4 ms·

4chan trolling turned the OK sign into a symbol of hate

19 points by apsec112 6y ago

Ghjklov 6y ago
This is really old news, why did it just suddenly reach the front page of HN?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
coronadisaster 6y ago
The OK hand sign is only racist if used to approve racism, as far as I know. Don't let the racist people steal hand language.
- swayvil 6y ago
  I think it's a little more meta than that. It's the hand-language interpretation process that's being hijacked here. Instead of seeking an accurate interpretation we're seeking one that creates maximum drama, paints arbitrary targets in arbitrary lights and generates profits. It's a biblical flood of bullshit. Maybe it's an unavoidable outcome of this public service for amplifying the voices of bullshit-lovers. Social media, I mean. Language decoupled from observation. Antiscience.
just-juan-post 6y ago
The MEDIA turned it into a symbol of hate. Rather than researching, finding it was BS, and ignoring it they made a story of it so they could get eyeballs and revenue. And here we are.
- RickJWagner 6y ago
  And it stirs political waves. It's disgusting that this happens, it makes opportunities for 'sighting racists' and for another way of virtue signaling. It's just a way to divide people.
- mansion7 6y ago
  Quite so. 4chan is actually quite clever in that regard. They have hypotheses, in this case that the media is both stupid, and has political biases that they will promote any level of foolishness to affirm. They then develop simple plans to test these hypotheses. In this case it was as easy as making fake memes and spreading them to woke journalists. They then sit back and watch as they are proven correct. Now, making a hand symbol which has existed for generations is sufficient to get one cancelled and "deny listed". Another recent example; they believed that wokies had an anti-white bias. So they made a very simple phrase. "It's okay to be white". They didn't say it was great to be white, or that whites are better. They didn't alter "black power" into "white power" or "long live the race" into "Viva la Raza Blanca", etc. Just that it was okay to be white. And they were quickly proven correct - academics and media types quickly pronounced outright that it was not okay. The more tolerant among them qualified that while it might be okay to be white, it's certainly not okay to say it aloud. And many eyes were opened to what those in power (and getting one fired, harassed, beaten, deplatformed etc while being supported by almost all media, big tech, woke capital, and academia IS true power) think of them. We ought to look forward to further 4chan experimentation - the results can be quite enlightening.
swayvil 6y ago
To be fair, 4chan has a perfect audience. A million people looking for something to be outraged about. A million companies who will do anything to stay on the right side of the politics of the hour. A million people who believe anything the consensus tells them. I mean, that's us.
hprotagonist 6y ago
symbols and referents are in a many-to-many relationship, and that cannot become a controversial idea.
belltaco 6y ago
How is it just trolling when it became an actual symbol?
RickJWagner 6y ago
Unbelievable. The internet is chock full of pictures of people making the 'ok' symbol. Obama is one. It's not ok to hype up racist symbolism to stir people up. Don't let them call thumbs up, or Kermit the Frog, or whistling, or clicking a pen, or ANYTHING ELSE racist. Even if some real, live racists use some gesture, we should TAKE IT BACK. Kudos to the LGBT community for doing this with 'that is so gay'. They just didn't allow it. The same technique should be applied.
loraa 6y ago
It's just too easy to trigger liberals these days.
me_me_me 6y ago
"The Anti-Defamation League has added the hand gesture for "OK" to its database of hate symbols, after sites like 4chan and 8chan began associating it with white supremacy." This is all I had to read to roll my eyes and move on.
- soneil 6y ago
  They do go on to say that "context is key" and that most people will just use it to mean OK. I think it reads a little more sensible without the snap-judgements.
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    Well then the article is a bait, "Some people on the internet use OK sign for heat speech. But majority people don't" Either case its waste of everyone's time. And the irony of me still talking about it is not lost on me :(
taylodl 6y ago
Some think the media got trolled - NPR has an article shedding light on why this isn't the case. Seems the media knows exactly the origins of this meme and that it was a hoax. What isn't a hoax is White Supremacist groups in response have started using the OK sign as a symbol of hate. Language evolves and gestures are a part of language. Anyway, here's a link to the NPR article on this matter: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-gesture-is-now-listed-as-a-symbol-of-hate https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-gesture...

