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You start out by making relatively innocent jokes about jews, and notice that certain portions of the anglosphere left and right really respond to this. Not onl
by eej2ya1K 7y ago
You start out by making relatively innocent jokes about jews, and notice that certain portions of the anglosphere left and right really respond to this. Not only do they tell you that you can't say that, they also shower you with threats of violence. Successful troll is successful. So you go a bit further, start moving into actual anti-semitic jokes, conspiracies. Still just for the lulz, but it gets an even better reaction. Meanwhile, your image board/irc buddies, the only people in your life who treat you like a real human being, keep egging you, some of them pointing to the reactions you're getting as proof that there's some kind of underlying truth behind the jokes. "Yeah, sure, the protocols of the elders of zion isn't real, but look at the reactions you're getting for what amounts to lazy trolling! And from people with actual power - political power, media power, financial power..."
I think you can see where it goes from here - the road to hell isn't always paved with good intentions, but when turning around means accepting that the people who hate you are right, what are you going to do?
- noobermin 7y agoThis wasn't really my experience. "Jokes" didn't lead people to becoming racist or white supremacist. What it did do though is make people who were actually white supremacist come in and try to spread their ideologies and win people over to their side, so they could convince a fraction, probably the minority of posters, to actually believing it, and eventually their numbers grew. The idea that people turned into white supremacists because they made a few jokes is kind of a slipery slope argument.
- eej2ya1K 7y agoI agree, I was responding to chvid's specific questions about how you go from jokes to becoming a true believer. I don't think that's something that happens to every joker, troll or shitposter - not even the majority.
- noobermin 7y agoSorry, I should have read your comment more carefully. I do agree with you here.
- charlchi 7y agoIf you think this is all just playing devil's advocate and trolling there is something deeply flawed about your assumptions about how these people(alienated young white men) experience modern culture and politics.
- eej2ya1K 7y agoI was responding to a very specific by question by chvid and certainly don't think it's all about trolling. (Oh, and as anyone who has seen a /pol/ meetup knows, they're not all young white men... alienated, though - yeah, I can see that...
- chvid 7y agoI think it there is a lot of things going on at the same time. Mental health issues, loneliness, social issues such as homelessness (living with your parents) and unemployment (underemployment, declining living standards), teenagers seeking borders and deliberately going for things that their parents does not approve, people seeking political change by first destroying the existing world. But still it is hard to understand how it has gotten to the state it is today. This attack, the Christchurch attack are directly related to the chans. If Breivik was 5 years later, he would probably be there as well. Plus other things are coming out of these boards that seem to start as practical jokes but ends up having major impact: Hyping of various cryptocurrencies, QAnon ...
- watwut 7y agoI don't think this describes interactions of most people. Most people interactions are completely ignored. Also, the story relies on somebody intentionally antagonizing people for reaction, but when antagonized people are hostile back the person doubles up because buddies on irc are more friendly. No shit, he is not purposefully antagonizing them. And hostilities or not, person spreads anti-semitic conspiracies making other people believe in anti-semitic conspiracies. But like, if Jews push back, it is their own fault, they should be more passive and let it be. What you described by the begging is not someone clueless joking. It is literally someone cool with antagonizing Jews in the first place, but not antagonizing irc boys. So like, he gets to socialize with who he is not antagonizing.
- eej2ya1K 7y agoI never claimed that this describes the interactions of most, or even many people. I never claimed that Jewish people should "be more passive and let it be". And "clueless joking" are your words, not mine. I am not endorsing the behaviors of anyone involved, simply doing my best to answer a very specific question.
- watwut 7y agoYes, these are mine expressions for what I seen in that story. Clueless joking is how the initial situation comes across in that story to me. Someone who just makes a joke but that is not because of antisemitism, but to troll. The "should be more passive" is how I would sum up the reaction of main character to the part where there is large pushback from initial targets. Each pushback legitimize escalations. Specific question: > You start by joking that you are a jew-hating nazi and then after a while you become an actual jew-hating nazi. My point here is that the answer to that is more complex. The hardcore push-back to initial joke does not happen, but there is a lot of socialization involving Jew jokes or whatever with no push-back at all - or where push back against it makes you pussy. Initial targets of joking were not random in the first place either. There also is process by which that person becomes extremist with zero to no interaction from target of hate.