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On October 29 2019 01:40 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2019 16:33 JieXian wrote: What timeline is this?
Hitler (the epitome of the right) was a vegetarian and had a dog which we can assume he loved. Should we avoid vegetarianism and having a dog by association now?
Where do we draw the line? Where your feelings start and end?
Please let morality guide you, not association with something else. If you already know that those people didn't use the terms out of malice, the discussion should end there. Oh shit fellow leftists, this one found the "Hitler was a vegetarian" line, he's onto us!
I invite you to refute the argument and not mock the analogy. Even if he wasn't a vegetarian, he slept, drank water, and ate bread. Doesn't mean we should stop sleeping, drinking water or eating bread just by association. Same thing with saying things like "feels bad man".
Hell billions of Indians are using a "reverse swastika" daily and nobody "gets offended". Why? Because we know their intent is not malicious.
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Your arguing on the level of a third grader that tries to be edgy and smart... Hint: Being a vegetarian doesn't make you a good or bad Person, no matter what. Vegetarianism doesn't inform any of your actions outside of your diet. Flying obviously facist/racist symbols constantly most likely means that you identify with these symbols and don't have any major issue with the crimes that were comittet under them..
I don't see it as a big Problem or at least not as something new. These agitators were allways around young people. It used to be sport clubs and stuff like that, nowadays you can find tons of young people online so they use the same old tactics there - they now reach more people but at the same time are more spread out. Don't overdramatize it but be aware, not everyone that uses edgy jokes from time to time is a racist, especially during teenage years, but people that tend to do it all the time most likely have issues.
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Northern Ireland20731 Posts
On October 29 2019 20:32 Velr wrote: Your arguing on the level of a third grader that tries to be edgy and smart... Hint: Being a vegetarian doesn't make you a good or bad Person, no matter what. Vegetarianism doesn't inform any of your actions outside of your diet. Flying obviously facist/racist symbols constantly most likely means that you identify with these symbols and don't have any major issue with the crimes that were comittet under them..
I don't see it as a big Problem or at least not as something new. These agitators were allways around young people. It used to be sport clubs and stuff like that, nowadays you can find tons of young people online so they use the same old tactics there - they now reach more people but at the same time are more spread out. Don't overdramatize it but be aware, not everyone that uses edgy jokes from time to time is a racist, especially during teenage years, but people that tend to do it all the time most likely have issues. Indeed. Everything in moderation after all.
Much of this edgy stuff only punches in certain directions, you see a lot more anti-trans, anti-women, anti-black (non-white anyway) and anti-Jew memes and jokes than other stuff, so it’s not some equal opportunity ‘we make fun of everything’ kind of deal.
I’ve had people come at me in the past with some pretty heinous ‘actual opinion’ stuff in the past because they assumed because I like offensive humour that I held certain other views.
Things are just jokes, but cumulatively I imagine they can have effects beyond that, as you said if someone is spending all their time on 4chan or something.
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On October 29 2019 17:29 JieXian wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2019 01:40 Nebuchad wrote:On October 28 2019 16:33 JieXian wrote: What timeline is this?
Hitler (the epitome of the right) was a vegetarian and had a dog which we can assume he loved. Should we avoid vegetarianism and having a dog by association now?
Where do we draw the line? Where your feelings start and end?
Please let morality guide you, not association with something else. If you already know that those people didn't use the terms out of malice, the discussion should end there. Oh shit fellow leftists, this one found the "Hitler was a vegetarian" line, he's onto us! I invite you to refute the argument and not mock the analogy. Even if he wasn't a vegetarian, he slept, drank water, and ate bread. Doesn't mean we should stop sleeping, drinking water or eating bread just by association. Same thing with saying things like "feels bad man". Hell billions of Indians are using a "reverse swastika" daily and nobody "gets offended". Why? Because we know their intent is not malicious.
Your intervention so far doesn't contain an argument that I can refute. You said "If I said something stupid instead of what was said, it would be stupid". Yes, that is true. It doesn't serve to demonstrate anything about the quality of what was said, in one direction or another.
I had to use some snark because this was such a stereotypically bad "rational rightwing" post. It even had the cringy Shapiro reference to feelings in the middle, cause you know, we have facts and reason, and the other side just has feeeeelings, brrr.
