By David Futrelle
That /pol/ campaign to smear the anti-fascist left with fake memes suggesting AntiFas support domestic violence against women, children, and the elderly? The one that I and others exposed yesterday as nothing more than a political dirty trick?
Racist fantasy author and all-around terrible person Theodore “Vox Day” Beale thinks it was a smashing success — and something to be proud of.
In a post today, Beale hails the supposed “brilliance” of the fake-meme Tweeters — despite their meme campaign being so transparently dishonest it was recognized as a fraud almost instantly. In Beale’s mind, this is “rhetorical meme magic” at work.
“Remember,” he writes,
the most effective rhetoric communicates truth without necessarily being literally truthful in the details. It persuades through emotion, not reason … .
This from someone who wrote an entire book complaining that “SJWs always lie.”
To those on his side who worry that all this constant lying might backfire, destroying the credibility of the alt-right and its fellow travelers, Beale has nothing but contempt, denouncing what he calls “dialectic-speaking spergs” for “cling[ing] to the belief that ‘credibility’ is the key to successful persuasion.”
Beale, who evidently isn’t much worried about his own credibility, has done his part to push the fake memes, urging his followers to spread the memes around and even posting several on Twitter himself, alongside such comments as “[t]here is no place for the violence and savagery of the #AltLeft in civilized society.”
Never mind that the particular “savagery” he is denouncing here — AntiFa’s supposed support of domestic violence — is something his 4chan pals have simply made up.
Naturally, Beale’s followers are enthusiastic about this particular form of “persuasion.”
“These meme wars are, from a sales perspective, BRILLIANT,” declares someone called dc.sunsets.
They’re the poster child of how Madison Avenue does product packaging in order to manipulate people into buying landfill-filling crap they don’t need.
Huh. What does that say about the ideology they’re trying to sell?
In a followup comment , dc.sunsets adds that
literal truth, veracity or “evidence” doesn’t matter. All it takes is a grain of truth, even a seed of plausibility, to leverage POWERFUL, emotion-level, irresistible re-framing.
Re-framing. That’s my word of the month, possibly year, and perhaps decade.
Reaching into people’s subconscious and turning them like pancakes. (heh, heh, heh.)
A commenter called Cail Corishev, meanwhile, has some advice for those wanting to make their own fake memes. “[I]f there’s a man’s fist in the image,” he writes, “try to make it a fat or wimpy, liberal-looking fist, not a real man’s.”
Ah yes, the good old “liberal-looking fist” ploy. Sixty percent of the time, it persuades every time!
@Scildfreja:
Gah. I buy art commissions, and I would never ask for something like that. Just… gah. As you say, it’s all about trying to do something socially unacceptable with just the faintest of veneers of deniability.
Then again, I tend to go for ‘the artist should have fun, too’. So I tend to show a basic character reference, and then say ‘draw my character, dancing; whatever dance you want, whatever clothing you want, because I like seeing what people come up with.’
Life would be boring if I only got exactly what I asked for down to the last detail. More fun to give some leeway and get things I would never have thought of.
What worries me here is: yes, it’s ridiculous with any perspective, but this sort of thing works and shows that the far right really has a significant understanding of how to manipulate people online. We can laugh, but their ranks are building nonetheless.
These people are making Ralph Klein look like Peter Lougheed.
It’s honestly somewhat telling how little perspective they have.
Channer: I am going to use emotionally charged manipulation and lies to convince the idiots to take up our cause! Those weak willed maroons are sure to fall for our propaganda!
Logic: And how did you get involved in the movement?
Channer: Someone told me that some feminist slept with some guys for reviews and it made me feel very emotionally charged to stop them!
1. Even more congrats, Jesalin!
2. Sorry, Vox, but Stephen Colbert said it all before–and better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness
@Gussie, my dad lost his job in the first round of Klein government cuts, and my family never really recovered from it. Hiss, boo, Klein.
@Jenora, Gussie, I know right? I played an MMO for awhile and the Goons were big into it, and they of course had their ironic-fascist look and feel. They were the ones asking for the Nazi-clone artwork, and where shocked at my thin-skinned refusal to draw their fascist-fetish-biopics as heroes.
I left the game largely because of them, too, them and their general attitude which had seeped into every corner of the game. Looking back it’s creepy how blatantly fascistic their organizations were. Charismatic leaders fronting for old-boys’-club leadership cabals, following orders as the ultimate virtue, any sense of fun or fair play being seen as weakness. Just awful. Great nazi training grounds.
I don’t know what’s happening but ill him in on cheering on Jesalin
Also i can’t believe how dc.sunsets missed there opportunity to say pan-keks
@Gussie
Please never let this die
Congratulations Jesalin. I understand how you can feel good going under the knife. I did too. xxx
@Jesalin
….A CELEBRATORY HUG FOR YOU!
