We are living through a deep crisis, not just of environment, economy, or governance, but of imagination and the will to live. The old systems are visibly broken, the #IPCC reports confirm what many already feel, we are trapped inside a #deathcult, and #mainstreaming culture offers only distraction, careerism, and status games for isolated individuals. There is no hope there.
But hope is not some fluffy optimism, it’s a social force. And in every grassroot, federated, #DIY tech project, the solution is always the same, more people. Not more gatekeepers. Not more hierarchy. Just more people. This is the core truth of the #OMN (Open Media Network). It’s not a product, it’s a process. It’s not a startup pitch, it’s a compost heap where good things grow, if we turn it, feed it, and invite others to join in.
We already know how the far right wins, they appeal to real feelings of injustice, then twist those feelings into #stupidindividualism that serves their own #nastyfew class interests. It’s reactionary ideology, and it’s spreading fast. What do we do? Step away from their game. Get involved in building something different. The #4opens is a simple, powerful tool to judge who’s building towards the commons and who’s just repackaging and pushing the same poison.
This needed “common sense” path, this break, we can start to use shovels to turn over the ground we grow from. When we do this, one thing that is fertile is that in the end, all social action happens through generalized talk, categories, metaphors, shorthand. That’s how language works. But we live in a cultural amnesia where this is forgotten, mistaken for “common sense.”
This is why the very different tech projects of the #OMN actually embraces this messy, human space, while the more mainstreaming #geekproblem seeks rigid machine-like CONTROL. This is a question of balance, yes, they’re often technically right, but socially intolerant. We, by contrast, are often technically wrong, but humanly right. What we need is a bridge between these approaches, or we’ll just keep circling.
The #OMN project use some control; the #geekproblem needs a lot of humanity. The current hard blocking is that they don’t see this, and so they keep #BLOCKING. For example, take the common pattern where someone says, “why don’t you just develop it?” That line unconsciously dumps all responsibility on narrow “geeks” while ignoring the role of social imagination, UI/UX design, and the deeper process we’re trying to solve together. That’s the #geekproblem: not the code, but the refusal to look at the problem outside the code. So here we are again – rinse, repeat. Let’s not. Let’s build the bridge.
For the last 5 years conversations have been about, the #Fediverse, #Web3 and more recently the pushing of #mainstreaming into the #openweb native path. But despite this, the fediverse is still a notable outlier in the digital landscape. This is in part because unlike the dominant tech trends, which emerge from Silicon Valley and the cross-Atlantic #dotcons agenda, the fediverse is rooted in European ideals of decentralization, federation, and digital autonomy, it’s a “native” openweb project.
When you step outside, into so-called “global” tech events, you’re hit with a wall of #techshit nonsense. Looking back, when I used to bring up the Fediverse at these events, the reaction was predictable: blank stares, polite nods, and then a quick return to parroting the latest #bluesky, #blockchain, talking points. This tells us that the techshit is still mainstreaming and more native paths will continue to be invisible to most people looking for real decentralized alternatives.
One of the issue that pushes this is Identity Politics, in our own spaces, beyond the tech sphere, this issue impacts the Fediverse and grassroots media projects or more precisely, its misapplication dose. By overemphasizing individual identity over collective struggle, leftist and progressive movements fall into fragmentation, making them easier for the #nastyfew to co-opt, divide, and neutralize. This is not to dismiss identity politics outright, systemic oppression is real, and addressing issues of race, gender, and class matters deeply. But when these struggles are disconnected from broader grassroots organizing, they are easily absorbed into the neoliberal agenda.
This is the normal mess dressed in a dress, to push a likely unhelpful metaphor. We’ve seen this time and again with corporate tokenism of big tech and NGOs pushing superficial diversity while maintaining exploitative structures. This “thinking” leads to co-optation of radical movements, which are watered down into harmless social branding exercises that don’t threaten power. Feeding divisiveness, when instead of organizing collectively, activists are pitted against each other over micro-issues, while top-down power structures remain untouched.
The central question is who gains power, the only question that matters in activism, are we giving more power to the centralizers, or are we shifting power to the grassroots? Everything else, culture wars, internal leftist feuds, academic debates, is secondary. And the normal reality is that our current #mainstreaming always leads to power centralization. When the path we need to take, requires discomfort, real change, which is never easy. And right now, we are still stuck in this mess, watching many in the #Fediverse waste time repeating liberal nonsense instead of challenging the #neoliberal dieing old world order.
