TOTW: Fun

fun or death! have fun or die trying!

Topic of the Week – As parts of the world are opening back up and returning to “normal”, other areas are experiencing the worst yet of the pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, there have been many stories of people picking up new hobbies, quitting their jobs, and finding themselves on new adventures in dark times. This week, we’re discussing the topic of fun.

Does your anarchist praxis include room for fun? How much fun and what does this look like? How big or small or a role does the idea of fun play into your everyday anarchy? How do you maintain and renew your sense-of-fun in your anarchist projects? Is somehow this idea of fun being related back to your anarchist ideals, a misnomer in the ever so serious “this is war” approach to life? Are the anarchist ideas of joy and play the same as that of fun? Outside, the anarchist international, what do you do for fun?

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It's not about winning, it's about fun!
What's that?
Fun is when you- fun is- It's like- it's kind of-
Sort of like a- What is fun? I-
Let me spell it for you!

F is for friends who do stuff together
U is for you and me
N is for anywhere and anytime at all
Down here in the deep blue sea!

F is for fire that burns down the whole town
U is for uranium... bombs!
N is for no survivors when you-

laughing at myself AND at others is one of my favorite activities. but in today's world, laughing at others just results in cancellation and "accountability". some people give words way too much power.

one person's fun is another's victimization.

ftfy: “I just want to be a dick to others and not suffer any consequences for being a dick so don’t cancel me it’s not fair to me!”

nope, both those responses miss by a mile. humor is subjective. i'm sure even you would agree? the point is not to "be a dick", it is to do what you do AND accept that there are consequences for your actions.

some folks equate words with actions. i do not, at least in most cases.

pro tip: you can't be "cancelled" if you're not desperately grasping for attention from strangers on the internet in the first place

yeah, I just fixed all your stupid problems in one go. you're welcome.

Hot damn, the assumptions are over the top. Just because I used the term CANCEL doesn't mean I have any experience or concern about it whatsoever. Jeez you are pathetic in your projections.

you realize you're anon, right? how do you even know I'm talking to you?

I have found as an aging adult that a guaranteed way to have fun or to get into a fun mentality ìs to meet up with your children relatives or friends kids and just talk about stuff or ask them and listen to them, because they are a tonic for serious and misery.

yes

I recently finished reading "Caught in the Net" which was a really 'fun' read. However one way I think that text relates to this topic is in which ways we are having fun? As someone who considers myself at least partially struggling with an addiction to the internet especially mass entertainment such as video games and television, I think it is important that we understand fun is not a purely positive or even neutral term. Many forms of fun are little more then commercialized replacements for social interaction and living autonomously, things to occupy the mind. Especially with media as a method of "story telling" from the high tech VR to even just the written word these mediums fundamentally change the way we relate to each other. And so when having fun it is important to consider in what ways these mediums act as methods of domination/alienation/control, in what ways that may effect us, and if we desire to be free from these methods of domination/alienation/control, how we can develop ways to have fun free from these methods/mediums.

This text "Caught in the Net" puts forth a proposal to focus more on irl gatherings and spoken word as methods of communication (while still leaving room for information gathering from the web to share at these gatherings). I think in a similar vein online space can be used in such a way as to cultivate irl fun, escaping from these other methods (even if one only temporarily), such as in the promoting of irl gatherings through online mediums (such as the promotion of the Earth First! gathering online). It would be beneficial to see this as a starting point, not the goal in itself, and even more could be done to extract fun from these methods of domination. (For example crafting offline networks through these gatherings so that people are less and less reliant on online updates to hear about them.) At least in my mind the goal is fun completely free from the mediation of the state, capital, civilization, tech etc etc. The process then is crafting ever changing ways of relating to each other that gets closer and closer to that goal.

Another thing within this connection between fun and tech (or anti-tech may be better phrased) which I have not heard discussed much outside of this text is helping people deal with Tech addiction. I believe this idea of tech addiction and fun ties heavily to drug addiction and fun as irl gatherings (especially those focused on fun) will sometimes have separate sober spaces or itself be a sober space. And similarly I think it is possible for irl gatherings of different sorts to be places where people can have fun that isn't mediated through technology, and in that space have help doing so if that is wanted. So just as Straight Edge culture and sober spaces help to cultivate fun free from mediation of drugs similarly anti-tech culture and tech free spaces can help us cultivate fun free from the mediation of tech.

An anarchist society would be more fun, so having fun is prefigurative politics. It's important to not just be a soldier for the anarchist cause but to be a human, and having fun is a part of that. Most of my fun is related to more explicit anarchist activity anyway!

"Il me faut vivre ma vie."
~Jules Bonnot

Of course. Anarchism is fundamentally about hope. Hope is fun. Sharing anarchist memes, mocking fascists, and simply playing boardgames with comrades are just some of the few ways I incorporate fun into my praxis. ~

Right
Here we go now
A sociology lecture
With a bit of psychology
A bit of neurology
A bit of fuck-ology
No fun

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