20 ms·

I know it brings you comfort to think they're just doing it for the lolz but unfortunately the reality is that a good chunk of them actually believe those thing

by skulk 3y ago

I know it brings you comfort to think they're just doing it for the lolz but unfortunately the reality is that a good chunk of them actually believe those things.

chmod775 3y ago
Or that's what they want you to believe - because obviously that's more lolz. Though maybe there's some that actually are, because of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082 Ask yourself why an actual racist without any intention to cause chaos would engage in this behavior though. It's clearly intended to offend and get a reaction - that's the main goal. Whether it's done by actual racists is secondary.
- krapp 3y ago
  Also known as Popehat's Law of Goats: He who fucks goats, either as part of a performance or to troll those he deems has overly delicate sensibilities is simply, a goatfucker. If your goal is to be seen as a racist, and to provoke a response from people who are offended by racists, and you do all of the things that racists do to that end, spending time on racist forums spreading racist memes and hate speech, then the distinction between you being an "actual" racist and your racism being mere performance is one without a difference. Because being racist as a hobby isn't really something non-racists tend to do.
  - chmod775 3y ago
    Meh, be racist in an on-the-nose and obviously dumb way, like 4chan is doing here (whether intentional or not), and you get the opposite result: You make racists look bad. In the end some will think it's satire, some won't but will still laugh because it's stupid, and some will get mad. Actual racists lost, 4chan got a laugh, and outrage culture got played again.
    - nmarinov 3y ago
      >you get the opposite result: You make racists look bad. In general I find myself agreeing with your comments in this thread but here I disagree. It's tempting to find the overall societal benefit from those actions but I don't think there is one. Or it's much more subtle than this. I also think that it's mainly done to create chaos and get a reaction and not so much to spread x opinions. But just randomly throwing shit into the world *mostly* makes everyone get used to the smell of shit while they hate you for it. But in my experience it *usually* leads to more shit and not less shit.
    - lamontcg 3y ago
      > and you get the opposite result: You make racists look bad. doubt it. won't change the beliefs of anyone looking at it one way or another. the people participating in it, though, after years of spewing out racist garbage risk without any self-reflection risk going down the spiral of "hey, this one actually makes a valid point". and i suspect that most of them are just flat out racist and not just memeing for the lulz.
    - maxerickson 3y ago
      The people that act like goat fuckers look bad because they are goat fuckers...other goat fuckers also look like goat fuckers. And then fucking a goat ironically looks an awful lot like fucking a goat.
  - Yugomorph 3y ago
    The difference is, if you stopped giving them attention, one of those two would also stop being a goatfucker, but people obviously want more things to be outraged about, not less.
    - jmye 3y ago
      These people would clearly still be virulent racists getting excuses made for them by people who desperately don’t want to believe that posting racist memes and hanging out on Stormfront make you a bad person.
      - Yugomorph 3y ago
        Yes, but they wouldn't be getting a free marketing campaign that draws more people to their communities and their ideology if it weren't for all these professional victims being outraged by them.
        jmye 3y ago