19 points by apsec112 6y ago

Ghjklov 6y ago

This is really old news, why did it just suddenly reach the front page of HN?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

coronadisaster 6y ago

The OK hand sign is only racist if used to approve racism, as far as I know. Don't let the racist people steal hand language.

swayvil 6y ago
I think it's a little more meta than that. It's the hand-language interpretation process that's being hijacked here. Instead of seeking an accurate interpretation we're seeking one that creates maximum drama, paints arbitrary targets in arbitrary lights and generates profits. It's a biblical flood of bullshit. Maybe it's an unavoidable outcome of this public service for amplifying the voices of bullshit-lovers. Social media, I mean. Language decoupled from observation. Antiscience.

just-juan-post 6y ago

The MEDIA turned it into a symbol of hate. Rather than researching, finding it was BS, and ignoring it they made a story of it so they could get eyeballs and revenue. And here we are.

RickJWagner 6y ago
And it stirs political waves. It's disgusting that this happens, it makes opportunities for 'sighting racists' and for another way of virtue signaling. It's just a way to divide people.
mansion7 6y ago
Quite so. 4chan is actually quite clever in that regard. They have hypotheses, in this case that the media is both stupid, and has political biases that they will promote any level of foolishness to affirm. They then develop simple plans to test these hypotheses. In this case it was as easy as making fake memes and spreading them to woke journalists. They then sit back and watch as they are proven correct. Now, making a hand symbol which has existed for generations is sufficient to get one cancelled and "deny listed". Another recent example; they believed that wokies had an anti-white bias. So they made a very simple phrase. "It's okay to be white". They didn't say it was great to be white, or that whites are better. They didn't alter "black power" into "white power" or "long live the race" into "Viva la Raza Blanca", etc. Just that it was okay to be white. And they were quickly proven correct - academics and media types quickly pronounced outright that it was not okay. The more tolerant among them qualified that while it might be okay to be white, it's certainly not okay to say it aloud. And many eyes were opened to what those in power (and getting one fired, harassed, beaten, deplatformed etc while being supported by almost all media, big tech, woke capital, and academia IS true power) think of them. We ought to look forward to further 4chan experimentation - the results can be quite enlightening.

swayvil 6y ago

To be fair, 4chan has a perfect audience. A million people looking for something to be outraged about. A million companies who will do anything to stay on the right side of the politics of the hour. A million people who believe anything the consensus tells them. I mean, that's us.

hprotagonist 6y ago

symbols and referents are in a many-to-many relationship, and that cannot become a controversial idea.

belltaco 6y ago

How is it just trolling when it became an actual symbol?

RickJWagner 6y ago

Unbelievable. The internet is chock full of pictures of people making the 'ok' symbol. Obama is one. It's not ok to hype up racist symbolism to stir people up. Don't let them call thumbs up, or Kermit the Frog, or whistling, or clicking a pen, or ANYTHING ELSE racist. Even if some real, live racists use some gesture, we should TAKE IT BACK. Kudos to the LGBT community for doing this with 'that is so gay'. They just didn't allow it. The same technique should be applied.

loraa 6y ago

It's just too easy to trigger liberals these days.

me_me_me 6y ago

"The Anti-Defamation League has added the hand gesture for "OK" to its database of hate symbols, after sites like 4chan and 8chan began associating it with white supremacy." This is all I had to read to roll my eyes and move on.

soneil 6y ago
They do go on to say that "context is key" and that most people will just use it to mean OK. I think it reads a little more sensible without the snap-judgements.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  Well then the article is a bait, "Some people on the internet use OK sign for heat speech. But majority people don't" Either case its waste of everyone's time. And the irony of me still talking about it is not lost on me :(

taylodl 6y ago

Some think the media got trolled - NPR has an article shedding light on why this isn't the case. Seems the media knows exactly the origins of this meme and that it was a hoax. What isn't a hoax is White Supremacist groups in response have started using the OK sign as a symbol of hate. Language evolves and gestures are a part of language. Anyway, here's a link to the NPR article on this matter: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-gesture-is-now-listed-as-a-symbol-of-hate https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-gesture...