ORIGINALLY POSTED IN 2017
ROLL THE TAPE PLEASE:
Of course the left thinks this “okay” symbol is racist, like everything is now “racist” (milk, the term “athletic,” criticizing the IRS, saying that Barack Obama lied, wanting lower taxes, Star Wars, your baby, craft beer, being white, lunch bags, etc., etc. — TOWNHALL | TWITTER [Tucker Carlson] | WASHINGTON TIMES | NATIONAL REVIEW | ZERO HEDGE [Tucker Carlson]).
See, of course, my previous posts on the “okay” symbol, here and here. I assume that “racist things” and the list of things caused by “Global Warming” will compete with each other.
Of course, if you are not familiar with the original graphic from SANTA CRUZ, it made #3 in the TOP 50 GREATEST SKATE LOGOS.
I was happened upon DICTIONARY.COM’s definition of the “Okay” symbol — and can you guess what I found? And the reason for Savory Agent’s version of the Santa Cruz Symbol? Here is the WRONG DEFINITION description first:
Important context: While the OK hand emoji ? has many harmless meanings, it was co-opted as a white supremacist symbol in the late 2010s. One should now be mindful of context when using or coming across this emoji.
This is just factually wrong. The “okay” symbol as a white supremacist symbol was first a hoax by 4Chan dating to 2017, and, the media made such a stink about it [thinking it was true] that after the media freakout, white supremacist groups adopted it.
Here is WIKIPEDIA’S noting of it:
In 2017, users on the message-board site 4chan aimed to convince the media and other people that the OK gesture was being used as a white power symbol as a joke. According to The Boston Globe, users on 4chan’s /pol/ (“Politically Incorrect”) board were instructed in February 2017 to “flood Twitter and other social media websites…claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy,” as part of a campaign dubbed “Operation O-KKK”.
The satirical association of the gesture with white supremacy derived from the assertion that the three upheld fingers resemble a ‘W’ and the circle made with the thumb and forefinger resemble the head of a ‘P’, together standing for “White Power.” While some members of the alt-right used the symbol after the launch of the 4chan campaign, it initially remained ambiguous whether or not it was being used to communicate genuine adherence to white supremacy, or with deliberately ironic motives.
In September 2019 the ADL revised their earlier position and added the OK gesture to its “Hate on Display” database. The listing notes that the usage of the OK hand gesture is sometimes benign, but that it is intended as a symbol of hate in some contexts, as some white supremacists have begun using the OK symbol “as a sincere expression of White Supremacy”. White supremacists have acknowledged using the symbol as a gesture of White Power. As a result of white supremacists’ co-opting the symbol….
Dennis Prager says it often, “everything the Left touches it ruins.” The Mainstream Media and Democrats [the Left] had their grubby hands/paws/mitts all over this story as factual — and because of the perceived power play seen in using this politically — they even ruined the “okay symbol.”
Here is the ADL’s dealing with it — take note the “circle game” was ruined as well by the Democrats and Media:
In 2017, the “okay” hand gesture acquired a new and different significance thanks to a hoax by members of the website 4chan to falsely promote the gesture as a hate symbol, claiming that the gesture represented the letters “wp,” for “white power.” The “okay” gesture hoax was merely the latest in a series of similar 4chan hoaxes using various innocuous symbols; in each case, the hoaxers hoped that the media and liberals would overreact by condemning a common image as white supremacist.
In the case of the “okay” gesture, the hoax was so successful the symbol became a popular trolling tactic on the part of right-leaning individuals, who would often post photos to social media of themselves posing while making the “okay” gesture.
Ironically, some white supremacists themselves soon also participated in such trolling tactics, lending an actual credence to those who labeled the trolling gesture as racist in nature. By 2019, at least some white supremacists seem to have abandoned the ironic or satiric intent behind the original trolling campaign and used the symbol as a sincere expression of white supremacy, such as when Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant flashed the symbol during a March 2019 courtroom appearance soon after his arrest for allegedly murdering 50 people in a shooting spree at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The overwhelming usage of the “okay” hand gesture today is still its traditional purpose as a gesture signifying assent or approval. As a result, someone who uses the symbol cannot be assumed to be using the symbol in either a trolling or, especially, white supremacist context unless other contextual evidence exists to support the contention. Since 2017, many people have been falsely accused of being racist or white supremacist for using the “okay” gesture in its traditional and innocuous sense.
Other, similar-seeming hand gestures have also been mistakenly assumed to have white supremacist connotations as a result of the “okay” hoax. One of these is the so-called “Circle Game,” in which people attempt to trick each other into looking at an okay-like hand gesture made somewhere below the waist. Another is the hand sign of the Three Percenter movement, a wing of the anti-government extremist militia movement. Three Percenters, who are right-wing extremists but are not typically white supremacists, often make a hand gesture to symbolize their movement that uses the outstretched middle, ring, and pinky fingers to represent a Roman numeral “3.” This gesture, from certain angles, can often resemble an “okay” hand gesture and has been misinterpreted by some as a white supremacist symbol.
But hey…. our dictionaries. Lol.
You know who get’s it right? BLOG EMOJIPEDIA!
- The myth of the OK gesture as a secret symbol of white supremacy begins in 2017 as a deliberate effort on 4chan to spread the sign as such. It was chosen in part due to its use by the controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos and some white nationalists in support of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Its creators also claimed that the fingers of the OK gesture represent a W for white and the ring a P for power, as illustrated below. (read it all, it’s good)
I rarely say anything positive about VOX, but the link in the bullet point above surprised me. Bravo.
The “OK Sign” Hoax | Joe Rogan & Tim Pool
