[THREAD]

Why ironically using terms like “aandolanjeevi” and “urban naxals” is unhelpful even when mocking, disagreeing, or “reclaiming” them.

Frank Luntz, a right wing messaging expert in the US, says that one of the key ways to create frames that stick with people is “consistency”, essentially, repeat things.

When terms like “urban naxals” and “aandolanjeevi” are used to describe dissenters, students, artists, we think it’s pretty ridiculous, so we either try and refute it, or we mock it.

In both the situations, we fall into their trap of speaking about ourselves in their terms. We end up using their words and terms over and over again, which is exactly what they want us to do, because it strengthens the connections associated with those words in people’s mind.

For eg, the “anti national” framing was so successful, and we mocked it (“if standing up to authority is anti national, guess I’m anti national too”), negated it (it’s not anti national to protest), or tried to flip it around (“actually those quashing dissent are anti national”)