This leads us onto the illusion of the liberal “centre”, where many so-called progressives are still worshipping the #deathcult, by amplifying right-wing culture war narratives. Why? Because it’s easier. The liberal-left is caught in an endless cycle of reacting to right-wing provocations instead of fighting systemic power. The truth, is that the “centre” is not holding, the centre is never going to hold. And that if you refuse to choose a side, both the left and the right will decide your fate for you. Liberal fence-sitting has always been about the rise of reactionary forces, both online and offline. Thus, if you’re still spending your time fighting over petty internal issues while ignoring the big-picture consolidation of power, you are helping the system you claim to oppose.
What’s can people do? A good first step is building real alternative’s. my example is the #OMN projects and growing the Fediverse, this means: Keeping focus on systemic power, not just individual experience that people keep focusing on. Actively pushing back against co-optation, building truly decentralized native alternatives, not only clones of corporate platforms. Rejecting the culture war distractions and pushing real organizing.
The Fediverse should be better, it’s one of the last remaining spaces where you can create rather than just consume. But we won’t get there unless we actively fight for it. So the question is: Are we ready to stop feeding shit and start building something real?
Remember when drone deliveries were going to revolutionize shopping? When every major news outlet unthinkably reported that we’d have autonomous quadcopters dropping off toothpaste and Amazon boxes on our doorsteps?
Or when 3D TVs were the future of entertainment, pushed so aggressively that manufacturers stopped making non-3D models for a while? Where are they now? Rotting covered in dust in clearance bins or forgotten in garages.
Then there was the Internet of Things (#IoT) hype, your fridge was supposed to talk to your toaster, which would text your smart kettle to boil water before you even knew you wanted tea. Instead, we got insecure, surveillance-riddled devices spying on us for #dotcons corporate profit.
And we need to not forget #blockchain, #NFTs, and the endless #Web3 hype? Each was pushed as a revolution, yet all followed the same pattern of hype, vulture capital gold rush, and then, inevitably, disillusionment. NFTs went from “the future of digital ownership” to being silently abandoned by even their most vocal promoters.
Why do we keep pushing this #techshit? Every time a new #mainstreaming tech fad appears, it follows a predictable, boring hype cycle. First, it’s marketed as the next big thing, a must-have, must-invest, must-embrace technology. Then, sceptics, like this site, are ridiculed as out-of-touch or anti-progress, at best or simply trolling at worst. But when the promised revolution never materializes, we quietly move on, forgetting the past mistakes and priming ourselves for the next wave, this is a rinse and repeat cycle.
We need more people to say, “Not this again, you were wrong last time”? So we have space to ask why do we let the wannabe #nastyfew feed us this mess, why do we let it slide, allowing the same marketing binds to #blind us over and over?
The answer is that we have our heads down worshipping a #deathcult, and this is the pushing of #fashernista tech, the cycle of embracing new trends not because they work but because they fit the cultural moment. A mixture of corporate propaganda, social pressure, and the desire to be seen as forward-thinking creates a path where critical thinking is drowned out by #FOMO (fear of missing out). It’s fear, simply fear.
How do compost this? A first step is, instead of dismissing critics, we should embrace grounded scepticism as part of a healthy tech culture. The goal isn’t to reject all new technology, it’s to demand real, meaningful progress rather than letting corporations sell us snake oil over and over. There’s a hashtag for that: #nothingnew, a reminder that most “revolutions” are just recycled ideas repackaged for a new round of exploitation.
This is part of the native #openweb story, not just about technology, but about culture. We don’t need to mindlessly adopt every new fad. Instead, we should compost the hype, extract what’s useful, and discard the corporate waste. Yes, it’s messy. But that’s what being native to the #openweb means.
The media’s focus on Trump’s spectacle over substance pushes the current #mainstreaming path. By focusing on his contradictory statements, they keep the news cycle spinning around noise (words) rather than signal (policies and actions). This distraction benefits those on the #powerpolatics path, that is pushed with little scrutiny while the public and journalists remain fixated on the smoke and mirrors of the rhetorical outrage mess.
The #KISS media’s role needs to be exposing the real consequences of his administration, focusing on who is profiting? Billionaires and corporations received massive tax cuts, while working-class wages stagnated. And who is suffering? What institutions are being gutted? What laws and policies are being enacted or dismantled?
