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?

    • kbal@fedia.io
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      12 days ago

      The bar is owned by a Nazi, there’s a big Nazi swastika emblazoned over the front door, and the band is playing Die Hitlerleute while you sit at a table in the corner with your friends saying to each other “they say there are Nazis around here somewhere but who cares really, it’d be inconvenient to find another bar.”

        • kbal@fedia.io
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          12 days ago

          If you haven’t seen the fascist memes he’s posted it’s hard to believe you’re a twitter user, 'cause I’ve somehow seen plenty of them without ever going there.

          • pixelpop3@beehaw.org
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            12 days ago

            I’m not on twitter anymore (am on Bluesky 'cause everyone I follow moved there) but back before that when Musk started forcing himself into my feed I just blocked him and forgot he existed. It’s pretty easy to erase him. Twitter isn’t broadcast media. You can block things.

                • GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  12 days ago

                  My practice

                  Your practice: 🙈🙉🙊

                  (pay attention – I don’t state that Musk is a good guy!)

                  As per “your practice” (🙄), you’re not calling out any of the OBVIOUSLY NAZI SHIT he’s doing either.

                  If there were real arguments (evidence of deeds) they would be all over the Internet.

                  “If i don’t see the fnords, they can’t hurt me.” You’re being willfully ignorant if you think there’s no evidence of his beliefs. Normally, I’d provide a link or two to back up my position, but based on this previous quote, it’d be more productive to piss into the wind.

                  Everything I’ve seen you say gives me the impression that it would be best for my mental wavelength to just block your apologist ass. Have a day.

                  • GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    12 days ago

                    ETA: as I’m blocking you, i noticed you joined on 4-20. “Totally a coincidence that I’m defending Nazis, and i signed up on Hitler’s birthday…” your “practice” of actions vs words is starting to strain under the pressure.