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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   36621 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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Will Elon succeed in making the Roman salute cool again? Reddit is predictably going apeshit over his gesture that can be construed as one. I mean, I doubt he's done that deliberately, it's a natural gesture in the same way a bendy cross is a natural ornament, but I doubt he's the kind of person that will mumble an apology and withdraw from the public eye for a while. If anything, I expect him to double down and insist it's been 80 years and people should be free to reappropriate the gesture.

We can only hope that the hyperstitious slur gesture cascade is reversing. The rest of the internet has finlly grasped such subtleties as context and the use-mention distinction. Reddit, likely for structural reasons, still retains much of the 2018-2022 monoculture.

In Elon's second salute we can see that his hand is yawed inward in a decidedly nonfascist manner. I skimmed through Triumph of the Will just now, and while there are lots of salutes with variable pitch at the wrist, I didn't see a single one with yaw.

does anyone happen to know how reddit /r/all correlates to the real popularity and engagement of the content? i ask because it seems like the current state is for junior high caliber political content from subs like "murderedbywords" and "clevercomebacks" to be at the top of "hot". somehow i just can't believe this is the most popular reddit content, probably because i'm in denial.

/r/The_Donald proved years ago that the Reddit algorithm can be trivially gamed. Tribal groups are really good at this kind of informal coordination. Users of these subs are already used to regular political content. Users who don't like it get driven out. Users who agree with the political content see their upvotes as a way to influence public opinion. Emotions are high due to the inauguration. All it takes is a few tens of thousands of Redditors who hate Elon Musk to upvote every single clip to the top of every single sub.

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