The real story is the looting of the old #mainstreaming system while distracting us all with mess. By chasing every outrageous statement, journalists failed to cover how the new #mainstreaming#nastyfew is looting the remains of the old #nastyfew system. The distractions, bombastic rhetoric, manufactured culture wars, scandals, have a role to play, they bury the obverse of enriching from dismantling public institutions.
The progressive majority must focus on real accountability and action. Instead of reacting to every piece of nonsense, progressives need to cut through the noise and push for more independent journalism that prioritizes policy analysis over personality-driven coverage. Community-driven movements that expose corruption and mobilize against real threats. Structural reforms that break the cycle of #nastyfew capture and maintain public control over essential institutions.
It’s not about what they say, it’s about what they do.
An example of this is The United States Agency for International Development (#USAID) which was presented as a humanitarian force for economic and social development worldwide. However, its origins and operations paint a different much darker path, of geopolitical manoeuvring and #neoliberal hegemony over the last 40 years. Now, with the hard shift to the right, USAID is being gutted, alongside other long-standing institutions of the U.S. “liberal” global order.
Origins and the Cold War Agenda, founded in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy, USAID was pushed into view as a means to promote global development. In truth, it was the normal Cold War weapon of this era, countering Soviet influence under the guise of humanitarian assistance. The Foreign Assistance Act centralized foreign aid and explicitly tied it to U.S. geopolitical strategy. This was done in the open, Lyndon B. Johnson admitted that food aid was leveraged to redirect recipient countries’ spending toward military and security cooperation with the U.S.
A very easy to see example of this was the Food for Peace program, which used grain shipments to coerce nations into rejecting Soviet assistance. With famine relief being politicized as a tool for control, India, for instance, had to tone down its criticism of the U.S. war in Vietnam before receiving necessary aid.
Covert operations, as a soft power arm of the #CIA, despite meany of these institutions being branded as independent agencies. In 1973, Senator Ted Kennedy directly questioned whether USAID was involved in Southeast Asian covert operations. The answer was a resounding yes.
In Guatemala, during the genocide of the Mayan people in the 1970s, USAID funded and trained police forces to conduct counterinsurgency operations against leftist movements.
In Uruguay, USAID’s Dan Mitrione personally trained security forces in torture techniques, including electroshock and psychological warfare.
In the 1980s, USAID facilitated “non-lethal aid” to Contra forces in Nicaragua, effectively ensuring they remained combat-ready despite congressional restrictions on military support.
In Peru, USAID financially supported dictator Alberto Fujimori’s forced sterilization program, targeting 300,000 Indigenous women under the guise of population control.
Perhaps the most infamous case was Afghanistan, where #USAID provided millions to the University of Nebraska to develop textbooks filled with anti-Soviet propaganda, using religious rhetoric to radicalize young Mujahideen fighters. The blowback in globe mess from these operations is still felt today, a compleat shit storm of mess making.
With the fall of the USSR, these old #coldwar institutions pivoted towards more #neoliberal capitalist economic restructuring, pushing deregulation, privatization, and free-market reforms in post-Soviet states. Democracy promotion was a pretext, but only for “democracies” that aligned with U.S. corporate interests. Any “independence” risked financial punishment or outright regime change operations. This was a disaster for much of the region, which we are seeing play out in the Russia Ukraine war.
Post-9/11: The security state expansion saw budgets balloon, increasing by 70% between 2001 and 2003. The agency became more directly aligned with military operations, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. In these war zones, USAID’s stated mission of “nation-building” was a flimsy cover for consolidating U.S. control over shattered economies. The real work of development, tackling poverty and fostering stability, was an afterthought compared to the securing American military dominance in the era.
Trump’s “Draining the Swamp” what is this about and what will be likely outcomes: Oligarchy pushing #neoliberal chaos vs managed hegemony, These institutions were a tool of imperial control, but their removal creates a vacuum. The likely outcome is that private corporations and unaccountable privatised military contractors will increasingly step in to replace state-controlled influence operations.
We might see the growth of right-wing Isolationism with Trump’s America First rhetoric leading to a defacto disengaging from directly shaping international development, but not from coercion. Economic sanctions and direct intervention (as seen in Venezuela) remain the preferred tactics for managing the mess these polices create, there is a very dangerous feedback loop here.
There is a shift to cruder authoritarian paths, instead of “soft power” the replacement actors and institutions are based on direct strongman alliances, reinforcing a world order based on brute force rather than, shadowed economic manipulation.
