i’ve seen this phrase used around here in a few variations and it rarely gets called out as problematic. i really don’t think its ok so i thought i’d ask: does hexbear think its ok? i can understand and support the use of violence against fascists and colonizers, but genocide is really their thing. i don’t see why it makes sense to use it even as a rhetorical device. why doesn’t this get called out? is genocide so normalized in casual conversation that it doesn’t register or what?
edit: i have all the [he/him]s on the website telling me that this is actually a very funny joke. i still don’t like it or get it, but i’ve had my fill of arguing with y’all so thanks for the info. i can see why nobody calls this one out. it kinda fucking sucks. i’ll just go ahead and block people who post this type of joke and go on my merry way.
now that everyone has had a chance to chime in, i’m just going to add some context for y’all
most of the responses i got at first were from [he/him]s which is why i said the above. nothing against any gender, just what i saw.it wasn’t my intention to misgender anyone sorry if it came across that way. i really meant it as an observation of who was jumping in to reply at the start of the thread, but i didn’t realize how it could be perceived in other contexts.- i’m not american. i’m technically a US citizen, but i have much more significant cultural ties to SV, MX, and separately and to a lesser extent NA indigenous community. i don’t always get where western people are coming from. i like the overall tone of hexbear maybe i just don’t how imaginary genocide is supposed to be cathartic. i apologize if it came across like i’m trying to tone police y’all. that’s really not my jam, but y’all do seem a little pre-disposed to getting offended when your little jokes are questioned.
- i still don’t like the joke, so i’m going to remove them from my feed. if y’all don’t have an issue with it that’s fine. i was just trying to get a feel for what y’all think. the push back was a little upsetting after the day i had yesterday, but i’m over it now. i can live with curating my own experience based on my personal taste.
- i haven’t been that articulate, but i think my feelings are best summarized by this reply:
As someone that does find the joke funny, upon some reflection i have realised that it is an inapropiate joke, genocide is a horrific thing and to make light of it by making it a subject of a joke is in bad taste the same way that jokes about sexual assault are in bad taste, we rightfuly look down on redditors for the latter but allow the former
“The First World” (or Global North, etc.) isn’t an ethnicity, race, or any group of people. And it should be destroyed. This doesn’t mean kill everyone in the first world anymore that “Death to America” means kill everyone in America. It’s also not a joke; it’s a meme phrase but the sentiment is genuine
the original meme was about communist banter being unhinged and socially unacceptable.
I think it resonates with us because it’s relatable, we’ve all been the person holding their tongue at a family gathering. I also think it resonates as a reaction to the lopsided “colonizer deaths are a tragedy while colonized deaths are a footnote” tone-policing in western media (see Israel discourse). Also, a politics of violent revolution makes flippant humor inevitable, back in '73 people were joking about “spain’s first astronaut” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Carrero_Blanco
It also speaks to the insidious nature of discourse in the West.
Incivility of language is considered deeply uncouth, but electing leaders who have promised to do horrific things is perfectly fine, as long as they express it in acceptable language.
Biden sending billions to Ukrainian skinheads, continuing to build a wall, increasing police funding, doing nothing about COVID, gutting the child tax credit etc is all perfectly fine because he was polite and well spoken about it. Can’t come out and say overtly you want Israel to turn Palestine into a graveyard, but aiming to help them achieve that is fine.
Spain’s first astronaut is a hilarious bit btw and noticeably does not include jokes about genocide.
thanks for explaining. i still don’t think i get the humor part, but its good to have some context.
No.
It stinks of edgelord shit.
THANK YOU
the original “thank you for not saying unlimited genocide on the first world at my parents house I know that took restraint” image is really fucking funny imo. It’s a great comic/meme/joke. it’s been referenced repeatedly until the joke isn’t a joke anymore and it’s not that funny anymore, but that happens to everything so it’s not a big deal imo. using the word genocide in that context is kind of surprising and excessive which is what makes the comic funny. but it has maybe became an unpleasant phrase that people use way too much. dunno how important anything said in hexbear really is tho lol
dunno how important anything said in hexbear really is tho lol
depends on who has the lathe on a given day
And now that the funeral has concluded,
WHOOO ANOTHER KKKRACKER DOWN
The idea that “genocide shouldn’t be called for” is pretty agreeable I think, but wooooow this thread went places. Another day I’m glad not to be “[he/him]s”…
another he/him down, unlimited reeducation on the manosphere
This is a good point. Like most boomers, my socdem Dad used to browse Hexbear as part of his morning routine. Unfortunately he came upon a post using the offending phrase and now just posts ‘so much for the tolerant left’ under any article about Joe Biden on the Washington Post’s website. Y’all need to reflect on this. If not for the sake of this website, but for the democrats reelection chances in 2024
I can see being critical of it for site culture, but this somehow tying to the election of Democrats???
