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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1625 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 25, 2026

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Anyone following the new logo for the Atlanta Falcons saga?

The memes are hilarious.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/oct/22/atlanta-falcons-throwback-logo-nazi-germany-comparisons-memes

FWIW, I like it.

Given your username, I'm not surprised.

If the bird was an eagle, that flag would read as some kind of German state or patriotic heraldry to anyone with the slightest familiarity with German history and culture, and the predominantly-red colour scheme makes it more redolent of Nazi-era German heraldry than Imperial-era or post-war German heraldry.

Apparently it is a falcon. I note that the SCA does not allow a difference between falcons and eagles for the purposes of resolving conflicting heraldry.

I am not going to call it fascist, because I don't think Falcons fans are right-wingers whom I dislike (the actual meaning of the dratted word nowadays). But it definitely falls into the category of "flags I, being neither a German patriot nor a neo-Nazi, would choose not to fly".

I agree that confusion is easy here - both Germany and the US use eagles extensively in their national heraldry, and the fasces (without the axe) was widely used as a symbol of republican authority long before fascism was a thing. I can see why someone would find the United Farmworkers flag Nazi-looking - after looking at a bunch of Nazi and Soviet propaganda to write my other post on this thread I don't because the eagle is drawn in a cubist-looking way, and the Nazis didn't do that. (I suspect this was deliberate on the part of Richard Chavez when he designed the flag). And the US House mace is just a fasces with an eagle on top, neither of which is a fascist symbol per se.

Atlanta Falcons fans, thé braves are a different sport.

Oops - will correct.

Yeah I am puzzled by any puzzlement. The modernist styled falcon whose wings are drawn straight as a ruler in a 90 degree angle together with the black-white-red color scheme (it's not even a German imperial tricolor but black-surrounded-by-white-surrounded-by-red) is quite on the nose. Only part that hints against direct Nazi influence is the derpy open-mouthed look on the falcon's face, they cared about details like that. If I saw this in the wild without context, I'd guess a flag of some random 20th century South American party who liked Nazi aesthetics or a media from an alternate history fiction product.

It's not like it's even difficult to avoid these associations. Germany still uses eagles in state heraldry, they just style them either as ye olde derpy heraldric eagles or round and well-fed together with decidedly non-nazi 1848/Weimar black-red-yellow tricolor. You can evoke Bonapartist masculine sentiments by drawing a golden eagle who didn't skip a leg day flexing his muscles on a blue background. You can evoke decidedly American imperial authority by drawing a bald eagle and/or an drawing the wings raised upwards and curved as in the Great Seal (ie a semi-realistically showing off that you can draw the anatomy of the metacarpal and radius bone). It helps if you put stars and stripes in the vicinity.

I agree there is a contingent of leftists who rejoice in claiming that any designs with imposing birds of prey are a symbol of dangerous authoritarian thought, but that goes without saying. (Coincidentally, the leftist heraldry avoids all prominent animal motifs for some reason, preferring stars, human tools, and wheat). In practice most people don't care as long as you provide sufficient amount of visual cues to other referents (and avoid too many nazisque visual cues like their party colors).

The Falcons didn't really have a choice about colours given the team colours, and it looks like the dieselpunk/totalitariancore styling of the falcon is a team trademark, so it would have been a modicum of effort to come up with a definitely-not-Nazi design. But they seem to have succeeded on an entire merch store worth of stuff to date. On balance, I suspect mistake rather than malice.

U Alabama Crimson Tide also have a red-white-black colour scheme and a hatedom that would love to call them Nazis, but have somehow also managed to avoid this kind of controversy. So it can't be that difficult.

Good point, didn't realize it is an old retro logo. I do say that old designs have just a tiny bit different arrangement, and the wings look curved when painted on a curved helmet. And modernist look and logos were more common in 1960s, whereas by the 1990s they were mostly buried as "dated look" in favor of round and curved lines and gradients.

If they think that's fascist, just wait until they see the United Farmworkers flag.

Not to mention the ceremonial mace of the US House of Representatives.

It got me thinking once again about how viscerally negative the reaction is that certain people have to the aesthetics of cleanliness, order, and sharp dressing.

I asked here once what people mean by “fascism,” and the primary meaning was bullies in power, but I’ve since come to a definition of fascist vibes: powerful people proud of their masculinity and strength. This extends to aesthetics.

