Wow this article came out swinging
hate
sometimes people don’t come back.
and sometimes that’s okay.
I’ve been in love with someone that didn’t love me back, and I’ve been loved by someone that I didn’t love back. And I don’t know which is worse: to be broken or to break another soul.
—
SC, unknown.
- me: I need to go out more
- anxiety: but you hate people
you are so much more than the things that have happened to you.
I’m sad as fuck again and these tears just won’t come out. So there’s this huge void inside of me.
Me: you gotta love yourself
Friend: ????????????????????????????????????????? don’t you fucking hate yourself
Me: yea but this is about you stay focused
I should never have needed to type the phrase ‘Fascist Nazi Captain Planet RPer’ with my own two hands.
In light of the whole captain-planet-official nazi dogwhistles thing…
Doesn’t matter if they know what they’re doing or not (but they certainly do) or if they’re doing this ‘ironically’ (a cop out excuse to claim plausible deniability when they get called out) this fascist nazi Captain Planet blog is influencing its readers in a bad way, and you should be aware of how. Because honestly I’ve used some of those techniques too.
“But it’s all a joke!” No it’s not. It’s masquerading as a joke, hiding behind that claim if the heat gets too intense, but it’s not a joke.
Well, except maybe for the fact that the right wingers are laughing at you trying to figure it out, ‘getting confused’ or defending parts of what’s been said.
The short premise is that the more positively you feel about a personality on the internet, the more likely you are to agree with them, and the more likely you are to side with them on issues that you didn’t previously have an opinion on. At some point you file them away in your brain as ‘someone I agree with’ and use them as a shortcut for ‘If they said this, I agree with them’. It’s a very human thing, it’s why advertisers pay so much for celebrity endorsements.
So part of what this Nazi Captain Planet rper is/was doing (I can’t believe I typed that phrase with my own two hands, what even is 2019?) is making you feel attached to them, and partly it’s training your brain to accept and normalise their rhetoric.
So how does a blog set about accomplishing this?
- Start with an easy one- giving you a nickname or term of endearment. It makes you feel special, and like you belong to something. They use Planeteers, I used Vetlings. People crave belonging.
- Then have an approachable front: a much loved cartoon character. The trusted profession of veterinarian.
- Now if you’re trying to do this deliberately, start getting people into a quick habit of agreeing with you. Pick neutral ground that’s hard to criticise - protecting the environment is good, don’t litter, we want good things for our pets, etc.
- And once you’ve got people agreeing with you on multiple points in succession, it becomes easier to get them to agree with, or at least tolerate, the next point. Especially if you’re on a relatively unassuming blog about ‘saving the environment’ or animal health.
Did you ever try that trick as a kid where you ask someone to repeat the word ‘silk’ out loud ten times in a row, and then ask ‘what does a cow drink’? A bunch of them will automatically reply ‘milk’ instead of ‘water’ because you primed their brain.
So you can use this repeated behavior to desensitise readers to an idea, get them used to agreeing with you, until you slip some things in which they might normally side-eye.
It’s making the brain practice how you want it to think before the main event. It’s showing your work so that other people can apply it to other situations. I’ve done it too, rather more unintentionally most of the time on this blog, though I use it when communicating directly with clients.
For example, in my writing I can lead you down the garden path of:
- “Purebreds have problems because they haven’t had new genes introduced in generations”
- > “mixing of breeds is a good thing”
- > “breed purity is a bad thing, maybe not immediately but it is bad”.
Then I will often leave readers to make the last step on their own, because I trust they’re intelligent and reasonable, and a conclusion you reach yourself has more sticking power than any I just hand you.
So when you conclude “racial purity is a completely bullshit concept and detrimental to the health of those ‘races’, are Nazis actually trying to make us as screwed over as German Shepherds?” you will hold that opinion more strongly than if I just said it to you.
Similarly, a different blog leading you down the path of “Invasive species are a result of globalism and must be removed” with “there are three types of people: black, Jews and normal” is leading you towards the path of “blacks and Jews are not normal, they are invasive and we should remove them” and then that goes to “but humanely! We can humanely euthanize invasive species!” and I’m sure you can see where that is going. It also co-opts real conservation talk and terms, but it’s glossing over the fact it’s trying to get you to think about people this way, often with as much plausible deniability as they can muster. Throw the thoughts out there, see what sticks, then backtrack if it doesn’t work.
