Smearing Vicks Vaporub in masks? Ravers were masking before it was cool (I can’t hear “on X” and think oh, an online platform). But I digress …
This has been a banner month for X. Last week, the social network’s built-in chatbot, Grok, became strangely obsessed with false claims about “white genocide” in South Africa—allegedly because someone made an “unauthorized modification” to its code at 3:15 in the morning. The week prior, Ye (formerly Kanye West) released a single called “Heil Hitler” on the platform. The chorus includes the line “Heil Hitler, they don’t understand the things I say on Twitter.” West has frequently posted anti-Semitic rants on the platform and, at one point back in February, said he identified as a Nazi. (Yesterday on X, West said he was “done with antisemitism,” though he has made such apologies before; in any case, the single has already been viewed tens of millions of times on X.)
So, we literally have a song titled Heil Hitler from a prominent artist. I’m sure it’s not the first one crafted on American soil, just as I’m sure little Nazi rallies happen with some frequency nationwide, as these guys just love getting together and being racist fucks.
The now-cliche Nazi bar analogy gets brought into specific relief:
In July 2020, the Twitter user Michael B. Tager shared an anecdote that went viral. Tager was at “a shitty crustpunk bar” when the gruff bartender kicked out a patron in a “punk uniform”—not because the customer was making a scene, but because he was wearing Nazi paraphernalia. “You have to nip it in the bud immediately,” Tager recounted the bartender as saying. “These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend.” Soon enough, you’re running a Nazi bar.
I’d not heard the origins of the term before, so that was a “fun” thing to learn.
But seriously: What the fuck is going on?
nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
Unfortunately, not everyone even aware of Musk stuff.
I’m Indonesian, and a lot of Indonesian people are using Twitter without even knowing what’s going on with Twitter except for name change.
I usually recommend my friend to join local Misskey or Mastodon instance instead. But its harder when fediverse trending stuff is filled mainly with Western stuff. All existing instance are tends to whether ACG stuff or tech stuff with occasional local/global politics discussion.
It’s a chicken and egg situation.
Not to forget, all Mastodon Indonesia instance are dead around a year after huge Indonesian migration from Twitter. It gives impression that fediverse is not a viable alternative.
I still have three different Twitter account, and all of them have entirely different feed mainly either Japanese ACG stuff, Indonesian local discussion, or to interact with private friends account. Almost all my friends still using Twitter for talking about Indonesian musics, politics, or other pop cultures that unrelated/disconneted from Western fandom.
Any social media is filled with various cultural/societal bubbles. Even fediverse itself is filled with cultural bubbles, mainly Western-sphere, JP-sphere, geek-sphere, or CN-sphere.