I’m asking both specifically about the GOG thing but also more generally. Yes, I know the SS appropriated runes for tgwit logo but I still don’t see how that automatically makes runes themselves bad. I can understand how it would be triggering for some folks and so a level of sensitivity is required (which GOG clearly failed on) but I still don’t get how appropriated symbols automatically = bad (because I’ve seen the same reactions to other ancient symbols over and over again and I’m still trying to understand it)
It’s bad because the SS appropriated it and stripped all other meaning from it. It’s like using the number 1488 in a username. It only means one thing, and while it’s possible to stumble into it by accident, it remains a white supremacist dogwhistle
So if someone made an account 20 years ago ending with 88, like say if you were born in 1988, should they now delete their account just because someone might misconstrue it as a completely unrelated “dogwhistle”?
As you’ve pointed out, there is an innocent explanation for someone using 88. It could be an honest mistake, there are people (usually whites who aren’t endangered by Nazi ideology) that aren’t tuned-in enough to know about common Nazi dogwhistles.
There’s no honest mistake in using the double sowilo runes. No innocent explanation.
There is one innocent explanation, with a big caveat: some child-left-behind in marketing googled “Slavic emojis” and found this page, and clicked on a few random ones, not knowing about the connotations some of them have.
Caveat: they didn’t send the email in Germany, so someone knew it was nazi shit and sent it anyway
In hindsight, an idiot accidentally copying a different cryptofascist’s work actually is another innocent explanation. “Oops, I didn’t know the “cool rune guide” I was copying from was actually made by neonazis.”
Sort of like how Graham Platner might have gotten his Nazi tattoo because one of his buddies in the Marines, who actually is a neonazi, told him it was a good idea and that it was just a cool looking skull tattoo.
I’m asking both specifically about the GOG thing but also more generally. Yes, I know the SS appropriated runes for tgwit logo but I still don’t see how that automatically makes runes themselves bad. I can understand how it would be triggering for some folks and so a level of sensitivity is required (which GOG clearly failed on) but I still don’t get how appropriated symbols automatically = bad (because I’ve seen the same reactions to other ancient symbols over and over again and I’m still trying to understand it)
Because they used the ϟ rune twice. When used like that, it only has one meaning.
It’s bad because the SS appropriated it and stripped all other meaning from it. It’s like using the number 1488 in a username. It only means one thing, and while it’s possible to stumble into it by accident, it remains a white supremacist dogwhistle
So if someone made an account 20 years ago ending with 88, like say if you were born in 1988, should they now delete their account just because someone might misconstrue it as a completely unrelated “dogwhistle”?
Okay, but lets compare this to using runes.
As you’ve pointed out, there is an innocent explanation for someone using 88. It could be an honest mistake, there are people (usually whites who aren’t endangered by Nazi ideology) that aren’t tuned-in enough to know about common Nazi dogwhistles.
There’s no honest mistake in using the double sowilo runes. No innocent explanation.
There is one innocent explanation, with a big caveat: some child-left-behind in marketing googled “Slavic emojis” and found this page, and clicked on a few random ones, not knowing about the connotations some of them have.
Caveat: they didn’t send the email in Germany, so someone knew it was nazi shit and sent it anyway
Not even, because they used two, side-by-side.
The comedy of errors that would be required to explain it innocently would be an Adult Swim sketch.
Yeah, the two together is one of the options on there. For the same reason that some search queries return those runes with a 1488 appended
Wait shit I didn’t see it
In hindsight, an idiot accidentally copying a different cryptofascist’s work actually is another innocent explanation. “Oops, I didn’t know the “cool rune guide” I was copying from was actually made by neonazis.”
Sort of like how Graham Platner might have gotten his Nazi tattoo because one of his buddies in the Marines, who actually is a neonazi, told him it was a good idea and that it was just a cool looking skull tattoo.
20 years ago 88 was as much of a nazi dogwhistle as it is today
Must depend on where you live and whether you’re terminally online.
I only found out this year that 88 is now Nazi related.
you’re lucky not to know what 88 signified before the internet because it mean that you were never affected by the people it attracted.