- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
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Kinda stretching it aren’t they?
Pepe is a beloved internet meme, not a symbol of hate. Rightoid asshats need to leave pepe and doge the fuck alone. >:(
I thought it came from 4chan, but it actually comes from Myspace. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepe_the_Frog
Wtf pepe is considered alt-right because alt-right uses them sometimes??? I hear they also use English! Maybe English needs to get banned!
They didn’t just use it sometimes, they were using it as an intentional dog whistle, that is the difference. Part of dog whistling is choosing something that, otherwise, has had no real relationship to the thing it is being used as a dog whistle for.
so they can choose anything and we just have to stop using it because its their dogwhistle now?
No, but you have to understand that it now comes with the context of being a WP dog whistle. The symbolism of the Nazis weren’t anything to their ideology before hand. They had widespread use for thousands of years. Now they, especially the primary one, is all but verboten in the west, and people who use things, like the swastika, as religious symbols, even know to tread with caution using it in the west. White hoods, and robes, have been used in cultural/religious regalia forever. However, you don’t use them in the US unless you consider being mistaken for a klan memeber.
Can we reclaim pepe? Probably, it was minor compared to the aforementioned things, and the creator has done a lot to kibosh the commercial use of it from right wing people. However, it was that, and that context doesn’t just disappear because you don’t like it.
There’s a whole documentary about reclaiming pepe called “feels good man”
The more we discourage people from using pepe because WP and shitheads, the more they win.
Can we reclaim pepe?
We never lost it, imo. The vast majority of Pepe use is by people communicating nothing resembling a message of hate in any way.
what if they start using this as weapon to deny us things?
to me it’s kind of kind the nazi bar thing. if you’re at a bar with 2 Nazis, and you’re not a nazi, you’re still hanging out at a nazi bar.
they fucking adore this frog. no other group has embraced it as strongly or consistently. I’m quite happy to let an old ass meme die because i find it distasteful now that it’s the favorite meme of nazis.
Except in this instance the bar is the meme and you can’t stop the Nazis from using it no matter what you do. Even if you move on to some other meme they can just as easily follow you, now no one knows what’s acceptable or not and for how long.
Same shit happened to the swastika. It comes from Hinduism, still widely used there, in the West it also used to be a symbol of good luck before the 30’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
The counter-clockwise one would have been the more fitting nazi symbol for Night and the Goddess of Death. Had to think about “Are we the baddies”
Yeah, I’m very much in the camp of “fuck you, you don’t get to have it” when it comes to extremist groups trying to co-opt other symbols.
It’s extremely doable–the LGBT population has largely succeeded at doing exactly that with “queer”, for example–these days, basically nobody utters that word as a pejorative. Fuck you, it’s ours now. See what I mean?
There are way more of us than them, we could literally do this for everything these dipshits try to ‘claim’.
Wasn’t it co-opted by racists around 2016 or something? They also took the “OK” finger gesture from the circle game, the fuckers.
They did, but I don’t think they still have them.
Pepe is now (or again) a beloved element of Twitch chat, and the OK symbol… I dunno, that was eight years ago. I just don’t hear anybody talking about it, unless it’s to half remember that it’s bad now or something.
The whole OK symbol thing was literally a false flag by 4chan to clown on the news media’s fervor at the time to label things as racist dog whistles, specifically the whole Pepe shit that was going on.
The fucking thread that started it was (paraphrasing): “Hey guys, do you think the news media would be stupid enough to believe the OK hand sign is a white power dog whistle? [Image of WP poorly traced over the OK hand symbol]”
Obviously, if you get your kicks out of pretending to be a fool, you shouldn’t be surprised when you find yourself in the presence of actual fools. That also very much applies to the type of edgelords on 4chan that thought it would be funny to “pretend to be” racists, or at least to have discovered a racist hate symbol. Eventually enough people will take it seriously that the original “joke” (if you can even call it that) will be lost.
I don’t know if it was really a false flag. Nazis did start using the OK symbol for a time, and I think that was the point. It was built to be smoke and mirrors.
