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I was actually quite fascinated by the Kek phenomenon for religious reasons - I'm very into alternative/marginal religious movements, so worship of an egyptian

I was actually quite fascinated by the Kek phenomenon for religious reasons - I'm very into alternative/marginal religious movements, so worship of an egyptian chaos god was pretty fascinating to me. I also rather liked the Kekistan flag when it first started, and had no idea it was a palette swapped version of a nazi flag until much later. Do you think I'm a hate filled racist?

drdeca 7y ago
They appear to be talking about the ones which they saw flying that flag where they lived. As in, some specific persons. I didn’t interpret it as a claim that all persons who have liked that flag are “hate filled racists”.
EForEndeavour 7y ago
> Do you think I'm a hate filled racist? ...Being fascinated in the Kek phenomenon is very different from going to the trouble of obtaining a physical version of the flag of Kekistan and flying it in public. Do you do this?
- jeromic 7y ago
  Given that he isn't racist and doesn't consider Kek to be racist, what would be the problem with flying the flag? Look at https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/kekistan https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/kekistan, it looks like a joke that is being taken way too seriously.
  - jsjolen 7y ago
    It's meant to look like a joke on the surface. I was a big fan of the "feels good man" comic (Pepe the frog) but I wouldn't deny that it's been co-opted by the far right. Also, kekistan is a way worse joke than "feels good man".
    - jeromic 7y ago
      So if extremists start using a symbol, everyone else has to stop using it and let them have it? Wouldn't it be preferable to ignore the extremists so they don't get the symbol, and the symbol isn't ruined?
      - krapp 7y ago
        >So if extremists start using a symbol, everyone else has to stop using it and let them have it? If extremists start using a symbol, non-extremists have to accept that they might be associated with those extremists by continuing to use it. >Wouldn't it be preferable to ignore the extremists so they don't get the symbol, and the symbol isn't ruined? That's not how it works. They're using the symbol anyway, so it gets ruined anyway. Ignoring the Nazis would not have had prevented them from owning the meaning of the swastika in the Western world, to use the obvious example.
        jeromic 7y ago
        Following that example, what if the Nazis used the letter 'x' as their symbol? Some non-Nazis might be associated with them by using the letter, but surely that effect can be diluted if everyone continues to use the letter as normal. And is the letter 'x' really ruined? The swastika wasn't ruined for many Eastern cultures as its original meaning was widely known.
        krapp 7y ago
        The letter x as a symbol already has widespread use and an accepted, common meaning in the Western world, but the swastika really didn't until the Nazis appropriated it. Which is why Nazis probably wouldn't appropriate the letter x because its power as a symbol had already been diluted. Also, a symbol can be ruined locally and not ruined globally. The swastika wasn't ruined for Eastern cultures, but it was definitely ruined for everyone but Nazis everywhere else. If Buddhists decided to get together to try to "reclaim" the swastika for its original peaceful intent, they would fail utterly, even though they have a perfectly rational and defensible case.
  - keymone 7y ago
    That somebody thinks it’s a funny joke doesn’t cancel out somebody else purposefully using it as a hate symbol knowing that other members of their sick cult know what they really mean.
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  I didn't, but in the early days I might have. There was a real divide at one time between the LN new atheist types who just wanted to score cheap political points and the CN meme magicians who took the whole 'avatar of chaos' thing very seriously. I kind of regret not throwing more of my weight to the side I think would have moved our dialogue forward, but realistically I don't suppose it matters.
  - salawat 7y ago
    Have you heard much from the Discordians lately? You seem like someone who might have intersection with their circles. Not a bad thing at all, I've just not run into them in so long.
    - SuoDuanDao 7y ago
      Never met a practising discordian who called themselves that, though I've met Subgenii and chaos magicians. I'm currently reading the Illuminatus! trilogy that supposedly kicked that movement off, but I only know about that through Steve Jackson Games' frequent references. I don't know whether they're hiding or gone, it doesn't seem like a movement that would be big on recruiting so who knows?..
mindcandy 7y ago
You are aware that mentioning the god Kek is a post-hoc explanation, right? People care about kek-themed stuff because of World of Warcraft. The tie-in to Egyptian mythology was a convenient coincidence. Regardless, you might not be a hate filled racist. But, a whole lot of hate filled racists use the Kekistan flag as a thinly-veiled symbol of hate filled racism. So, be aware: that's the message conveyed to the world at large when it is shown. Not Egyptian mythology.