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On October 29 2019 02:38 Danglars wrote: We shall discuss nothing of importance until the goddamn concentration camps disappearing children are shut down!
You two go make your own thread or blog about me and/or that topic, and stop shitting up other threads with idiotic tangents. The thread is about alt-right symbolism and their propagation and their effects. It is entirely appropriate to talk about their effects, whether or not you want to admit to their links or not. It is not a coincidence that the rise and of the casual cruelty of the concentration camps coincides with the rise and spread of "alt-right" symbolism. Acceptance of the "alt-right" do have real world consequences; there is no reason to pretend it does not.
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On October 28 2019 08:16 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
I do not think Nazism was any kind of big important danger in the USA in the 1980s or early 1990s. The comedy show Hogan's Heroes ran in re-runs throughout the USA throughout the 1980s. The show was never seen as any kind of threat. The show was received as light-hearted humour. It was filled with all forms of Nazi symbolism. It is set in a Nazi prisoner of war camp. The German oppressors are humanized in every episode. .
Hey minor tangent, but Hogans Heroes re-runs can still be found on TV in the USA, saw them on Oxygen only a few months ago.
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I just had a look at some of the points brought up and I'll try to summarize a bit (leaving much out probably, and in no specific order):
How do cultural expressions from fringe groups show up within mainstream culture? And can the impact of these fringe groups be meaningfully measured?
The question of education and the social groups who are vulnerable to be radicalized by a bunch of memes (how big are those groups actually and aren't they stigmatized to begin with?).
What is the impact of criticism on meme-culture? The sjw who shames people for using a frog will look like an idiot, and this obviously plays into the hands of whoever is out to estrange people from the left.
How impactful actually is the Alt-right? (and can it be defined to begin with?)
To what extent is it meaningful to focus on 'symbolism' (or to designate memes as symbols to begin with, actually I agree that memes are something else from symbols) instead of at the ideologies that create / are the cause of these symbols to begin with.
There's a big question about the relation between signifier and signified: When a new signified is added to a signifier, does it change the 'original' signifier? i.e., when new groups use Pepe in an alternative way, will it affect the usage of the Pepe signifier across the board?
To continue the discussion: Earlier Danglers brought up an opposition that I will quote in full here:
"The danger of irreverent use of anti-establishment and edgy memes is that vulnerable persons will see them as harmless fun, and become actually susceptible to fall for white-supremacist or anti-semitic ideology and movements promoting them. Serious and proper education should inform conscientious people that use of such terminology or memes aids recruitment in such organization, is actually a pernicious and real force, and should be avoided and condemned on those grounds." My paraphrase of opposition "The nature the cited ideologies are so abhorrent, that there is only a small danger of people crossing from modern-punk memes and terminology to actual belief in the ideology of some people spreading them. There is far greater danger that education in opposing these memes (for reason of fringe groups co-opting them) is counterproductive and actively plays into their hands. The fringe groups will more effectively use such education and opposition to inspire sympathy and raise their public profile, because of the meme's legitimate edgy use to make people laugh at overreactions to trolling and the cleverness in devising/applying the memes. Comedy thrives on societal sacred cows--what you're not allowed to joke about or who you can't make fun of." What if this whole opposition can be seen as a political effect of the performativity of memes? Either, if left unchecked, they have the effect that vulnerable persons fall for white-supremacist or anti-semitic ideology and movements promoting them. Or, when opposed, the people opposing them will be seen as paranoid leftist sjw trying to ban frogs, with the same effect as the above.
Don't get me wrong, it might sound like I am making things bigger then they are. As was already said, we are probably talking very small groups of people operating on the fringes of the internet. But it might take us (me) to the next step of the argument.
I think the way signs (symbols / images / language) are used is not just a tool to communicate a political movement. Sign usage is political, the movement is the language. And I think what is happening, on a small scale, is a shift in the way signs are used. When a second Mecca is built on the North-Pole it will affect the meaning of the first Mecca, just by the fact there's two of them. The politics of signs is the way they shift, what can be said and what can't be said at a certain moment in time (I believe this came up in one of the videos that was suggested). What I mean when I say that memes are 'performative' is that they are not just signs referring to known/unknown meaning, but that they perform something. When I try to analyze memes, or attempt to speak about why one should be careful using them etc, I will likely look like a paranoid sjw. In that way I perform a meme in the same way that someone else can tell me FeelsBadMan afterwards.
