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Comment by Edman274 | Hacker News Reader

> then how can it be true that Doreen still represents the movement

Represents the "movement", or represents the sub? They obviously still represented the sub - they were there when it got created, were a moderator, were picked by other moderators to be a representative of the subreddit in media events (which is conflated with the nebulous concept of "the movement")

The issue here is that the "movement" may not be represented by Doreen, but there may not even be a movement outside of the sub, and they do represent the sub. A lot of people treat "the movement" and "the sub" as basically being equivalent. They may actually be equivalent. If the sub shut down, there isn't really any guarantee that the same kind of antiwork internet discourse would be as loud, focused and frequent as it is right at this moment.

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Representation is really at the heart of it. What the article left out was that Doreen was asked by mods and by the community(by poll) not to participate in the interview. She did it anyway.

The broader social epistemic question of "what makes someone a representative?" or "How do people gain the social status: representative?" is the most interesting part of this. Reddit itself plays a role in the construction of representative status by visually framing mods in the sidebar under the subreddit rules section leading people to mentally label both as the rules and rule-makers of the space. There are examples of mods in other subreddits also being representatives, making it natural to apply that syllogistically and generally to all Reddit communities.

If a mod created the sub, and actively participates, but is disavowed as a representative, are they still a representative? Would this have changed if the interview had gone well? How does representation work when communities disagree? Antiwork members don't see Doreen as a representative, but individuals outside of antiwork do. Does that make her a representative or not? It's fascinating that what is obvious to one person is a tremendous number of questions to another.

>If a mod created the sub, and actively participates, but is disavowed as a representative, are they still a representative?

by reddit's rules, yes. You have to be fundamentally destroying a decently large and active sub before the admins step in and kick out a mod. But the number of times this has happened in 15 years can be counted on one hand.

Otherwise, admins don't care about what mods do with their subs. seniority first, most senior mods ultimately has the power to kick out everyone else and ban every user if they wish. And that's why these kinds of "movements" are doomed to fail under reddit's structure.

You could ask the same about Fox - which is hardly ground zero for sanity itself.

Does it represent a movement, or a TV channel?

If it's a movement, by what process was it elected?

Point being I doubt anyone at Fox was unhappy with how the Doreen interview turned out.

Did they ask to interview anyone else from the sub?

All this really does is highlight the difference between online opinionation - always easy - and effective activism. The latter is much harder and absolutely needs informed - ideally effective and professional - handling of public presentation and messaging.

"The latter is much harder and absolutely needs informed - ideally effective and professional - handling of public presentation and messaging."

That sounds like a ton of work.

Yes activism is hard, which is one of the reasons why social media gave rise to slacktivism instead. It's a low effort gratification that is reinforced by ones social network.

It's one of the issues with subreddits as they get larger. Low effort "look how great I am for standing up to my boss" posts win the day.

> Point being I doubt anyone at Fox was unhappy with how the Doreen interview turned out.

Yeah, and what else could you expect from Jessie Waters? He's a smug propagandist, and people like Doreen Ford are perfect for his message. It's pretty stupid to cooperate with him unless you 1) agree with him, or 2) have good reason to believe you're up to effectively representing yourself to a hostile audience through a sleazy host, all of whom are more interested in mocking you than listening to you. And frankly, if they ask you for an interview, it that's probably good reason to believe #2 is false.

Fox is a selective amplifier like most news media. They pick topics that make their beliefs look good and much more importantly topics that make their enemies look terrible (see the antiwork interview)

And on more than one occasion, I've seen them pick interviewees who seem completely unqualified to speak on a topic. For example, I once saw an advocate for free universal college interviewed. It was some idealistic college student still going for their undergrad talking about how it's what "everyone deserves" and would "make the world a better place". The interview was a brutal public lashing. Regardless of where you stand on the topic of free universal college, I think we can all agree that it makes sense to speak to an expert on the topic, not someone in their late teens still trying to find their footing in this crazy world. That interview was uninformative and just plain cruel.

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