I AM LESBIANDIAS

Now, before you go, "Oh wow this lady's defending CEOs," hear me out. CEOs often know how bad their company is doing. In fact, they probably know better than journalists and us. A big part of their job in a publicly-traded company, however, is to pretend that their company is doing well and, in fact, better than ever and this is all growing pains and that this is a big part of a master plans to expand the company to have wider reach than ever (it does not matter that we're a Yoghurt company; billions' gut fauna must flourish) so that investors and shareholders do not divest. When the Microsoft CEO says, "We want to entertain billions," while laying off workers, it's not because he thinks that his company will actually entertain billions; it's because he has to put on the same act as that one dril tweet about corn cob. You know the one.

“It’s tempting to assume”: someone’s assumption is about to be criticized

By 'low-impact' do you mean impact on the material reality of people's lives, of politics, of marxism? Do you think that someone can make art that is effective propaganda without meaning to?

I agree that people especially on the 'art appreciation' website will have strong reactions to that statement as did I when reading it, I think it would be silly to expect otherwise, but I think it's something worth thinking about. I'm not super well-read even though I'm trying to fix that and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter if you have a moment.

i mean, like, any individual media object just has an extremely low impact on the world, materially and politically. when art or even specifically directed propaganda has influence on the world, it is in aggregate, as the manifestation of a cultural trend or the characteristics of mass media production--for instance, i don't think gears of war or top gun are individually very influential on the world in a vacuum, they are simply individual examples of the very influential billion-dollar mass culture imperialist propaganda industry.

and like, in case where a particular work or piece of propaganda can be singlehandedly influential, the properties of the work itself are secondary to the material factors propagating it and the political factions adopting and appropriating it. like, to take a very extreme example, the protocols of the elders of zion became a hugely important pillar of global antisemitism because of its usage by the black hundreds and later by white russian emigres, not because of some remarkably convincing element of its own rhetoric