
4chan trolling turned the OK sign into a symbol of hate - apsec112
https://mashable.com/article/ok-hand-gesture-hate-symbol-anti-defamation-league-white-sumpremacy/
======
just-juan-post
The MEDIA turned it into a symbol of hate. Rather than researching, finding it
was BS, and ignoring it they made a story of it so they could get eyeballs and
revenue. And here we are.

~~~
mansion7
Quite so. 4chan is actually quite clever in that regard.

They have hypotheses, in this case that the media is both stupid, and has
political biases that they will promote any level of foolishness to affirm.

They then develop simple plans to test these hypotheses. In this case it was
as easy as making fake memes and spreading them to woke journalists. They then
sit back and watch as they are proven correct. Now, making a hand symbol which
has existed for generations is sufficient to get one cancelled and "deny
listed".

Another recent example; they believed that wokies had an anti-white bias. So
they made a very simple phrase. "It's okay to be white". They didn't say it
was great to be white, or that whites are better. They didn't alter "black
power" into "white power" or "long live the race" into "Viva la Raza Blanca",
etc. Just that it was okay to be white. And they were quickly proven correct -
academics and media types quickly pronounced outright that it was not okay.
The more tolerant among them qualified that while it might be okay to be
white, it's certainly not okay to say it aloud. And many eyes were opened to
what those in power (and getting one fired, harassed, beaten, deplatformed etc
while being supported by almost all media, big tech, woke capital, and
academia IS true power) think of them.

We ought to look forward to further 4chan experimentation - the results can be
quite enlightening.

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coronadisaster
The OK hand sign is only racist if used to approve racism, as far as I know.
Don't let the racist people steal hand language.

~~~
swayvil
I think it's a little more meta than that.

It's the hand-language interpretation process that's being hijacked here.

Instead of seeking an accurate interpretation we're seeking one that creates
maximum drama, paints arbitrary targets in arbitrary lights and generates
profits.

It's a biblical flood of bullshit.

Maybe it's an unavoidable outcome of this public service for amplifying the
voices of bullshit-lovers. Social media, I mean.

Language decoupled from observation. Antiscience.

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me_me_me
"The Anti-Defamation League has added the hand gesture for "OK" to its
database of hate symbols, after sites like 4chan and 8chan began associating
it with white supremacy."

This is all I had to read to roll my eyes and move on.

~~~
soneil
They do go on to say that "context is key" and that most people will just use
it to mean OK. I think it reads a little more sensible without the snap-
judgements.

~~~
me_me_me
Well then the article is a bait,

"Some people on the internet use OK sign for heat speech. But majority people
don't"

Either case its waste of everyone's time.

And the irony of me still talking about it is not lost on me :(

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taylodl
Some think the media got trolled - NPR has an article shedding light on why
this isn't the case. Seems the media knows exactly the origins of this meme
and that it was a hoax. What isn't a hoax is White Supremacist groups in
response have started using the OK sign as a symbol of hate. Language evolves
and gestures are a part of language. Anyway, here's a link to the NPR article
on this matter: [https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-
gesture...](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-gesture-is-
now-listed-as-a-symbol-of-hate)

------
swayvil
To be fair, 4chan has a perfect audience.

A million people looking for something to be outraged about.

A million companies who will do anything to stay on the right side of the
politics of the hour.

A million people who believe anything the consensus tells them.

I mean, that's us.

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belltaco
How is it just trolling when it became an actual symbol?

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RickJWagner
Unbelievable. The internet is chock full of pictures of people making the 'ok'
symbol. Obama is one.

It's not ok to hype up racist symbolism to stir people up. Don't let them call
thumbs up, or Kermit the Frog, or whistling, or clicking a pen, or ANYTHING
ELSE racist. Even if some real, live racists use some gesture, we should TAKE
IT BACK.

Kudos to the LGBT community for doing this with 'that is so gay'. They just
didn't allow it. The same technique should be applied.

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hprotagonist
symbols and referents are in a many-to-many relationship, and that cannot
become a controversial idea.

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Ghjklov
This is really old news, why did it just suddenly reach the front page of HN?

