Chicago Cubs fan banned after flashing neo-Nazi hand symbol - Sensationalist Headlines

I'm a bit amazed how obtuse a lot of users here are being. The "okay" hand symbols has been co-opted by white supremacists. Laughing it off as a "/pol/ meme" is being incredibly naive. This dude gets it. Sort of, anyway. Fascists choose this shit specifically because it's sneaky and people will laugh it off and defend it as being innocent. Go take a look at some twitters of people with the okay symbol in their handle and see if you can spot a trend in their political beliefs. Don't believe me? Here are a bunch of Proud Boys doing it. https://i.imgur.com/Jp3PuyP.jpg Look them up if you don't know who they are but those hats should give you an idea. And look at this: https://i.imgur.com/EJFrZjW.jpg A guy who killed 50 Muslims doing it too. But he live streamed it all on 8chan /pol/ so that's just a hilarious /pol/ meme, right? Granted in this case it's hard to tell whether this is what the dude in the article meant, so I'm not trying to make the point that he's a white supremacist. It still does have the other meaning, he might have just wanted to make a bunch of people lose the game at once. But people in this thread seem unwilling to believe that this is a fascist dogwhistle too, but it is. They do it because it's got deniability.

yeah lemme just go change the letter f in american sign language real fast. no.

Yeah except it only changed it's meaning in the west because the Swastika had no real meaning or presence here before the Nazis. People in Asia still use the Swastika for it's intended purpose.

It's literally supposed to be a 'ohp you looked haha' sign there is no hateful ideology behind it except the fact I punch my friend if I catch them with it

funny you bring up the christchurch guy since the site I saw that pamphlet I mentioned about trying to do it for propaganda purposes (referencing Pepe as an accidental one and NPC as a successful attempt) was the QAnon "too hot for 8chan" site he frequented. That's what we're fucking talking about when saying this is what was wanted. I'm pretty sure shit about memes was even in the manifesto

It's not "laughing it off as a /pol/ meme" though, it's about not letting nazis dictate what you can and can't say. Their entire thing is taking every day things and trying to change the meaning as a way of inconveniencing people and getting people who don't really follow all this stuff into trouble without knowing what they even really did.

If you click the link, the section I specifically directed to refers to the swastika's history in iron-age northern Europe, and there's a section just a little below that regarding the swastika's presence in medieval and modern Europe.

You know what else they are doing? Smiling. A smile is now a nazi symbol. check yo self.

I don't think I said anything about not using it because it's a thing fascists use symbolically. In fact I said it still has the normal meaning which is what makes it hard to evaluate the context someone is using it in. I was responding specifically to the people in this thread not believing that's something they do.

Yeah but it was not nearly as popular as it is in Asia, the okay sign has been in much more popular use. Also the swastika changed after a literal genocidal dictatorship adopted it, not a couple of morons on the internet and one nutty shooter.

No neo-nazi uses 👌 thinking it's a real white supremacist symbol, the whole point of their usage is to manipulate it into one showing us a picture of some dudes in maga hats doing 👌 and saying "see they do" is about as valid as the hitler drinking water shitpost regardless of knowing that there's a cabal of QAnons trying to co-opt any memes they can for some sort of recruitment/propaganda purpose. There was a word someone else used to describe what they're doing when I brought up the pamphlets on an antifascist subreddit, can't recall what it is but it's happened before with HRC campaign site talking about Pepe, trying to make dems look stupid by getting them to talk about whack shit like cartoon frogs people are already familiar with so their position looks smarter to millennials in comparison

The proud boys was literally started as a joke and they take this piss out of everything. They're doing it to get this reaction. That's why they're wearing shit eating grins. Gavin McGinnes made this clan up to take the piss out of everything. Albeit they gained popularity and are getting more and more serious. That shooter dude plastered his guns and video in memes and symbols Like the PewDiePie thing. They do this shit to see what sticks. They do these things because it gets a reaction and the strength of which they double down is determined by the reaction they get. The symbol wasn't adopted because someone noticed it's a cute way to make a WP hand gesture, they shoehorned it in there because they knew people would react. The only people who are making this a WP symbol are the people who get all in a tizzy and blur out the okay symbol and make it a terrible thing. Hell most of these people wear the maga hats because it gets a reaction. Trump voters don't wear it because they love white power, they wear it to 'own the libs'. The moment this stupid symbol/emoji starts getting people banned from things, or gets removed from emoji lists, is the moment they gain legitimacy and the trolls move on to some other innocent thing to stay relevant. 👌Don't let them take it 👌

Are you saying that neonazis aren't genocidal because if you are I think you might be thinking of someone else.

Is this real life? Did this fucking happen? Where is the onion link- oh my god. How does the onion stay in business with shit like this. Fuck.

The precedent this sets is that they can just pick any symbol they want and if they use it and meme hard enough it becomes theirs without a fight. I've seen some people suggesting co-opting the rainbow flag next to deny it from LGBT people. Are you gonna let them have that too? If symbols were a physical space this would be the equivalent of retreating without doing anything.