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On October 26 2019 05:50 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2019 04:43 Ryzel wrote:On October 26 2019 02:45 Danglars wrote:On October 26 2019 01:28 Ryzel wrote:On October 26 2019 00:46 Danglars wrote: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.” 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 +look up the parodies of this demographic on SNL 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. 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. 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 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'. 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. 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." I should give you a chance to address something that's been said in the thread and that I quoted. You're talking about symbols and memes are "tools for the alt-right" with power "derived from how widespread they are." I think their "actual beliefs are fairly obvious and not tolerated." Maybe coffee houses are also "trendy" and "tools for the alt-right," since they might strike up conversations there. Democracy is a tool of the alt-right, because they get to vote for who they like, coffee-houses so they can strike up conversations, and memes so they can be cool and anti-establishment. Do you really have any differentiating factor for calling something a tool for the alt-right? I don't really see anything particular here to especially fear, and I certainly haven't heard anything convincing that distinguishes this aspect.
Technically yes they can be used as tools to further their agenda, but there’s huge differences...
1) Voting is a private process and won’t result in recruitment of others.
2) Coffeehouses are going to get people of all types, and stereotypically more left-leaning, so they’re unlikely to find as common ground as they could online.
A more apt comparison would be punk rock shows in the ‘80s. You already made the comparison. Skinheads showing up, blending in with the crowd, making some friends among the edgy teen crowd, talking to them about favorite bands but “eh they’re not edgy enough, why don’t they talk about how blacks are so stupid, amirite?” Probably something more subtle than that. Over time those “friendships” develop and help color the teens views on the skinheads intense beliefs.
So imagine that, times a bajillion with how many more kids have access to memes/games/whatever. Society didn’t care back then because the counterculture population that was being targeted was super small comparatively, but now it’s quite significant.
I guess when I’m talking about tools of the alt-right, I’m referring more specifically to recruitment. And I’ve just explained the huge difference between using these tools to target the giant counterculture of young white male gamers vs going to a coffeehouse or door to door to speak about our lord and savior Hitler.
To address the quote specifically, an “alt-right recruiter” is not ever going to be upfront with their beliefs. If confronted by only a few people about what they actually believe, they’ll say “haha look at these tools, I totally trolled them.” If confronted by a large group and risk being ostracized, they’ll say “guys guys I’m obviously just kidding, calm down”. Both of these play on the insecurities of these groups.
Danglars wrote "The danger of irreverent use of anti-establishment and edgy memes is that vulnerable persons will see them as harmless fun, and become actually susceptible to fall for white-supremacist or anti-semitic ideology and movements promoting them. Serious and proper education should inform conscientious people that use of such terminology or memes aids recruitment in such organization, is actually a pernicious and real force, and should be avoided and condemned on those grounds." My paraphrase of opposition "The nature the cited ideologies are so abhorrent, that there is only a small danger of people crossing from modern-punk memes and terminology to actual belief in the ideology of some people spreading them. There is far greater danger that education in opposing these memes (for reason of fringe groups co-opting them) is counterproductive and actively plays into their hands. The fringe groups will more effectively use such education and opposition to inspire sympathy and raise their public profile, because of the meme's legitimate edgy use to make people laugh at overreactions to trolling and the cleverness in devising/applying the memes. Comedy thrives on societal sacred cows--what you're not allowed to joke about or who you can't make fun of."
I agree with some of this, but several key differences...
1) Using the memes is not an issue, they can use them all day long for all I care and I certainly can’t stop them.
2) Again, the memes themselves don’t brainwash people. They’re not going to be slowly converted to Nazism by spamming Pepe all day.
3) Using the memes doesn’t aid recruitment. The education should be less about the memes and more about how there are real groups that target them for recruitment, and pretend to be trollers just like them when they’re actually not (cause everyone knows trollers are never serious, and these recruiters definitely are).
4) The ideologies are abhorrent, but they’re never going to be openly espoused for that reason so it’s a non-issue.
5) I’m in agreement that the SJW/church lady approach is wrong and feeds into exactly what they’re looking for, which is why the education I’m describing wouldn’t tell people memes are bad and they’re bad for using them.
