Ryika
Lazy Wannabe Artista
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2013
- Messages
- 9,393
It's 2018 now, so it's the ideal time to look back at some of the weird happenings of 2017. In this thread particularly I want to discuss the "It's okay to be white!"-meme and its cultural impact on the United States.
For those who don't know, the website that shall not be named had organized a trolling campaign, in which instigators spread posters on college campuses and some other places. They all read, as the thread title suggests, "It's okay to be white", black letters on white paper.
As one would expect, this got some media attention, and because it got media attention, more people began to take part in the trolling campaign, and suddenly you couldn't go anywhere without seeing fliers that declared "It's okay to be white" - okay, that's obviously an exaggeration. But it was a pretty big thing in the media, all things considered. Reactions ranged from being "literally triggered right now", to people using it as proof that "white supremacy is alive and well in the USA", to people wondering why that's even a big deal, because "of course it's okay to be white".
And that's really the interesting thing. This meme, or trolling campaign, only works because there were "triggered little snowflakes" who read the fliers, lacked the cognitive ability to realize that it is a deliberate attempt to make them act like "triggered little snowflakes". amd they acted like "triggered little snowflakes". This whole campaign is purely based on the knowledge that there are people who want to be offended by something, who want this to be a bigger thing than it is, who want it to be a sign of white supremacy. There is some beauty in the artful way in which the website that shall not be named has managed to make people disagree with a statement that only affirms the humanity of white people, in many cases even going as far as to call it a "hate crime".
Purely by knowing the subtext that other people would interpret into that statement, the website that shall not be named has managed to play so many people, people who made themselves look like fools. There is something to be learned here I think, because there is an easy way to respond to these posters, an easy way that completely defuses the statement, which is something along the lines of the reaction I already mentioned above...
"Of course it is okay to be white."
The whole meme would have gone up in flames, people would have looked like rational actors, and maybe it would even have been a small positive contribution to American race relations. Instead, "triggered little snowflakes" have not only created tons of material for the website that shall not be named to laugh about, no they've also helped the actual White Supremacists, because that question that Tucker Carlson asked somewhere in all of this - "What’s the correct position? That it is not okay to be white?" - is surely a question that many white people who were not part in any of this, people who do not understand the underlying layers of trolling that made people get upset by that statement, have also asked themselves.
Moderator Action: If there is indeed a "website that shall not be named", then don't mention it either. ~ Arakhor
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
For those who don't know, the website that shall not be named had organized a trolling campaign, in which instigators spread posters on college campuses and some other places. They all read, as the thread title suggests, "It's okay to be white", black letters on white paper.
As one would expect, this got some media attention, and because it got media attention, more people began to take part in the trolling campaign, and suddenly you couldn't go anywhere without seeing fliers that declared "It's okay to be white" - okay, that's obviously an exaggeration. But it was a pretty big thing in the media, all things considered. Reactions ranged from being "literally triggered right now", to people using it as proof that "white supremacy is alive and well in the USA", to people wondering why that's even a big deal, because "of course it's okay to be white".
And that's really the interesting thing. This meme, or trolling campaign, only works because there were "triggered little snowflakes" who read the fliers, lacked the cognitive ability to realize that it is a deliberate attempt to make them act like "triggered little snowflakes". amd they acted like "triggered little snowflakes". This whole campaign is purely based on the knowledge that there are people who want to be offended by something, who want this to be a bigger thing than it is, who want it to be a sign of white supremacy. There is some beauty in the artful way in which the website that shall not be named has managed to make people disagree with a statement that only affirms the humanity of white people, in many cases even going as far as to call it a "hate crime".
Purely by knowing the subtext that other people would interpret into that statement, the website that shall not be named has managed to play so many people, people who made themselves look like fools. There is something to be learned here I think, because there is an easy way to respond to these posters, an easy way that completely defuses the statement, which is something along the lines of the reaction I already mentioned above...
"Of course it is okay to be white."
The whole meme would have gone up in flames, people would have looked like rational actors, and maybe it would even have been a small positive contribution to American race relations. Instead, "triggered little snowflakes" have not only created tons of material for the website that shall not be named to laugh about, no they've also helped the actual White Supremacists, because that question that Tucker Carlson asked somewhere in all of this - "What’s the correct position? That it is not okay to be white?" - is surely a question that many white people who were not part in any of this, people who do not understand the underlying layers of trolling that made people get upset by that statement, have also asked themselves.
Moderator Action: If there is indeed a "website that shall not be named", then don't mention it either. ~ Arakhor
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
Last edited by a moderator:
