We stand for active online struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity within the timeline and the newsfeed in the interest of our fight. Every Poster and discourser should take up this weapon.
But logging off rejects online struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a gross, problematic attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain cliques and individuals in the timeline and the newsfeed.
Logging off manifests itself in various ways.
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because they are an old acquaintance, in the same fandoms, someone you have actually met in the physical world, a close friend, a loved one, an old mutual or longtime follower. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going off for hundreds of posts, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the feed and the individual are harmed. This is one type of logging off.
To indulge in having any opinions about anything in private instead of actively putting forward every single thought that passes through your skull in a post. To say nothing to people to their faces but to subtweet behind their backs, or to say nothing on the timeline but to go off in the private groupchat. To show no regard at all for the principles of online life but to make decisions in private. This is a second type.
To refrain from posting a Take about things if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. I SEE YOU NOT REBLOGGING THIS. This is a third type.
Not to join in with hashtags but to give pride of place to one's own opinions. To demand to be listened to on social media but to reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.
To admit you just don’t like someone and you’re arguing with them because they’re annoying instead of entering into an argument and insisting that your 134-tweet thread about them is disinterested struggling against incorrect views for the sake of empathy and justice. This is a fifth type.
To read incorrect views without immediately posting a comment and even to read problematic remarks without screenshotting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.
To be on Facebook and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or turn the comments on someone’s picture of their dog into a fight about Kamala Harris, and instead to be indifferent to controversial topics and act like there are other things a human being might conceivably want to talk about, forgetting that one is a Poster and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Poster. This is a seventh type.
To see someone defending Bean Dad or whoever we’re all supposed to be mad at this week, and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop them or call their boss and try to get them fired and hang up in frustration when their boss has no idea who Bean Dad is. This is an eighth type.
To post half-heartedly without a definite plan or seething rage; to post perfunctorily and muddle along—“I’m just going to scroll while I wait for the bus, then I’ll put my phone away.” This is a ninth type.
To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the discourse, to pride oneself on being Popular Online, to disdain minor controversies while being quite unequal to massive shitstorms, to be slipshod in posts and slack in staying in the loop. This is a tenth type.
To be aware of one's own bad posts and yet make no attempt to correct them, taking a logged off attitude towards oneself. This is an eleventh type.
We could name more. But these eleven are the principal types.
They are all manifestations of logging off.
Logging off is extremely harmful in the discourse. It is a corrosive which eats away hiveminds, undermines ganging up on people, causes apathy and makes people suspect they might have something better to do with their time. It robs the newsfeed of hundreds of identical posts and strict discipline, prevents callouts from being carried through and alienates the timeline from the vast majority of non-twitter-using humans whom the timeline claims to speak for. It is an extremely bad tendency.
Logging off stems from privileged selfishness, it places having a life first and the interests of the discourse second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational logging off.
People who are logged off look upon the principles of Posting as abstract dogma. They approve of Posting, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their logging off by Posting. These people have their Posting, but they have their logging off as well--they talk Posting but practice logging off; they apply Posting to others but logging off to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.
Logging off is a manifestation of good mental health and conflicts fundamentally with Posting. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature, there should be no place for it in the ranks of the discourse.
We must use Posting, which is positive in spirit, to overcome logging off, which is negative. A Poster should have largeness of mind and they should be constantly logged on, looking upon the interests of the discourse as their very life and subordinating their personal interests to those of the discourse; always and everywhere they should adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all bad posts and problematic celebrities, so as to consolidate the collective life of the timeline and strengthen the ties between the timeline and the people who hear about viral tweets three days later on CNN; they should be more concerned about the timeline than about any actual human being, and more concerned about what other people think of their posts than about their own wellbeing. Only thus can they be considered a Poster.
All woke, based, active and upright Posters must unite to oppose the logged off tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.