What should the progressive left do? Rather than mourning the loss of USAID and other Cold War institutions, the left should take this as an opportunity to redefine internationalism. Instead of #neoliberal “aid” programs that uphold global inequality, we should be pushing for:
#KISS grassroots solidarity: Development led by those directly affected, not dictated by the #nastyfew imperial wonabe powers. A seed of this is the #OGB project.
Decentralized cooperative structures to replace hierarchical and state-controlled #NGOs with open, transparent, and accountable networks. A seed of this is the #OMN projects.
Reclaiming media from the #nastyfew Influence and control: With US funded media outlets shutting down, now is the time to push for independent, radical journalism free from state agenda. A seed of this is the #indymediaback project.
What we need to focus on is opposing the #deathcult in all forms, whether #neoliberal soft power or #Trumpist strongman tactics, which obviously both serve the interests of the #nastyfew class. A real #KISS alternative means dismantling or mediating global #capitalism itself. #Trump’s destruction of the old world institutions is another step in shifting power from one faction of the #nastyfew to another. The question that matters isn’t whether these institutions should exist, it’s what we build in their place, and how we gain the power to become the change and challenge to do this #KISS
This is at the heart of the contradictions and confusion in the political landscape today. The liberal and left muddle, where elements of economic populism are shared across ideological divides, is something we’ve seen before, especially in the 1930s, when fascist movements co-opted working-class grievances while pushing reactionary nationalism.
Lets looks at history #Bannon, like the Nazi Röhm long before him, plays a dangerous game by mobilizing working-class anger against neoliberal “elites” but steering it toward nationalism rather than genuine class struggle. The key difference is that Bannon, unlike the decedent Röhm, seems aware of how these power games play out, he’s studied history and applies these lessons to manipulate movements in favour of the #nastyfew being pushed into power. The economic critiques overlap with parts of the left, but his solutions (corporate nationalism, authoritarianism) are the very real danger. The question is: how do we make these distinctions clear to people trapped in the populist right-wing narratives? We need a strategy to cut through the confusion:
Recentre on Class Struggle (#KISS#classwar) by striping away the nationalist framing and refocus on economic realities: who actually benefits from policies? Who holds power? Expose how right-wing populists co-opt class anger but always serve capital in the end.
Expose the fake anti-establishment, Bannon claims to fight “globalists,” but his solution is just another form of “elite” rule, corporate fascism, not worker control. The “anti-tech bro” stance is surface-level; fascists historically seek state-corporate fusion, not any real accountability.
Build a networked radical alternative, left populism needs to be clearer, bolder, and independent of liberal NGO-driven paths and politics. We need grassroots led movements like the #OMN
Break through the media fog, #Mainstreaming and #dotcons push right-wing populism by treating it as an acceptable part of discourse rather than a threat. Use independent media (like #indymediaback) to reframe the conversation on more clear class terms.
The 21st Century Struggle is about climate, class, and collapse. This isn’t just about fighting fascism, it’s about surviving #climatechaos and social collapse. The solutions that emerge now will shape the next century. If we allow the right to set the terms, we end up in corporate #feudalism. If we organize and push a real alternative, there’s still a chance to shift to something better.
How do we sharpen this message so it cuts through the noise? What channels do you see as effective? We need working change and challenge #KISS
Much of academia post-1990s is just a shadow of the #deathcult, stripped of radicalism and repackaged into careerist, bureaucratic loops. It became another self-referential path, detached from real world struggles. The privatization of knowledge through paywalled journals, corporate funding, and NGO capture made sure of this.
The same thing happened with #FOSS and #opensource, once about radical openness, it was watered down when organizing shifted to closed chat systems and corporate-friendly platforms. We lost the #openprocess that made early public archives powerful.
Then you have, Modern Art, once revolutionary, was quickly absorbed into the cultural arm of the #deathcult, turning radical expression into a commodity for the #nastyfew. It’s the same cycle over and over:
A movement starts as a real challenge to power.
It gains momentum.
Power co-opts it, waters it down, and sells it back to us.
People will keep doing stupid things, that’s inevitable. The job is to call it out, push better paths, and make sure they don’t repeat the same mistakes. It’s not glamorous, and it won’t get you applause, but that’s how real social change works.
The cat meowing, the #fashionistas, whether intentionally or not, keep blocking the left’s paths by turning everything into aesthetics and performance rather than actual power-building. They chase whatever is trending, constantly rebrand, and ultimately reinforce the #mainstreaming forces they claim to resist.