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On October 30 2019 23:04 Ryzel wrote: A more apt comparison would be punk rock shows in the ‘80s. You already made the comparison. Skinheads showing up, blending in with the crowd, making some friends among the edgy teen crowd, talking to them about favorite bands but “eh they’re not edgy enough, why don’t they talk about how blacks are so stupid, amirite?” Probably something more subtle than that. Over time those “friendships” develop and help color the teens views on the skinheads intense beliefs.
So imagine that, times a bajillion with how many more kids have access to memes/games/whatever. Society didn’t care back then because the counterculture population that was being targeted was super small comparatively, but now it’s quite significant.
I guess when I’m talking about tools of the alt-right, I’m referring more specifically to recruitment. And I’ve just explained the huge difference between using these tools to target the giant counterculture of young white male gamers vs going to a coffeehouse or door to door to speak about our lord and savior Hitler.
To address the quote specifically, an “alt-right recruiter” is not ever going to be upfront with their beliefs. If confronted by only a few people about what they actually believe, they’ll say “haha look at these tools, I totally trolled them.” If confronted by a large group and risk being ostracized, they’ll say “guys guys I’m obviously just kidding, calm down”. Both of these play on the insecurities of these groups. Coffee Shops eh? Gamers in CoffeeHouses? I will have you know that donut shops were the foundation of Canadian society until the Internet Cafe was invented.
I am jewish. Let me share a personal vignette about how I dealt with a group of anti-jewish, pro-hitler people who used to hang out at the internet cafe where i used to play Starcraft:Brood War every weekend.
+ Show Spoiler + the #1 place to play Starcraft in Toronto is Net Effect Internet Cafe. It had a small group of "pro hitler" people. I'm one of many jews that hung out and played there. It has a substantial korean crowd. The original owner is korean-canadian. The current owner is black and his parents owned a coin-op arcade in the busiest street in Toronto. I'd say 10% of the customers are homosexual and this is partly because of Net Effect's proximity to Toronto's "Gay Village". So its quite a mixed crowd. We had all kinds of open debates about many subjects. It was a good time.
We all got along fine. The #1 pro hitler guy.. I convinced him that libertarianism is the way to go. I conceded his point that the elite rich are really totally fucking over the middle class. In turn I got him to concede that the class of elite rich has plenty of non-jews in it. I got him to acknowledge that the elite super rich consists of a lot more than just "the jews". Any how, he is no longer a jew-hating pro-Hitler guy. He is somewhere in the spectrum of the various libertarian groups. We still disagree on many ancillary issues.. but on the fundamentals he is now 100% reasonable.
It took him about a year to give up his pro-Hitler anti-jew ideology//politics. During that time we had many hours of debate and discussion. Although he did not change any of my fundamental views I learned a lot about anti-semitism. I learned a lot of 1930's and 1940s Germany. His perspective and facts he presented spurned some of my own research into the events around WW1 and WW2.
Many of my jewish friends bristled at my willingness to talk to this person and this prp-Hitler group. However, dialogue was exactly what he needed. He and I don't see each other very often any longer but when we do we are quite close. This incident reminds me of ex-Raptors coach Dwayne Casey having dozens of racial slurs hurled at him in school. He later turned those guys from school around into being some of his best friends. Turns out black people are ok. Turns out jews are ok. Who woulda known?
What I did at Net Effect Internet Cafe in 2005 in dealing with pro-Hitler anti-jewish people was nothing special. Plenty of racial minorities pull off this feat in their everyday lives all the time. Plenty of people who held incorrect racial stereotypes voluntarily concede that .. hey.. person XYZ is alright. No screaming , no yelling, no finger pointing, no name calling NO LABELLING!
The person whose views I changed had high enough self esteem that in the face of clear objective evidence he had the balls to change his mind. He was a rather foolishly misguided but fundamentally good person 10 years ago. He is now a good person and is no longer misguided. He now has a damn good job.. who works very hard and is starting a nice family.
Some of the people who condemned him for his views just wanted him "banned forever" from Net Effect Internet Cafe. How does this offer a path to improvement? It does not.