On that note of backtracking, this is where Dogwhistles come in.
A Dogwhistle is a phrase that on its own looks perfectly benign, or even makes sense in context, but has a specific meaning for a particular subgroup of people that change the context. Just like dog whistles are heard by dogs, but not by people.
A classic example is the phrase ‘family values’, which often means anti-LGBT+ in a Christian context even though it sounds like it should mean something supportive.
The Nazi and alt-right ones change periodically. From relatively old school ones like ‘14 words’, the number 88, and ‘final solution’, to more recent ones like putting names in (((brackets))), particular emojis and even ‘Subscribe to Pewdiepie’.
Yes, ‘Subscribe to Pewdiepie’ became a Nazi dogwhistle, regardless of whatever you might think of Pewdiepie. If it was thrown into a context where it didn’t necessarily seem to belong, it changed the meaning of those words. And if that person was called out on it, they’d backtrack and claim they simply liked the content. And the bigger the meme became, the easier it was for them to use.
Ah, you might think by now, but lots of people also use ‘Subscribe to Pewdiepie’, emojis and sentences with 14 words. And 88 is a perfectly ordinary number, a birth year even, there are times when it’s really just being used legitimately?
Of course there are. But when you start to see a lot of them together, it starts to look suspicious.
And if you are a minority regularly targeted by such a hateful group, it starts to look really very intimidating. So if everybody starts reblogging these dogwhistles from a colourful Captain Planet blog, it makes it look like there are far more Nazi supporters than anything else. And it isolates those minorities.
This is why it’s so insidious that they claimed something like Captain Planet - a character with significant nostalgia, a show with a pretty diverse group of main characters and a good message, and co-opted it into spreading these dogwhistles and priming unwary minds to think these rhetorics, these training ideas, are reasonable.
“But it was clearly a troll, lmfao!”
Oh hell no. These are real tactics. They will say it’s a joke, it’s trolling, or that you’re overreacting, but that’s part of the plan to seed these ideas. Don’t defend it. Don’t fall for it.
To my people
To you, the generation I grew up in, the people I surrounded myself with every day, the people who I don’t know but know are out there somewhere, this is to you.
To the boy curled up in bed who’s been taught by society that he must be a strong, masculine man who can’t cry in front of anyone, who has grown up suppressing so many tears and emotions that now he just feels so painfully numb even the blade in his hand can’t hurt him anymore.
To the girl sat on the floor of the shower, trying to scrape every last inch of her skin clean, who is scratching so much and so hard that she is ripping her skin off and bleeding. Trying to clean away the dirt that was forced upon her by a man who she said no to, by a man who she didn’t ask for nor want. But she is too afraid to speak up because of the limits that society has tied her to, because she knows that she was wearing a skirt and a crop top that night and that she had been drinking at a friends house.
To the kids who are sat aching on the floor of their bedrooms, who had their hearts broken and torn to pieces too early, who experienced heartbreak so prematurely that they will never fully recover. And the only sounds they will remember for years to come is the sounds of their favourite sad songs that they listened to on repeat as their broken heartstrings bled the the tears they held up. That they’ll never truly be able to swim because of the ocean of tears that they drowned themselves in.
To the friends who were a crutch for everyone, who listened and helped whenever they were called upon, but never had anyone there to help them themselves. The friends who were no more a third leg to stand on than a passing night cloud. Who helped everyone no matter what, and gave their best advice when on the inside they were dying themselves.
To the kids who tried their best to make everyone around them happy, who gave their everything to everyone just so they could see a smile on someone’s face, but were met with nothing more than hate and misconceptions. The kids who everyone thinks are rude and heartless, when in reality they’re the nicest people anyone could ask for. Who gave so much in the name of someone else’s happiness that they neglected they’re own, and are now filled with a bitter emptiness of lost hope and broken dreams.
To the people who have argued with who they are, who have tried to be someone they’re not and have tried to suppress their inner feelings because they are so scared of who they really are.