Meanwhile, the right organizes, funds, and builds real infrastructure, they don’t waste time on purity politics and endless internal fights. That’s why they keep winning.
So what do we do?
Stop trend-hopping, we need long-term strategies, not just momentary viral moments.
Build real alternatives, tech, media, organizing spaces that serve movements, not just “woke” branding.
Own our narratives, not get trapped in the spectacle of liberal discourse and right-wing outrage cycles.
Get our hands dirty, shovel through the #techshit, compost the failures, and grow something real.
This is about taking control back, not only reacting to the crises the nasty few push us to manufacture. Radical media, the #openweb, grassroots organizing, these are the things that cut through the noise and shift power back to where it belongs.
The #4opens act as a foundation to hold back the tide of the post-truth world, they enforce transparency, accountability, and community control. Without them, everything drifts into manipulation, closed power structures, and co-option by #dotcons.
It’s a chicken-and-egg issue because we need social trust and active participation to maintain the #4opens, but those same values are constantly eroded by the #mainstreaming forces of the #deathcult.
The #OMN is crucial because it builds digital commons as a form of social technology. It’s not just about the tech, it’s about the relationships, trust networks, and shared values that make it work. Once we have this space, what we do with it is up to us, but it has to be grounded in real, radical alternatives, not just another tech silo.
That’s where the rebooted #indymedia project comes in. It’s built on the #PGA hallmarks, which means it’s explicitly anti-capitalist, decentralized, and activist-driven. It can’t function within the corporate media sphere, so it has to exist in a #TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone)—a liberated, self-organized space outside of state and market control.
Wikipedia gives a decent artsy take on #TAZ, but in practice, it’s about creating spaces where radical alternatives can actually live and grow. #PGA is the backbone, an old grassroot global framework for direct action and real-world resistance.
The key is building trust-based networks that aren’t easily co-opted. If we don’t do this, the cycle repeats: good projects get absorbed, neutralized, or just fade into irrelevance.
The internet’s origins are tangled with the military-industrial complex, designed for resilience in the face of catastrophe. But the protocols themselves, once set loose, created a playground for anarchistic experimentation. The lack of centralized control allowed people to build without permission, and that openness birthed the wild, decentralized internet we briefly glimpsed.
It was an accident, but an accident we can repeat. The #dotcons crushed that brief era of freedom, but the same dynamics that let the early #openweb flourish still exist. The #4opens, the #Fediverse, #OMN — these are our tools to recreate the “mistake” deliberately this time.
What if we embrace the idea that technology can escape its creators? Maybe we can compost the current #techshit and let something even more resilient grow. What do you think? Should we lean into the idea of building “mistakes” on purpose?
It’s well past time to pick a side. For decades, the internet has been being enclosed. The one’s living decentralized network of commentary sites, blogs, forums has been corralled into a handful of paved prison yards controlled by the #dotcons. With most people’s attention and thus freedom being in the hands of a #nastyfew oligarchs. Every post, every ‘friend,’ every creative work is locked behind closed doors, and when push comes to shove as it is now, you will increasingly find that you don’t have the keys.
But the keys still exist, and it’s not so hard for you to pickup them up. There has been a #openweb digital jailbreak going on for the last 5 years, if you value your humanity you need to become a part of this blackout, put the key in the lock and turn it.
OK, yes, maybe a little strong, the #openweb isn’t a utopia, but it’s the closest thing we’ve got to freedom online. It’s built on the #4opens: Open Source: The code is public, hackable, and accountable. Open Data: Information flows freely, not hoarded for control. Open Standards: Interoperability beats lock-in monopolies. Open Process: Transparent governance, not shadowy boardrooms.
This #fediverse path is an escape hatch from the #closedweb. It’s not a product. It’s not something you can buy stock in. It’s a network of interconnected platforms like #Mastodon, #Lemmy, and #PeerTube to name a few, all running on the open protocol #activertypub. It’s messy. It’s human. And it’s yours if you take it.
It should be easy to see that the #closedweb is a digital prison, a mausoleum for human creativity, dressed up like a theme park. It’s run by billionaire-controlled #dotcons and polished by the illusion of safety sold by the #encryptionists. Who keep misshaping our paths. What did they offer? Control: Your identity, your data, your connections — all owned by them. Manipulation: Your timeline, your reach, your visibility — dictated by algorithmic gods. Exploitation: Every interaction, every word, every click — another drop in their profit bucket. We’ve eaten their lie that the internet had to be this way. That Meta, Google, and the hollow husk of Twitter are the price of admission to digital society. But simply, it was never true.
