I don’t buy the alt-right angle. The first place I ever saw the term Clown World was on GAF, and it’s totally apt for all the shit that’s going on in the world right now. I googled and found that rationalwiki page that I linked previously and it just sounds like more conspiracy nonsense like the OK symbol. So while activists may not be directly involved in the word being banned from GAF, the fact that it’s even associated with alt-right sure seems to be a result of blue check activism. So I ask: what’s banned next? General honking?
I can personally confirm that it’s everywhere in that culture. I’m not too particular about where I get my free speech from when there’s barely any left, especially before I found new Gaf, even if I have to occasionally rub shoulders with people that disgust me.
Honk Honk, Honkler, and Clown World are huge with that crowd.
As your frustrations go, I completely agree. As I said, I don’t want to downplay anything. I would just hold off on pressing the fire alarm, because the image EL passes on, is that this is quite business as usual.
This didn’t just happen overnight. It’s been happening, and we’ve been just fine, for long before I was even posting here too. A compromise was made on Clown World, and that seems to have generated no end of controversy, but it was specifically made as an acceptable sacrifice,
so those big battles could be tackled.
I don’t want to downplay that either. There needs to be all kinds of perspectives and opinions on this, but Clown being removed from a title is a very small sacrifice for a very big gain (so advertisers and hosts don’t think we’re literally Hitler), imo.
If we get down the road and words are regularly disappearing from Gaf, I’ll hit that alarm button with you.