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.
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.