this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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Asklemmy
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That mod was definitely not a great public representative. Why go on Fox at all? Pretty obvious they’d try to make you look bad.
Knowing reddit, I assume the thinking was something along the lines of "I can regularly win a reddit argument, therefore my towering intellect will surely win the day on TV and I will become a hero." Which of course doesn't hold up at all against someone with professional-grade social/communication skills no matter how right-on your point is.
While that's true, it's clear from the segment the mod didn't put any thought into their appearance, or prepare for the interview in any way.
The sad thing is that FOX didnt have to do anything to make this mod, and the community they represented, look bad. They did that all on their own because fundamentally something was very wrong with that sub. It wasnt just people legitimately pissed off at employers, there were people in that community that were very much like that mod and the former didn't want to be associated with the latter.
It’s fairly easy to infer that Fox would not give a sympathetic or neutral interview to someone with views that the hosts fundamentally disagree with. The mod was unprepared, had poor lighting - which surely Fox could have asked them to fix before the show - started rocking back and forth, but they also have a lot of subtle ways of manipulating the audience. If you watch their other shows, the hosts use facial expressions and negative tones of voice to express what they want viewers to feel about the topic - look like they’re having an orgasm when they mention Trump, scowl and use a derisive tone for Democratic politicians. Some of that was going on with Waters’ smug smirk, but I think he detected quickly that the mod was an easy target and he didn’t have to do much for the intended effect. For some reason the interview drifted to the interviewee’s personal life vs. antiwork, too, and that’s intentional imo.
I was really active in that sub at the time. Fox or CNN or something contacted the moderators about an interview. The mods discussed it and decided to decline. IIRC, they later made a post about not accepting interviews until they felt they were more ready to present clear goals, and maybe pull someone from the community to be a "official" spokesperson.
Then a mod went rogue and did the now infamous Fox interview. That was bad, but recoverable. It was further shenanigans by the moderators in the immediate aftermath that caused the schism into work_reform. Before my exodus from reddit, I followed that community closely, but never got as involved. At the time, I remember thinking that the mods felt more reasonable than in antiwork, but that quickly changed too. Eventually they effectively became mirror subs.
Then RIF got shut down and someone told me about this lemmy federation where I could post about all the gay space communism and fringe technology I wanted. I think that I am happier now overall.