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Notes -
Following up on a discussion with @drmanhattan16 downthread:
I think the answer is usually going to be "yes."
A couple months ago, during some meta-discussion of disappearing threads, I wrote up my thoughts on conspiracy theories as countersignaling. As long as there's incentive to appear cool, independent, unique, there is incentive to push the boundaries of acceptability. It's called "edgy" for a reason.
One of the common cultural touchstones for edge is forbidden knowledge. As a result, anywhere you find edgy status games, you'll find someone claiming to know whatever it is They don't want you to know. Except...if one can just say it out loud, how cool and secret can it really be? The theorist is incentivized to play up their edge, a rebel who won't be cowed rather than an attention-seeker. As an aside, antisemitism is past its heyday because it's not very good for this. Enough people pattern-match it to "attention-seeker" that it loses its edge. This is the result of decades of memetic immune response to those status games. Of course, given that one very definitely can get banned for it, it retains edgy credentials...sometimes.
(Note that I'm not claiming the antisemites here are just edgy. I understand you're pretty serious about the subject. The motte is a weird place and has other status games; personally, I think that COVID skepticism has a grip on more of the edgelords.)
In the end, some people will find themselves drawn to signal their edge. Those who do so overtly will usually end up banned, unless they signal something really milquetoast, in which case they're probably "cringe." Those with a little more tact, though...they are incentivized to find something under the radar. To maintain that sweet, sweet plausible deniability while still getting a rise out of the opposition. They need something that will prove their status as an independent free-thinker who doesn't fall for the party line.
And they take the black pill.
The idea of taking the black pill specifically so you can cast yourself as a "free thinker" is an interesting one, remind me of this Onion article. If it's about having status and independence, it should be left-right agnostic and more about whatever side is perceived as setting the rules more. There must have been edgelords in the 60s who were in favor of the counter-culture, right?
But if this is why you get infiltration, is it your opinion that it's ultimately harmless until taken seriously? That is, banning the "kids" from making their jokes can lead to them taking it more seriously than if they were just given a slap on the wrist and told to knock it off?
Unless one side manages to use its cultural dominance to cast itself in the role of the permanent underdog.
I hear people say that a lot, and I think people buy it far less than you think. Partisans will always think of themselves as underdogs, including young partisans. When we look at people who aren't so defined by their politics, you can see many people who are more willing to make jokes that would offend both sides.
I would need to find the data, but support among youth for things like ideological censorship has risen quite a bit.
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