This is a terminally online meme; it does not exist in the real world.
EDIT: to the replies -- no, this has not escaped containment in to the real world. Trolls continue to use it and to point out its usage by other trolls. But this is and remains an extremely common hand gesture routinely used by people with no racist overtones.
EDIT2: This is now a reply to a flagged dead comment so the only people who will see this are the people who are already in the conversation. I don't think I'll convince you, but please realize that the WaPo newsroom and twitter are not the real world. When people flash you the Ok symbol they are just signifying approval, not trying to lure you into their white supremacist world. When you give people the Ok symbol, you are expressing approval, and that is all. Nobody will think otherwise. When a white supremacist gives the Ok symbol to another white supremacist, they are expressing approval, like giving a thumbs up. There's no crypto-racist movement here that's sending secret coded messages to other crypto-racists. It's not like Bloods and Crips where flashing the wrong hand sign is going to get you beat up.
And on Jan 6: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/far-r...
And the Proud Boys: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/roger-stone-proud-boys/
Yes it started as "a joke" to troll the libs. And then became and has been used as intended.
Proud boys != white power group or white nationalist group.
So I'm not sure what you think you're correcting here.
Instead you seem to be claiming that right-wingers use the symbol, ergo it is racist or white power affiliated. That claim is false. Just because someone is a republican, doesnt make them a racist.
> The title refers to the secret hand signal used by the film's underworld gang.
Yep, agreed
> no, this has not escaped containment in to the real world
> Trolls continue to use it
?
It's not a good look to make excuses and carry the water for white supremacists by denying reality. The online world is quite real, and it has an enormous impact on the offline subset of the world that you naively consider to have a monopoly on "real".
A simple google would inform you about the reality of how that symbol is currently used in the real world, regardless of whether you consider google "real" or not. See the sibling comments and the articles and real-world photographs they link to, who took the effort to google that for you. Your argument that you've never seen any evidence is extremely weak if you refuse to look at the evidence when it's presented to you on a silver platter, and that makes you look like just another troll.
[1] https://gizmodo.com/pirate-bay-trial-watch-day-5-omg-is-this...
Pirate Bay Trial Watch Day 5: OMG, Is This Happening IRL?
The torrent trial of the century continues, and today, there are some pretty shocking revelations about just how much the prosecution knows. Is that a tinge of remorse I hear from The Pirate Bay dudes?
• The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde (aka brokep) doesn't like copyright! "I like things that are not protected by copyright, this is a non-issue."
• The prosecutor knows the secret code for talking on the internets! "When did you meet [Gottfrid] for the first time IRL?" The judge asks, "IRL?" The prosecutor, being with it, coolly informs the judge it means "in real life," sucka.
• Oh snap, maybe he doesn't! The Pirate Bay's Peter responds, "We do not use the expression IRL." No, everything is in real life. We use AFK—away from keyboard." This makes for a sad prosecutor: "It seems I am a little bit out of date."
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.
"He claimed he was just pretending to be racist to trigger the social justice warriors, but even if he is telling the truth, Popehat's Law of Goats still applies."
Fucking a goat in this analogy is equivalant to BEING RACIST. E.g. commiting hate crimes, etc
The hand gesture is not in and of itself racist, therefore doing it does not make one a racist, or a goatfucker.
But nice try.
You're allowed to be racist if you want and you're allowed to pretend you're a racist if you want. The goatfucker law still applies.
Im not justifying racism.
God people on the internet are fucking braindead when it comes to politics.
Likewise, trolling racist memes perpetuates racism, and if you perpetuate racism, you're a racist, because of the effects of you behavior on other people, regardless of your purported intent, even if you claim to be only pretending. Either way, you perpetuated racism, which hurts people.
Bravely standing up for goat fuckers and racists and trolls doesn't look good on you. Try standing up for the victims of racism instead of the perpetrators. Your edgelord act is extremely tired and juvenile. Gamegate is over, kiddo. Steve Bannon is reporting to jail on July 1.
How the far right borrowed its online moves from gamers:
https://www.axios.com/2022/10/20/gamergate-right-online-hara...
>In particular, Donovan notes that Steve Bannon saw firsthand the power of Gamergate while running Breitbart News.
>Bannon took notes from the gaming controversy as well as from movements on the left, like Occupy, to develop strategies to apply in mainstream politics in Trump's 2016 campaign and from the White House.
>That expanded the use of online attack methods on a wider range of issues and, more recently, made them a significant part of mainstream right-wing politics.
Donald Trump and Steve Bannon need angry young men. They’re using Gamergate culture to get them:
https://qz.com/901761/donald-trump-and-steve-bannon-are-usin...
>Gamergate is a loose collection of disaffected (mostly) men who have used the issue of ethics in gaming journalism as a pretext to harass and attack women and many minority groups. The movement got its start in 2014 when a young man wanted to exact revenge on his ex-girlfriend. What started as a simple blog post became a campaign of harassment spearheaded by anonymous users on platforms like Reddit and 4chan. Gamergate has since used Twitter and other social-media platforms to lob misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-Semitic attacks on its critics.
What Gamergate should have taught us about the 'alt-right':
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/01/gamergate...
>The 2014 online hate-storm presaged the tactics of the Trump-loving far right movement. Prominent critics of the president elect should take note. The similarities between Gamergate and the current so called ‘alt-right’ movement are huge, startling, and in no way a coincidence.
Steve Bannon learned to harness troll army from 'World of Warcraft':
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/18/st...
>Before Steve Bannon oversaw the conservative Breitbart News Network and, subsequently, joined then-candidate Donald Trump's campaign, the chief political strategist became a player in Hollywood and ... World of Warcraft.
>"You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned onto politics and Trump." -Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon ordered to report to prison by July 1 to serve contempt of Congress sentence:
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/06/politics/steve-bannon-jai...
>A federal judge on Thursday ordered Steve Bannon to report to prison by July 1, giving the former Donald Trump adviser a short window to get a higher court’s intervention.