I do believe a lot of channers thought that it was just a joke. I mean, that ambiguity is what makes the dog whistle what it is.
But yeah, it’s a pretty lame magic show when all your tricks are, like, doing a Charlottesville but saying you’re not.
It was a joke, and still is. It’s just that there were enough extremist imbeciles out there who didn’t realize it was a joke, and took it seriously.
That doesn’t change anything about its origin as a joke.
Wait, is just using a Valknut considered a hate symbol? I was under the impression that it was a pretty common “I like Vikings/Odin/Paganism” type symbol… Same with Tyr tbh.
The issue is that the Venn diagram of people interested in vikings/odinism and racists bigots is almost just a circle
This is hyperbole. A large amount of racists and bigots are into norse stuff? Maybe. Almost all people in the norse stuff are racists and bigots? High doubt, and shouldn’t be allowed to be coopted anyway. Loki is one of the few ancient figures with some gender fluid markings as it is.
A large amount of racists and bigots are into norse stuff? Maybe. Almost all people in the norse stuff are racists and bigots? High doubt
In my experience, people are, on average, extremely susceptible to this very basic logical fallacy, and truly believe the two sentiments above are equivalent. In other words, believing that “most X are Y” implies “most Y are X”.
It’s fucking everywhere, pervasive all over the political spectrum too, it’s universal. Radical feminists use the fact that most physical assailants are male to malign half of the human population. Racists use statistics about what percentage of violent crime is committed by a race, to draw conclusions about what percentage of that race commits violent crime. Hell, Reefer Madness, a propaganda piece with a well-deserved reputation of being completely full of shit, rests its premise on the exact same fallacy: “practically everyone dying from hard drug use is/was also a weed smoker, so we’ve concluded weed use leads to hard drug use”.
I see it over, and over, and over again, online and in real life. It makes you want to grab someone by the shoulders and shake them while yelling “all oranges are fruits, does that mean all fruits are oranges?!”, lol.
That’s enough venting for tonight, though, haha.
You’re right, but 100% of the people I’ve encountered that were REALLY into Norse stuff specifically, rather than a general interest in history, were white supremacist.
I’m interested in Norse mythology for stories like the time Thor had to wear a dress to get back his hammer. I bet he looked hot in that dress.
That’s a really small sample size and small point of view, isn’t it?
Most anecdotes are.
Not sure I believe that for a minute. There’s definitely a group there, nobody can deny that, but Norse mythology is incredibly popular among leftists too - I say this as somewhat of a Norse mythology leftist, whose favorite viking/odinist/pagan band preaches unity and kindness among all people and is fronted by a polyamorous bisexual - there’s a lot to love in the mythos and the factual history, and it appeals to a wide variety of people for a wide variety of reasons.
What band is that? I’m always interested in checking out new music.
I enjoyed the Vikings tv series, particularly the early seasons with Ragnar. I especially liked when they wove in religion and mysticism into the episodes. A lot of people enjoyed the series at the time, it was objectively popular. Having an interest in something well represented in popular culture does not make you a de facto racist bigot.
There’s a more likely argument to make, that within the population of white nationalist racist bigots, there’s an overrepresentation of interest/obsession with Vikings/Odinism.
Google says Steam has 132 million monthly active users. Even if you count Pepe (which is absurd, the vast majority of use of it has nothing to do with anything hateful), that’s still far under 1% of users.
But that number would belittle the fake outrage and the side payments would stop.
They even admit that pepe can be used in perfectly normal ways, yet they show it’s the number one most used one. That’s crazy to me lmao
How is the PFLP a hate symbol LMAO
Palistine? Really?
Moon Man? Like the old McDonald’s commercial? How the fuck is that a hateful or extremist symbol? Because anyone who remembers it must be extreme for burgers?
Why do mods hate Hindus???
Til that the gate of the Auschwitz extermination camp is an extremist or hateful symbol.
I’m sorry that you had to find out this way.
Oh fuck off. The US is an unsafe place, not Steam.