Sort of. It is one because it is literally is being used as one. I don't think your point about them wanting to "manipulate it into one makes any sense. See Splash Attack's post: This reminds me of that tweet that went something along the lines of "A: Let's troll people into thinking that the OK gesture is a symbol of White Supremacy. B: How do we do that? A: By making the gesture and being white supremacists." It's not purely a white supremacist thing and I was never saying it was, despite what some people want to strawman my original post into saying. I'm responding to people not believing it is used with intent in the way I refer to by white nationalists. showing us a picture of some dudes in maga hats doing 👌 and saying "see they do" is about as valid as the hitler drinking water shitpost regardless of knowing that there's a cabal of QAnons trying to co-opt any memes they can for some sort of recruitment/propaganda purpose. I dunno what meme you're referring to so I'm not really sure what you mean by this. There was a word someone else used to describe what they're doing when I brought up the pamphlets on an antifascist subreddit, can't recall what it is but it's happened before with HRC campaign site talking about Pepe, trying to make dems look stupid by getting them to talk about whack shit like cartoon frogs people are already familiar with so their position looks smarter to millennials in comparison Yes, absolutely, and that's part of the point I was making. They choose this shit because it's innocuous and if you point it out they can make you seem crazy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4BVGPkdzk

I was in this subreddit for making antifascist edits to stonetoss comics and saw them talking in comments about how clowns are becoming a symbol of white supremacy because of the "yall mfuckas" and honk pepe meme being popular on ftwitter (which it is everywhere too) I wanted to fuckin die. Anyone who knows me knows clowns are very important to me and my life/interests, I'm already physically pained from how dumb this situation is, I feel like I might actually have that stroke if it works on clowns.

Its a two way street on why its "becoming an alt-right symbol". Lok at Pepe. Itwas just a meme of a frog that people drew poorly and used for literally meme. But now anytime i see Pepe my first thought is "this dude is probably some alt-right bro", even if its not the case. Is it because Pepe started as a symbol for the alt right? No, of course not . Is it because Nazis coopted it and use it as a dog whistle? Partially, yeah. Is it because people noticed that Nazis were starting to use Pepe along with alt-right posts? Partially, yeah. Both of those things are why Pepe is considered an alt-right meme. Heres the problemo imo: Nazis are going to keep using the OK handsign as a dog whistle. The only way to stop that is to re-re-claim it, but doing that alone or in a vacuum possibly make you look like an alt-right fuckhead, which is why they use it in the first place. Its going the same route as Pepe because of both the nazis and the headlines NOTCING that nazis are using it, and its fucking terrible. What do you want people to do, pretend nazis arent going around using it a s a dog whistle? It's just not realistic. Dont be pissed at the people who are noticing its something the nazis use as a dog whistle. Get mad at the people who keep using symbols already meaning something in our culture as a dog whistle, theyre the reason why you can't make a fucking OK hand at a ball game.

Been seeing that clown make the rounds on Facebook from a dude I know from highschool who posts these memes on his troll alts to mess with people

They might talk big but they could never actually pull it off. I don't think jumping to the tune of internet edgelords is a great way to fight nazism. If the okay sign stays as an every day sign they can't use it as a dog whistle because they have no way of determining whether it's a fellow nazi or just some dude saying okay. It only becomes a dog whistle when people start freaking out over it.

This might be a good point if success had literally anything to do with whether or not something is genocidal.

imagine if we bowed down to the whims of the terrorists that did the 9/11 attack. We rose to be stronger than them, we joke about their actions, etc. We didn't let the terrorists win, and we certainly shouldn't let white supremacists dictate how and what we can communicate either.

To be fair I've seen this hand sign in a lot of neo-nazi pictures, specifically the OK held upside down, and I've never seen someone use it outside of that context. How often do people _really_ use upside-down OK hand signs in real life.

Well so far the modern 4chan nazis haven't actually managed a genocide.

All Nazis, by definition, are genocidal. The entire goal of Nazism is the extermination of anyone who isn't white. There is no interpretation of Nazism that isn't based squarely upon genocide.

I'm gonna need to see what you're talking about because I don't think I've seen it in "neo-nazi pictures"? I've seen it on cosplayers, memes and even kids irl but not "neo-nazi pictures", even the one JohnnyMo posted of proud boys has them doing it way above the waist. The below the waist one IS the made-you-look game

Yeah but they don't have the power to do it, making them pretty toothless in that regard.

So when Nazis say its ok to breath air, are you going to stop breathing? Don't give the fucking inch.

I'm not entirely sure how this tangent developed, but you can't wait until genocidal maniacs have the power to commit genocide before taking the threat seriously, surely?

Right, I agree with you here. Banning this dude from a sporting event only improves the situation for white supremacists. Now "the left has gone crazy." This is explained in the Contrapoints video. My original post was directed at the people who don't seem to believe that rightists are trying to co-opt this on purpose or that it's somehow absurd to associate it to the right. Their effective propaganda plot to use innocuous symbols to make you look ridiculous when you're pointing out what they're doing notwithstanding, they are using this shit with intent. Someone else pointed out clowns. No, clowns are not a symbol of white supremacy; having anything associated with clowns does not identify you as a fascist. But you'd be naive to believe /r/honkler is a hilarious joke and not disgusting propaganda. It's designed so you can laugh along to the ridiculous premise while they normalize a bunch of white nationalist talking points.