Anime avatars are often a coin toss between (potential) comrade and chud, so it may be fun and maybe helpful to think about and share those in the place of that old 
bellwether for chuddery.
Mine is anyone with ".eth" as a suffix in their online name. I have yet to see a single person that does that that isn't a chud. 
It may even be cheating, but seeing an actual cryptofascist cartoon "original NFT do not steal" is a pretty reliable red flag too. 
EDIT: Oh yeah, I almost forgot. 
I mean, the average Ferengi doesn't exactly have progressive politics (except Chads like Rom and the brave souls who joined the Bar Association - of which there's likely more across the Ferengi Commerce Authority jurisdiction), even if Quark does mellow out into more of a lib by the end of the show.
the average Ferengi doesn't exactly have progressive politics
I wonder how true this is sometimes. Given that the Grand Nagus was a secret commie (by Ferengi standards) who hands off leadership of the Ferengi government to an overt communist (again, by Ferengi standards) and we never hear of a Ferengi Civil War or Rom's assassination in subsequent media. That suggests to me that there's more progressivism buried in Ferengi society than we might think.
Of the DS9 Ferengi, the only main cast true believer in the Ferengi ways is Quark, and as you said even he comes around a bit at the end. His brother is a commie, his nephew joins the commies (Starfleet) and his mom is a radical feminist anarchist or commie or something. Of the recurring Ferengi characters, I think only Liquidator Brunt (FCA) is a die hard and that's probably because he's their equivalent of a fed.
It's not absurd to think that the majority of Ferengi are pretty reasonable after centuries of contact and exchange with more progressive and open cultures and that they're only being led around by a powerful (rich) minority of die hard conservatives who can destroy their lives for daring to dissent (or form a union).
Half the time it's used in a dehumanizing like you said, the other half it's mimicking cop language "Perp is a 5'9 caucasian female on foot" Either way
Perp is a complex multi-faceted person, who cannot really be described by human words
I had a coworker who did this and it was fucking creepy. Glad he got fired.
Obviously you cant always judge a book by its cover but there are signs and redflags and sometimes even airhorns.
Legend has it Yakub was highly insecure (another trait he passed on), and tried to overcompensate for his wide head by giving his creations flat, thumb-like skulls.
Anthropologists claim this is the first recorded instance of "looksmaxxing".
What was the sad day where a goatee stopped being a sign of dashing-villain hotness and started being the sign of someone who enjoys going out for microwaved soft food?
I don’t think it’s as popular now, but there’s the classic white marble statue pfp
Stoicism is about getting really mad about emotions and the more mad about emotional expression, the more stoic.
yeah I think marble or bronze busts in the room are a pretty good clue
also if they have large sections of non-fiction leather bound books that could be a tip off, see the top 10 bestsellers here for example
Hey now, the Art of War is great and everyone should read it. Most people have never really sat down and thunk about the whens whys and hows of getting 50,000 of your buddies together to slaughter those shitass wankers in Wu and it shows.
It's still sus as some deliberate "look at me look at me" bookshelf display. It's up there with Infinite Jest when it comes to douche mating signals.
The thing about "Art of War" is that it is incredibly short and can be read from cover to cover in a half hour. It is an interesting read, but when somebody is trying to position themselves as an intellectual and they name drop Sun Tsu, you can tell they aren't very much of a reader.
I dunno. Is there other stuff up there in the lawyer foyer that draw more attention?
signed first edition
Where is your time travel device and why are you here of all times?
Well yeah I've got Clausewitz, Machiavelli, Marcus Aurelius...
Oh no...
Oh no!
Sun Tzu: 'Have a plan instead of sending your whole army to die for no reason'
Chuds:
I think that's more of an ”I've never read a book that wasn't one of the required ones in school, but want to appear smart” thing. Which is admittedly at the very least chud adjacent.
's list of recommended books was all shit like that and Orwell. At least Steve Jobs' list showed he'd maybe read a book that wasn't one of the Anglo ”every schoolchild has read this” ones.I've found that to be more common with run-of-the-mill libs, where they also always mix up fiction with non-fiction. Chuds just won't read or id they do read it's like they try to read Julius Caesar's auto-biograohy uncritically.
It's incredibly funny to me that the Art of War does contain some very useful insights, especially for the time, but everyone seems to be hell bent on repeating the most basic bitch conclusions from that text like they're an ancient chinese secret.
The importance of logistics, flexibility, mobility, and so forth are things organizations and militaries fuck up to this day but all anyone wants to talk about is how winning without fighting is the best. Wow, getting what I want without being punched in the face is better than getting what I want but also being punched in the face? Ground breaking.
What if you have the Zhuge Liang annotated version, and it's on the shelf next to your copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms?
bro using spies will get you intel 🤯
bro it's easier to win if you have the high ground 🤯
bro cavalry moves faster than infantry 🤯
bro don't let your supply lines get cut off 🤯
bro you'll lose fewer resources if you don't fight 🤯
bro it's expensive to keep people in the field 🤯
What if you use it as a guide to urban camping as a homeless person? That book saved my ass so many times when I was bumming around the USA
I have a room full of old vintage leather bound books because
Uhhh
yeah I mean I wouldn't build a 'Chud-o-Meter 3000' around this because some people are collectors or want to be well rounded, but companies that print these usually choose from the western canon, so no radical stuff allowed, I have a few general history books bound in that classic style but nothing left-leaning except for the Eric Hobsbawm Modern History series.
I'm more thinking of people who show them off in the background as part of their online persona like some right wing commentators
It's not about the content of the books for me. It's about the smell
Yeah, it's still a thing.