Both
Edit: I didn’t know this community is so reactive, someone replied how is it controversial? Simply glancing through the article, anyone would know it’s talking about the comments and forums pasting swastikas and other extremist shit. This isn’t normal in other social media.
Explain Steam being unsafe? It’s a marketplace. Developers make controversial content.
Have you seen any steam forum pages?
Then just ban any forum. Heck, ban Twitter, Facebook, Mastodon, Lemmy, Reddit… because if Steam Forum is bad then every site that allow every people on internet to comment is also bad.
We can become like South Korea if you want a perfectly safe internet.
Sucking and licking it clean, calm down bruh
Old ass boomer fixating on games are evil I guess and finding it deserves more attention than places like Twitter and YouTube filled with influencers who have the captive audience of very susceptible individuals that they are molding them to their image. Maybe focus on the root cause.
Once again, a clueless boomer blames games.
How about YouTube? Why aren’t we going after Google?
What about Twitter? Musk’s platform is filled with extremist hate.
Plenty of extremist diarrhea spewing from the mouth of a President Elect.
It’s almost like this kind of content on Steam is a symptom of a bigger problem.
Steam honestly has it really bad. You don’t see blatant hate speech in play store reviews but you certainly do on steam. The same goes for their forums, which are almost totally unmoderated. Totally agree tho that this is a symptom of a larger problem and am always wary of the government seeking to impede free speech, even if it’s speech I despise. If there are calls to violence and stuff I’m totally cool with that being prosecuted ofc.
Yes, agreed, it definitely needs moderation. But I don’t think it needs singling out (again, not saying don’t moderate).
The bigger picture is a proliferation of online extremist speech in general. And yes, Google may have done well to moderate play store reviews (anecdotally), but they certainly haven’t done well with YouTube.
But I would suggest that focusing on any one online forum / store / outlet / etc. will naturally miss an important trend, and the reasons for that trend should be understood – while concurrently doing everything possible to limit this kind of hate online.
I was going to add, as a user of both Steam and YouTube, I have seen far worse stuff in YouTube comments than I ever have on a Steam forum.
I think part of this comes down to the fact that disgusting, hateful comments will pop up on almost any YouTube video in the comment section, but you actually have to navigate to Steam forums with this content.
So, YouTube comments are thrown in your face and hard to not see, as they are right below the video, but Steam forum comments are at least hidden behind a few layers of clicks.
I agree that singling out Steam as if it’s the main problem, isn’t going to fix anything, at all.
Absolutely those platforms are a bigger problem, but your argument isn’t a very good one. Yes, we should go after those platforms. Yes, we should also go after Steam. Whataboutism never solved any problems.
I think you missed the first sentence of my comment. Games have been blamed above other media for years and years and years. That is not whataboutism.
Edit: or the last sentence for that matter.
It’s almost like this kind of content on Steam is a symptom of a bigger problem.
I never suggested that Steam doesn’t need improvement. There is extremist content being posted. But it is definitely part of a larger (frankly, much more obvious) problem. Calling attention to a root cause is just not whataboutism.
You literally said “what about” in your comment. You specifically argued that the problem lay elsewhere, and Steam is just a symptom. Attempting to absolve Steam of culpability in the problem because “games get blamed above other media” is absolutely whataboutism. It’s a bad argument.
You literally said “what about” in your comment.
Do you legitimately think that any use of the words “what about” makes something whataboutism?
You specifically argued that the problem lay elsewhere
Again, you seem to have missed the point of the comment. I did not deny that Steam needs improvement. Things can be symptoms of larger problems, and calling that out is not whataboutism (to the contrary, the purpose of whataboutism is to suggest that there is no problem with item X – not that item X is a symptom of item Y).
Edit: clarity
Do you legitimately think that any use of the words “what about” makes something whataboutism?
