You're right. He has been mocked the whole time, and mockery isn't the determining factor.
He has simply played out his power arc. The same mockery that didn't land before now lands, because he's on the downside.
Populism depends on emotional support from the people, but if you don't have a framework that actually meets the peoples' needs (or is effective at controlling them) you just rise as the restless populace tries you, then fall as they toss you aside.
This is not his Achilles heel. His Achilles heel is doubt. Populism depends on belief, and is inherently unstable.
He started doubting. His people stated doubting. He is now going down, and the ridicule he always dishes out now also lands for him.
The mockery of him has been constant from day one.
I think of 'Linux' as more general, unfiltered, anything-linux. But, maybe we should make a 'linuxdailydriver' or something.
Really, I think it's a missing feature in Lemmy.
Have a meaningful separator, and allow subcommunities, where all posts are included in the larger community unless explicitly filtered out by the user. Also mods could configure that the more general one doesn't receive posts, and you have to select a subcommunity when posting.
So, subscribe to linux and you automatically see all subcommunities (including ones created after you subscribed to linux) linux.tech, linux.support, linux.newusers, etc. ..but not those you've filtered out.
Or, keep "linux", the more general name, as welcoming as possible, and have "linuxusers" for chat driven by people who are familiar with it as a daily driver.
Yeah, I'd rather have this be the unfocused/general/noob/"everything linux" community, and have links in the sidebar to more focused communities that might want to filter out some noise.
Yeah.. It's socially way easier to undergo the process of
sweet. I installed Linux, I'm going to join in and participate and share my experience!
cool, nice to see other people enjoying it..
posting relevant support requests, thoughts, etc
time passes maybe i should join this /c/linuxtalk (or whatever the power/familiar/long-timer user community is called) that's mentioned in the side bar..
Than to undergo the process of
sweet. I installed Linux, I'm going to join in and participate and share my experience!
post deleted "please read the community guidelines, you should be posting in /c/linuxnoobspam"
posts a noob question
post deleted "read the sticky on new installations."
In a sense, making /c/linux the general landing zone for Linux, with a lot of noob and unfocused posts seems like a good idea to me, with links to more-specific Linux communities shared in the side bar as the community grows.
Perhaps, that they get off on the whole process of projecting "this person is so awesome and can't fail!" because it feels good and gives them hope, and what's wrong with good vibes anyways, amirite? ..along with that goes a lot of physical resources and torrents of surface-level emotional support.
..until the person buys into it wholesale because it's all they're fed, and, because they think they can't fuck up now, they start fucking up. Once they start fucking up, opinion starts turning. As opinion turns, the emotional support dries up. Obsessive adoration becomes obsessive hatred, person by person. What was manageable when everyone helped is no longer manageable when everyone fights you. You feel betrayed, and care about the people less. You make more shitty decisions. A feedback loop occurs, until the person realizes (well enough) what's going on, and ducks out of the race, or buys into the negativity and adopts that as their self-view, or (occasionally) just handles the strain and breaks on through to the other side.
Meanwhile, people got to feel hope (yay, wasn't that nice?!) and "justified" hatred (i mean, clearly he's the asshole! What a fucking power mongering dickhead!).
And, what do you need after all that? Hope! Let's find something positive to think about!
It's cringey. That's not to say that Musk's behavior isn't also cringey - it's just clear to me that the cringe isn't centralized on him, it's well-distributed. There are a LOT of people that are just as trashy - and it's generally the people that are all about burning him down (most of whom were all about building him up before).
The fun part is - even though I find it all really interesting, cringey, etc, at the end of the day, I kindof don't care. I'm just watching people get what they deserve. I wish they deserved better, and maybe they will someday - but their own behavior has 'em locked in a loop.
We all fuck up sometimes, but at least it's somewhat self-limiting, even on the massive collective scale.
The thing that's so laughable and tawdry is that the people that hate him now are generally the same ones that worshipped him before.
Make a god out of some random person, then demonize them. Build them up, then burn them down. The whole thing is pretty cringe of the general public.
The same dynamic happens with actors, and while they're the Darling, they do great, perform better, etc. Eventually it breaks, and public opinion turns, and then the person is the Bastard. Their careers suffer, their temperament suffers, and a lot of people drop out of the race at that point. Those who don't truly are exceptional people, but at the end of it all, don't really give a fuck about public opinion.
Musk has yet to show what he's going to do. But I knew when they were lifting him up that they'd burn him down.
Filthy things. They kind of want to be used, don't they?