this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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I've heard this phrase used often by those on the right but every time I hear it I can't help but laugh because of what I picture in my head. But perhaps my image is wrong! I want to read everyone else's depictions.

So as to not influence the responses I will not be sharing what I imagine a "woke mob" looks like.

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[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 41 points 1 month ago (1 children)

β€œwoke mob” aka - a group of people who respect others.

The opposite of the GOP mob/Fascists

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Full of people who go commit random acts of kindness and mutual understanding

The monsters!!! horrified face

(/s)

[–] MagicShel@programming.dev 22 points 1 month ago

They would all ask everyone for their pronouns regardless of how evident their gender seems to be.

[–] shish_mish@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A woke mob, aka a bunch of people who think everyone should be treated with decency and respect People who will make sure everyone is comfortable and included in their woke mob .

[–] sunbrrnslapper@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So I know it is just semantics, but for some reason I don't label your description as a "woke mob" but rather just decent humans.

Yet, I do have an image of "woke mob" that is full of college-aged people who haven't experienced any adversity, but have a desire to make a mark on the world and have chosen a really irritating way to do it. And unfortunately that very small segment of the population gives the right something to latch onto that demonstrates how unhinged the left is (even though the left is how you describe it).

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

So I know it is just semantics, but for some reason I don't label your description as a "woke mob" but rather just decent humans.

I think that was the idea

[–] superkret@feddit.org 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wow, it’s been years since I’ve seen this photo. Wasn’t the context that this dude just flashed people at an anti rape rally or something?

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yeah, that adds up. It's hard to find a "woke mob" that uniformly angry at someone who doesn't deserve it. Anyone normal will get vague undirected hostility, at worst.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 9 points 1 month ago

A couple of cops dressed in civilian clothes trying to break shit.

[–] jbrains@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A group of people who are tired of your unjust bullshit, who are not going to let you shrug it off or get away with it, and who are not going to stop confronting you with it.

[–] Trollivier@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 month ago

Have an upvote!

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Take every group conservatives are afraid of, combine them into one person, copy variations of that person into a crowd and add pussy hats.

This is not a group that actually exists, but I'm not expecting the "woke mob" person to be describing reality anyway.

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm struggling to picture the pussy hats

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago

Are you unfamiliar?

Basically just normal people because everyone is a monster in the eyes of "anti-woke" types except for themselves.

A woke mob is literally every mob. Sleeping people just sorta lie there.

[–] turbowafflz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

I feel like it would just be like a pride parade

[–] CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A bunch of insomniacs with pitchforks.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But the pitchfork tines are dildos

[–] CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

Their troll slogan has to be "Let's turn the frogs gay"

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Tbh, being woke and being in a mob are not going to go together well.

You'd either have just a big group of people protesting peacefully, or you'd have a revolution which is far from a mob in any typical sense of the word.

Remember, "woke" started as a term for awareness of systemic inequality. It doesn't directly equate to mob action in that sense, though it could involve large scale direct action which could involve the kind of action you'd think of as anything from "unrest" up to rioting, depending on the situation.

Woke in the sense that it has come to also mean is basically taking the awareness of social inequities and working to change them. This is typically not a position held by the kind of extremists that would form a mob in the usual sense. You get into people that want to overturn the system entirely, and they tend to be following some specific set of beliefs that are the goal, with any inequities being a side goal or just a part of those beliefs.

But the way the conservative, fascist, and far right twits use the term, they're just moving words around the way they used to whine about being politically correct, and before that whined because they couldn't be openly racist or otherwise bigoted. Now, this is opposed to the above mentioned categories that aren't twits, who use the word woke as a dog whistle intentionally as a way to manipulate the twits.

Don't forget, being a bigot and fascist doesn't actually mean a lack of brain power. Trying to pretend otherwise underestimates a very dangerous group of enemies that literally want to return us to a state where only white men hold power at all. Underestimating an enemy that dangerous gives them freedom to succeed.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Woke in the sense that it has come to also mean is basically taking the awareness of social inequities and working to change them. This is typically not a position held by the kind of extremists that would form a mob in the usual sense. You get into people that want to overturn the system entirely, and they tend to be following some specific set of beliefs that are the goal, with any inequities being a side goal or just a part of those beliefs.

Interesting. So the radical left in general wouldn't be woke by this definition?

