#??? i guess???

[putting-kinito-in-places]

under

undertale?

pick ur poison anon or else he'll come to your house aswell ^_^

[shady-ratt]

Thinking about how the Albatross Captains would get hated on/ cancelled if they had the internet

Gillion - Being a minority (Fish) & Being accused of mistreating Pretzel by people who don’t know what a Frogtopus is

Jay - Doxxing someone & not putting a TW on a video where she shows off her guns

Chip - Accidentally (Or on purpose) saying a slur

[thetrashthatsmilesback]

Watcher, Capitalism, and the Petite (Petty) Bourgeois

So the whole Watcher controversy has revealed an interesting misunderstanding of what constitutes "the rich" or capitalist beliefs. The major theme that arose during the controversy was the sense that Shane in particular had gone against his previously stated leftist beliefs - that he had, for all these years, taken up a humorous aesthetic of anti-capitalism without actually believing in what he was saying. I believe that this is due to a breakdown in definitions as they become spread to the general public. Dissemination of information is a good thing, and I would never argue against it, but one problem which arises from concepts spreading to large groups without context is that often the actual meanings break down until they are vastly different from their original, academic denotation. This is, I believe, what happened with the phrase “eat the rich” and its current colloquial usage.

I want to preface this with the fact that nothing I am about to say applies exclusively to Watcher, or that the Watcher staff have done anything wrong or misrepresented themselves. I also don’t think that the Watcher fanbase is wrong at all – the situation just happened to spawn arguments both in defense of and critique of the Watcher team which indicated, in my opinion, that an understanding of “the rich” in a capitalist society is not well understood. Disclaimers out of the way, let’s get into this.

During the controversy, two major sides arose – those who had begun to see the Watcher crew (in particular Steven, Ryan, and Shane) as “the rich” or ruling class in a capitalist setting, and those who argued against this by arguing that as Watcher is a small business, and not the upper 1%, they are not included in the definition of “the rich” expressed by leftists. I want to focus in on the counter-argument that Watcher being a small business just trying to survive means that they are not considered “the rich.”

In Marxist theory, there is a small group called the “petite” or “petty bourgeoisie.” This group is defined as those who both own and contribute to the means of production – aka, small business owners. Marx himself wrote little about the petite bourgeoisie, predominantly referencing them in passing in his essays The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850 and very briefly in The Communist Manifesto. He does happen to criticize this group in the little writing he did on it, “Marx derides what he sees as the petit-bourgeois self-delusion that, because it combines both employment and ownership of the means of production, it somehow represents the solution to the class struggle. This class was progressive in a limited sense, as witnessed by its claims at various times for co-operatives, credit institutions, and progressive taxation, as a consequence of felt oppression at the hands of the bourgeoisie. However, these were (in terms of the Marxist view of history) strictly limited demands, just as the ideological representatives of this class have been constrained by their own problems and solutions” (“Petite Bourgeoisie - Oxford Reference”).

Now, it is very important to note that team “Watcher is a small business” aren’t completely wrong in their positioning of Watcher’s attempt to raise more revenue as Not Evil Capitalism. Marx’s belief was that eventually the Petite Bourgeoisie would be pushed into the proletariat class. I also am not positive that Watcher is a classical small business – they very well could be a worker co-op. A worker co-op is a business where the workers have ownership of the company, and significant representation on the board of directors(“What Is A Worker Cooperative? – U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives”). While some criticism of worker co-ops from a communist or socialist view exist, they are generally seen as a more socialist approach to the typical small business model.

I couldn’t find direct confirmation that Watcher is a co-op. One point against them being one is the use of titles such as CEO and Owner, but these designations could simply be for tax and paperwork reasons. Watcher is an objectively small company, they have between 25 and 30 workers, and most people cite them currently having 27 workers, but in the past they have employed interns and I am unsure of if they currently have interns on board so I am going to stick to the range. It would be incredibly easy to have a worker co-op with 25-30 people, you wouldn’t even need voted representatives; everyone could just be on the board and contribute to decisions. I figured the next best approach would be to see what the roles on Watcher’s shows are – if Steven, Shane, and Ryan contribute significantly rather than just showing up and looking pretty on camera, then there is a good chance they might be functioning as a worker co-op more than a traditional business or small business.

To do this, I decided to look at Watcher’s largest show for each co-owner. This means Ghost Files, Mystery Files, Puppet History, and Steven’s food series. These numbers broke down as follows:

Ghost Files: Ryan is listed as a Creator on all Ghost Files videos. Ghost Files Debriefs do not have writers, so that role will not be held against them on those videos. Ryan and Shane were listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held a Writer, Editor, or Sound Mixing role.

Mystery Files: Ryan and Shane were listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held a Writer, Editor, or Sound Mixing role.

Puppet History: Shane is listed as a Creator on all Puppet History videos. He is listed as a Host on all videos, an Executive Producer on all videos, Writer on 4 videos, and never held an Editor or Sound Mixing role.

Steven’s Food Series: Steven is listed as a Host and an Executive Producer on all videos, but neither ever held an Editor, or Sound Mixing role. This show does not require a writer so this will not be held against him.

*Do take these numbers with a grain of salt, I wrote this while in class so its possible that I missed something.*

Looking at those numbers, the main three do predominantly just film, but I don’t want to devalue the work that goes into being on camera. They are still generating capital by acting, I simply wanted to clear up confusion I had due to seeing people say they edited every Ghost Files video. From what I can see, they don’t do the editing, but as executive producers they likely have to review every video before it goes out. I also still can’t fully come to a conclusion on if the company can be considered a worker co-op, but I believe it is a standard small business – aka, the petite bourgeoisie.