        Instant downvote, “Professional victim”, “outraged”… yeah, it seem like it’ll be super productive to have a conversation with you. It’s certainly impossible that people hurt by, say, racism might have legitimate concerns about the virulent spread of more racism by actual, literal racists on 4chan. No, it’s actually black people, for instance, who dislike racism, or Jews who think anti-demotion is bad, who are to blame. Brilliant.
        Yugomorph 3y ago
        Yes, they are to blame. The whole point of edgy humor is to imagine the person behind the screen fuming at the bait that you posted. By giving them what they want, you have become the punchline that they were seeking, hence encouraging them to continue posting bait and getting you outraged.
  - arp242 3y ago
    It really baffles me how people think "people who genuinely believes black people are an inferiors species" and "people who try to get a rise out of people fur teh lulz" are really literally exactly the same. They're obviously not. You may have the same moral judgement about these people, and that's fine, but that's not the same as reality. And it ABSOLUTELY matters, because if you want to do something about this then you need to actually understand the problem on a meaningful level, which includes people's motivations. You're never going to solve anything you don't understand (except, maybe, by accident). A prime minister who fucks a goat because he's being blackmailed to do so is not the same as someone who does so for pleasure (who is different still from someone who does it for sadistic reasons). To describe all these as "simply a goatfucker" would be silly, even idiotic. It's one of those nice-sounding one-liners that falls over with even the most superficial and casual of scrutiny.
- skulk 3y ago
  > It's clearly intended to offend and get a reaction - that's the main goal. Whether it's done by actual racists is secondary. No, you're completely off the mark here. It's done because they feel these things deep down and can't talk about them with people in real life to avoid being ostracized by what few friends they have left (or maybe they're super popular, I don't know). Yes, perhaps the _absolute_ most extreme things that are said there are not serious. However, the least extreme sentiments there (which would be considered extremely offensive in polite society) are 100% genuine. Don't you think doing it for a joke would have gotten old by now? No one really talks about 4chan and no one goes there that doesn't already know what to expect. Ergo, no one is really shocked by any of these things anymore. Again, I know this is a hard pill to swallow and I can see that you're trying really hard to avoid it but most of the racist sentiments on 4chan are genuine.
  - inquirerGeneral 3y ago
    [dead]
  - Emanation 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - bobsmooth 3y ago
    >Don't you think doing it for a joke would have gotten old by now? It would if it didn't keep getting results, like we see with the above news article.
rewmie 3y ago
> (...) but unfortunately the reality is that a good chunk of them actually believe those things. I'm sure that a good chunk of people who hang out on Facebook and Reddit also believe in those things, but that somehow never leads to blanket accusations targeting everyone with a Facebook of Reddit account.
- skulk 3y ago
  FB and Reddit are tightly bound by mainstream advertising money so they have to keep the racists quiet. I'm not sure how that's relevant here. If you're offended by my accusation because you're one of the 4chan users who posts racist things but isn't really racist, then you have my sincerest apologies, and you get a gold star sticker too.
  - Yugomorph 3y ago
    He's (rightfully) calling you dishonest because, if a guy who posts on Facebook or Reddit did this, you wouldn't be saying "Facebook this X" or "Reddit did X", you would say "This guy did X". Yet, for some reason, when a person on 4chan does something, it's not "This guy did X", but rather "4chan did X".