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Not in my opinion, no.

Being a semi-radical leftist, I can't call myself woke at all, since I believe the entire system needs to be taken apart and rebuilt from the ground up. That's regardless of inequalities. The farther left you get, the less you find people that genuinely care about egalitarian goals at all. The really extreme left is batshit crazy, and essentially wants a fascist state, just with them in charge.

You'll see a lot of lip service about systemic bigotry and imbalance, but not much in the way of thinking inclusively. There are radicals on the left that do view socialism, anarchism, or related ideologies as the answer to systemic inequality, but to call them woke would be a stretch.

If you ever get into attempts at radical change via direct action, you'll run into people that are technically not racist or bigoted, but only because they're monomaniacal to such an extent that they genuinely think they know better and will do better, despite working from a classical place of white privilege that assumes too much. They inhabit the same place mentally as the rich white bastards that are one of the things being woke wakens you to. Can't be woke if you're still wanting to force oppressed groups to do what you want, often because "they don't know better".

That last is in quotes because it's an actual quote I have heard way too often to be willing to deal with the seriously far left. You're sitting there, in a group of a few dozen people, and there's only white, male faces. You bring it up, you ask about how the revolution will address people of color or women and work to recruit them to the cause, and all of a sudden, you're the outsider. "Black people don't have the numbers to be useful." "Women don't have the will to fight." "The blacks are brain washed by christianity and capitalism."

Those are direct quotes from real people. I've never been able to forget that specific meeting because it majorly changed how I approach working with other people that want revolution. Some people really just want the world to burn, and will latch onto whatever they can find to get them there.

I know there are plenty of non white male people that are left wing enough to be called radical, but the lefter you go, the less you see of them.

Which is all more than what you asked, but I wanted to explain why I hold the opinion. It's direct personal experience.

[–] MagicShel@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I found this very interesting. Thanks for adding all that.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

No worries :)

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

That's interesting. It's also my experience that the far left is saturated with defective personalities (and hearing someone else say it is affirming, thank you). I can't imagine most of those people giving the quotes supplied, though. How long ago are you remembering back?

Before someone says "what are you doing then", I'm still doing stuff. I do volunteer work with mainstream parties, and while the pace of improvement is glacial, it actually sticks instead of exploding into terminal infighting drama.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That specific meeting was in 98. But I had been increasing my interest and activity in socialist change for about two years at that point.

After that, I backed away from that specific set of beliefs while I reevaluated exactly what kind of change was really needed, and how it should be achieved.

I ended up less radical, and a little less focused on the exact dogma, while shifting towards more of a hope of the kind of social structure that some of the nordic countries have going. But I still think that the U.S. is going to require a non peaceful revolution to pull us back from the brink of fascism. I hope a peaceful revolution is possible, very, very much.

But I've also seen what you said, that the general left is too prone to infighting. And there's a ton of lip service without the willingness to sacrifice comfort.

That's why I tend to focus my limited resources towards reform in practice. I just don't see an actual revolution, peaceful or otherwise, happening in my lifetime.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ah. Yes, things changed a lot over the next couple decades. The last anti-idpole people were just being purged right as I became aware of goings-on in the community. I'm glad it went that way instead of the other, and people of all sorts were in the room, but in the end the exact extent of acceptance became a new thing to fight over. Is furry stuff a fetish or a type of queer identity? Is vegetarianism anti-indigenous? Are poor, conservative white people potential converts, or something like Marx's "petty bourgeoisie"? What about, like, Hindu traditionalists? These would all be good things to hash out, but polite debate is not valued.

Man, I wish Lemmy had a follow user feature. It sounds like you went through some of the same stuff I did but in gen X times.

Also, heads up that this instance is run by the Lemmy developers, who happen to be very active members of the far left. They can be ban-happy sometimes.

[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago
[–] Limfjorden@feddit.dk 1 points 1 month ago

Probably something like this. An an anti-woke mob is more like this.

[–] apotheotic@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago

David Tennant is absolutely in the woke mob.

[–] yuuunikki@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago

The only thing woke is how I woke up in your mom's bed after doing her

[–] mo_lave@reddthat.com -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Looters (unrelated to protesters) who take the opportunity in chaos to achieve their goal - which is anywhere between getting their next meal or counterprotesters trying to disrupt the whole protest