I think the alarm about the alt-right stuff going on is unfounded and not required. Alarm-ism only feeds into the alt-right pathology of extremism. A hysterical reaction plays right into the hands of those with extreme views. What is needed is calm, sober, rational, reasonable discussion and a little bit of self esteem from the discussion participants . In the face of a little bit of life experience,decent self esteem, and reasonable conversation the entire ideology disappears like tears in the rain.
On October 30 2019 23:04 Ryzel wrote: I guess when I’m talking about tools of the alt-right, I’m referring more specifically to recruitment. And I’ve just explained the huge difference between using these tools to target the giant counterculture of young white male gamers vs going to a coffeehouse or door to door to speak about our lord and savior Hitler.
meh, Hitler is just a guy. Please, don't get overly excited about him because it feeds into the hysteria and you risk getting swept up in the tornado of silliness.
Now, discussing the forces at play that allowed a master manipulator to seduce a good and decent citizenry into doing really horrific stuff and/or turning a blind eye towards many horrific acts... Now that is a fascinating discussion. Hitler himself... meh.. the guy bores me.
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On October 30 2019 17:24 Pistolen-Luuk wrote: I just had a look at some of the points brought up and I'll try to summarize a bit (leaving much out probably, and in no specific order):
How do cultural expressions from fringe groups show up within mainstream culture? And can the impact of these fringe groups be meaningfully measured?
The question of education and the social groups who are vulnerable to be radicalized by a bunch of memes (how big are those groups actually and aren't they stigmatized to begin with?).
What is the impact of criticism on meme-culture? The sjw who shames people for using a frog will look like an idiot, and this obviously plays into the hands of whoever is out to estrange people from the left.
How impactful actually is the Alt-right? (and can it be defined to begin with?)
To what extent is it meaningful to focus on 'symbolism' (or to designate memes as symbols to begin with, actually I agree that memes are something else from symbols) instead of at the ideologies that create / are the cause of these symbols to begin with.
There's a big question about the relation between signifier and signified: When a new signified is added to a signifier, does it change the 'original' signifier? i.e., when new groups use Pepe in an alternative way, will it affect the usage of the Pepe signifier across the board? These questions were on the whole handled, many of which were rejected by posters for reasons they stated. Maybe you can give your perspective and answers to the common objections to it.
To continue the discussion: Earlier Danglers brought up an opposition that I will quote in full here: Show nested quote +"The danger of irreverent use of anti-establishment and edgy memes is that vulnerable persons will see them as harmless fun, and become actually susceptible to fall for white-supremacist or anti-semitic ideology and movements promoting them. Serious and proper education should inform conscientious people that use of such terminology or memes aids recruitment in such organization, is actually a pernicious and real force, and should be avoided and condemned on those grounds." My paraphrase of opposition "The nature the cited ideologies are so abhorrent, that there is only a small danger of people crossing from modern-punk memes and terminology to actual belief in the ideology of some people spreading them. There is far greater danger that education in opposing these memes (for reason of fringe groups co-opting them) is counterproductive and actively plays into their hands. The fringe groups will more effectively use such education and opposition to inspire sympathy and raise their public profile, because of the meme's legitimate edgy use to make people laugh at overreactions to trolling and the cleverness in devising/applying the memes. Comedy thrives on societal sacred cows--what you're not allowed to joke about or who you can't make fun of." What if this whole opposition can be seen as a political effect of the performativity of memes? Either, if left unchecked, they have the effect that vulnerable persons fall for white-supremacist or anti-semitic ideology and movements promoting them. Or, when opposed, the people opposing them will be seen as paranoid leftist sjw trying to ban frogs, with the same effect as the above. Don't get me wrong, it might sound like I am making things bigger then they are. As was already said, we are probably talking very small groups of people operating on the fringes of the internet. But it might take us (me) to the next step of the argument. I think the way signs (symbols / images / language) are used is not just a tool to communicate a political movement. Sign usage is political, the movement is the language. And I think what is happening, on a small scale, is a shift in the way signs are used. When a second Mecca is built on the North-Pole it will affect the meaning of the first Mecca, just by the fact there's two of them. The politics of signs is the way they shift, what can be said and what can't be said at a certain moment in time (I believe this came up in one of the videos that was suggested). What I mean when I say that memes are 'performative' is that they are not just signs referring to known/unknown meaning, but that they perform something. When I try to analyze memes, or attempt to speak about why one should be careful using them etc, I will likely look like a paranoid sjw. In that way I perform a meme in the same way that someone else can tell me FeelsBadMan afterwards. You're partly there when you explain the opposition using performativity, but there's still a rational problem explaining potential threat of "vulnerable persons" (to use the same rather patronizing epithet) actually able to make the jump from memes to literal white supremacy and Jew-hate. I still say that stands as a fucking huge gap, and not one to be brushed under the rug with some kind of "Well, not me, but I know of some other practical sub-humans that are so stupid that they're half a dozen memes away from yelling that Jews control international banking."
I should say symbols (in which I include memes as a subset) have a political element. It's an obvious rebellion against a political and cultural and social norm of polite speech. It's today internet aided iteration of youth rebellion, but with less of a fashion and music element than the 60s. Then, as now, adults and young people happier with the status quo (there are things you can't say, jokes you can't make, and that's a good thing) shake their heads at one another and say, "Kids these days have no respect." Then a smaller contingent goes the next step to say, "And this is bad for kids these days because now they're easy prey for the alt-right."
JimmyJRaynor brought this up in the related context of mainstream TV comedians. The 80s and 90s had shows like Hogan's Heroes that literally made jokes about Nazis and humanized the actors playing German oppressors. Oh, the poor vulnerable youths of that time that then fell into the hands of underground white supremacist clubs, because they were poor and vulnerable and seeing the TV tell them that Nazis weren't so bad in a comedy show was all it took! I think TV shows like that are right approach in dealing with the "problem." Rob it of power by not moaning about some pathetically small fringe (and respond to my posts on this subject early if you think it's a contentious claim). Show it's fine to make irreverent memes on the subject, because nobody actually thinks there's great harm in nasty jokes in a democratic society. Toleration will make people grow out of thinking the worst ones are even funny.
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There is a pretty big gulf between parody and use of symbols (even subtextual parody) based on their meanings and the use of symbols ignorantly or without acknowledgement of their associations and meanings. The first requires the understanding of an idea, and a negative attitude towards it. The latter is another question entirely.
The writers of Hogan's Heroes knew what Nazis were (and didn't want children to become them).
The Soup Nazi in Seinfeld is a laughable character who is thin-skinned and a fascist-no one walks away wanting to be the Soup Nazi (at least, Jerry didn't intend such).
The Great Dictator shows Hitler as a fool and an idiot-nobody thinks better of Hitler or the Nazis after watching it, despite it being full of symbols.
And even intentionality often isn't enough! American History X is an inspiration to plenty of neonazis, after all.
But nobody is posting FeelsBadMan or PepeHands to make fun of or demean the alt-right (or if they are, it's probably <0.1% of the uses). Without that intentionality, the symbols are being used out of ignorance. This means that the chances use demeans the ideology are considerably less, and the chances use has no effect or spreads the ideology are considerably higher. Moreover, it becomes a convenient way to dodge responsibility when the symbols *are* being used to call to or signal to the ideology-"everyone else uses these Pepes, I didn't realize this one with Jewish stars in the background was extra bad."
Whether it's worth intervening to deal with this is another question. I try to avoid using those symbols myself. I don't call out people who use the symbols without understanding their associations. I try to call out people when the symbols are stacked with others. But ultimately trying to fight this battle just bogs you down in fighting with people you don't need to fight with or in arguments that are 100% in bad faith.
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Northern Ireland20731 Posts
As an aside, interesting discussion with many good points made by various posters. Why I come to TL and largely eschew the rest of the outside world.
I was confused as to my stance on this and associated matters to begin with and now feel more confused than before, in the good ‘hm I need to ponder this some more’ way.
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On October 31 2019 02:14 TheTenthDoc wrote: The writers of Hogan's Heroes knew what Nazis were (and didn't want children to become them).
The backdrop was this : we've conquered the Nazis and now our new threat is the communists. So now we can all point and laugh at the Nazis. Notice there were no 60s, 70s, or 80s comedy shows about how cute and funny those Communists in the U.S.S.R. are. Nazis are cute and funny and pathetic all at the same time.
If the writers had a fear of what their children might become.. .they were far more concerned about Communism than Nazi-ism. This is why Hogan's Heroes was received as light-hearted, silly comedy. Nazi-ism was seen by north americans as no problem whatsoever.