All of that leads to the final point – the way that people only began to view the three lead Watcher members/founding members as “the rich” after the announcement of the streaming platform shows the way that leftist theory has become divorced from some of its meaning. I saw several people arguing “you guys can’t recognize the rich”/”you guys would attack doctors and lawyers under the guise of eating the rich,” and yes its true that doctors who work in hospitals are proletariat, but if a doctor opens a private practice or a lawyer opens a private firm, does that render them more bourgeoisie or more proletariat? At what point do the petite bourgeoisie become a part of those who we disavow? I don’t actually have answers to these questions, and I’m sure people much smarter than me or better versed in economics have written on this (one source I found that seemed good while I was skimming it despite its age is this one https://www.jstor.org/stable/2083291?seq=3 ). I didn’t make this point to argue one point over the other on whether Watcher counts as “the rich,” but more to focus on the way that term gets used. The argument could be made that we could have started questioning Shane’s anti-capitalist beliefs the moment he helped start a company, but we didn’t. We only started to criticize him on the basis of hypocrisy after the announcement and its out of touch comments. This raises so many questions about how we use the term “the rich” now – does it refer to anyone we dislike who is financially stable? Has the term become completely divorced from its original meaning? Or were we being hypocrites all along? Has Watcher Entertainment always been incongruent with Shane’s implied political beliefs? Is there a certain point at which the petite bourgeoisie become a part of the financial aristocracy? Or is that term only relegated to the industrial bourgeoisie, is it reserved exclusively for those in financial positions that no artisan could ever hope to reach?

Is it possible that both arguments are correct regarding the Watcher boys, and all other members of small business ownership and management positions? That they are both “the rich” but not a part of the proper bourgeoisie?

I don’t know. I find it fascinating though.

[teecupangel]

Just as an indirect thing from one of your recent answers: from those times where the animus actually changes history, what is happening to Wikipedia?! How are they affected versus apparently the rest of the world enough for Wikipedia to be changed?

Wikipedia is affected like everything else XD

But no one realized unless it's one of those who are unaffected with how the timeline is changed.

It's not like Wikipedia is time travel proof XD

...

Oh god, it would be funny if it was though. Like people would check Wikipedia and be, like, "???" because of how inaccurate some of the info are so they edit it and it was like... nothing's wrong at all.

What if the server Wikipedia uses is a POE that does have anti-time manipulation powers???

What if the best way to know if someone is messing up the past is checking Wikipedia??? XD

[sunnydale-high-school-rumors]

um hi...i saw Cordelia Chase chatting up Buffys weird boyfriend at the Bronze...Summers seemed real upset about it, too. she better watch out, Cordelia might steal him, i hear she likes older men...

damn trouble in paradise between arsonist and weird guy who hangs out at a club and has negative social skills. Who would’ve thought

[goddess-reborn]

@sasstras-gaze

SEND HELP @skynapple I’VE BEEN OBSERVED BY DADDY ASTRA 😭😭😭

[ro-sham-no]

two brothers on a motel bed, a poem by me

[meanbossart]

Much to think about

[cipheramnesia]

The reason I probably shouldn't be allowed to make movies is I have no impulse control and I would immediately make something called Revenge Of The Dead Tranny Hooker. It would be about a trans woman trying to break into acting, but no one wants to hire her for anything except playing a sex worker who gets murdered. Then one day she does an open casting call which runs her through a series of increasingly bizarre line readings, which it turns out are meant to summon an eldritch demon to grant the movie producer god-like powers.

The culmination is supposed to be sex on the casting couch, but she ditches at the last minute, destroying the ritual and splintering the extradimensional entity across California. She unknowingly receives powerful extradimensional blood, while the rest of the fragments seek out the powerful and violent people of the world. Meanwhile the movie producer uses his new powers to transform his PAs into henchcreatures, and sends them after the protag to finish her off. She discovers her new powers in the ensuing fight, which also seem to be gradually altering her body every time she uses them.

The rest of the movie is a steadily escalating game of cat and mouse between trans woman and movie producer. While the former transformers the fragments into powerful psychic weapons like chainsaws and spiked bats, the later uses fragments to make himself bigger and physically stronger. At first the fights are short and brutal, the protag outmatched and outgunned, but she gets more confident to the point of an anarchic battle of against the LAPD led by a demonic police captain, including a scene where she stands on the roof of a speeding police car and rips the driver through the windshield.

Her eventual form is some kind hyper sexual draconic mantid squid rippling with biomechanoid components. In the fight with the producer he thinks he's winning by tearing apart the last of her human flesh, but this just complete her transformation, letting her easily overwhelm him. It's implied from that point forward she plans to conquer the world.

[kingzombear]

Lil doodle between comms but I wanna expand on this concept, someone was like "what if they swapped personalities" and I was like 🤔

[oocmadagascar]

What the hell is this

[dj-crack]

You know you fucked up if Among Us is calling you an idiot

[solphases]

small scenery practices

I blend my colors on the canvas itself so I hope ya'll don't find the palettes there too distracting

[lesbomaticlove]

so i had another idea because of pinterest

[deep-space-lines]

put some pants on. slut

[ikayblythe]

A new transliteration of the Rain World scripts

An update to this. I am the original creator of that interpretation, and to be fair I'm a little tired of not getting proper credit for it.

The entirety of this was done by comparing the 'alphabets' to our own, and assigning phonetic values from there. The logographs were interpreted similarly, but with Mandarin 'etymology' instead. I wrote...quite a bit! About it! You can read the individual interpretations for each symbol in the doc below: