this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2025
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Lefty Memes

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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.

Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.

If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.

Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!

Rules

Version without spoilers

0. Only post socialist memes


That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)


0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility


We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.

We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.

When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.


1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here


Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.


2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such


That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.


3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.


That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).


4. No Bigotry.


The only dangerous minority is the rich.


5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.


We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.

(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)


6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.


Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Whilst the meme is overtly sexual, the underlying message of the meme isn't necessarily: Some of the humour that I found in this meme was the idea that sex work is often particularly stigmatized in a way that I finds baffling, because in a sense, we're all selling our bodies to avoid choking under capitalism (Though I realise the meme doesn't invoke sex work specifically)

However, I do feel like invoking sex generally has a useful rhetorical function. The first thing I thought of upon seeing this meme was the idea of consent; it's most frequently discussed in a sexual context, but I think the world would be better if consent were something we properly considered in other contexts to. Given that coerced consent isn't consent, the meme causes me to question the extent to which I am consenting to the exchange of my labour for basic life necessities.

Granted, most people aren't prone to overthinking memes to this extent, but also these aren't necessarily things I'm consciously thinking when I see a meme like this. You may find this cringe, but different people respond to different kinds of messaging. I do also find it somewhat cringe, but in a self-aware manner, which, for me, negates much of the cringe. Besides that, I am (or historically have been) a prude, and because of this, memes that invoke sex in a glib manner helps to remind me to not take things so seriously.

This is all to say that your preferences are your own, and they're as valid as anyone else's in this space. However, for some people, dumb, crass memes are a part of their leftism. There's no reason why it shouldn't be, for the people who find that useful.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Consent is the thing you get so it becomes the other persons pfoblem and legal liability when things go wrong. We get it tons of places!

Edit: which us to say: giving a shit is more important than getting it.