Exploitation as a virtue: a brief thread of aphorisms on why ‘sharing rates’ is good, how poor page rates directly relate to racism in indie comics, and how white men in comics kneecap their own liberation. https://twitter.com/desertislandbk/status/1283610869482610688

Ignorance or pride re. one’s own exploitation is white identity performance. Any black person will tell you, ‘working for free’ is a problem.

So I suggest doing this sort of thing. And read the comics and see how I’m right: https://twitter.com/litebox_info/status/1283200328335228928?s=21

...the aesthetic of this cultural hegemony is a white man who somehow can survive making things “true to himself”. Things that fetched little value in mass culture; only the cultural hegemon recognizes the value. That hegemon, without fail, is WHITE PEOPLE.

When a white man props up poor wage practices look and see how the trade he’s talking about has little to no black people and/or women in it.

The supplement to a weak check is social capital. Capital hands white men a tiny check, a pat on the back, and the assurance that their social position guarantees that they’re better off than the people who are locked out of the labor market.

This social capital buys white men their place in our social hegemony. The social capital is why they consent to their own exploitation. Virtue signaling their working for free is signaling their position, their whiteness.

...in comics this social capital is “cartoonist” - bruh, NOT WORTH IT. ...but I’m sure that’s why some cartoonists or “comics professionals” think they get a pass on all types of grimy, exploitative behavior.

7. Contemporary economic exploitation requires hegemony. When a white man virtue signals that it’s ok to work for free he is reproducing hegemonic order in which he has a cozy position.

Historically race has been used as a wedge in the exploitation of labor. Capital convinced white men that selling their labor for cheap was ok cause black labor (and social reproductive labor) was unpaid.