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  You say convenient, I would say significant. 2016 had an unusually paranormal feel to a lot of people, complete with an actual rain of frogs (Pepe wasn't the only frog meme that year as you might recall). The 'meme magic' group in particular was fascinating to me, as it seemed like an evolution of the '80s 'chaos magic' group which I also find fascinating. Only this time, there was actually a relationship with higher powers. That is where the vitality of the movement was when I encountered it, and that is what I found interesting enough to look into further. I'm disappointed as hell that a secularist wanker like Carl Benjamin successfully co-opted the movement for crass political purposes. But I'm also annoyed that if I tried to re-appropriate the same symbology for the optimistic, metaphysics-exploring group of pranksters that meme'd it to relevance, I'd get called a bigot for associating with the wrong people. Any group is defined by its lowest common denominators, which is why I and so many people I respect try to seek out smaller subcultures. The trouble I'm seeing is that when a large group like the nationalist right wants to co-opt a smaller but more effective movement, the larger group's rivals refuse to acknowledge any distinction between the different subcomponents, even if those subcomponents disagree on everything that's objectionable about the larger group to begin with. It's bad for the interesting subcultures and it's bad tactics for the larger ones to unite rather than divide their opposition. Now I'd best go take my own advice and send happy thoughts to those members of the globalist left who like to garden.
  - thatcat 7y ago
    Interesting observation. Globalism includes ideas, as small interesting ideas grow the established more powerful and exploitive ideas can absorb the meme momentum then reassociate the imagery and ideas as their own.
tptacek 7y ago
The swastika also has a fascinating religious history, and has deep meaning to people throughout Asia. You'd have a hard time explaining that as a reason to fly a Nazi flag in the US, and few people would be interested in a complaint about people being close-minded about what the swastika represents. You could display a Buddhist swastika, but you'd have to be very careful of how you presented it and the context in which it was presented. It's hard to have too much sympathy for people who casually evoke "Kek" and then are shocked to learn people believe them to be white supremacists.
- cheschire 7y ago
  I find the act of displaying a flag publicly to be passive aggressive in itself. I grew up in America where the flag was used as a way to force people to unify (remember post 9/11?) and then I moved to Germany where the only time I’ve seen flags displayed publicly are for sports teams, either local or national, and only for the length of the competition. Having been away from the blatant flag waving for so long, it really jumps out at me now when I visit America occasionally. It’s not just that flags are a pride thing, it’s that they’re trying to draw attention to the pride a person has. But why should I care about their pride? Why force me to notice it?
  - rjf72 7y ago
    I think Germany itself is a perfect answer to your question. One thing you start to see over and over in politics is Newton's Third - for every action there's an equal but opposite reaction. Germany took an an overwhelmingly sharp anti-nationalist turn, and what happened? Now we see things like the AfD (far right/nationalist party for those unaware) going from a niche little party that couldn't even qualify for the electoral threshold to the second most popular party in the nation, the #1 in east Germany. And similar things have been happening throughout Europe. People being unified within a nation is a very good thing. And being unified does not mean believing the same thing. There have always been extremely divisive politics in the US. You only need look at our money - the man on the $10 bill was killed by the vice president of the man on the nickel in a duel. But when people start to become mutually exclusive, or when a nation itself goes too far in one direction, or the other, it results in a sharp counter movement in the opposite direction. It's important that people ultimately view themselves as part of a whole, even if they might strongly disagree with one another. A flag is the most fundamental representation of that whole. The alternative tends to trend towards widescale conflict which rarely has a happy ending for anybody.
owldimoon 7y ago
Wasn't 'kek' just a riff off of 'lel' which itself was a riff off of 'lol'? I figured someone just off-by-one'd 'lel' and thought it sounded funny. top kek
- monkpit 7y ago
  In world of Warcraft, if you are an alliance race and a member of the horde is speaking to you in area chat, the text is mangled to simulate the fact that the different factions do not understand each other’s languages. “Kek” is how “lol” showed up in the chat every time. So kek became synonymous with lol.
  - SargeZT 7y ago
    It has a slightly longer history than WoW. In the original Starcraft, the Korean version of "Hahaha" is "ㅋㅋㅋ". Owing to the fact that the English version of the game didn't support Korean text, the represented text of a Korean player saying "ㅋㅋㅋ" was "kekeke." This became an early meme of sorts and caught on. Blizzard honored that in WoW by adding the kek/lol translation.
  - taneq 7y ago
    Related trivia: If you're horde and an alliance player says "lol" it comes across as "bur".
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andrepd 7y ago
>Do you think I'm a hate filled racist? Context matters. Are you interested in the flag for those reasons? Then probably not. Are you flying it at a protest, in a faux innocent schoolboy sense of "noo, it's not a nazi flag, see, it's a kek flag, teehee'? Then probably yes.
sixothree 7y ago
> Do you think I'm a hate filled racist? You are now aware that this is a copy of a nazi flag. If you decide to raise this flag today, I would have to say yes. If I told you now there is a secret hand signal white supremacists are using then tomorrow you begin using it, then I would safely be able to assume the same. > had no idea it was a palette swapped version of a nazi flag It is not very difficult to see. If your love of this flag is "piss people off" then maybe you are willingly blind.
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  My question was, what if I was already using the hand signal in your example and I refused to stop just because I learned white supremicists were doing the same? Genuine question.

drdeca 7y ago

They appear to be talking about the ones which they saw flying that flag where they lived. As in, some specific persons. I didn’t interpret it as a claim that all persons who have liked that flag are “hate filled racists”.