OK, I get your apathy, why does it matter? Because when we blur the lines, we lose the fight. People pour energy into platforms that wear the clothes of progress but are stitched with threads of control. We need to clearly label projects as #openweb or #closedweb, so people can choose where to dig in and build. The #4opens are our shovels, and the remnants of failed #web03 promises are good compost to start on. Let’s turn the decay of false hope into fertile ground for real digital commons.
The internet wasn’t built to be a machine for ad revenue. It was built to connect the paths for radical, collective steps we need in today’s mess.
This post is about controlling the narrative, not letting the #nastyfew dictate the terms of engagement. Too often, we let them set the agenda, reacting to their every word instead of actively building the alternatives we need.
Their power isn’t just in what they do, it’s in how much space they take up in our minds and movements. We amplify their mess making when we obsess over their rhetoric rather than dismantling their actions. This is why we need composting, not fixating.
The #Fashionistas in Activism problem is real, when people latch onto whatever gets them attention instead of doing the hard, messy work of creating change. Chasing buzzwords, getting caught in endless reaction cycles, this is what keeps us stuck. We need to be the ones setting the agenda, not just replying to theirs.
Focus. Build. Compost the mess. That’s how we win.
In activism, the term “#fashionistas” captures individuals and groups, especially within #NGOs and advocacy organizations, who latch onto trendy causes or ideologies, not out of any commitment, but more to appear relevant and to align with the latest social currents. This is corrosive to meaningful change, reducing activism to performative gestures rather than a sustained struggle for justice.
Superficial engagement comes from, when they rush to adopt the language of trending movements (like #BLM, #MeToo, or #ClimateJustice) without committing to their radical roots. For example, after George Floyd’s murder, many corporations and NGOs posted black squares on #Instaspam as a symbolic gesture. But what followed? Few made concrete policy changes or redistributed resources to Black-led grassroots organizations. It was activism as aesthetics, empty gestures, rather than the systemic action that was called for.
Lack of authenticity, when organizations prioritize optics over substance, this breeds distrust. Consider the influx of NGOs claiming to champion digital rights but quietly partnering with Big Tech for funding. The grassroots developers working on genuinely decentralized platforms are left unsupported, while the NGO pointless/parasite class absorbs attention and resources, all while pushing and reinforcing the #deathcult paths they claim to oppose.
Mainstreaming, activism, loses its teeth when it’s tailored for palatability. Take the way climate #NGOs soften their language to avoid alienating corporate funders, pushing “net zero” narratives instead of demanding degrowth and direct action. By sanitizing radical demands, they reinforce the status quo rather than confronting the power structures driving #climatechaos.
Misaligned priorities, chasing trends, means resources get funnelled away from sustained struggles. For example, the fleeting attention on #Palestine waxes and wanes with media cycles, while groups doing year-round solidarity work scrape by with minimal support. #Fashionistas flock to hashtags when they’re hot, then move on, abandoning communities who still face oppression once the spotlight fades.
Reactive rather than proactive, when #fashionistas are caught chasing the next big thing rather than strategizing long-term solutions. Think of the explosion of interest in #openweb media during political unrest, a real issue, yes, but one that reveals the broader failure to build #4opens, community-run digital infrastructure proactively. The #OMN project exists precisely to address this, but it’s hard to gain traction when attention constantly flits to the crisis of the moment.
Rectonery, the most toxic aspect of fashionista activism is its tendency to reinforce the systems it claims to oppose. When #NGOs adopt radical language but stay within #mainstreaming paradigms, they create an illusion of progress. For instance, diversity initiatives in tech are often superficial, leading to token hires rather than dismantling structural racism or addressing the #geekproblem that keeps tech culture hostile to outsiders.
How do we compost the #fashionistas mess? The answer lies in prioritizing authenticity, long-term commitment, and meaningful engagement. This means, centring grassroots voices by funding and amplify people working on the ground, not just polished, and mostly pointless #NGO campaigns.
Rejecting mainstreaming, by being willing to alienate power on radical paths. This changing of path needs us to building infrastructure, like #OMN and #indymediaback to grow autonomous spaces outside corporate control. Historical awareness, matters, to remember our past struggles, rights and freedoms were won by collective action, not #PR campaigns.
