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Claim (1), that these are all just jokes, seems doubtful. Many 'ironic' posters pretty clearly are using their irony for plausible deniability, and do basically believe the things they think they're being ironic about, so I guess to the assertion that these are all just jokes, I'd say 'I don't really believe you. Some of them are, some of them aren't.'
The kind of guy who mentions the Holocaust every day, in a "joking" manner is not joking. He celebrates the Holocaust. I suspect this groupchat does not have a Holocaust reference every day. I wrote this sentence before I read the Politico article in full.
The writer says 2900 pages of chats, and Giunta says 28,000 chats. The article says 251 epithets. These guys were not slinging epithets left and right. It is highly unlikely they are making Holocaust jokes every day, or else the Journalists would have said how many holocaust jokes.
Damned right I am minimizing this. They are joking. Nobody is trying to Holocaust the Jews. I bet these guys don't even support Hamas lol.
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Do they need to be cagey and ironic around others of their ilk?
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So these people believe that sex is gay? They ACTUALLY have a goal of creating the greatest physiological torture methods known to man? They think the Kansas Young Republicans support slavery?
No, this whole "You made a joke but that means you really believe it" stuff is nonsense. Maybe you really believe it, but sometimes a joke is just a joke.
A joke is very rarely "just a joke". See my reply here.
It's very rarely "just a joke" in the sense that it has other meanings and functions. It is very often just a joke in the sense that the accusations tossed at the people making the joke are false, and the accuser usually knows that in advance.
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