EForEndeavour 7y ago

> Do you think I'm a hate filled racist? ...Being fascinated in the Kek phenomenon is very different from going to the trouble of obtaining a physical version of the flag of Kekistan and flying it in public. Do you do this?

jeromic 7y ago
Given that he isn't racist and doesn't consider Kek to be racist, what would be the problem with flying the flag? Look at https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/kekistan https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/kekistan, it looks like a joke that is being taken way too seriously.
- jsjolen 7y ago
  It's meant to look like a joke on the surface. I was a big fan of the "feels good man" comic (Pepe the frog) but I wouldn't deny that it's been co-opted by the far right. Also, kekistan is a way worse joke than "feels good man".
  - jeromic 7y ago
    So if extremists start using a symbol, everyone else has to stop using it and let them have it? Wouldn't it be preferable to ignore the extremists so they don't get the symbol, and the symbol isn't ruined?
    - krapp 7y ago
      >So if extremists start using a symbol, everyone else has to stop using it and let them have it? If extremists start using a symbol, non-extremists have to accept that they might be associated with those extremists by continuing to use it. >Wouldn't it be preferable to ignore the extremists so they don't get the symbol, and the symbol isn't ruined? That's not how it works. They're using the symbol anyway, so it gets ruined anyway. Ignoring the Nazis would not have had prevented them from owning the meaning of the swastika in the Western world, to use the obvious example.
      - jeromic 7y ago
        Following that example, what if the Nazis used the letter 'x' as their symbol? Some non-Nazis might be associated with them by using the letter, but surely that effect can be diluted if everyone continues to use the letter as normal. And is the letter 'x' really ruined? The swastika wasn't ruined for many Eastern cultures as its original meaning was widely known.
        krapp 7y ago
        The letter x as a symbol already has widespread use and an accepted, common meaning in the Western world, but the swastika really didn't until the Nazis appropriated it. Which is why Nazis probably wouldn't appropriate the letter x because its power as a symbol had already been diluted. Also, a symbol can be ruined locally and not ruined globally. The swastika wasn't ruined for Eastern cultures, but it was definitely ruined for everyone but Nazis everywhere else. If Buddhists decided to get together to try to "reclaim" the swastika for its original peaceful intent, they would fail utterly, even though they have a perfectly rational and defensible case.
- keymone 7y ago
  That somebody thinks it’s a funny joke doesn’t cancel out somebody else purposefully using it as a hate symbol knowing that other members of their sick cult know what they really mean.
SuoDuanDao 7y ago
I didn't, but in the early days I might have. There was a real divide at one time between the LN new atheist types who just wanted to score cheap political points and the CN meme magicians who took the whole 'avatar of chaos' thing very seriously. I kind of regret not throwing more of my weight to the side I think would have moved our dialogue forward, but realistically I don't suppose it matters.
- salawat 7y ago
  Have you heard much from the Discordians lately? You seem like someone who might have intersection with their circles. Not a bad thing at all, I've just not run into them in so long.
  - SuoDuanDao 7y ago
    Never met a practising discordian who called themselves that, though I've met Subgenii and chaos magicians. I'm currently reading the Illuminatus! trilogy that supposedly kicked that movement off, but I only know about that through Steve Jackson Games' frequent references. I don't know whether they're hiding or gone, it doesn't seem like a movement that would be big on recruiting so who knows?..

mindcandy 7y ago

You are aware that mentioning the god Kek is a post-hoc explanation, right? People care about kek-themed stuff because of World of Warcraft. The tie-in to Egyptian mythology was a convenient coincidence. Regardless, you might not be a hate filled racist. But, a whole lot of hate filled racists use the Kekistan flag as a thinly-veiled symbol of hate filled racism. So, be aware: that's the message conveyed to the world at large when it is shown. Not Egyptian mythology.