What, we don’t need, is more buzzword-chasing #nonprofits. We need shovels, compost, and a commitment to grow something real from the ruins of the #deathcult. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the only path to lasting change. Let’s start digging.
In the bigger picture. The best revenge against the #nastyfew is simple: don’t talk about them at all. What fuels them is attention — the endless cycle of fixating on their every move. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, keep the focus on the ideas and the collective struggles, not the individuals causing the mess.
Talk about the systems, the structures, in the US the republicans, not the disruptive few seeking to derail the conversation.
Ignoring the #nastyfew is the most powerful revenge you can take. Stay grounded, stay collective, and keep it #KISS.
To start to make things better this is a mess that we constantly need to compost, over the last ten years, it’s wild how people barrel into grassroots tech projects like #OMN behaving like paranoid #fuckwits, wreaking havoc and then scampering off to nurse their self-inflicted wounds. This nasty pattern repeats so often it feels badly scripted. And yes, this is VERY crap behaviour. Please, try not to do this. Thanks.
The people who do this are often #fashionistas chasing the latest fad or the #NGO prats clinging to crumbling institutions, or the geeks blind to anything beyond their screen. What they have in common is that they are all unknowingly (or knowingly) kneeling at the altar of the #deathcult. They do this by dragging in their #mainstreaming assumptions, wielding ‘common sense’ like a cudgel, and are oblivious to how it shatters the delicate, horizontal culture the real #4opens we need grows from.
On the #fediverse, we’re witnessing a growing native/non-native culture clash. Which is not inherently bad, friction sparks growth. But when the horizontal crew, the ones refusing to play the #mainstreaming power games, consistently get trampled by this, then we have a problem. The commons reputedly collapses under the weight of imported hierarchy and fear-driven control.
This #mainstreaming pushing of mess and more mess, means we need shovels, lots of shovels, to dig deep and compost this wreckage back into fertile ground. The tech? It’s just scaffolding. The actual building is made of people, mythos, and tradition. It’s a historical flow, as is everything of value. But instead of embracing this flow, people, in the grip of #stupidindividualism, push hard for self-destruction and distraction. It’s almost like they want the #deathcult to win. And in this world, where the economic machine grinds everything to dust, this is a hard problem to shift.
We need to become the change and challenge to break this cycle, to remember our own history, back when we did things better, back when we built #indymedia, not just as a tool but as a living, breathing community. A space where the value was in the social fabric itself. The path to do this is in federating out to a non-(owned) branded networks. Building the flows, the undercurrents, the radical gardens of storytelling and truth. It’s time to stop licking the self-inflicted wounds and get our hands dirt to start digging again.
On this, the #OMN hashtag story is a shovel, we need to actively use to dig through the layers of decay in the tech mess. It’s a tool to help us compost the rot of the #deathcult and plant the seeds of a new, living, breathing #openweb.
I have had a working, growing plan for the last 20 years: to use #hashtags to seed affinity groups of action. This isn’t tech, it’s about creating the movement that actually make a difference. #Hashtags are more than metadata; they’re flags, rallying points, paths leading through the chaos. And in this #Fediverse based reboot of the #openweb, we finally have the space to take this path to push the needed change and challenge.
I’ve been exploring this path for years, you can dive into my thoughts on it here. But what we really need is a home for this practice, a network where these seeds can grow into something tangible. Because fighting back doesn’t need to be complicated. It’s how every “common sense” right and freedom we enjoy was won in the first place: by pushing, not just defending.
The commons won’t protect itself. We haven’t yet effectively used the openings we have to defend our digital commons. Over the last 5 years, we have pushed to expand this space, as history shows, the best defence is an active attack, not with weapons, but with action, storytelling, and a refusal to let the #mainstreaming mess suffocate this motivation.
A part of this plain talking, calling out the #nastyfew instead of talking vaguely about ‘elites.’ Let’s name the problem, plant the seeds, and grow the alternatives. The path I outline in the #OMN can be used to shape this living network, a flow where our history informs our present, and where collective action mediates the cycle of destruction. It’s time to remember our history, build the native #4opens path, and stop waiting for someone else to save us. We have the tools, let’s start digging.
The #dotcons have turned web searches into a cesspit of algorithm-driven consumerist and political ideological propaganda. What was a tool for discovery and connection is now a tightly controlled funnel, pushing people towards preordained narratives and commercialized echo chambers. Nowhere is this more obvious than on Google, the go-to gatekeeper of information, where what you find is shaped not by the richness of human knowledge, but by whatever serves the interests of the #nastyfew with power and capital.
