So yesterday I blathered on about how trolls successfully used online SJW outrage culture to basically assassinate the “OK” hand sign by making the far left believe that it’s a white power symbol. I assumed that after that success, the same people would move on to try the same thing with another symbol or icon.
This is what I get for missing staff meetings: the process is already underway. This time: clowns are racist.
Short form: a couple months back 4chan began the process by whipping up “Honkler,” a modified Pepe the frog meme with a clown nose and a rainbow fro wig. Coupled with a clown emoji and a globe emoji (thus “clown world”), this is used to show agreement with the idea that the world is so screwed up, so bizarre, so absurd that the only rational response is to just laugh as it all burns down. And, of course, racism, because *everything* is racism these days. The later videos down below show the history and “meaning” of Honk Honkler, but the one directly below amuses me to no friggen’ end. Absolute absurdism can be amusing, but when it’s basically a reaction to the sort of Lovecratian cosmic horror that the world seems to be drifting towards… well, that’s just *awesome.*
As far as it being an “alt right” or “white supremacist” meme, this is mostly driven by the outrage industry. In order to make money, they need clicks and donations; and in order to get those nice juicy donations, they need to convince people that they are dong something. And in order to do something, they have to have something to work *against* (part of the basic “perpetual war” tenet of fascism, one suspects). And since there really aren’t that many actual, factual threats coming from the right, the outrage industry grabs desperately at any straw they can find… and the trolls are content to throw straws at them.
For the lulz.
Learn you some stuff about Honkler:
Shorter form: people use outrage to try to make a buck. How dare they.