Look, here's the thing. You can believe there's absolutely nothing racist about the use of the okay symbol as a pro-Trump symbol during the run up to 2016 election. Sure, the original vine in which it appears has a weird racial angle to it, but that doesn't mean that the people who used it subsequently were racists or had even seen that vine. They might have just been reacting to seeing other pro-Trump people do it. Let's be generous and assume that it became it's own thing.
It's still not a coincidence, is it. It's a political symbol. These people weren't saying they're okay. They didn't suddenly all get into scuba diving and decide to practice their hand signals on land. They're expressing support for Donald Trump, and for Donald Trump's policies. Policies such as a border wall with Mexico, a ban on Muslims entering the US, and various other things which, to be honest, sound kind of racist.
It's the OK sign. It's been used by many people over the years.
It's not a specific political symbol. A load of trolls from 4chan claimed it was then pointed to examples of people using it alongside republicans and pointed out some White supremacist saying "OK" to Trump essentially showing their endorsement to Trump.
The trolls could have just as easily claimed it was a sign of the democrat party showing democrat and people meeting them making the sign. Except that wouldn't work as well because the present scare is of the dangers of Nazis.
This is just the red scare but hunting Nazis instead of commies. Just as likely to go after the wrong targets and that's the goal get people to go after the wrong targets.
Moreover, they're using a sign which comes from a video where the description reads "white people be like", and which was popularised by people who had, at the very least, dabbled with racism.
Or they're just trolls
4chan didn't pick this symbol (in 2017) out of the blue. They picked it because it was an existing political symbol used by Trump supporters, and because there was already talk of it being a hate symbol. Was that talk justified, I don't know, maybe not. However, it's also not hard to see why it happened. It's really not as simple as 4chan owning the libs by taking an entirely meaningless and benign symbol and convincing them it was all about white supremacy, it's more about right-wing activists on 4chan taking a symbol already used both by the alt-right and more "mainstream" conservatives to indicate support for Donald Trump and, at best, mildly signal boosting the criticism it was already getting (which again, may have been unjustified but was fairly understandable) because, and I quote, it would be "good for us".
No they picked it because it's a well known regularly used symbol by everyone.
The more I look into this, the more obvious it becomes how little 4chan actually did. It's actually kind of shocking that anyone thinks their amateurish "hehe lets make twitter accounts with basic white girl names" prank actually did anything which wasn't happening already. All they seem to have done is take credit for a few journalists making what isn't even a clear cut mistake, just an unwarranted assumption.
Literally wikipedia itself states 4chan are responsible for the resurgence it modern times. Literally wikipedia itself!
No it wasn't happening already or already a major movement enough to be noticed. It was 4chan that brought it up as a stupid idea to revive the thing and people saw it and took the claims and ads seriously and ran with it despite everything that's change over the years.
Because people fell for it and seriously push it doesn't me they didn't fall for and continue to fall for what was a 4chan joke.
You're saying the same thing.
The joke is pretending to be a white supremacist and having people believe you are a white supremacist when you are actually not.
No the joke is getting people to believe that it is a symbol of white supremacy and be so firm in that belief they'll attack others over using the symbol.
If I'm a racist and I start saying racist things, people might react badly, but that doesn't make them gullible for believing it. For those people to be gullible, and for that to be a joke, they need to have been deceived in some way. If I'm actually racist, there is no deception.
It's the OK sign..........
Were the POPE, OBAMA, Hillary and Bill and AOC all signalling to their secret white supremacist supporters too??
That is the issue here. There is no clear deception, because the joke is not a joke.
The joke is people falling for it and their reaction to it. The joke is seeing how gullible people are.
If it was a joke, it would have stopped being funny once it became true. Once white supremacists actually started using the symbol, anyone who was telling a joke would have realised that the irony is gone. The people who are seeing this link are no longer gullible, they're actually seeing truthfully. But the intention isn't to make those people do a silly thing, it's purely to make them look like they did a silly thing. That's why it does not matter whether or not they are correct.
White supremacists also exist in the same world we do with much of the same cultural symbols. If they started doing bunny ears behind one anothers heads in photos would bunny ears be a sign of white supremacy?
How about breathing air?
Drinking a certain brand of drink in photos?
Standing on two legs?
Again, literally nothing to do with 4chan. Entirely consistent with PETA's existing rhetoric, and eating meat is not a clearly intelligible political statement.
You'll notice that no scuba divers have been called out for using the "okay" sign while diving, because it's clearly not a political statement in that context. I refuse to believe that you genuinely cannot identify the context of when a hand signal is being used politically. Maybe not in every single case, but most of the time.
So Scuba divers don't exist above water?
How do you know some of those being attacked and called out for it who have 0 other evidence supporting the claim they're white supremacists weren't scuba divers?
I'd think you'd therefore get how much it puts you at odds with a certain political position assuming you faced it due to right wing people ............
No, I said that I don't get what 4chan has to do with it.
Again, it seems very wholesome, so I guess maybe it's an interesting example of how bad actors can sometimes have positive effects unintentionally. Beyond that, I don't see the relevance. People aren't doing it because they've been "fooled", they're doing it because there are clear positive reasons to do it.
It's weird how your constant attempts to assert context and individual responsibility for one's actions suddenly run out just now, isn't it. Like, we have to pretend that actual white nationalists are just using the okay sign to show how okay they are, but at the same time you don't seem to be able to imagine why anyone would ever not use disposable sanitary products for any reason except that they've been literally tricked into doing it.
Except it's not.
At best it's a silly tokenistic gesture
Some of them were, yeah.
Noone has ever denied that.
Except people are by trying to claim people seen in pictures using it are signalling to white supremacists and trying to get them fired / dropped from education etc etc for doing it. They're not bothering to account for it potentially just being the OK sign they're in attack mode because they think they're doing good and can't possibly acknowledge they might be targeting an innocent person.
Was I incorrect in my assessment of what you said?
I misread that bit but the point is 4chan goes after anyone
They went after Justin Beiber before.
They went after Scientology.
They went after Shia Labeouf FFS lol
Hell in this case it likely wasn't an attack but some dumb meme propaganda thing about "Disabled people 4 Trump, they see me rollin they hatin" or something.
The Attacks against her the actual attacks came from people who despise Trump and attacked her out of belief she supported Trump
I love how you're just completely glossing over the ableism despite the fact it was the entire point of going public.
The Ableism and attacks from LEFT wingers towards her because they can't accept some-one in a wheelchair having their own political views apparently.
I guess Trump supporters are the
real disabled people in our messed up society.
Honestly, 4chan is less an incarnation of the joker and more an incarnation of people who get really angry that Joker lost best picture to Parasite.
Except 4chan only cares for causing chaos and getting people to fall for jokes for the most part or cause people to get mad.
