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Hang on, this looks like classic Internet trolling: // Pathways: Navigating the Internet and Extremism is a simple multiple choice format game with basic anim

Hang on, this looks like classic Internet trolling: // Pathways: Navigating the Internet and Extremism is a simple multiple choice format game with basic animation. Its players are taken on a journey as characters at a college. They are invited to make decisions in scenarios including whether or download potentially extremist content or join an Amelia character on a rally organised by “a small political group” protesting against changes in society and the “erosion in British values”… However, it is a subversion of the Amelia character that has exploded across social media channels … Manga-style Amelia, a Wallace and Gromit version and AI-generated “real life” encounters between her and the characters of Father Ted or Harry Potter, accompanied by racist language and far-right messaging. …We have seen the meme having a remarkable spread and proliferating among the far right and beyond, but what’s also been of note is how it is now international // So a bunch of trolls did classic troll things (which is to be expected because you’re on the internet) then the right wingers picked it up and ruined it and then it spread to become a meme coin The article wants to make this as though there’s a hardcore group of right wing meme-lords in some giant conspiracy This is keeps happening and it’s super wierd. Remember the 2007 mooninite panic? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42225609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42225609 Is trolling considered right wing now?

laughing_man 9mo ago
"Classic internet trolling" is exactly what it is. You can find video of the original game on YouTube -- it's got a painful "hello, fellow kids" vibe to it that just invites ridicule.
cauch 9mo ago
Your reaction makes me remember the "Angry Jack" videos about Gamergate, in particular the video discussing the fact that when some people (troll or not) were propagating racist or sexist things, they were reacting by saying "whaaaat, I'm not racist/sexist, how dare you". Who cares about them, and what they "are" really: for the society, if someone is spreading racist information "for the lols" or spreading it because they really believe in the content, the damage is exactly the same. I, like you, don't believe the phenomenon was the result of an organised action (of course). The phenomenon was started as meme, resonnated with the far-right, and both far-right and people who don't see any problem with far-right ideology just amplified it. After all, the government has made a lot of stupid videos, and yet, the popularity explodes mainly when it's aligned with far-right. But I don't have a problem with considering that the "bunch of trolls who did classic troll things" are considered as far-right. They indeed totally jumped in the opportunity to make racist things for the lols. How does that not make them racist themselves? If you create stuffs that racists find great and very aligned with their ideology, I'm sorry, even if you think you are not intrinsically racist, just be an adult and accept the consequences of your actions: you are part of the racist community, you are one of their "allies". So, I'm perfectly fine with trolls being considered as racists. Trolling is a pain on society anyway and each time a kid thinks of themselves as "super smart" because they are trolling, the reality is rather that the world would be a better place if this version of them was not part of it. Why should we care about what trolls are feeling, they choose to put themselves at the top of the list of people who don't deserve any consideration for their feelings.
- AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
  So the Hindus are racist because the Nazis appropriated the swastika, and nearly the entire western world doesn’t know the difference, yet they still use it?
  - cauch 9mo ago
    Oooh, the poor little trolls, they were doing nice little videos full of flowers and kisses, and the big bad far-right came and stole their memes. Boohoohoo, it's so sad. Come on, from the start, what the trolls were doing was to parody the initial video game (which is apparently shit) by taking the opposite stance: so, they were, on purpose, making it as much as opposed as the perceived wokeness of the video game. So, they were putting, on purpose, plenty of racist tropes. The Hindus did not do that: their symbol was used in a totally different context. But the trolls were doing exactly that: the trolling itself consisted in putting plenty of racist things. They knew about it, they knew it was racist, they did it 100% on purpose. Trolling is, by definition, behaving like an assh*le. I have absolutely no sympathy for those little kids who behave like assh*le and then come crying "boohoo, people say I'm an assh*le". What did you expect? Did you really think you were being smart, or edgy, or that somehow you can spit in people's faces and just say "it was a joke man" and not being accountable?
    - AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
      Nobody is complaining about trolls being told they are assholes. The fact that this is an article at all is the question. Why is trolling noteworthy? The only answer is if there are people who can’t differentiate between trolling and reality. So that’s the answer, people are yet again, too dumb to live in reality and not engage with the trolls. Your reaction “feeds the trolls” like do yall not know why they are called trolls This article did more for trolling than anything else, the streisand effect is the goal
      - cauch 9mo ago
        That is a strange interpretation. According to you, a drawing equating a black person to a monkey is only problematic if some people do really believe that black persons are literally monkeys? And people who enjoy these drawing are lacking basic biology concepts and would be flabbergasted if they were told that, no, black people is not a different species as distant from white people than macaques or gorillas? The problem is the message that it carries and how it unities, spreads and empowers racist communities. "Don't feed the trolls" is a cute saying on the internet, usually said with confidence by people who think they are smart but in fact don't really know about what they are talking about. And the goal is usually to deter a troll from a forum, so they can go to the next one and do the same trolling (so, it does not stop any trolling, it just displaces it). And it is not even clear if it is working. It is also quite a coward way to response to that. Imagine "oh, these people are beating a foreigner to death. I know what to do: just ignore them, they are doing that for the attention, if we ignore them, maybe they will stop". Trolls act for attention, but these trolls are getting plenty of attention, from racist communities that loves them (and often even manage to groom them). So, who care about "feeding the troll" or "the streisand effect", this has no impact of the damage they are doing. > Nobody is complaining about trolls being told they are assholes. In the comment I've answered, you were literally saying that the trolls were unfairly blamed in the same non-logical way one would blame Hindus for their usage of their symbol.
tim333 9mo ago
I have to say having watched an original and a 'troll' version it's fairly natural taking the piss. real one https://youtu.be/2UI1ZqGpqXk https://youtu.be/2UI1ZqGpqXk anti islam one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu2K48F71rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu2K48F71rg And someone doing a meme coin isn't a "one of the most surreal twists" - people do that for everything these days as the cost of making one is ~$0 and they may may a few bob off suckers.

