Memes. They hijack pop culture and turn it into a dogwhistle, like if you’ve seen people randomly saying “is that a jojos reference?” underneath some worryingly bigoted comment on youtube, they’re trying to indicate that they’re a fellow right wing asshole. For a long time “subscribe to pewdiepie” was used. Both references had some nazi connection, like jojos had a nazi character, and pewdiepie flirted with nazi stuff in a deniable way.
The point is that it’s silly and innocuous so that if anybody tries to call it out then they can just gaslight them and point out how silly it is, and they’re clearly making something out of nothing.
Memes. They hijack pop culture and turn it into a dogwhistle, like if you’ve seen people randomly saying “is that a jojos reference?” underneath some worryingly bigoted comment on youtube, they’re trying to indicate that they’re a fellow right wing asshole. For a long time “subscribe to pewdiepie” was used. Both references had some nazi connection, like jojos had a nazi character, and pewdiepie flirted with nazi stuff in a deniable way.
The point is that it’s silly and innocuous so that if anybody tries to call it out then they can just gaslight them and point out how silly it is, and they’re clearly making something out of nothing.