Yay, Jesalin! Congrats!
On topic:
I don’t ever, EVER want to hear about fake news from these assholes, ever again. Not when their worldview involves
“It’s okay to lie if it confirms my truth!” should never be considered something noble to aspire to.
Fuck Teddy and his ignorant sychophants.
Yeah, all this open, brazen Nazi shit has been fermenting for quite some time in just about every large community on the internet. It’s popped up everywhere, even a few furries, for god’s sake!
Speaking of, I am shocked, shocked, shocked I tell you, that the large forums which accrued substantial amounts of their popularity and base of users by rooting around the internet to find individuals and communities that were, in their estimation, below them on the social ladder, and subjecting them to targeted mass abuse, ended up contributing more than their share to the alt-reich and kindred movements. I don’t mean furries engaged in this sort of a behavior; I mean the forums which used them, for more than a decade, as a ludicrously low-hanging punching bag for bullying raids and the like. Shocking. Who could have guessed that people who got off on this kind of bullying and online would ever feel justified and proud of doing the same things in “real life”?
e: I was responding to what Scildfreja mentioned about goons & fascism.
Congratulations to Jesalin, too! I don’t know you, or what kind of surgery you’re getting, but it’s obvious that it’s good news all the same.
Congrats, Jesalin! May all your travel arrangements and subsequent plans go smoothly.
@Scildfreja: omg omg omg. That news is pretty hilarious, thanks for sharing. I’ll be back in the ol’ AB for a week in a week, so it’s nice to have a bit of knowledge of what the conservatives are doing.
(also I’m going to definitely buy some Purple Gas beer if I can find any, because SASKATOONSSSSSSSS!!!)
I also learned that purple gas is not an everywhere thing? Maybe just an Alberta thing?
Re: the article… I hate that some people will see these obviously fake memes and not dig any deeper, because they confirm ideas they already have.
Congratulation Jesalin
So Vox Day gives a lesson in propaganda and confirmes that the shitty things he says are nothing more than dirty lies.
I am not surprised.
Thanks!!
I was impatient before, but now that I have a solid date…*sigh* (lol)
Yay Jesalin! :clap:
Basically if you aren’t from the Canadian Prairies, you basically don’t know what a saskatoon is.
People! Saskatoons are berries, and they are delicious. They are like turbo blueberries. They’re tasty. They’re good for you. You should eat them.
I like Saskatoon ice cream. You should find some when you’re back! I know Fresons has some sometimes. Same with Co-op. Go get somes!
fat, wimpy, liberal-looking FISTS?
never mind the obvious question of “how does one make a FIST look “liberal”), this is one of those weird contradictions they always stumble into. this whole meme campaign is about making antifa look violent and scary… but this person simultaneously wants to make sure they don’t look like quote-unquote “REAL men.”
pick a fucking message. are antifa violent abusers to be feared and reviled, or pathetic beta cucks to be ridiculed?
@Jesalin, yay! Stay well until then, and get better quickly thereafter!
As for Teddy Boy, I guess lying is just “alt-truthtelling” to him, no?
I love the Alt-Reich’s “logic”….
* Propose stupid propaganda scheme.
* Scheme is a huge bust.
* “Great job, guys! It totally worked even though it didn’t! We’re such Übermensch!”
@Rhuu & Scildfreja
I have a soft-spot for Canada. They’re like a kinder, less ridiculous USA only with Friend, The Metric System and a HOT guy as the PM.
Also; I grew up across the river from Canada and have been there many times and grew up with plenty of Canadian TV.
Ahhhhh….The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.
They’re like a kinder, less ridiculous USA only with Friend, The Metric System and a HOT guy as the PM.
FRENCH! I meant “French”.
Darn timer thingy!
Of all the good stuff the USA missed out on, saskatoons and Purple Gas and all things related seem to be another few. Along with not having their heads so far up their asses WHY DO YOU MAKE ME ENVY YOU SO ahem.
All the luck, Jesalin! May it go well and may your recovery be smooth and not too obnoxious.
I never heard of Purple Gas and had no idea Saskatoon was a berry.
But I did get enjoy the pleasure that is….
….NOW WHY CAN’T THEY SELL THIS IN THE STATES?!
SAVAGES!
A little late, but congratulations, Jesalin!
@SpukiKitty: wait, the US doesn’t have coffee crisp? Well I never!
(doesn’t even like them, haha, but is still mildly offended)
I just realised i never explained what purple gas is. It’s gas or diesel dyed purple for use on farms, that is taxed a little less. It’s purple so the government can track where it is being used, if they suspect it is being sold nefariously.
@Scildfreja: omg i’m sure i’ll be near both a co-op and a Fresons, i’ll see if i can find this ice cream!!
I learned that sometimes we have saskatoons out east, but they are called ‘service berries‘ which is way less appetising.