Or you can use context instead of absolute judgment. When done under water in a scuba suit, it probably means ok. When done when posing with Steve Bannon it probably means white power sign.
Having researched the issue carefully [0] I would suggest there is an alternative symbolic interpretation. One that goes something like "our opponents believe anything they read on the internet".
Even if it is used extensively as a political symbol, it doesn't represent white power. It represents a political sub-group disrespecting their opposition for being gullible.
Insofar as it even could represent white power - white power to do what? Have political opinions? It isn't seriously associated with anything heinous.
My take is that Poe's Law is bidirectional. You can't tell irony from extremism, nor extremism from irony.
It might have started as an ironic joke, but if it gets adopted earnestly by actual white supremacists (see the Christchurch shooter using it in court), then in some contexts it can be interpreted as a genuine symbol of white supremacy.
Mr Christchurch Shooter doesn't have that much power. If he wrapped himself in a rainbow flag, it doesn't mean people should stop using rainbow flags. Ditto him using a thumbs up gesture or an OK handsign. His use or disuse of symbol sin his crime is distasteful, but unimportant.
If he thought he could get people to stop using Islamic symbols by displaying them, he would have been festooned with them.
The whole thing was started as a deliberate meme by /pol/ to take an innocent, commonly used hand signal and make the left treat it as a white supremacist dogwhistle. So it can mean anything ranging from "ok" to "this will make the libs angry" to "I am an actual nazi among like minded friends". Which one it is must be discerned from context, meaning that the symbol itself is largely meaningless.
I use the symbol to help identify people who believe anything they read on the Internet.
I don’t think I’ve used this symbol since I was a kid to mean “ok,” and I certainly won’t use it now due to potential association.
But it is nice to be able to easily tell if someone is either stupid or duplicitous by reading them talk about this symbol always meaning white power.
I’m sure if I went looking on nazi sites I would see it used in hate, but every story I’ve read about it has been a waste of time. I only see a few come through threads like this but when I read the link it’s usually someone trolling or ambiguous.
People in this thread must know what plausible deniability is.
When someone is standing next to Steve Bannon posing intentionally with a symbol that could refer to white supremacy, being able to laugh it off as "haha, I just meant OK" gains them the benefits of deniability. (But not very plausible, I think)
People use it precisely for this reason - because it identifies them as a white supremacy sympathiser without being actionable: they keep a trolling or ambiguity defence in their back pocket, wherever that is needed.
Except using as 'this will make libs crazy' means the speaker is still intentionally and loudly embracing racism & racists, even if not their primary aim. So it is a symbol of two forms of racism: direct and supporting. Important to not give racists a free pass just because they are clever, delusional, or are a part of some popular political coalition.
The sedition just happened, and it was because of exactly this kind of manipulative messaging by the same exact people. Breitbart's former editor Bannon even came out of hiding for helping with the riot's speeches and got a pardon in return. I'm hoping that will have been the last straw for most people for tolerating racist double talk and those promoting it.
Personally, I don't care if someone is elaborately trolling or being ironic by displaying a swastika. They are still willing to display a swastika.
White supremacists - Nazis, the KKK, Evropa - love Trump. They use this symbol. Who cares whether someone is "ironically" using a symbol indicating their support for that cause or sincerely?
Yeah, context is key. We played a game as kids where if you looked at one of us with the ok sign, the one doing the sign got to punch you in the arm. It was joke.
Even though this new origin is a bit of the tail wagging the dog (it started as a joke on 4chan), the ok sign has taken on the meaning of a white power sign in certain situations.
Unfortunately, people have trawled old pics and attacked people for using normal hand gestures. Context and nuance appears to be completely lost on many.
Wow, that game seems to be surprisingly common! It was played on my school in Munich, Germany.
The rules were: if you look through the loop, you are punched in the upper arm. The puncher has to draw a bull's eye first, then punch, then the recipient must say "thank you" and the puncher must reply "you're welcome" (of course in German, i.e. bitte, danke). Any deviation from the rules is punished by a punch, to be administered in accordance with aforementioned ceremony.
In the southeastern US. I'm a bit older so things like minor scuffles and fist fights with friends wasn't uncommon. We certainly didn't have as many rules as you outlined, and just used it as another reason to pick on and bruise each others arms.
> the ok sign has taken on the meaning of a white power sign in certain situations.
>> When done when posing with Steve Bannon it probably means white power sign.
When a no-kidding, self-admitted, non-LARPing, Stormfront-reading, Klan- or Nazi-party member says "Yeah we've been using the OK symbol for years" then I'll believe it.
But all I've ever seen about this is leftists of a certain type asserting that it's true, with some variation of "I know it's true because all my friends and thought leaders say it's true, and you can see yourself that such people as Steve Bannon use it, and people have even been fired for doing it. Definitely true. Your move, white-supremacy-denier!"
So, no. It's a conspiracy theory, in which denial of the conspiracy is yet more evidence of the conspiracy.
How about the Christchurch shooter flashing it in court? He may have been doing it ironically still, but at that point does it even matter? He was explicitly associating himself and his actions with the symbol. Context matters of course, but what started as a joke has taken on its own life
