mad annoying. You’re not even being paranoid, there have been several cases lately where these wannabe celebrities refuse to back off after being politely refused. Problem is they’re the ones filming so they harass you then just start the clip around when you start getting pissed off lol. Then somehow they all have an army of like a thousand angry men who will send you death threats irl over your ‘mistreatment’ of their favorite influencer
absolutely fucking hate it
As a boomer, I learned to believe in slow, steady and hard work. Combined with saving. Get-rich-quick never works & greed is despicable.
im an Xer so never experienced it but saw it and wow. it would be nice.
That’s relative. I had a just a few wooden toys, people were old at 55, cancer killed people, there was hardly any diagnostics and few medicines. Lgtbq people didn’t “exist”, gays were heavily discriminated against. Mobbing was fully accepted. Sure, looking back has a romantic ring to it, but I wouldn’t want to go back. Back then and today: best is to count your blessings.
jobs out of high school with pensions is a pretty big effing deal. Im wishing I die by 55 before I lose my house.
The problem is that there aren’t even ways to “get rich slow” anymore. And saving? Good fucking luck when rent alone is half your monthly income and your grocery bill has gone up 30% since the pandemic.
Yes, it’s not unlike when I was young 🤓 still: we should tax the rich. Instead of making bezos Zuckerberg et al rich, we should tax the rich.
Yes, it’s not unlike when I was young
It really, definitely is
You weren’t there, but I’m here; with kids too. I can compare, times were different back then but not better.
Buddy, you used to be able to buy a home and go on a yearly vacation on one salary from a person who did not go to college. It’s not even close to the same
That sounds like an awful workplace. Why is some bell end cajoling you into tiktok videos at work? Fuck that. I’d be off if I worked with twats like that.
the job is easy but dealing with the people is a miserable experience. i normally get by with earplugs and nodding and asking people to add all inquiries to my calendar. i think some people may legitimately believe im partially deaf, this is a burden i am happy to bear.
i normally get by with earplugs
i think some people may legitimately believe im partially deaf
awwh fuck should’ve done that
i think some people may legitimately believe im partially deaf, this is a burden i am happy to bear.
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.
I’ve been a computer nerd since I was like 10. When I was younger (damn, am I that old already?), I used to install PC games for friends (including ahem cracks). I always did it for free just, well, because they were friends, and because it took no longer than 10 minutes in the worst case. Their parents always threw a few bucks my way anyway, which I always tried to refuse, but ended up taking because of their insistence.
I also started contributing to open source from a relatively young age (I think I was maybe 20), not with the intention to make a career out of that, but because I found it a fun activity, and liked my contributions helping people.
In both cases, my family was all over me for not making a career from that. Like, my brother in Christ, I don’t need to be fucking working 24/7 from birth to death. People are allowed to do things just for fucking fun.
I guess I’m lucky almost no one I know is trying to side hustle slop their way into money. I don’t think I would put up with that happily.
Look right down the barrel of the lens and make fun of the guy. I would try to tank the video.
Yeahh some people can’t chill.
Then again I believe its good to pursue something and stay busy if you have the drive.
For me its too stressful to try to make money doing fun stuff like repairing things so I just do it with my own stuff. Sometimes friends bring stuff for me to fix.
If anyone ever tried doing that to me, I would just ruin their video. I would be like “hey yeah, this guy is actually a pedophile” or something then just ruin it. I will not be someone’s object to make money from in that sense. Not unless I’m getting paid.
I would rather be doing a job I don’t like because I know I’m not going to fall in love with it enough to make it my life, than to turn something I’ve fallen in love in doing and making it a job I’ll eventually grow to hate because it is seen as a job.
