We reached out to one of the supporters of the anti-work movement, NoSatisfaction4251, to find out more about the situation and how it has affected the community. The user told Bored Panda that the r/AntiWork subreddit voted overwhelmingly against any media interviews because they might backfire.

“The main mod AbolishWork (Doreen Ford) did not listen and took an opportunity to live interview on Fox News,” they said. “They did not shower beforehand, or make their bed (you can see their untidy dark bedroom in the background), or prepare.” 

As the user found out from the interview, the moderator is “a dog walker who lives in their parent’s basement at 30 years old” and only works a few hours per week. “Their dream is to teach philosophy but they currently have no credentials to do so.” 

They continued: “Doreen said this all on national primetime TV. Jesse Watters was making fun of them condescendingly and laughing at them. Doreen had so little self-awareness that they had no clue.”

After the interview, the moderator was heavily criticized on the subreddit for not listening to the members and making a movement of 1.7M people look bad. “There are stories all the time of minimum wage workers working 60+ hours a week or being underpaid illegally, so it’s frustrating we were forced to be represented by a part-time dog walker.”

Instead of owning up to their mistake, the moderators decided to temporarily shut down the site. “They could not stand the criticism and the many calls for them to apologize or resign, so Doreen started banning anyone who commented on antiwork about the interview,” NoSatisfaction4251 told us. 

“They banned around a thousand people, including myself for expressing legitimate concerns about the interview. Now they have gone so far to make the subreddit private—de facto killing one of Reddit’s top pages.” NoSatisfaction4251 believes that the mods should step down. However, since the user has been permanently banned from the group for no reason at all, it does not affect them anymore. 

While many members worry about how this incident will affect the r/AntiWork, NoSatisfaction4251 said that the movement is much larger than this subreddit. “There seems to be a push for workers’ rights everywhere right now because of the tight labor markets, COVID-19 working conditions, the PRO act legislation, the Kellogg’s and John Deere strikes, and the big pushes for unionization around the US (thinking especially about Amazon and Starbucks).”

They explained that other subreddits are quickly growing to r/AntiWork’s size. For example, the r/WorkReform community is quickly rising in popularity. This online group believes people “should not be worked to death by their employers” and that “all labor should provide every person with all basic life necessities, which includes food, healthcare, and sheltering.” It seems that this group has gained tens of thousands of new followers since the r/AntiWork community has been shut down, and as of now has more than 348K members.

“The response we got from the situation is unrivaled. This is a clear message that no matter the name, this movement is alive, this movement is needed, and this movement will not die,” the mods of r/WorkReform claimed.

NoSatisfaction4251 also suggested that this online community could be the future of the anti-work movement since it “seems to be growing very fast. Also, r/LateStageCapitalism has a lot of overlap.” Still, they mentioned that “the movement does not necessarily need a Reddit page as most people know what’s going on and deal with bad bosses, long hours, low wages/salaries, and workplace stress often.”

After having been shut down for a day, the r/AntiWork subreddit has returned with a statement, saying that they “will now focus on more transparency regarding media.” Regarding the Fox News incident, “We are planning to remove AbolishWork from her moderation duties and have contacted the admins for the removal of her as a mod,” the moderators stated. “We thank her for building up the anti-work movement, but regarding the past incidents, we decided as a majority to remove her.”