The 'OK' hand signal - no longer acceptable?

[Mandos]

I mean it's still a standard diving symbol and it's be hard to replace(since there's a ton of em)

It's fine.

Context is everything. Just because cultural things get co-opted by scumlords doesn't mean they get to define its past, present and future.

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Also tell that to the classic salute which has been blacklisted since the 1940's due to the Nazi party and was actually the global standard before hand dating back to Roman times

 

[molnizzle]

As a Scuba Diver it's a vitally important signal.

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Yeah. It can't just be changed at this point either. It's universal.

 

[Kenstar]

And in diving, where the OK signs means exactly that.... while thumb up means you are going up/closer to the surface.

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The alt-right's tactical maritime ops division has claimed the acronym SCUBA, which now means

Solicit
Confused
Underaged
Boys
Always

turn in your diving licenses immediately or be marked a sympathizer

 

[feline fury]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_gesture

In many Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Tunisia, and Greece, as well as in the Middle East, parts of Germany, and several South American countries, like Argentina, Chile, El Salvador and Mexico, the gesture may be interpreted as a vulgar expression resembling a human anus, referring to sex, either as an insult ("You are an asshole"), or an offensive reference to homosexuality and the act of sodomy.[10] In Brazil it can be synonymous with giving someone the middle finger.[29][30]

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Yep, context matters.

 

[samoyed]

Suffice to say if you're a republican doing a photo op or you're taking a photo with a republican politician and you're slyly doing the OK gesture with a shiteating grin on your face you're either getting baited by an advisor or a closet white supremacist.

 

[Deleted member 48897]

Yeah. It can't just be changed at this point either. It's universal.

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I am extremely a fan of making white supremacists, uh, learn how to scuba. The air tank is an optional accessory, right?

 

[Deleted member 2226]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_gesture


Yep, context matters.

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There's a great chart floating around somewhere that has all the common hand signals (V, okay, thumbs up, etc.) along a matrix of where they are actually vulgar or insulting. Kind of comical and funny in that there's basically no globally innocuous hand sign.

As others have said context matters, but really it's not hard to figure out. I haven't seen any case where it wasn't pretty obvious they were right-wing trolling. All the examples in this thread are a perfect example. In the months since it was started it's not like we're having a tough time figuring it out.

 

[fade]

The OK hand signal is upright while the white power sign is downward. Pretty easy to distinguish between the two regardless of context.

 

[Paperboywriter]

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goddamn nazis

 

[Deleted member 283]

The most frustrating thing about this, is no matter what you do with it, these pieces of trash can still call it a win, because they do absolutely nothing in good faith from the word go:

-You just let them have it and claim it as their own, calling it out when it pops up and letting it become more and more associated with them over time in the process and all that? Congrats, you're saying they have the power and influence to turn something innocent into something completely messed up. That if they want to take it, it's their's, and that they have their power.
-You ignore them and don't let them have it, they continue to use it to hide in plain sight and gaslight others as to what their intentions are, and hide behind trolling and memes and jokes, and just reveling in the ambiguity of it all and how while it's typically clear when white supremacists are deliberately doing it for nefarious reasons, the fact that you'll never be able to be 100% sure and they can just hide behind innocent uses will be something itself that they revel in and is kind of part of their point.

So either you let them have the power to completely co-opt innocent stuff, or you don't let them have it, but instead because it continues to be seen as harmless and innocent normally be able to use the innocent meanings to gaslight people as to their real intentions. No matter what, whether they're able to change the meaning or not, they're able to score some form of "win" out of it, and they know it, and that's why I'm not sure how to handle this stuff exactly. Because no matter what you do, one way or the other it's playing into their hands and they can easily twist whatever response they get from it to suit their own ends.

 

[Laserdisk]

Since people often ask for an example, here's one.

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In the UK that means made you look below the belt.

And OK? Yeah that's not going anywhere, I just watched a movie and I didn't see this and get offended.

 

[demondance]

It's all about context. I don't get why so many of you have to be willfully dumb about parsing context.

The whole point of the OK troll is to leverage plausible deniability, which very few of these people even really do. If a fucking scuba diver throws up the OK you know what it means. If greasy ass Mike Cernovich throws it up for absolutely no other contextual reason, you know exactly what he's getting at. If you ask someone "how's the food?" and they throw up the OK, you know the food is good. When a mass killer terrorist tosses it out while literally in handcuffs -- when he is very much not in an OK situation, you see -- you know exactly what he's referring to.

This is not difficult. Please start using your brains like human beings instead of turning everything into some kind of courtroom debate where everything has to be proved beyond any kind of reasonable doubt. This kind of trolling only exists to exploit this obnoxious logic guy habit everyone's fallen into in the last few years.

 

[low-G]

In the UK that means made you look below the belt.

And OK? Yeah that's not going anywhere, I just watched a movie and I didn't see this and get offended.

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'ow'

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'white odor'

 

[demondance]

The most frustrating thing about this, is no matter what you do with it, these pieces of trash can still call it a win, because they do absolutely nothing in good faith from the word go:

-You just let them have it and claim it as their own, calling it out when it pops up and letting it become more and more associated with them over time in the process and all that? Congrats, you're saying they have the power and influence to turn something innocent into something completely messed up. That if they want to take it, it's their's, and that they have their power.
-You ignore them and don't let them have it, they continue to use it to hide in plain sight and gaslight others as to what their intentions are, and hide behind trolling and memes and jokes, and just reveling in the ambiguity of it all and how while it's typically clear when white supremacists are deliberately doing it for nefarious reasons, the fact that you'll never be able to be 100% sure and they can just hide behind innocent uses will be something itself that they revel in and is kind of part of their point.