Somewhat related is the "furry avatar doing a Dreamworks face or otherwise trying too hard to look jaded and intellectual.*
chud anime pfp
CHVD marble statue pfp
weirdly commie doing satire anime white marble statue pfp
There was a brief period, like around 2014, where marble statues meant you liked vaporwave
+ sunglasses, a goatee, and looks like a thumb = get ready for the worst take you've ever heard.
We need an AI-generated infinite debate between Ukraine flag grannie and angry guy in pickup truck.
Anyone doing a video in their car, especially with that up the nose camera angle, is probably a very divorced
You're right. If someone puts "hates furries" up front in any way, I've yet to see them not be a chud.
The last person I knew who hated furries, I actually had a good conversation with him about it. Convinced him it was a shitty and reactionary take
I like to think I did. We haven't really spoken in a while (no real reason)
Something Awful and its consequences have been a disaster for the Internet.
SA regulars like to dismiss the 4Chan crowd as people who got banned from FA for being too disgusting. My brothers in Christ, you encouraged the behavior in the first place…
Marble bust avatar is a more accurate indicator of fash than anime avatar imho. With an anime avatar you're rolling the dice between fash or transgender communist whereas 100% of marble bust guys are fascist.
anime can also be a kid or someone else who just isn't online in a mature capacity. Like, they're being silly and here's their goofy anime girl. If you really like antiquity online enough that you're presenting with it, you probably are being serious/mature enough to know about the general image marble busts mean, and you can instead use ancient paintings, mosaics, designs, even bronze figures to avoid the connotation.
Can confirm. I have only seen one exception to this rule, The Cultural Tutor. He seems like a well-meaning guy but almost everyone else are almost always mindless psychos.
The Cultural Tutor
fucking soy, that name alone pisses me off, lets look it up on google
has a website promoting a book jacking off the narrative of "Western Civilization" as the epitome of a "beautiful" education
:agony-immense:
To be fair, his book as excerpts from Gramsci and the communist manifesto, and Evola nor Gentile is nowhere to be found.
Statue avatar is a pretty reliable indication of a diehard NRx type or some chud aping the aesthetic without the theory. The chances of Bronze Age Pervert or Anissimov being a mutual is high, at least when they're between bans.
"Centrist" as ever is a pretty reliable indicator of giant Fascist.
Crypto or AI can sometimes just be a particularly brainwormed Bazinga lib, though less and less.
Sorry off topic, but can I get a primer on just who/what Bronze Age pervert is?
A giant Romanian Fascist that grew out of Cutis Yarvin's circle in the early 2010s, and LARPs as embodying the aesthetic ideal of a Homeric Hero. Vaguely ridiculous like all fash but no less dangerous for all that. His thesis is the standard fash shit of "Eternal irrational struggle vs nature and man for domination is the purpose of life, etc, etc."
Basically, imagine if Evola had no talent and was a member of the 2016 era alt-right.
That’s shitty. I was hoping it would be something else.
Thanks for filling me in.
Fascist that grew out of Cutis Yarvin's circle
But "Moldbug" said his cult can't be fascist because he likes drugs too much and wants to seem high tech and hip and cool and with it. He even made "Urbit." You heard of it? Probably not, because you're not alt-right enough to understand!
It's a nazi blogger's cobbled together OS that's clunky and user-hostile on purpose because techbros like to feel smart and above other people.
I'm gonna go with 'selfie with a tobacco pipe'
Smoke what you want how you want, but if your pfp is a selfie with a pipe I can't trust you
Dae le epic stale meme mustache, especially drawn on for extra Gen-X chuddery.
This is very nerdy, but anyone who knows and understands the GPL and AGPL licenses, but denigrates them and defends the MIT and BSD licenses instead.
The former are based. The latter are the software industy's loving gift to Wall Street.
While antivax stances do exist in liberal and even leftist spaces its huuuge within the rightwing and usually comes alongside some other rather interesting "opinions".
Remember when anti-vaxxing used to be only a new age thing?
It only became a right-wing thing because their team hates vaxx now, and that owns the libs.
'Classical liberal' for sure
Also idk if it indicates full chudness, but in my experience pretty much anyone who says they're 'socially liberal, fiscally conservative' is a whole lot less 'socially liberal' than they claim
socially liberal
That usually means they are sex pests under pretense of "sex positivity" and like drugs.
another thing I've noticed is that some libertarians think that being atheist/agnostic is a trait of being socially "progressive", even though many of them still hold the same beliefs as religious conservatives (being anti-abortion, LGBTphobic, punitive view of criminal justice, etc)
I'm too lazy to scroll through this thread rn, but nothing non-chuddy has ever been posted on Twitter by someone whose username is just a first name and a bunch of random numbers. There's even a funny tweet about this phenomenon.
There's a pretty good chance that those accounts are feds, bots, or bots run by feds. So yeah, checks out.
There's even a funny tweet about this phenomenon.
You didn't post the tweet.
it's something along the lines of "Hi, my name is firstname bunchanumbers and I have incredibly shitty opinions"
They call SQL squeal. 100% of the time it’s a fintech bro.
Bit idea: insisting on using the nato alphabet for tech acronyms.
Sierra Quebec Lima definitely rolls off the tongue. /s it also forces the listener to remember that French people exist in North America.
100% anything else (other than may literally saying S.Q.L) is revisionism
I learned SQL was I was twelve and only ever read it written down. Arrive at computer science: "sequel". :( Still sounds wrong.
there.
the smell is part of the experience