SuoDuanDao 7y ago
You say convenient, I would say significant. 2016 had an unusually paranormal feel to a lot of people, complete with an actual rain of frogs (Pepe wasn't the only frog meme that year as you might recall). The 'meme magic' group in particular was fascinating to me, as it seemed like an evolution of the '80s 'chaos magic' group which I also find fascinating. Only this time, there was actually a relationship with higher powers. That is where the vitality of the movement was when I encountered it, and that is what I found interesting enough to look into further. I'm disappointed as hell that a secularist wanker like Carl Benjamin successfully co-opted the movement for crass political purposes. But I'm also annoyed that if I tried to re-appropriate the same symbology for the optimistic, metaphysics-exploring group of pranksters that meme'd it to relevance, I'd get called a bigot for associating with the wrong people. Any group is defined by its lowest common denominators, which is why I and so many people I respect try to seek out smaller subcultures. The trouble I'm seeing is that when a large group like the nationalist right wants to co-opt a smaller but more effective movement, the larger group's rivals refuse to acknowledge any distinction between the different subcomponents, even if those subcomponents disagree on everything that's objectionable about the larger group to begin with. It's bad for the interesting subcultures and it's bad tactics for the larger ones to unite rather than divide their opposition. Now I'd best go take my own advice and send happy thoughts to those members of the globalist left who like to garden.
- thatcat 7y ago
  Interesting observation. Globalism includes ideas, as small interesting ideas grow the established more powerful and exploitive ideas can absorb the meme momentum then reassociate the imagery and ideas as their own.

tptacek 7y ago

The swastika also has a fascinating religious history, and has deep meaning to people throughout Asia. You'd have a hard time explaining that as a reason to fly a Nazi flag in the US, and few people would be interested in a complaint about people being close-minded about what the swastika represents. You could display a Buddhist swastika, but you'd have to be very careful of how you presented it and the context in which it was presented. It's hard to have too much sympathy for people who casually evoke "Kek" and then are shocked to learn people believe them to be white supremacists.

cheschire 7y ago
I find the act of displaying a flag publicly to be passive aggressive in itself. I grew up in America where the flag was used as a way to force people to unify (remember post 9/11?) and then I moved to Germany where the only time I’ve seen flags displayed publicly are for sports teams, either local or national, and only for the length of the competition. Having been away from the blatant flag waving for so long, it really jumps out at me now when I visit America occasionally. It’s not just that flags are a pride thing, it’s that they’re trying to draw attention to the pride a person has. But why should I care about their pride? Why force me to notice it?
- rjf72 7y ago
  I think Germany itself is a perfect answer to your question. One thing you start to see over and over in politics is Newton's Third - for every action there's an equal but opposite reaction. Germany took an an overwhelmingly sharp anti-nationalist turn, and what happened? Now we see things like the AfD (far right/nationalist party for those unaware) going from a niche little party that couldn't even qualify for the electoral threshold to the second most popular party in the nation, the #1 in east Germany. And similar things have been happening throughout Europe. People being unified within a nation is a very good thing. And being unified does not mean believing the same thing. There have always been extremely divisive politics in the US. You only need look at our money - the man on the $10 bill was killed by the vice president of the man on the nickel in a duel. But when people start to become mutually exclusive, or when a nation itself goes too far in one direction, or the other, it results in a sharp counter movement in the opposite direction. It's important that people ultimately view themselves as part of a whole, even if they might strongly disagree with one another. A flag is the most fundamental representation of that whole. The alternative tends to trend towards widescale conflict which rarely has a happy ending for anybody.

owldimoon 7y ago

Wasn't 'kek' just a riff off of 'lel' which itself was a riff off of 'lol'? I figured someone just off-by-one'd 'lel' and thought it sounded funny. top kek

monkpit 7y ago
In world of Warcraft, if you are an alliance race and a member of the horde is speaking to you in area chat, the text is mangled to simulate the fact that the different factions do not understand each other’s languages. “Kek” is how “lol” showed up in the chat every time. So kek became synonymous with lol.
- SargeZT 7y ago
  It has a slightly longer history than WoW. In the original Starcraft, the Korean version of "Hahaha" is "ㅋㅋㅋ". Owing to the fact that the English version of the game didn't support Korean text, the represented text of a Korean player saying "ㅋㅋㅋ" was "kekeke." This became an early meme of sorts and caught on. Blizzard honored that in WoW by adding the kek/lol translation.
- taneq 7y ago
  Related trivia: If you're horde and an alliance player says "lol" it comes across as "bur".
deleted 7y ago
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andrepd 7y ago

>Do you think I'm a hate filled racist? Context matters. Are you interested in the flag for those reasons? Then probably not. Are you flying it at a protest, in a faux innocent schoolboy sense of "noo, it's not a nazi flag, see, it's a kek flag, teehee'? Then probably yes.

sixothree 7y ago

> Do you think I'm a hate filled racist? You are now aware that this is a copy of a nazi flag. If you decide to raise this flag today, I would have to say yes. If I told you now there is a secret hand signal white supremacists are using then tomorrow you begin using it, then I would safely be able to assume the same. > had no idea it was a palette swapped version of a nazi flag It is not very difficult to see. If your love of this flag is "piss people off" then maybe you are willingly blind.

SuoDuanDao 7y ago
My question was, what if I was already using the hand signal in your example and I refused to stop just because I learned white supremicists were doing the same? Genuine question.