WTF, r/circlejerk??

7  2011-09-04 by A-Rex

For several days now, you can't miss it, r/circlejerk has solely been producing propaganda against Ron Paul. The entire popular subreddit has been devoted to mocking RP and his supporters. The posts regularly make it to my frontpage, though I am not subscribed.

The campaign the nullify RP's threat to the working order of things is vast an insidious. I wonder if what's going on at r/circlejerk is linked to this. Is it more than a funny prank played by some nerds online? Why do they hate RP and his message so much to go through the trouble of setting the whole thing up? Is it just a coincidence that a blogpost from the Reddit admins floats on the front page for a couple of days which explicitly praises r/circlejerk for its ruse?

32 comments

14  orotoss 2011-09-04

The are mocking Reddit's Ron Paul fans, not producing propaganda against Ron Paul.

1  Soupstorm 2011-09-04

That's social propaganda. Peer pressure works.

12  [deleted] 2011-09-04

  1. you think voting works? cute.

  2. ron paul, regardless of history or politic, is a shill for the system

  3. r/circlejerk is making fun of you.

threat to the working order of things

lol. Ron Paul is not a threat. Ron Paul is a blow off valve so people like you don't riot. Go ahead and vote. Won't do shit.

3  [deleted] 2011-09-04

  1. Maybe. Not really. I don't know.

  2. I don't think he's willingly a shill.

  3. Yes, I know. That's what I made this post about.

I agree that RP is a valve, as long as he is marginalized. He isn't dangerous if he and his supporters are shouting from the sidelines. That he and his philosophy are finding lots of ground in the the mainstream of the culture IS a threat, and it wont be tolerated. Regardless of his becoming president or not, his existence is doing a lot to bring radical ideas of liberty to people's awareness. That was fine as long as liberty was considered to be 'crackpot', but now that it's becoming popular again his influence needs to be curtailed.

5  [deleted] 2011-09-04

 2. I don't think he's willingly a shill.

I agree.

1  Halliburton-Shill 2011-09-04

There sure does seem to be a lot of talk about shills. I wonder where that all came from? Is there someone shilling shills?

5  [deleted] 2011-09-04

r/circlejerk mocks circlejerks. And Ron Paul is the Shandri-La of circlejerks on Reddit.

4  mvlazysusan 2011-09-04

The Fed thinks it's worth all the money in the world to stop Ron Paul.

-2  [deleted] 2011-09-04

[citation needed]

3  SovereignMan 2011-09-04

Are citations needed nowadays when one expresses their opinion?

2  Social_Experiment 2011-09-04

Just permalink back to your post. ;)

1  tr3n7y 2011-09-04

They are if one is a troll; pin them down by making them prove every little thing they say, while steadfastly refusing to prove or even contribute anything oneself, and then ridicule their proof; appeal to authority and ridicule are standard disinformation tactics.

4  poetryinthewater 2011-09-04

AHAHAHAHAHA I seriously thought this was a circlejerk post

3  poetryinthewater 2011-09-04

Oh my god, this is seriously the funniest shit I have ever seen on reddit

3  u_dreaming 2011-09-04

I had the same feelings about the whole thing when i first saw it, some of the post are pretty funny, but you reach a point where it is quite obvious that the goal is not to just be funny but to discredit the individual. Unrelated question: why is it that sometimes I see a dot instead of the number of upvotes in certain posts?

2  mvlazysusan 2011-09-04

Those posts with a dot are relatively new. I don't like it ether.

1  libcrypto 2011-09-04

Get RES and you can confound the dot.

2  mvlazysusan 2011-09-04

You mean Reddit Enhancement Suite?

1  libcrypto 2011-09-04

RES is how folks refer to it, yes.

3  Cronus6 2011-09-04

It's not particularly hard to mock Mr. Paul. Just sayin'.

2  DaCeph 2011-09-04

Huh? I thought they were doing the opposite, oh well.

-1  [deleted] 2011-09-04

How so?

3  DaCeph 2011-09-04

I thought by changing the theme and everybody talking about Ron Paul, they were supporting him.

0  mvlazysusan 2011-09-04

I'm with you!

Did you up-vote my post: http://www.reddit.com/r/circlejerk/comments/k3wru/ron_has_touched_more_poontang_than_the_rest_of/ ?

☺

1  DaCeph 2011-09-04

I did now

-1  [deleted] 2011-09-04

I don't think so.

1  charbo187 2011-09-04

I don't think they have been mocking him (some few posts are) but mostly I thought it has been all in good fun.

-1  [deleted] 2011-09-04

It is presented that way, but the message is that Ron Paul supporters are ridiculous, and if you support him you will be ridiculous too.

The effect is to marginalize a certain group and cast them out of the tribe.

3  charbo187 2011-09-04

I honestly only see some posts like that, the rest I think are all in good fun.

stuff like this

"If elected, I will make 1990 only 5 years ago" - Ron Paul

just seem like silly fun to me. /shrug

2  [deleted] 2011-09-04

I agree that it's silly fun, but I think it has the affect of making RP easier to dismiss. The vast majority of Redditors are Democrat types who idolize Jon Stewart. They are generally intelligent, of good-will, and want to see less evil in the world. RP has a lot to say to these people, and something must be done lest libertarian ideals start to seep into these people's brains. Ridicule, even if kindly-spirited, is an excellent and insidious way to go about this.

1  tr3n7y 2011-09-04

Ron Paul will try to cut the government before the invisible hand brings the jobs back (by-and-by), and the deregulation and tax cuts that got us into this mess would actually increase; we'd be going from the frying pan into the fire. Ralph Nader is still the solution, and he'll work as hard to nationalize the fed and the IRS as Paul would.

-5  anotheracct22 2011-09-04

You're spot on. Fuck the reddit admins, what a bunch of greedy assholes.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Richard_Nixon.jpg

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