So either you let them have the power to completely co-opt innocent stuff, or you don't let them have it, but instead because it continues to be seen as harmless and innocent normally be able to use the innocent meanings to gaslight people as to their real intentions. No matter what, whether they're able to change the meaning or not, they're able to score some form of "win" out of it, and they know it, and that's why I'm not sure how to handle this stuff exactly. Because no matter what you do, one way or the other it's playing into their hands and they can easily twist whatever response they get from it to suit their own ends.

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That's why all this stuff is so childish and meaningless, though. It lacks any kind of punch. It's just some ambient annoyance that lets them feel smug regardless of the outcome and to any normal person it's like... ok, that was fucking dumb?

It's the political equivalent of telling someone you are wearing red pants, and when they look down you're wearing blue pants. There's no winner here, just some guy who thinks he got one over on someone else because they behaved like a normal person in response to his irrational "joke".

It's one of many hints that a lot of these people are attracted to the far right not because of any kind of moral drive, but because they like being annoying in the same way a child testing boundaries likes being annoying.

 

[Cuburger]

God I hate these people.

From years back. There's actually a lot of videos on Youtube "debunking" the usage among far right circles.

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Tucker: "A-OK is now racist? I thought I was well-versed in this stuff."

Yep, you've heard it from the man himself, Tucker Carlson: well-versed in racism.

 

[radlord]

My SJW senses were set tingling on this bleak photo from the inconceivably depressing Brexit march in the uk yesterday. IS he bravely doing the hand sign from behind that witless sign? Or is he.. .erm holding it up?

 

[Dream Machine]

It's so obvious from context.

This gaslighting "We've always all held up the okay sign in group photos, especially political ones, and at rallies" is dumb. Not to mention the people doing it upside down.

 

[Dan-o]

It's all about context. I don't get why so many of you have to be willfully dumb about parsing context.

The whole point of the OK troll is to leverage plausible deniability, which very few of these people even really do. If a fucking scuba diver throws up the OK you know what it means. If greasy ass Mike Cernovich throws it up for absolutely no other contextual reason, you know exactly what he's getting at. If you ask someone "how's the food?" and they throw up the OK, you know the food is good. When a mass killer terrorist tosses it out while literally in handcuffs -- when he is very much not in an OK situation, you see -- you know exactly what he's referring to.

This is not difficult. Please start using your brains like human beings instead of turning everything into some kind of courtroom debate where everything has to be proved beyond any kind of reasonable doubt. This kind of trolling only exists to exploit this obnoxious logic guy habit everyone's fallen into in the last few years.

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100% This. People just need to understand that it is - and can continue to be - any or all of these things at any given time, simultaneously. The context is what defines it in that moment, and all of your examples are different and valid.
This is fairly easy stuff, I would think.

 

[Kurdel]

The OK hand signal is upright while the white power sign is downward. Pretty easy to distinguish between the two regardless of context.

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They are counting on people like you to go in and try and rationalise this, IT IS IMPLICITLY DENIABLE no matter what direction you do it. That is why it is so devious, there is no hard and fast rules to flash it.

The orientation is meaningless, it's the symbol that counts.

 

[demondance]

100% This. People just need to understand that it is - and can continue to be - any or all of these things at any given time, simultaneously. The context is what defines it in that moment, and all of your examples are different and valid.
This is fairly easy stuff, I would think.

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And to be clear, I'm not saying "logic is bad," I'm saying that the obnoxious logic guy thing of insisting it has to be X=Y even in situations where the variables are X+Y+M+Q+V+P, and calling that "logic" is a major problem a lot of people seem to have lately.

For some reason a lot of people are really dedicated to that kind of simplistic process and love to say "that's just basic logic, my guy" to the point that they'll undermine their own articulated point of view on something and obviously that's... not really much like applying logic to a practical situation at all. It's just reductive and often pedantic.

 

[godofcookery]

Here in Brazil the ok symbol is pretty offensive. Always was.

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My father is from the US and he did it to someone in the audience when he was on the Jo Soares show. The audience was shocked so he did it again to call them down. Jo was quick though and explained to the crowd what it meant in the US. It was pretty funny to watch.

 

[AstronaughtE]

The most frustrating thing about this, is no matter what you do with it, these pieces of trash can still call it a win, because they do absolutely nothing in good faith from the word go:

-You just let them have it and claim it as their own, calling it out when it pops up and letting it become more and more associated with them over time in the process and all that? Congrats, you're saying they have the power and influence to turn something innocent into something completely messed up. That if they want to take it, it's their's, and that they have their power.
-You ignore them and don't let them have it, they continue to use it to hide in plain sight and gaslight others as to what their intentions are, and hide behind trolling and memes and jokes, and just reveling in the ambiguity of it all and how while it's typically clear when white supremacists are deliberately doing it for nefarious reasons, the fact that you'll never be able to be 100% sure and they can just hide behind innocent uses will be something itself that they revel in and is kind of part of their point.

So either you let them have the power to completely co-opt innocent stuff, or you don't let them have it, but instead because it continues to be seen as harmless and innocent normally be able to use the innocent meanings to gaslight people as to their real intentions. No matter what, whether they're able to change the meaning or not, they're able to score some form of "win" out of it, and they know it, and that's why I'm not sure how to handle this stuff exactly. Because no matter what you do, one way or the other it's playing into their hands and they can easily twist whatever response they get from it to suit their own ends.

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All you can do is spread awareness. Shine a light on it whenever possible. The more people see it being used like this the more people open their eyes. People will downplay it because of their indifference and it wasn't a problem before, but as time wears on it will build and become a less and less tenable position to hold. It's best to let them know you're on to their childish games.

 

[Noisepurge]

Mm nope, they can't have it

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Yup, I'm with Eddie.