Magic the gathering, Warhammer, Video Games, even fantasy and scifi fiction, they all have had big I fights with right wingers in the last decade. The only exception I can think of maybe (MAYBE) would be DnD. Thoughts?
Magic the gathering, Warhammer, Video Games, even fantasy and scifi fiction, they all have had big I fights with right wingers in the last decade. The only exception I can think of maybe (MAYBE) would be DnD. Thoughts?
Because they're full of isolated, dejected life losers and that's the type of personality attracted to fascist movements.
Failed your father's expectations? Overweight and hideous? Crippling social anxiety and can't have sex? Filled with disgust when you see other people having fun and living their best lives? Failing business? Can't get or hold down a job? Have atrocious taste and no talent but insist that you plight in fortune and women is because no one understands you or have lost touch with traditional values?
BOY HAVE I GOT A MOVEMENT FOR YOU!
Dress in a uniform. Our propaganda portrays us as the peak of masculinity and vigorous, vital action. Return to your real roots. Have a docile homemaker and baby machine for a wife. Plus we know exactly who to blame for the tragedy that is your life.
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I'm basing this on historical context as well, as the Nazi leaders themselves were almost universally bohemian failsons primarily of the lower middle class who blamed Jews, communists, and other scapegoats for their own deficiencies. The Nazi class base was urban artisans, petty shopkeepers, white-collar clerks, and yeoman farmers who interpreted the destruction of their values, ways of life, and personal success by the forces of capitalism as "degeneracy" introduced by Jewish Bolshevism, the "November criminals", and humiliation by foreign powers.
Fascists are essentially people who come from class positions where they are primarily victimized by capitalism, but instead of recognizing the real causes of their plight and becoming communists, they embrace self-aggrandizing pseudo-science and mobilizing passions centered around spite, hate, grievance, and resentment to become fascists.
This is the phenomenon that transforms generic nerds and gamers into fascists and incels. The horrifying thing you should take away from this is that if this hits close to home for you, then yes, this could have been you. It certainly came this close to being me.
ADDENDUM:
Taste and talent are obviously subjective. But just look at what fascists consider "art". It's more accurately described as kitsch. Fetishizing the classical and neoclassical, emphasizing masculinity and athleticism, to the point of parody. Pretending they are the equals of the ancient masters when their equivalent of artistic talent is a malformed lump of clay that vaguely resembles someone melting from radiation poisoning.
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I personally came razor close to becoming a GamerGate incel freak. GamerGate ironically had the opposite effect on me because they were so obviously wrong and acting like weirdos that it pushed me toward liberal politics. At that point though I was still hopelessly naive when it came to responding to the rising new conservative movement GamerGate was a harbinger of.
People might laugh now about how dorky and irrelevant GamerGate was and is, but in hindsight it was a very ominous portent of increasingly widespread right-wing sentiment both on the internet and in real life. I feel like it probably acted as a moment of political awakening for a whole lot of white suburbanite 16-20somethings who were vaguely conservative but politically apathetic up to that point. People who became fanatical Trump Pepe psychos by 2016.