Read all your thread on this + very accurate imo. All I'm saying on Musk is that when I was personally confident of what his propaganda role was, I was off his platform. Remember though, similar happened in the USA before WW2 when fascism was rife + ignored. We are in precarious + worrying times. 🤔
this just grabbed me by the hair and dragged me back to 2016 by it. god the fash really come up with a maximum of seventeen “jokes” and then use them forever
The most powerful person in the United States proudly proclaims themselves a violent, white nationalist Nazi. That is the United States on the eve of 2025.
This is not a new thing. It’s been apart of the wider internet for nearly a decade. People know what this is and Musk is not oblivious. But he will happily take advantage of the benefit of the doubt the press passes out like candy everytime he pulls one of these stunts.
He pays other people to run them. We can quantify the amount of time he spends on social media & even tell when he’s actually sleeping. Oh and he’s also apparently playing Diablo nine hours a day. He’s not building cars or rockets. He’s a figurehead.
And we will now unfortunately endure another of round of commentary like this (NYT circa 2021) referring to thinly coded Nazi imagery as a “provocative joke.”
This is a great example of why the institutional press has lost so much credibility. The public understands clearly what a dog whistle is and papers, for what appears to be financially motivated reasons, act like they’re oblivious, when it’s obvious to readers that cannot possibly be the case.
Personally, I resent that they felt the need to equate truth & lies for their own profit/personal interests. For this reason, I refuse to watch or subscribe.
It’s all over reddit, telegram, X and other platforms. There are hundreds of articles about it. There are research papers and documentaries. Any reporter who picks up the phone and speaks to an expert on extremism will hear the same thing. It qualifies as public knowledge.
And then once they understand what it stands for, you have to explain WHY it stands for that. Sadly, you're not gonna hold people's attention long enough to go through all of that.
What is the public in this context? In my experience most people are completely unaware of this and only people who are keeping up with these topics (on the left & right) know about this. The average person is oblivious & that's by design. Can't recruit who sees what you're really doing.
It simply can’t be true that millions of internet users understand symbols and the messages behind them while hundreds of ivy league educated journalists are just confused and in the dark. It reeks of agenda, interference, and collusion.
It’s sheer cowardice. They are so terrified of the idea of anyone on the right ever accusing them of “liberal bias” that they would rather whitewash and spread right wing propaganda all day long.
If they allowed themselves to understand it, then they'd have to DO something about it - or at least, call it out clearly.
And to abandon their cherished false "neutrality" is the one thing that they can never, ever permit themselves.
sorry i lost a few people. i was adopting a perspective for the sake of argument. it absolutely can be true and that’s maybe even worse, depending on whether you’re more affected by the audacity of ignorance or dishonesty.
I mean, I'm a 68 yr old white dude, on the outside looking in, as it were, and it's crystal clear to me. I have to agree with Dell and others. They know, but can't bring themselves to acknowledge it for what it is.
Right-wing trolls will use the dog-whistles and respond to criticism with an "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you! You just think everything is racist!" ploy, and nobody's dumb enough to believe them except the NYT.
Like sorry what is the institutional press?
They have always been businesses peddling owners agendas.
Even in Australia public owned abc peddles government agenda which is sort of ok, to know one
Yeah, dude just shouted from the mountain top “I am the emperor of white nationalist incels!” and people are going to both sides that somehow. . . It’s infuriating.
Side note… before “kek” was used by far right freaks, it was merely a translation of World of Warcraft language between the two factions in the game. If a player on one side said “lol” in chat, it would appear as “kek” in the opposing factions chat.
yeah. and before the swastika was adopted by a bloodthirsty fascist regime bent on world domination it was a sign of good luck. but that’s how it goes.
Even "Kekistan" and the stupid flag were originally started as edgy jokes where different people had different understandings of what it was supposed to mean (ranging from "upset the feminists" to "mock the alt-right" & much more). Quickly, the alt-right made it their own & it only got worse.
I jumped off the video game world around the time that Mario Brothers was a new thing, but one of my favorite futurist writers, Neal Stephenson, wrote some great fiction around World of Warcraft scenarios so I’m not entirely oblivious. I’ve never done a deep dive into the 4chan septic tank, though.
I managed to avoid most of 4chan proper, but I was involved in "skeptic" YouTube content back when "kekistan" became a thing & was friends with any number of people who were more involved with that end of things due to the skeptic/alt-right pipeline. Some got out, others I don't know anymore.
The trajectory from Robert Anton Wilson to QAnon is a lot like the watching a plane fly into a mountain. Conspiratorial skepticism sped up to warp stupid really fucking fast!
So glad I started putting distance between myself & that crowd when they tried to challenge my video debunking "race realism" as being just pseudoscientific racism in a fancy dress.
People really need to read kill all normies. The alt right routed most of the non right leaning people from kekeistan , but originally it was just shit posting. People did too much Nazi irony posting and became Nazis. Feels bad man
Musk killed the twitter bird already, just the way he tortured to death thousands (court case) of living beings, destroyed their brains, for the disgusting Neuralink. He clearly values life. Glad to leave Shitter.