by skulk 3y ago

I know it brings you comfort to think they're just doing it for the lolz but unfortunately the reality is that a good chunk of them actually believe those things.

chmod775 3y ago

Or that's what they want you to believe - because obviously that's more lolz. Though maybe there's some that actually are, because of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082 Ask yourself why an actual racist without any intention to cause chaos would engage in this behavior though. It's clearly intended to offend and get a reaction - that's the main goal. Whether it's done by actual racists is secondary.

krapp 3y ago
Also known as Popehat's Law of Goats: He who fucks goats, either as part of a performance or to troll those he deems has overly delicate sensibilities is simply, a goatfucker. If your goal is to be seen as a racist, and to provoke a response from people who are offended by racists, and you do all of the things that racists do to that end, spending time on racist forums spreading racist memes and hate speech, then the distinction between you being an "actual" racist and your racism being mere performance is one without a difference. Because being racist as a hobby isn't really something non-racists tend to do.
- chmod775 3y ago
  Meh, be racist in an on-the-nose and obviously dumb way, like 4chan is doing here (whether intentional or not), and you get the opposite result: You make racists look bad. In the end some will think it's satire, some won't but will still laugh because it's stupid, and some will get mad. Actual racists lost, 4chan got a laugh, and outrage culture got played again.
  - nmarinov 3y ago
    >you get the opposite result: You make racists look bad. In general I find myself agreeing with your comments in this thread but here I disagree. It's tempting to find the overall societal benefit from those actions but I don't think there is one. Or it's much more subtle than this. I also think that it's mainly done to create chaos and get a reaction and not so much to spread x opinions. But just randomly throwing shit into the world *mostly* makes everyone get used to the smell of shit while they hate you for it. But in my experience it *usually* leads to more shit and not less shit.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    > and you get the opposite result: You make racists look bad. doubt it. won't change the beliefs of anyone looking at it one way or another. the people participating in it, though, after years of spewing out racist garbage risk without any self-reflection risk going down the spiral of "hey, this one actually makes a valid point". and i suspect that most of them are just flat out racist and not just memeing for the lulz.
  - maxerickson 3y ago
    The people that act like goat fuckers look bad because they are goat fuckers...other goat fuckers also look like goat fuckers. And then fucking a goat ironically looks an awful lot like fucking a goat.
- Yugomorph 3y ago
  The difference is, if you stopped giving them attention, one of those two would also stop being a goatfucker, but people obviously want more things to be outraged about, not less.
  - jmye 3y ago
    These people would clearly still be virulent racists getting excuses made for them by people who desperately don’t want to believe that posting racist memes and hanging out on Stormfront make you a bad person.
    - Yugomorph 3y ago
      Yes, but they wouldn't be getting a free marketing campaign that draws more people to their communities and their ideology if it weren't for all these professional victims being outraged by them.
      - jmye 3y ago
        Instant downvote, “Professional victim”, “outraged”… yeah, it seem like it’ll be super productive to have a conversation with you. It’s certainly impossible that people hurt by, say, racism might have legitimate concerns about the virulent spread of more racism by actual, literal racists on 4chan. No, it’s actually black people, for instance, who dislike racism, or Jews who think anti-demotion is bad, who are to blame. Brilliant.
        Yugomorph 3y ago
        Yes, they are to blame. The whole point of edgy humor is to imagine the person behind the screen fuming at the bait that you posted. By giving them what they want, you have become the punchline that they were seeking, hence encouraging them to continue posting bait and getting you outraged.
- arp242 3y ago
  It really baffles me how people think "people who genuinely believes black people are an inferiors species" and "people who try to get a rise out of people fur teh lulz" are really literally exactly the same. They're obviously not. You may have the same moral judgement about these people, and that's fine, but that's not the same as reality. And it ABSOLUTELY matters, because if you want to do something about this then you need to actually understand the problem on a meaningful level, which includes people's motivations. You're never going to solve anything you don't understand (except, maybe, by accident). A prime minister who fucks a goat because he's being blackmailed to do so is not the same as someone who does so for pleasure (who is different still from someone who does it for sadistic reasons). To describe all these as "simply a goatfucker" would be silly, even idiotic. It's one of those nice-sounding one-liners that falls over with even the most superficial and casual of scrutiny.
skulk 3y ago
> It's clearly intended to offend and get a reaction - that's the main goal. Whether it's done by actual racists is secondary. No, you're completely off the mark here. It's done because they feel these things deep down and can't talk about them with people in real life to avoid being ostracized by what few friends they have left (or maybe they're super popular, I don't know). Yes, perhaps the _absolute_ most extreme things that are said there are not serious. However, the least extreme sentiments there (which would be considered extremely offensive in polite society) are 100% genuine. Don't you think doing it for a joke would have gotten old by now? No one really talks about 4chan and no one goes there that doesn't already know what to expect. Ergo, no one is really shocked by any of these things anymore. Again, I know this is a hard pill to swallow and I can see that you're trying really hard to avoid it but most of the racist sentiments on 4chan are genuine.
- inquirerGeneral 3y ago
  [dead]
- Emanation 3y ago
  [flagged]
- bobsmooth 3y ago
  >Don't you think doing it for a joke would have gotten old by now? It would if it didn't keep getting results, like we see with the above news article.

rewmie 3y ago

> (...) but unfortunately the reality is that a good chunk of them actually believe those things. I'm sure that a good chunk of people who hang out on Facebook and Reddit also believe in those things, but that somehow never leads to blanket accusations targeting everyone with a Facebook of Reddit account.

skulk 3y ago
FB and Reddit are tightly bound by mainstream advertising money so they have to keep the racists quiet. I'm not sure how that's relevant here. If you're offended by my accusation because you're one of the 4chan users who posts racist things but isn't really racist, then you have my sincerest apologies, and you get a gold star sticker too.
- Yugomorph 3y ago
  He's (rightfully) calling you dishonest because, if a guy who posts on Facebook or Reddit did this, you wouldn't be saying "Facebook this X" or "Reddit did X", you would say "This guy did X". Yet, for some reason, when a person on 4chan does something, it's not "This guy did X", but rather "4chan did X".