• TheFogan@programming.dev
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    1 month ago

    I believe the OK one was just 4chan going

    “lol, the left is so gullible if we say the OK sign is a sign of white nationalists, they’ll publish it”. Of course the reality is, when they sent it out, the actual white nationalists saw it and started using it.

    which is kind of the thing that they do. Just like pepe… to my knowledge the original author doesn’t seem to be a bad guy. Meme itself was used in non horrible ways for years. But today you see someone join something with a pepe avitar or similar… you know there’s a 90% chance that whatever community you are in is about to get a test of how they react to the racial slurs that are about to come up.

    Or you know you can go to the most famous and talked about ones. IE that symbol of good fortune that existed in countless peaceful cultures for thousands of years.

    • CalipherJones@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Yup, as long as there’s a group of people with a shared understanding, any symbol can be compromised. All it takes is the right context for understanding.