Just because he’s rich and conservative doesn’t mean we have to bend over backwards to avoid saying what we all know is true…Elon Musk is a racist cunt.
The ONE group of people who have taken to Elon has been the racists..
And man, is he rushing to wrap himself around that group.
He must have really loved living with Apartheid so he is now lashing out against those who ushered in the end of Apartheid South Africa as he has the means.
Also they hate pedophilia and love 4chan? Short memory much? 4chan who’s icons included a drawing of an adolescent girl sucking a popsicle? Who’s group slang included the word “loli”?
Going into 2025 with “fuck this Nazi shitsucker” energy.
& tbh fuck the “well it isn’t always a real Nazi thing, it can be just shitposts/jokes/etc” attitude too. I’m a Jewish trans woman & I’ve seen this shit for what it is since the gamergate days. Non nazis joining in the shitposts enable nazis.
Well, at least I feel a little less crazy for trying to explain to people in 2018 why I thought Elon Musk, a cartoon frog, and a stupid imaginary land called Kekistan were potentially dangerous.
Musk is so 8 years ago, 🙄and apparently, his development was arrested around 8 years old.. So WTF are you saying, little fella? You're the raciest racist ever in the history of the world?
The article did a pretty bad job explaining it. If I had zero context of the way people use it, I'd wonder what the big deal was. "a gaming way of saying lol" is not giving a good picture
"despite connotations..." Elon has chosen specifically because of connotations. This isn't boyish - he's a grown man acting immaturely. This isn't playful - this is extremism.
People frequently try to pretend that it's just a meme from WOW, which it is, but it was adopted by /pol/ and made into that flag. It's also how that frog went from the feels good man meme to being used by incel right-wingers.
Ahhh kekistan back to 2014 when a bunch of basement dwelling 4chan shitposters took over the government because of giles intruding in there hobbies.....
When you find yourself subjected
to the rants of Trump, Musk and FOX
'news' remind yourself from time to
time that before the internet all of this
would have been merely the scrawlings
on toilet walls in unkept public bathrooms
or the floors of padded cells.
i think it’s a gross abuse of airtime. of the top 500 ceos in the US only a small handful receive this much attention despite their public impact being relatively equal
Yeah, it originates back to "KEK" and "BUR" which were the cross-faction language translations for "LOL" in World of Warcraft.
However, in the interceding years, its been co-opted and turned into something much more sinister. Just because it was once benign, doesn't mean it has remained so.
It’s weird how hate groups often form from drinking groups that come up with gibberish, memes, etc. The klan, nazis, the alt right ethnocentrism, and the proud boys all started either as a drinking group or as a joke. It’s like a lack of purpose & aimlessness easily veers into tribalism
Comments
it's dangerous to go alone
take this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFRZEHAwJ8g
It's been 10 years or so since I last heard of anyone mentioning it.
It's worked for generations
And Mysk has THE biggest target on his back.
Oh, how many naive people initially bought into that bullshit angle.
Hootin and a hollering and burning crosses
provocative jokesters those boys in robes and hoods
I'm sure Dear Leader enjoys that
Look at this guy, what a comedian.
I will not reward them.
And to abandon their cherished false "neutrality" is the one thing that they can never, ever permit themselves.
he’s doing it because he can get away with it, and no one should be giving him the benefit of the doubt here.
y'know what? no.
at some point too much benefit of the doubt turns into making excuses for them
yeah they know it,they have to know, if they don't they're not doing their job properly and that's ALSO bad
Exactly what their management expects of them.
This part could be a summary of Trump’s entire political campaign.
It's a riddle right up there with why do kids who play in the street get hit by cars.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
They have always been businesses peddling owners agendas.
Even in Australia public owned abc peddles government agenda which is sort of ok, to know one
It’s a wonder so many people can’t take crypto seriously, huh?
Fight back or roll over and die.
goddamn those dipshits are so uncreative they keep using the same 10 year old racist shit over and over
Just because he’s rich and conservative doesn’t mean we have to bend over backwards to avoid saying what we all know is true…Elon Musk is a racist cunt.
And man, is he rushing to wrap himself around that group.
He must have really loved living with Apartheid so he is now lashing out against those who ushered in the end of Apartheid South Africa as he has the means.
& tbh fuck the “well it isn’t always a real Nazi thing, it can be just shitposts/jokes/etc” attitude too. I’m a Jewish trans woman & I’ve seen this shit for what it is since the gamergate days. Non nazis joining in the shitposts enable nazis.
The future is stupid.
Why are the crypto bros ascending? What's their rationale?
I know.
Anyone else get what's going on with crypto...and why they bought the POTUS? Think globally. Read Cryptonomicon.
to the rants of Trump, Musk and FOX
'news' remind yourself from time to
time that before the internet all of this
would have been merely the scrawlings
on toilet walls in unkept public bathrooms
or the floors of padded cells.
"They fucking sound insane." Yes.
However, in the interceding years, its been co-opted and turned into something much more sinister. Just because it was once benign, doesn't mean it has remained so.
Man has zero finesse.