88 is such a fun number to say, too. Nazis ruin everything.
Even its Bingo call is starting to look dated.
Cashier: That’ll be 11.88 Me: Whoa what the fuck
This was my favorite number until recently. I had no idea. Fucking nazis ruin everything.
Now, I’m horrified at all the times anyone might have asked me to pick a number between 1 and 100 before I knew.
Probably because I’m older but I would just default to thinking that if I saw it
The pope just died on Hitler’s Birthday at the age of 88. COINCIDENCE!?
Also oh no, I just posted the 88th comment!
Hitler was born on the 20th though.
my brother has used 88 in his username all his life (it’s his birthyear). Never heard anyone complaining about it until like 2-3 years ago.
Chinese never cared, 88 is “double prosperity” to us chinese and it will never change. Western gatekeeping is annoying as heck.
Right, everything is somehow going to offend someone. Honestly. I had no idea of 88 being offensive until a few years ago, and it was on Reddit/Lemmy echo chambers; I have never heard or seen 88 being used intentionally offensively IRL; I have never been made aware of it, anyway.
Yes, I’ve used 88. I was born in 88.
I think in Greek culture it’s offensive to “show your palms”/an open hand, they treat it like a middle finger. Americans accidentally do that all the time.
I want to say maybe 8 years ago now they tried to sound the alarm about the OK symbol (👌) being a dogwhistle for “White Power”, and they listed off a number of weak examples. And I think everyone collectively said shut the fuck up, nobody cares, the OK symbol is used everywhere & the great majority of people don’t use it to express “White Power”. How ridiculous.
Don’t ask for permission to do painfully basic things. They’ll take everything from you, they’ll take your 88s, your OK symbols, and idk anything else they feel like being offended about. I hear Nazis breathe oxygen & drink water. Damn, guess we need to stop that, too. Or maybe, just maybe…just don’t be a Nazi & live your life. ¯\(°_o)/¯
88 is not offensive. It’s a nazi dogwhistle. There’s a big difference.
I also assure you that Americans don’t do the Greek “mountza” all the time.
I will continue to see and use 88 at weddings and assume wealth and fortune. If I’m in a room with white guys and guns I’ll see 88 as dangerous.
That’s fine. In the US, it’s a dog whistle for Nazis. It’s not gatekeeping when it is simply factual. There’s a giant facility off the highway here in Nebraska called “Tactical 88” (with a logo that’s quite literally based on a nazi symbol: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsadler) that is 100% a nazi training facility. They even have a giant billboard that says “free AR-15 for signing up”.
Fascists love to use it all over the place. So here, in this context, it has a very specific meaning. And when we are dealing with a fascist takeover of our goddamn country, we have every fucking right to tell Nazis using nazi dog whistles to fuck off.
Chinese folks live in the US too. There’s a popular Asian-american music label called 88 rising.
It’s not gate keeping if it’s symbolic as hate to people here. That’s neat for you, assuming you’re really chinese. But the sincerity and severity of 88 as a symbol of hate, has to be taken as that’s the most likely, as it’s far more dangerous to dismiss hate as potentially innocent, than the opposite. And I suspect that you’re not arguing this point at face value.
If it’s a hate symbol there, then keep it there. More often than not american treat the internet as “theirs”, then judge everyone like an american. The comment on the pic did not differentiate anything, so i might as well judge it as is.
assuming you’re really chinese
as it’s far more dangerous to dismiss hate as potentially innocent, than the opposite.
Even you’re doing exactly that, assuming everyone is american/westerner unless proven otherwise.
That’s fair to a point, but since “our” “values” have spread so thoroughly in the internet, since this was where the boom came from. Racist Americans took to the internet very early to spread hate and symbolism.
As an American, I admit ignorance that 88 was a special number in Chinese. However, you have to understand that I would have to actively seek out that information to know it before you said that. Which is awesome and why were all here, right? That said, our culture is so prevalent on the internet and otherwise that I suspect you did know that 88 was a number for Nazis. I mean, the fact that you know English and I don’t know Chinese is part of a testament to that, well that and our failing educational system.
I do appreciate you teaching me about another culture.
I appreciate your civility in this discussion, i’m just annoyed that it’s what it is. Same for the use of swastika by asian culture. Fuck nazi though.
Always fuck Nazis and whatever other names they try to hide behind.
Yeah it’s a shame that “it is what it is” is the answer at the moment. We’d all rather it be different and hope that soon, it will be. But we’ve got a lot of work to do on our end.
I’ve long use “2015” appended to my initials for screen names. It has no particular significance. I started using it over a decade before 2015. I was signing up for an account, and I added my age then to the current year. Thus, I ended up with 2015 as “my” number.
Early on, it was no problem. It was still well in the future. Around 2015, it became impossible to use the number. Inevitably someone would claim the number for a username before I did. Now, 2015 is easy again to claim appended to my initials. Unfortunately, now when I use it, I get accused of being 10 years old.
Hey, what’s this 10 year old “scientist” doing on Lemmy? Get outta here kid
88 was a cool number, but then Nazis came and ruined it. It was the equivalent of drawing that S letter you all did in high school. Edgy cool shit. They ruined my birth year and back to the future, and the name of a band I played in when I was a teenager.
Also they are pieces of shit in every other aspect, of course, specially regarding, you know, humanity.
My dad’s birthday is August 8th. He has used 88 in his email addresses since back in the old @aol.com days. I tried explaining to him that he probably shouldn’t but he’s loved the number 8 since he was a kid because of his birthday.
Why yes, I was born in 1988 but luckily when I first started making usernames in middle school, I decided to use the random number 45 in them instead. Yup, good old 45, nothing awful or related to white supremacists associated with that number… Sigh.
It doesn’t help that prowe is an anagram for power.
Shit, hadn’t considered that either. Not a whole lot I can do about that either since it’s based on my name.
I mean at least its when they lost.
There’s an orange fascist associated with that now
You could make a kind of “community nazi index” by having a bot collect the usernames in threads and finding the ones with two numbers at the end. The really racist ones will have “88” statistically stick out.
Also when I see a Black Metal band with “wolf” in its name
Music video of WW2 German marching song. Big anti-nazi disclaimer at the start. Then immediately the video starts to a swastika flag waving.
Displaying a swastika or other human horrors in a video/artwork doesn’t mean you’re promoting it (maybe it was in your example)
Also when I see a Black Metal band
with “wolf” in its nameBad history, but it’s like my second favorite genre man… and most (uhhh) of the new ones are fine 😬
It’s indeed a genre where you need to do some background check
But you can find Black Metal bands that hate all humans equally
we found out what the real hatred was all together. It was misanthropy 🖤
People actually born in 88 forever subject to the username police. How dare you not be born with preexisting knowledge of nazis and their dog whistles.
You know, I have to admit, in over 20 years I’ve never been harassed about my username in the context of nazis.
That’s awesome.
You’re allowed to change your nickname. Many of us go our whole lives without putting our birth year in a screen name.
People born in 1988 is 37 now. Honestly, I don’t even question whether screenname88 is a Nazi. Anyone between ~25 and 60 with their birthday in a screen name is a weirdo too.
