Counter-Currents
A Note from the Editor
They Like Me! They Really Like Me!
Greg Johnson
492 words
In March, we added three new features to every Counter-Currents/North American New Right article: (1) a “Tip Jar” donation button, (2) a “Like” counter, and (3) a Facebook “Recommendation” button. (We also added a “Twitter” button, but I am gratified to see that my disdain for Twitter is shared by our readers who have not, to my knowledge, ever “tweeted” about the goings on here.)
First of all, I want to thank all of you who have been using the Tip Jar. One of the reasons we instituted the Tip Jar is to provide encouragement to specific authors. Counter-Currents/North American New Right can’t afford to pay authors for their online work. Not yet, anyway. Thus we created the Tip Jar to allow you to directly support authors you like. The idea is that if one of our authors hits the jackpot from time to time with a particularly good piece, everyone will be encouraged to write more.
But so far, with a couple of exceptions, all of our Tip Jar donations have not been earmarked for specific authors. So if you really want to encourage a particular writer, please be sure to indicate his or her name and the article you like. Paypal allows you to write a note to recipients.
Second, we also added the “Like” and Facebook recommendation buttons to provide quantifiable feedback and encouragement to our authors.
Like most of you, I think that voting, polling, and Facebook are silly. We wouldn’t be elitists if we didn’t.
But our readers aren’t just anybody. You’re special. Your opinions really matter. They matter to us. They matter to our authors. I can personally verify that whenever I look at my articles, the first place my eye goes is to the “Like” and Facebook recommendation tallys, and when they rise, I get a small thrill. All of us feel a bit alienated from the culture around us, so even these little tokens, silly and arbitrary though they may seem, mean something. We feel less alone, like we are not wasting our time and talents.
But these only work if you actually use them. And most of you aren’t. For instance, in April, our most-read, liked, and recommended article was the “Debate on the Northwest Imperative”: 5,616 reads but only 34 Likes, 103 Facebook recommendations, and zero Tip Jar donations. So I know that only a fraction of the readers who like our articles are bothering to click the “Like” counter or recommend our articles on Facebook. Our authors know it too.
But still, I wonder. And they wonder too. Don’t they like me? Don’t they get it? Am I wasting my time? You might think it is silly. It is silly. It is just another aspect of how the internet facilitates insane levels of metastasizing, all-consuming narcissism. If these functions did not exist, nobody would care about them. But now that they are there, please use them. Otherwise, Jef Costello might have a nervous breakdown.
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5 comments
I’ve tried to click those buttons many times. They don’t work for me (Firefox 4.0 on Linux).
That said, I think the benefits of the Like/Dislike concept far outweigh the negatives because it lets authors and commenters get feedback and encouragement from readers. I left a few comments on alternative right recently, and to my surprise people started clicking the Like button on some of them. In one instance, they clicked the Like button 35 – 40 times for what I thought was a pretty trivial observation. Yet something about that comment caught peoples’ eye in a way I didn’t anticipate. It was interesting feedback. It shows you never know which ideas, language or formulations are going to resonate with somebody.
Good example. It shows clearly how these sorts of feedback mechanisms can actually work to make our movement more intelligent and effective.
The Like button doesn’t work for me either. It may need javascript on to work. Many of the more paranoid readers are going to keep that off when reading dangerous ideas. If there’s a plugin like button that doesn’t need javascript more people might click it.
I think the best way to show appreciation for an article is just by living a good comment, either negative or positive, as long as it is constructive. Sharing it at Facebook is not a bad option either, I do that a lot myself. I guess the Tip Jar option is not a bad idea either but Twitter is obscenely pointless in my view. I still don’t get the purpose of Twitter. I suppose I never will.
I don’t think Twitter should be written off completely. Some of the content here does have the potential to catch on with a larger audience through the “tweet” / “retweet” process. Trevor Lynch’s film reviews come to mind, as does the recent article on AC/DC.
Up until recently, I too have regarded Twitter as utterly moronic. Facebook too. However, my opinion of the utility of Twitter as a means of pushing ideas is changing now that my wife has 1200 “followers.” Among them are a US Congressman and a Hollywood actor.
I could see material like Trevor Lynch’s reviews of Sucker Punch and Atlas Shrugs potentially hitting a lot of movie buffs outside of the regular CC audience via tweet / retweet, and some of those people might choose to return.
In addition, all of the bright young White people are also plugged into social media these days, including every future writer, grad students, academic and artist. Some percentage of this demographic is no doubt going to be disaffected from the mainstream culture and looking for something different, and they are going to be used to finding things and getting their information through Facebook and Twitter. A social media presence might therefore make it more likely for this youth demographic to find CC.
To be sure, social networking is used in downright stupid ways by many people. On the other hand, these technologies are not going away though. They’re already deeply embedded in society, especially among the young, and revolutionaries need to look forward not backwards.
Google: TPM the networked tribe
It’s a cranky anti-White pissed that White mainstream cons are using social media to spread ideas he doesn’t like, including racist ideas from VDARE and Amren.
As CC grows in influence, and hopefully it will, the Twitter issue might be worth revisiting.
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