Alt-right terminology / symbolism - Page 3

On October 24 2019 23:56 Nebuchad wrote:
Innuendo Studios is always relevant but this is a new video and it's relevant to OP's concerns, so...

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 25 2019 01:48 thePunGun wrote:
My point was the parents should be educated on how to raise a child. If you have a loving family (meaning parents, who actually know what they're doing) you won't end up having low self esteem and fall for any kind of ideological brainwashing (in a 1st world country).

On October 25 2019 13:42 ElMeanYo wrote:
I’ve never heard a satisfactory definition of what the alt-right is. Seems to depend heavily on what your political orientations are.

On October 25 2019 19:23 tomatriedes wrote:
I think Pepe has been successfully rehabilitated and 99% or more of people on Twitch who use monkaS or other Pepe emotes are not expressing racist ideologies. On Twitch, monkaS is used to express a kind of anxiety, for example in DOTA if someone is teleporting in the trees almost gets caught before the tp finishes. If someone comes in who is unfamiliar with such usage and been influenced by media moral panic they might think it's some sort of big Nazi circlejerk going on when in fact people are just expressing reactions to how the game is going.

I'm not sure banning things every time alt-right trolls try to co-opt them is a good solution because
1) they will just keep on co-opting new things and it will become an endless game of banning and new co-opting.
2) it is annoying for the vast majority who use such emojis normally.

On October 25 2019 22:03 ShoCkeyy wrote:
Jimmy is right on the parents piece, did you know Fidel Castro went to a school called Belen? This school exist in South Florida. It's an all male Christian/Catholic school that teaches kids into thinking they're from god so they can't do any wrong. I know because I know a couple of parents who have kids there currently, and they already have the mentality of "if my kid does something wrong, how do I get him out of it".

On October 26 2019 00:05 Ryzel wrote:
All of you saying “just don’t buy in to the bullshit, no big deal” are ignoring that statistically not everyone will do so. These are targeting a young, psychologically/emotionally vulnerable population, not you, and even if only .001% of this population exposed to it becomes radicalized enough to commit acts of murder, that’s still 10 mass shootings if they target a million people like this. Obviously I made the statistics up, but you get the idea.

It’s like saying “obviously if a strange van pulls up to a kid and says they have candy, they're lying and the kid should ignore them, no big deal. Educating people (and kids) about this situation is a waste of time.”

On October 26 2019 00:05 Ryzel wrote:
All of you saying “just don’t buy in to the bullshit, no big deal” are ignoring that statistically not everyone will do so. These are targeting a young, psychologically/emotionally vulnerable population, not you, and even if only .001% of this population exposed to it becomes radicalized enough to commit acts of murder, that’s still 10 mass shootings if they target a million people like this. Obviously I made the statistics up, but you get the idea.

It’s like saying “obviously if a strange van pulls up to a kid and says they have candy, they're lying and the kid should ignore them, no big deal. Educating people (and kids) about this situation is a waste of time.”

On October 26 2019 00:46 Danglars wrote:

I think the proper comparison for your second would be "obviously if a old van pulls up to a kid, statistically not every kid is going to ignore it. therefore we should ban men from buying vans. Kids are psychologically vulnerable"

I think the sane people here unjustly accused at ignoring bad possibilities are subconsciously weighing other, more likely, possibilities. Like 1) the people most vocally opposed to the far right acquire a reputation as cranks that want to ban memes and censor speech and 2)[ all this free publicity about a fringe element and their occult power from memes is many times more valuable than whatever power can be gained from their internet speech. They crave the attention and want to be thought of as a growing movement that is adept at using memes to convert citizens to their cause. That's why I use the religious metaphor, because the similarity of vulnerable minds falling prey to extremist propaganda is viscerally and culturally similar to old church ladies + Show Spoiler + wanting to ban sinful entertainment/whatnot because vulnerable kids will be swept up by satan's influence.

