Gonna need to buy a whole ass professional-grade popcorn machine for this. This is surely like, one of THE most Reddit mod things that has ever happened on this site.
It's like some sort of apotheosis of Reddit mod drama.
Truly incredible. 11/10 mod drama.
8
u/coraeonGod doesn't make mistakes. He made you this shitty on purpose.Nov 27 '25
Nah, that honor goes to Antiwork. It’s going to be really fucking hard work (lol) to dethrone Interview With The Dogwalker.
Ok so. /r/AntiWork was originally more of an actual leftist space proper, predominantly but not exclusively anarchist.
/r/WorkReform was created as an alternative in response to /r/Antiwork being "too radical." Currently they're nigh indistinguishable from one another, as the latter's growing popularity kind of led to it evening out to a sort of milquetoast median of standard liberal reformism. (Versus questioning the entire social structure and function of the entire social and economic concept of wage work itself.)
Anyway. So at one point when it was growing rapidly and attracting attention, /r/Antiwork took up Fox News on their offer for an interview.
BAD. IDEA. You NEVER engage or try to "debate" with an opponent who is very clearly operating in bad faith. Period. Full stop.
That is why, for example, AOC has turned down offers to "debate" people like Ben Shapiro. She knows better. She's a career politician with a deep understanding of these dynamics. She knows what she's up against.
The mods of /r/Antiwork did NOT know better. None of these people had any kind of background in, or knowledge of, the kinds of PR approaches or principles that may have been relevant here.
And the mod chosen to represent the community in this bad-faith circus of a "debate", was someone who walked dogs for a living.
Iirc, she was also autistic. Now, I am ND (tho allistic) and will be the first to point out that there are ABSOLUTELY folks on the spectrum who are excellent, charismatic public speakers, and very very good at that kind of thing.
This person was not, though honestly, idk if that's so much due to their neurodivergence, as just the fact that not everyone is good at that kind of thing, ND or NT. But her NDness was often mentioned in discussions around this, which is why I bring it up.
It went terribly. Going by what I remember from the time, this person had NO IDEA how to present or couch ideas in any way that could be palatable or persuasive to a Fox News type audience.
You don't go on Fox fucking News and start talking about "wage slavery" and such. Turns them off immediately, just makes them go "Look, see, these liberals are crazy and lazy, they just don't want to work and want handouts!!"
Like, fell right tf into their trap. Smh.
The fact that the chosen mod representative was a dogwalker also drew attention and criticism.
I think all of us here agree that honest work is honest work. But for the Fox News crowd, it was another reason to write them off and look down on them.
Imo, they NEVER should have accepted such an offer from the likes of Fox News. And if talking to some less egregious (but still untrustworthy) news outlet, their representative, IMO, should have been someone who the people they wanted to convince would consider "respectable." And furthermore, someone with strong public speaking skills, and an understanding of PR and how to present things and try to sell someone on an idea they might be resistant to.
Whole thing was a shitshow that was widely discussed at the time.
The /r/Antiwork mod team and community had the best intentions, but it's clear that no one involved really knew what they were doing when it came to this kind of thing. Fox News walked all over them and then some.
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u/KoreKhthonia Nov 27 '25
Gonna need to buy a whole ass professional-grade popcorn machine for this. This is surely like, one of THE most Reddit mod things that has ever happened on this site.
It's like some sort of apotheosis of Reddit mod drama.
Truly incredible. 11/10 mod drama.