laughing_man 9mo ago

"Classic internet trolling" is exactly what it is. You can find video of the original game on YouTube -- it's got a painful "hello, fellow kids" vibe to it that just invites ridicule.

cauch 9mo ago

Your reaction makes me remember the "Angry Jack" videos about Gamergate, in particular the video discussing the fact that when some people (troll or not) were propagating racist or sexist things, they were reacting by saying "whaaaat, I'm not racist/sexist, how dare you". Who cares about them, and what they "are" really: for the society, if someone is spreading racist information "for the lols" or spreading it because they really believe in the content, the damage is exactly the same. I, like you, don't believe the phenomenon was the result of an organised action (of course). The phenomenon was started as meme, resonnated with the far-right, and both far-right and people who don't see any problem with far-right ideology just amplified it. After all, the government has made a lot of stupid videos, and yet, the popularity explodes mainly when it's aligned with far-right. But I don't have a problem with considering that the "bunch of trolls who did classic troll things" are considered as far-right. They indeed totally jumped in the opportunity to make racist things for the lols. How does that not make them racist themselves? If you create stuffs that racists find great and very aligned with their ideology, I'm sorry, even if you think you are not intrinsically racist, just be an adult and accept the consequences of your actions: you are part of the racist community, you are one of their "allies". So, I'm perfectly fine with trolls being considered as racists. Trolling is a pain on society anyway and each time a kid thinks of themselves as "super smart" because they are trolling, the reality is rather that the world would be a better place if this version of them was not part of it. Why should we care about what trolls are feeling, they choose to put themselves at the top of the list of people who don't deserve any consideration for their feelings.

AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
So the Hindus are racist because the Nazis appropriated the swastika, and nearly the entire western world doesn’t know the difference, yet they still use it?
- cauch 9mo ago
  Oooh, the poor little trolls, they were doing nice little videos full of flowers and kisses, and the big bad far-right came and stole their memes. Boohoohoo, it's so sad. Come on, from the start, what the trolls were doing was to parody the initial video game (which is apparently shit) by taking the opposite stance: so, they were, on purpose, making it as much as opposed as the perceived wokeness of the video game. So, they were putting, on purpose, plenty of racist tropes. The Hindus did not do that: their symbol was used in a totally different context. But the trolls were doing exactly that: the trolling itself consisted in putting plenty of racist things. They knew about it, they knew it was racist, they did it 100% on purpose. Trolling is, by definition, behaving like an assh*le. I have absolutely no sympathy for those little kids who behave like assh*le and then come crying "boohoo, people say I'm an assh*le". What did you expect? Did you really think you were being smart, or edgy, or that somehow you can spit in people's faces and just say "it was a joke man" and not being accountable?
  - AndrewKemendo 9mo ago
    Nobody is complaining about trolls being told they are assholes. The fact that this is an article at all is the question. Why is trolling noteworthy? The only answer is if there are people who can’t differentiate between trolling and reality. So that’s the answer, people are yet again, too dumb to live in reality and not engage with the trolls. Your reaction “feeds the trolls” like do yall not know why they are called trolls This article did more for trolling than anything else, the streisand effect is the goal
    - cauch 9mo ago
      That is a strange interpretation. According to you, a drawing equating a black person to a monkey is only problematic if some people do really believe that black persons are literally monkeys? And people who enjoy these drawing are lacking basic biology concepts and would be flabbergasted if they were told that, no, black people is not a different species as distant from white people than macaques or gorillas? The problem is the message that it carries and how it unities, spreads and empowers racist communities. "Don't feed the trolls" is a cute saying on the internet, usually said with confidence by people who think they are smart but in fact don't really know about what they are talking about. And the goal is usually to deter a troll from a forum, so they can go to the next one and do the same trolling (so, it does not stop any trolling, it just displaces it). And it is not even clear if it is working. It is also quite a coward way to response to that. Imagine "oh, these people are beating a foreigner to death. I know what to do: just ignore them, they are doing that for the attention, if we ignore them, maybe they will stop". Trolls act for attention, but these trolls are getting plenty of attention, from racist communities that loves them (and often even manage to groom them). So, who care about "feeding the troll" or "the streisand effect", this has no impact of the damage they are doing. > Nobody is complaining about trolls being told they are assholes. In the comment I've answered, you were literally saying that the trolls were unfairly blamed in the same non-logical way one would blame Hindus for their usage of their symbol.

tim333 9mo ago

I have to say having watched an original and a 'troll' version it's fairly natural taking the piss. real one https://youtu.be/2UI1ZqGpqXk https://youtu.be/2UI1ZqGpqXk anti islam one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu2K48F71rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu2K48F71rg And someone doing a meme coin isn't a "one of the most surreal twists" - people do that for everything these days as the cost of making one is ~$0 and they may may a few bob off suckers.