I view the negative consequences from (1) and (2) as many times more sizable than vulnerable youths caught up in some white nationalist craze. Just a couple of years ago, a fringe American group had a rally on the east coast with something like ~150 people, but it turns out roughly half of them were journalists breathlessly covering the event. If the group can't get more numbers than a furry convention in a bad year, then maybe you're just making a problem worse with all the free press.

On October 26 2019 00:58 Jockmcplop wrote:


What I was saying that when everyone kicks off about the ok sign or a frog it actively helps the right recruit people because it makes lefties look hysterical, stupid and unreasonable, which is exactly the plan.

I've become massively frustrated with the left's ability to fight this 'culture war' and it seems to me that the far left and the far right have that Peter Pan vs Hook relationship where they can't survive without each other. They feed off each other and this is just more of the same.

Kids aren't going to become racist because they saw a funny frog. They are going to become racist because lefties hate them for posting a picture of a frog.

On October 26 2019 00:58 Jockmcplop wrote:


What I was saying that when everyone kicks off about the ok sign or a frog it actively helps the right recruit people because it makes lefties look hysterical, stupid and unreasonable, which is exactly the plan.

I've become massively frustrated with the left's ability to fight this 'culture war' and it seems to me that the far left and the far right have that Peter Pan vs Hook relationship where they can't survive without each other. They feed off each other and this is just more of the same.

Kids aren't going to become racist because they saw a funny frog. They are going to become racist because lefties hate them for posting a picture of a frog.

On October 26 2019 01:32 Ryzel wrote:


Right, but the solution isn’t to pretend nothing is going on. The solution is for lefties to stop hating them for posting it. You can educate without judging, but I agree stereotypically the left is extremely bad at this.

On October 26 2019 01:28 Ryzel wrote:


There’s a lot going on in this post but I’m lazy and don’t feel like requoting bits and pieces, so you’ll have to work with me a bit.

1) I never said anything about banning symbols, I said education. So I don’t think your interpretation of my analogy is accurate.

2) I never said you and others were insane for saying what you did, and on the flip-side I’m not insane for believing what I do, so let’s leave accusations of sanity out of it mkay?

3) I don’t feel like taking too deep a dive into the use of the term “unjustly”, but suffice to say I’m not prosecuting you for a crime you didn’t commit here, I’m having a discussion. I’m not here to judge you or anyone else, so no need to feel victimized.

4) Your point 1 implies that it is reasonable to believe anyone who has an issue with use of alt-right symbolism is most likely a crank who wants to ban free speech and memes. I don’t think that’s a valid presumption; I don’t know the statistics but I’d imagine the actual number of people who want to ban free speech and memes are much smaller than the population of people with issues with alt-right symbolism. I’m willing to be proved wrong though.

5) I just don’t agree with point 2. Letting fascists communicate on the Internet unchecked seems the most problematic outcome. By discussing the symbols and what they mean it brings more attention to how they work, what they’re capable of, and how to inoculate ourselves to it; it takes away the power of their subtlety.

6) I do love me some Dana Carvey, but we’re not talking about D&D or Harry Potter bullshit. We’re talking about an actual ideology with an actual historical precedent for bad things. Watch Sound of Music or google Hitler Youth to get an idea of why “vulnerable minds falling prey to extremist propaganda” can be an actual problem.

7) I’m running out of time but basically I don’t get how the 150 person rally has any bearing on this discussion. Rallies aren’t the metric for how we determine this is a problem; I doubt many of the white nationalist shooters went to any actual rallies. They’re not a prerequisite for bad things that the group does.

TLDR; your argument seems based on an idea that I (and everyone else) want to ban memes and free speech with a bit of slippery slopes thrown in. I never said that.

It's a fear-based approach and easily abused by the alt-right as we've seen people run for the hills over the 'okay' symbol.

In as much the alt-right is involved in white nationalism, the actual beliefs that are terrible are fairly obvious and not tolerated (white genocide conspiracy theories or racist theories on ethnicities).

But there is far too much overlap with regular old meme/ troll culture to bother one's head about 'feels bad man'.

