There are a lot of mental health issues that are pushed over us in what remains of our open alt spaces, we need ways to mediate the damage, to help the people who spread this mess. The path of the #mainstreaming is corrosive to the alt cultures it feeds on. The cycle is always the same:
- Radical ideas emerge → They are raw, open, and challenging.
- Mainstreaming co-opts them → Dilutes them into something marketable.
- They become performative → Used as branding by the #fashernista left, while the right weaponises the left’s discarded tools (like direct action).
- The original movement is discredited → The real alternatives get buried under a mess of victimhood narratives, NGO bureaucracy, and “respectable” gatekeeping.
Composting this mess, one way is radical openness, but in a way that is intentional rather than naïve:
- #4opens as a grounding principle → The more we expose the internal workings of a movement, the harder it is for power politics and NGO rot to take hold.
- Affinity-based organising → Trust-based, decentralised, and responsive, avoiding the traps of rigid structures that get hijacked.
- Resisting the urge to close → Every time a movement feels under attack, there’s a knee-jerk reaction to centralise and control. That’s how we lose.
- Recognising how #dotcons manipulate OPEN/CLOSED → They’ve mastered open for them, closed for us, and turned it into a system of social control.
To take these step we need to admit we live in a gatekeepered world, yes the old media gatekeepers are gone, but what we have now is worse. The illusion of openness in the #dotcons masks a totalitarian model of control that makes traditional media censorship look almost quaint. Until we acknowledge that, every alt project will keep getting swallowed or broken from within.
The challenge for #OMN & #openweb is that we need to rebuild media and organising from a place of resilience, not just reaction. The #geekproblem, the #NGO mess, and the left’s failure to defend its own tools have left us in a weak position, but there’s still compost to grow something from. So, who’s ready to get their hands dirty?
