1. It's antiquated and arouses imagery and iconography that IMO many have negative associations with. (I'm leaving this a bit vague intentionally.)
2. Framing oneself or a movement as "resisting" is to frame one self or a movement in a weaker, defensive position. It's better to use to language that indicates actions and offense as opposed to defense.
3. Because of 1 this opens up typical lines of attack and characterization that make one's "resistance" an easy rhetorical target. No unforced errors.
I don't have a sense of what would be a better alternative, but probably throwing things against the wall until something sticks/galvanizes people makes more sense. Something like "assert yourself", "push back"/"fight back", "take it to 'em" etc.
We are drowning in sterile PR speech already, sometimes an earnest “fuck the system” resonates better with the intended audience.
Not clear how you linked what I said with "corporate drone training" since the thrust of my comment was about what would make good rhetoric for fighting the authoritarianism in the U.S.
> Not all sort of countercurrent has to follow the same academic advice to create harmless, defensive and ultimately forgettable prose.
I'll point out two things: One, there's an inconsistency in your characterization of my comment. First you said it was the language of corporate drone training, now you're saying it's academic speak.
Two, I didn't advocate "defensive" prose. I suggested abandoning language that implicitly frames the the movement again authoritarianism in the U.S. as in a defensive movement and thereby in a weaker position than it actually is. I argued "resist" is an example of this defensive language that should be abandoned. If you're against defensive prose, I'd think you too would be against defensive terms as well.
> We are drowning in sterile PR speech already, sometimes an earnest “fuck the system” resonates better with the intended audience.
Yes, indeed. My whole comment was about having language that is not defensively frame, but that is playing offense. In fact "fuck the system" could be such language. Although to note "the system" is vague and so has risk rhetorically because it easily allows an audience to think what you mean by "the system" is what they, the audience likes by "the system", which leads to the audience you're trying to find common cause with to reject your movement.
Resistance sounds like some shortform offensive action, I'd prefer something more long term that shows a better path or what you're missing out on. The people I see who uses aggressive language like that aren't who I want to be around with ironically enough.
I’m keeping my chatgpt subscription though.
>the most radical action in capitalist society is not participating
So that’s why they are after NEETs now?
But you’re still buying stuff. So either using a different shipping service or spending the money on diy shipping aka drive to store.
It’s not about the specific example though. Merely pointing out that removing a subscription doesn’t inherently remove the need/want it is fulfilling and associated spending. You can’t move the overall market down if you’re just shifting economic activity between players in it.
You’d need to get people to actually spend less and forgo the needs/wants entirely. Which is a tough ask and I don’t think is particularly viable
Personally, I think the whole system needs to be reformed.
Boycott Target | Ticker | Before (1/30/26) | After (2/13/26) | % Diff
-------------------------|--------|------------------|-----------------|--------
Amazon | AMZN | 239.30 | 198.79 | -16.93
Uber | UBER | 80.05 | 69.99 | -12.57
Meta | META | 716.50 | 639.77 | -10.71
Alphabet (Google) | GOOGL | 338.00 | 305.72 | -9.55
Paramount (Skydance) | PARA | 11.21 | 10.32 | -7.94
Netflix | NFLX | 83.49 | 76.87 | -7.93
Microsoft | MSFT | 430.29 | 401.32 | -6.73
Apple | AAPL | 259.48 | 255.78 | -1.43
Dell | DELL | 114.44 | 117.49 | +2.66
Comcast (Xfinity) | CMCSA | 29.75 | 31.57 | +6.12
AT&T | T | 26.21 | 28.69 | +9.46
Marriott | MAR | 315.30 | 353.89 | +12.24
Charter (Spectrum) | CHTR | 206.12 | 239.09 | +16.00
FedEx | FDX | 322.25 | 374.72 | +16.28And effects of this, resist and unsubscribe, wouldn't be a factor so quickly. AFAIK this only launched less than a week or two ago.