The Communist rabble of Europe admired a stylish rumpled aesthetic of the working man’s clothes, signifying how a collective of the weak can be as strong as the powerful.

The Italian Fascists contrasted this with snappy uniforms and manicured grooming, a theatrical machismo signifying the strength and power of men working together. Like the uniform bricks of a tall and impressive wall.

And like a clean and functional wall, there are people who long to do nothing more than cover it with anti-wall art. Thus the memes about the Falcons.

The Communist rabble of Europe admired a stylish rumpled aesthetic of the working man’s clothes, signifying how a collective of the weak can be as strong as the powerful.

The communists in power adopted the standard totalitarian aesthetic. Soviet military parades were broadly similar to Nazi ones, right down to the goose steps.

As a separate point, there is a cohort effect here. In the first half of the twentieth century, basically everyone in the first world thought (probably correctly) that the source of the Great Powers' power was a large population of blue-collar manly-men who could dig coal or operate machinery one day and pick up a rifle and serve in the infantry the next*. This leads to the patriotic propaganda on all sides (except the British for some reason) which focusses on blue-collar masculinity in both industrial workers and soldiers. I think the differences between Soviet, Nazi and WPA propaganda posters and movies in the years immediately before WW2 are minor. (The soldier:worker ratio is highest for the Nazis, intermediate for the Soviets, and lowest for the WPA, and the Nazis never use a cubist art style whereas the Soviets and WPA sometimes do). This changes once WW2 gets total, because the Americans and Soviets (but not the Nazis) add the Rosie Riveter style image of the woman doing manly industrial work while still looking pretty and feminine enough to be worth defending, but the Nazis don't.

Saying that the Soviet and Nazi versions of the standard totalitarian aesthetic are basically the same is standard horseshoe theory and will not get you into trouble. Suggesting that the WPA used the same aesthetic - even to labour lefties who squee about WPA propaganda posters as a celebration of the working class and a sign whose side FDR was on - pattern matches to the "liberals are the real fascists" argument and gets funny looks at the best. So the so-called liberal elite thinks that borderline-homoerotic appreciation of blue-collar masculinity is fascist when right-wingers do it, harmless when New Dealers do it, and arguable when actual Commies do it.

None of this disconfirms my theory of the descriptive linguistics, which is that "fascist" means "person with views on social issues to my right and whom I disklike", with no substance whatsoever.

* Both early modern musketry and industrial age riflemen genuinely required relatively little training compared to e.g. medieval armies or WW2-and-later mechanised armies.

woman doing manly industrial work while still looking pretty and feminine enough to be worth defending, but the Nazis don't.

I found this:

https://old.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/141j58h/women_working_for_you_nazi_germany_1943_these_are/

And this:

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O120963/wir-frauen-kennen-unsere-pflicht-poster-morocutti-ottokar/

Pretty similar women worker propaganda.

Interesting. British schoolboy history is that the British and Americans were far more willing to use women industrial workers whereas the Nazis preferred to use forced labour from occupied Europe.

The Nazis did eventually bow to pressure, although later than the British did, but American schoolboy history is, IIRC, wrong about women in the factories- American conscription targeted rural areas very heavily to minimize industrial impact and most conscripted industrial workers were replaced with blacks(who were drafted at lower rates), not women.

"We want the on-the-nose neofascist aesthetic from Pink Floyd's 'The Wall', but make it a falcon."

"Say no more fam."

That’s what I thought before even reading the headline. I was wondering if Oswald Mosley released a never before seen symbol for his fascist party. “F” for Fascist.

They would have made killing in selling merch armbands. But credit where credit is due - it looks badass af.

I also love the article’s hysteria of democracy being under threat. In some respects I say it’s about time and in others I say these people really have their heads far up their own ass. Certainly those occupying the seat of power are under threat. The chair itself is hardly under threat. Big Tech is doing more to undermine the facade of democracy than Donald Trump ever has. The US was never a democracy in the first place. It’s what’s referred to in the technical literature as a polyarchy. But it reminds me of the same flurry of articles that targeted Viktor Orban the same way. How funny it was when those articles vanished after he voluntarily stepped down and his opposition took the reins of power. It’s only really a problem for these people when the wrong team is winning.

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