No, that’s not what makes it whataboutism. That’s just a funny bit of your comment. What makes it whataboutism is your continued insistence that the problematic behavior is sourced from elsewhere. That’s not how things work. The right-wing extremism on Steam isn’t a symptom of extremism elsewhere. It isn’t sourced from elsewhere. It’s there on Steam, because the source for it is the same on Steam as it is on Twitter, right-wing extremist users. Suggesting that it is derived from the other sites implies that Valve is less responsible for it than other sites, which doesn’t make any sense. Furthermore, your argument in your comment is based on your perception of victimhood of video games by other media, which isn’t relevant to the conversation at all.
And finally, the fact that Steam supposedly has, by your estimation and without any supporting evidence, less right-wing extremism than other sites doesn’t make the problem better or worse for Valve. It’s still a problem, and it’s one they have to deal with. Not twitter, not Facebook, and not anyone else.
your continued insistence that the problematic behavior is sourced from elsewhere
So you’re suggesting that Steam is the source of the extremist behavior we see across a broad spectrum of other media?
For someone literally arguing about argumentation, it sure is hard to see your point.
No, you just don’t seem to be understanding what I’m saying, or the point of the article linked. The source is the users, of course. What I’m saying is that they didn’t come from twitter. They’ve always been on Steam, just as they’ve always been on twitter or facebook.
And so, it logically follows that if you blame twitter for not dealing with users like that, then you must, by necessity, blame Valve for not dealing with them either.
So, I guess the quick version is that the fun police are upset because of the gamer word. You know, the one used on Xbox live, a lot…
Which one? There’s a lot of horrible gamer words? Is it the one that begins with R and is five letters long or a different gamer word?
You guys can’t even keep nazis out of government. Why should it be steams responsibility to keep them from playing a game?
That’s the whole point. Sure there’s Nazis in the government but look over there, a Nazi! Look over there a Nazi! It’s Nazis from top to bottom. Wanna let us censor the Internet to stop them? No? You’re a Nazi sympathiser then.
Well it’s a nazi country founded by literal slave masters. What do people expect?
Hitler My Friend is a 99 cent game on Steam with an 8/10 positive rating.
A 3D shooter that will change your ideas about alternative history! In this game you will climb into the boots of the unforeseen Adolf Hitler.
There’s more, but I’m not sifting through more dog shit. This is a good thing.
ADL report
Opinion discarded. Those ADL fucks lie about damn near everything.
If we’re pitching microtransactions as extremist content, I’m on board.
What comes to my mind is Battlefront 2, which is sold by Steam. I think I paid $5 for it since I boycotted it back when it first came out to due to loot crates… anyway, I regularly see the n-word used in this game every. single. night. It’s used specifically to denigrate people of color, in violent and extremely racist ways.
I don’t understand how players with maxed out accounts are able to keep them when they are saying this stuff. How is that not flagged for immediate review? EA is a trash company, and Steam may want to stop selling their games if they can’t do the BARE MINIMUM to combat this sort of behavior.
To be fair, it is full of racist and fascist stuff. You can report them but Valve doesn’t do anything.
Is it worse then twitter or facebook? Also, can we stop infantilizing “young adults”? They’re trying to discredit anyone’s opinion who isn’t a senior citizen.
Yes, it’s worse. It is.
Did the Steam forums plot to over throw the US election? Are there private Police Union communities on Steam?
GabeN: There is nothing you can say to stop me from selling Furry Hitler
Literally turning america entirely into an unsafe place then threatening others for it. Are they trying to do a government take over of a shiny appealing money maker? It sure seems like they actually want the nazis everywhere else, I bet if they actually do anything they will keep the nazis if they actually exist in the first place.
By “turning America into an unsafe place” do you mean to accuse the Democrats, one of which is behind this?
Not all democrats are progressives. It’s a big tent party.
I don’t think that even matters. There are plenty of people that would surely be best simply deleted regardless of their affiliation. The us needs a revolution at this point. canada isn’t even that far behind. our former liberal party in the last while changed their name, then just fused with the conservative party. so now we are also down to two parties plus a bunch of effectively useless riffraff.
Oh, it’s a threat from the left. I was more worried about one from the right.
What the left says can be completely ignored right now.
What do you mean “the left”? It is from the US so at best it is from the “slight less extreme far right”.
The relative left.
