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I feel like Popehat's Rule of Goats applies. "Yea I made a bunch of Nazi references, but I wasn't doing it sincerely!" Ok, well you still made a bunch of Nazi references. I am somewhat sympathetic since I had my own edgy-4-chan-humor phase when I was younger, but I also did actually have a bunch of unironically racist opinions at the time.
I am confused. If this is what IH is doing then isn't getting threads like the ones you've linked the point? Those threads (the leftist overreaction) are the punchline to the joking references, right? The point of the jokes was to make leftists think he was a Nazi! Is it surprising or disturbing that he succeeded? So he spent a bunch of time and energy making references to try and convince certain people he was a Nazi, he succeeded, and now... those same people need to be convinced he's not a Nazi? Why spend all the time and energy in the first place convincing people you were a Nazi!
One of the important points this misses is that, when they don't actually have power over you, Hitler and the Nazis are funny, in the sense of ridiculous, starting from that mustache and going on down to the troops. Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" made use of this during his reign, and many have done so since. The Downfall memes and Inglourious Basterds could never be made about Stalin, for instance. The serious Stalag 13 was recast into the successful and humorous Hogan's Heroes... SCHULTZ!. Goose-stepping troops became a staple of comedy. So yeah, the Nazis are a great source of humor, and a great source of humor your opponents find it offensive to use... that's even greater.
(ETA: the KKK is ridiculous too, from the titles to the bedsheets)
Otoh, there was Death of Stalin, though it featured comparatively little of Stalin.
The relative lack of literal Stalin isn't really a strike against the comparison, since the whole plot revolved around the ruthless power struggle around who will succeed him. But Death of Stalin is notable precisely because it is so uncommon to poke fun at the communists.
There’s team america world police and the interview, featuring stalin’s premier fan family.
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And even when it did it treated him with deadly seriousness right up until the second he died, unlike rest of the cast, the flesh lumps in waistcoats. Regardless, fantastic movie!
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Why do Satanists spend so much time and energy convincing Christians they literally worship Satan? Because, they know it will strike a nerve.
They could just be garden variety secular atheists, but that doesn't get the same kind of reaction in the post-war world.
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Mocking someone's beliefs or taboos does not mean you like the thing you are mocking, even though if it vanished that would remove the assumed context for your work. Making Postal 2 doesn't mean you want people to believe that violent videogames cause violence, rather the fact that they already believe that is part of the premise and context. Chris Ofili can make The Holy Virgin Mary and sell it for £2.9 million regardless of what his own views might be on taboos involving pornography, dung, or christianity.
I agree in general but it's not clear to me the IH references in question, as described, are mocking the things they're referring to.
I think the simple answer is, it's probably not so rational, precise, and conscious an effort as OP sells it. It's transgression as catharsis, nothing more, nothing less. "Vibes", all the way down. As stated:
The response is not at all surprising, it never is, but that's doesn't mean I don't understand the temptation to transgress.
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If he made the references out of indifference towards those who find those references taboo, then that is even less reason to believe "The point of the jokes was to make leftists think he was a Nazi!". Same thing if he made those references without knowing that some people would consider them proof of Nazism. My point was that, even if he deliberately transgressed the taboo because it was a taboo as a means to mock those who find it objectionable, that does not mean he 'wants to be viewed as a Nazi'. As tends to be the case with people engaging in deliberate transgression, he does not actually support the existence of the taboo he is transgressing. Like most 4channers, he would probably prefer the internet of 15 or so years ago when people made Nazi references and jokes all the time and nobody of relevance tried to harm them over it.
Incidentally this inspired me to look at the KYM page for Downfall memes. The meme dates back to 2006 and the first controversy mentioned was 2010:
The interesting thing is that if you look at the linked Huffington Post article from 2013, the most left-leaning source linked, there is absolutely no mention of the idea that sharing Hitler memes (as part of your job in the official newsletter for an investment bank!) is offensive or creates a hostile work environment for minorities or is dogwhisting by making light of Nazism or anything like that. In fact even the company's argument quoted in the Bloomberg article is just that it “insulted in a quite humiliating way a competitor and business partner”.
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