This isn’t just an “inconvenience”; it’s a crisis for public knowledge and collective memory. When dissenting views, grassroots history, and alternative voices are buried under layers of #SEO spam, ad-driven results, and opaque censorship, we lose the ability to shape any understanding of the world. So what’s the plan to step outside this mess?
A real path is to build and use the #openweb to actively shift our habits to support networks, platforms and projects built on the #4opens principles – open source, open data, open process, and open standards. The #OMN (Open Media Network) is one path to reclaiming these collective narratives, by creating decentralized, community-driven archives where stories are curated by people, not algorithms.
With the #dotcons shift to #AI in everything, resisting this algorithmic trap is key, that the more people understand how these systems blind us, the less power they have. Building native #4opens tech is a very good first step, then teaching media literacy, by running workshops on the dangers of algorithmic control, and spreading knowledge about decentralized alternatives, so this can gradually chip away at the illusion of choice presented by the #closedweb paths.
This is a big step to #Rewilding the digital commons, the web was meant to be a messy, vibrant ecosystem, not a manicured, walled garden. We need to plant seeds in neglected corners of the internet, build hyperlocal networks, and use peer-to-peer tech to share knowledge directly. The more we create and share outside the #dotcons, the harder it becomes for them to control the narrative.
The next step is to create and nurture alternative search tools, we used to run an instance of #Searx which is #metasearch tool which works outside the algorithm as much as possible. But we had to shut this down due to lack of support, this lack of support is a real continuing issue we urgently need to overcome, we need users, contributors, and champions to increase usage of these tools and promote their development to build the infrastructure for an alternative discovery layer that need to bypass the #dotcons.
This is based on #KISS just do it, don’t wait for permission or a perfect alternative to emerge. Start archiving, writing, and sharing now. Build your own small-scale #4opens projects and connect them to others. The #OMN isn’t some grand centralized solution, it’s a framework for thousands of messy, local, independent nodes, each adding to a larger network of people-powered knowledge. This is a shovel-ready project. We don’t need to beg the #dotcons to change, and we certainly don’t need to play by their rules. Let’s get our hands dirty, compost the rotting remains of the algorithmic web, and start cultivating a truly human-centred internet again.
Over the last week you can see it in real time, Trump meeting world leaders, the handshakes, the staged press moments, the ass sniffing, barely concealed jockeying for position. But beneath the surface, we need to see that something bigger is cracking apart. The last 40 years of #neoliberalism, cold, calculating #realpolitik path is collapsing. The alliances of the #nastyfew we took as fixed is shifting, not because of thoughtful, progressive change but because of the hard shove of a global rightward lurch.
The world shaped by the #deathcult of neoliberalism is disintegrating, but don’t mistake this for liberation. The old deathcult is simply being replaced by a new mask, this is history repeating, not a new start. What was once masked in the language of freedom, democracy, and human rights is shedding its disguise, revealing a rawer, more brutal face to the same pessimistic human paths.
One of the most dangerous elements of this shift is the ideological bait-and-switch. The old liberal order for the last 40 years had co-opted the language of the right, with neo-imperialism of the new world order. Now, the emerging #fascist path is playing the same game in reverse, adopting the language of the left to push far-right outcomes. Talking about peace, authoritarians wrapping themselves in ‘anti-colonial’ rhetoric, hard-right demagogues claiming to fight for the ‘working class’ while gutting social safety nets, and far-right online communities using ‘free speech’ and “safety” to silence dissent. This ideological camouflage is not a glitch; it’s a feature. It confuses opposition, fractures movements, and traps the #mainstreaming in endless powerless cycles of reaction and outrage. It’s a survival mechanism for the #deathcult, a shapeshifting strategy, to ensure it evolves unchallenged.
For those of us working on projects like the Open Media Network (#OMN) that push for a genuine #openweb, this is the landscape we need to navigate. The answer isn’t to retreat or try to ‘purify’ movements from infiltration, that feeds the cycle. Instead, we need to cultivate resilience and clarity. Recognize the patterns, understand the language games, and keep building decentralized, trust-based networks that can weather the storm, both in the media and practically with onrushing #climatechaos.
The shift in both cases is happening whether we like it or not. The question is, do we use the compost of the old world order to feed the roots of something new, or do we let the poison linger in the soil? It’s time to get out the shovels.