To the queer kids who have grown up being told that God is every kind of love except theirs, who have lost their sense of self and their sense of self worth, who are absolutely terrified that the love they are feeling will burn too bright and they’re bodies will be dragged down and lost in the flames of hell
To the minorities who feel like they will never truly belong in this world because no matter where they go there is always somebody waiting to discriminate against them.
To the people of colour who are terrified to walk down the street day or night incase they coincidentally match the description of a suspect of a break in from 2 days ago, incase a white supremacist turns the corner to see them, and their stone cold eyes stare straight into yours as they slowly pull a knife out of their pocket.
To the Latinx’s who are told each day to “go back to Mexico” despite the fact that you’re from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, or just anywhere other than Mexico, because they fail to see that Mexico. Isn’t. The. Only. Country. To. Speak. Spanish. And that, this is your home.
To the children who grew up in silence, who sat in the still like statues daring not to make even the smallest of movements, with not so much as a breath falling from their mouths. Who grew up seeing fists instead of hugs, who grew up black and blue instead of colourful and happy. The kids who used to cover up with oversized jumpers and make up because the bruises were getting too frequent to be passed off as ‘just clumsy’. To the kids so terrified of the hand that would be laid across them if they stepped out of line that their lives became a tightrope of fear and paranoia, that they may never get to the end because the rope leads on forever even after they have grown up.
To the kids who barely made it through the education system even though they tried their hardest every single day, even though they worked as hard as they could and applied themselves in their all to everything they did. Who barely scrapped C’s when their effort was A* worthy. Who were told “you just didn’t try hard enough” even though their hands were bleeding ink from all the writing they had done, even though their eyes were red with pain because they hadn’t slept properly in weeks, even though their stomachs howled like the wind of a hurricane because they hadn’t eaten properly for days, because revision was more important their health.
To the children and teens who are scared to go to school every single day, terrified that it might be their last. The kids who will grow up knowing that they will never be able to see their best friend ever again, the kids who laid underneath a table as they watched the life drain out of their best friends once bright and happy eyes, knowing they’ll never be able to say “I love you” one last time.
To the friends who are terrified to watch their American friends go to school each day because they fear that one day they’ll never hear from them again, because the last sound they ever heard wasn’t the notification of your text but the detonation of a gun ricocheting through their ears as a bullet embedded itself into their body.
To the kids who walk the school halls each day pretending not to hear the abuse that’s shouted at them by their peers. The kids who cry in the shower because then their tears are invisible, because it makes it that little bit less real, because it makes the pain hurt that little bit less. Who walk into school each day void of any feeling, who have emptied themselves so they will feel nothing, because feeling nothing hurts less than the suffering they would be put through.
To the people who smile every day when all they want to do is cry, who say they’re fine when really they are anything but. Who walk each day like a victory when inside the war is still raging on, knowing that reinforcements are not coming.
To the LGBT+ people who have to hide in the closet, terrified to open the doors, because they know the world is so quick to judge but so slow to accept even when it is true love. The people who feel like they’ll never truly belong because they’ve learnt to hate themselves, because what they are is wrong and sinful, because they have to listen to homophobic comments every single day and pretend like they are something they’re not in the vain hope that maybe no one will see through the facade.
To my generation. To my people. My friends and my foes. My friends that I haven’t met yet and the people that I will never meet. The people that I don’t know but know are out there. I hear you. This world is a blacked up shade of fuckery, this world will take any shred of hope you have and crush it whilst you watch.
But to each and every one of you, you’re amazing. You face a different challenge every day, you break on the inside and still stand tall, you’ve learnt to fix yourself because no one else will. You are an inspiration! You may not now, but you will be proud of who you are one day, you will be proud of your personality, proud of your heritage, proud of your sexuality! You will not suffer in silence anymore. You are beautiful, smart, talented and funny! You are not worthless, you don’t need to hide. You have a purpose. You make this world a better place.
To anyone who needed this…
I’m proud of you.
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July 27th 2018 - Finished. 16:11pm
The more anger you hold towards your past, the less capable you are of loving life in the present.
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Barbara De Angelis
who else