On October 26 2019 01:48 Jockmcplop wrote:


You're right of course, education is key, but i would focus the education of the dangers of racist ideology or the ideology of blaming others as the primary educational tool here, and maybe supplement that with a note about symbols and how they are used.
We shouldn't pretend the problem doesn't exist, but we shouldn't give the symbols more power than they already have by designating them 'dangerous', and we certainly shouldn't focus on the symbols of the ideology instead of the content of the ideology because that's where the real danger lies.

On October 26 2019 02:45 Danglars wrote:

You were being a bit unfair when you said the other side was all "don't buy into the bullshit, no big deal" and then contrasting that with education. That's why I brought a more pointed analogy than the one you opened with. The people that have more grounded worries about the far right aren't suddenly against education just because they think memes on Stormfront aren't a big problem that needs addressing. Remember, the original poster brought up "alt-right terminology and symbols," and definitely has been educated by this thread about the resiliency/apppropriation of symbols. I'm hoping education about publicizing fringe groups while wanting instead to educate people on fringe groups happens with you too. That's a very real danger.

I fully support education on publication of white nationalist's names, photos, and ideology in national press after every shooting. We have enough martyrs and celebrities from that already. Even education on not going after white privilege on lower-class whites with high rates of opiate addiction, making them feel victimized by a cosmopolitan elite.

I stand by my point that talking about memes makes the speaker look like a loon, and not a serious person concerned with that "0.001%" that gets radicalized because of Pepe the frog or whatever.

In essence, you're dismissing criticism of the "terminology and symbols" approach using motte and bailey tactics. You talked about how some miniscule fraction of people get radicalized by twisted memes, but when the absurdity gets brought up, retreat back to something good-sounding like education. I'm critical of the bailey position, of calling some symbols "alt-right terminology / symbolism," and how ineffectual and countereffective it is--not the motte retreat that you're all about education. Some of the bailey position disguised as education makes you eminently mockable, and not just by the far-right, but by normal gamers that get great laughs poking fun at the meme police. Well, I really would prefer if people adopt Sbrubbles "I see nothing wrong with it" and Fallings "[you give] the alt-right too much credit-like it's some sort of contagious disease that one must guard against with paranoid vigilance." I think that form of education is 100% what we should be doing. I hope one day you're persuaded that you've placed too much emphasis on terminology and symbols and too much belief that it's effective "Sound of Music or ... Hitler Youth" propaganda.

Act paranoid about symbols wielded by fringe groups, and you'll find very few listeners about your notion of education. I wouldn't blame any gamer more attracted to the groups putting out funny memes because of people like you going straight to Hitler and the vulnerability of youth from them.

It's just so ironic that well-intentioned attempts to combat a hateful ideology play fucking right into their hands. I say, keep educating people about just how easily abused it is.

On October 26 2019 04:43 Ryzel wrote:


Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by education. I don't think the symbols and memes themselves are propaganda; they obviously don't have any inherent deeper meaning. Their power as tools for the alt-right is derived from how widespread they are, allowing them to say "hey, we're just like you, we say monkaS/kek/*insert new trendy meme here* all the time too." The education component is not "you are a shitty person for saying these things, don't ever say them" or "these symbols/memes should be banned to halt their ideology" (although I know a lot of people think this and I agree it's not smart). It's "there are groups of bad people out there who will want you to join them, and they'll use these as ways to manipulate you to feel like one of them. Don't buy into it."

On October 26 2019 04:43 Ryzel wrote:


Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by education. I don't think the symbols and memes themselves are propaganda; they obviously don't have any inherent deeper meaning. Their power as tools for the alt-right is derived from how widespread they are, allowing them to say "hey, we're just like you, we say monkaS/kek/*insert new trendy meme here* all the time too." The education component is not "you are a shitty person for saying these things, don't ever say them" or "these symbols/memes should be banned to halt their ideology" (although I know a lot of people think this and I agree it's not smart). It's "there are groups of bad people out there who will want you to join them, and they'll use these as ways to manipulate you to feel like one of them. Don't buy into it."