As of 1990, the USA has conquered the Nazis and the Communists. The USA ran out of enemies. Bret Sperry, the creator of the C&C series and inventor of the term "RTS", predicted the USA would over-state the threat of terrorism and use that as their new 'enemy'.
Whether or not the USA is over-stating the threat of terrorism remains a topic of debate to this day.
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The stuff about Pepe being alt right, I've seen plenty of Pepes shown by Hong Kongers during their ongoing protests.Posters etc.Are Hong Kong protesters in HK classed as alt-right?
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Northern Ireland20731 Posts
On November 01 2019 23:34 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: The stuff about Pepe being alt right, I've seen plenty of Pepes shown by Hong Kongers during their ongoing protests.Posters etc.Are Hong Kong protesters in HK classed as alt-right? Well no, have you read the thread because I’m pretty sure this sort of point was addressed already?
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On November 01 2019 23:34 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: The stuff about Pepe being alt right, I've seen plenty of Pepes shown by Hong Kongers during their ongoing protests.Posters etc.Are Hong Kong protesters in HK classed as alt-right? It was less people saying there’s no legitimate use, and more questioning or asserting the dangers of use as it relates to alt-right. Even as I’ve taken a position on it, I view them as separate issues with one not implying the other.
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On November 01 2019 23:34 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: The stuff about Pepe being alt right, I've seen plenty of Pepes shown by Hong Kongers during their ongoing protests.Posters etc.Are Hong Kong protesters in HK classed as alt-right?
I don't think anyone in this thread has made this claim. The OP question was "should more thought be put in to using these symbols/memes now that an association with the alt-right has developed". Majority response is "nah not really, just 'cause alt-right is getting media hype for using it doesn't mean they own it", which is true. Conversation shifted a bit toward alt-right using memes/symbols as a way to blend into the gamer group and recruit, other posters responded with "people are crazy for trying to ban them and limit their use" despite no one in the thread suggesting it, etc.
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On November 02 2019 02:22 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2019 23:34 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: The stuff about Pepe being alt right, I've seen plenty of Pepes shown by Hong Kongers during their ongoing protests.Posters etc.Are Hong Kong protesters in HK classed as alt-right? I don't think anyone in this thread has made this claim. The OP question was "should more thought be put in to using these symbols/memes now that an association with the alt-right has developed". Majority response is "nah not really, just 'cause alt-right is getting media hype for using it doesn't mean they own it", which is true. Conversation shifted a bit toward alt-right using memes/symbols as a way to blend into the gamer group and recruit, other posters responded with "people are crazy for trying to ban them and limit their use" despite no one in the thread suggesting it, etc. That’s one way to frame it. The other way is to read the strange ownership present in OP’s “ I regularly see and hear alt-right terminology and symbols used in the SC2 community” as asserting characterization of them into the alt-right sphere as prior to thinking about their use.
The other framing is also “Yet I do feel there is a lack of resistance or criticism on this” as OP wants to think about them as something to be resisted or criticized, rather than just to think about terminology as disconnected or connected to the alt-right.
In that way, all this “other posters responded ... despite no one in the thread suggesting it” looks like behaving in a deliberately dense manner to the subject. It’s simultaneously encouraging discussion of the subject, while also derailing natural discussion of stuff like characterization, susceptibility, and action. “Nobody ever suggested” is usually latter 2010s phrasing for either “I missed or didn’t understand the evolution of arguments and the points made” or “I want to dismiss or end thoughts and arguments that I don’t like.”
I’m frankly proud of the several pages of discussion as part of this community. I think the clear choice for people wanting discussion is to think twice before discounting alleged deviations from the topic. The bad actors or misinformed actors literally show themselves if you pay close enough attention and are willing to reread a couple pages in context.
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The other framing is also “Yet I do feel there is a lack of resistance or criticism on this” as OP wants to think about them as something to be resisted or criticized, rather than just to think about terminology as disconnected or connected to the alt-right. If people like the OP didn't get so worked up about it then there wouldn't be half as much of it. Of course with the ease that many people are offended these days this could be applied to pretty much everything, not just a cartoon frog.
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At first I thought that this thread is a joke... Now I'm worried.
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