#also its a spaced/shaun joke lol

[communistkenobi]

wait when people talk about their "nazi" phases are they not joking/exaggerating being mildly conservative?

I remember like post-gamergate when “leftube” or “breadtube” started to become a thing online, a bunch of YouTubers focused on deradicalizing angry white men by making video essays and meme videos dunking on how stupid right wing people are (hbomberguy, contrapoints, philosphytube, shaun, etc - chapo trap house also started taking off around this time, coining ‘the dirtbag left’ and so on). They explicitly talked about this as part of their goal for generating content on youtube, and I think this helped foster an atmosphere where people would casually talk about how they were deradicalized by these channels, that they had a Nazi phase when they were younger but had grown out of it now, etc.

and like obviously white people have always been comfortable talking about their racist beliefs and bragging about how they just learned to stop being racist like 40mins ago, so this isn’t a new phenomenon, but I think in the context of lib-leftish online spaces there’s a huge willingness on the part of these deradicalized people to be very open about their past beliefs and behaviours. to read them very generously, I’m assuming it’s part evangelising (‘I got out, you can too!’), part feeling the need to be open about their past so they don’t end up in a situation where someone uncovers hidden racist tweets they made a few years ago (which is its own can of worms lol), and part a need to find empathy and understanding from people around them for past behaviours that they now (rightfully) view as horrifying. But I think a lot of people are also pretty horrified themselves by this willingness on the part of these (usually white, although I’m sure there’s diversity within this crowd) people to casually drop the fact of their ‘Nazi phase’ in conversations like it’s not a huge deal, and the fact that they’re so casual about it indicates that they probably are not super committed to all these progressive ideals they’re now spouting

[yank-a-ton]