They’re joking
Oop
“I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood.”
Jokes aside, I see this meme the same way I see guillotine memes. It’s just people expressing “speculative militancy”. Nobody is actually planning on guillotining anything but the call for guillotines is itself a means of expressing “speculative militancy”. Same story with this meme.
that’s the thing tho i don’t have any problems with guillotine memes. genocide is just too gross to be funny to me. i think justified or consenting violence in general is totally chill.
Yeah, I’m Team “This is pretty cringe and something that a board that’s 80% white would come up with.” Imagine saying “unlimited genocide on Israel” (which you would be saying since Israel as a US proxy state counts as being part of the Global North) and trying to argue it’s not aktually anti-Semitic lol
Imagine saying “unlimited genocide on Israel”
I thought we were already saying that with “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free”
I think it boils down to the word “genocide.” I have never heard anyone who isn’t some 4channer use “genocide” in the non-literal “we are ethnically cleansing a people” sense. No one who isn’t some soon-to-be white supremacist spree shooter say shit like “I’m going to genocide the vermin infesting my house” or “I’ve ethnically cleanse the termites from my house.” Reactionaries gamers who spend too much time on 4chan love to throw around that term to say that they’re playing a “kill everything that moves” route.
IMO, the word “genocide” is a word that shouldn’t be used likely.
DEATH TO AMERIKKKA. DEATH TO THE GREAT SATAN.
UNLIMITED EXORCISMS ON THE WHITE HOUSE AND CAPITOL BUILDING
Exercise them from reality.
I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood.
unlimited regicide on the first world
As someone that does find the joke funny, upon some reflection i have realised that it is an inapropiate joke, genocide is a horrific thing and to make light of it by making it a subject of a joke is in bad taste the same way that jokes about sexual assault are in bad taste, we rightfuly look down on redditors for the latter but allow the former
Do you condemn the genocide of whites in Haiti or the ethnic cleansing of Germans from Eastern Europe? Just curious.
White genocide is an obvious farce no matter how much you try to gotcha, but when there is an active genocide happening I think it’s acceptable to consider using it as a joke to be a bit pastiche
Yeah as someone who found it funny and has read through this thread, I agree here actually.
Genocide is different from taking your yacht apart to build a school.
What not reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed does to motherfuckers.
its been on my list. i’ll bump it up, but i don’t think it’ll make the joke funny.
It’s an inside joke. I’d never say it in public. That would make me look ridiculous.
edit: i have all the [he/him]s on the website telling me that this is actually a very funny joke. i still don’t like it or get it, but i’ve had my fill of arguing with y’all so thanks for the info. i can see why nobody calls this one out. it kinda fucking sucks. i’ll just go ahead and block people who post this type of joke and go on my merry way.
another poSSter down UNLIMTED GENOCIDE AGAINST THE LEMMY DOT FIRST WORLD
GLORY to the joint dictatorship of the posters of oppressed instances!! 
Chiming in as others have said, it’s not serious at all. Reference to a leftist meme someone made that gets spread around a lot.
ok so the answer to my question is “hexbear is ok with genocide jokes”? you might need to reflect on that a little bit, right?
Not crazy about it but the global north has been doing genocide on the global south for five centuries. It’s not a meme. It’s reality.
yes a fascist meme you fucks
in case you didn’t understand calling for genocide is bad people stuff and it isn’t funny
does white genocide exist?
only whitened people call for genocide, stop being whitened. grow a real culture please. that’s all we ask. i know it sounds like everything you know would be destroyed, but that’s a good thing and you need to do it to yourselves. please.
i know it sounds like everything you know would be destroyed
so white genocide does exist, or?
i know it sounds like everything you know would be destroyed, but that’s a good thing and you need to do it to yourselves. please.
if only there were a slightly shorter way of expressing this exact sentence
just fuck off. clearly the majority are against me. i don’t need extra piling on thanks + i’m blocking your ass.
Dude, I think ik what it is. And now i kinda agree with them.
You can’t genocide yourself. The first world has to change themselves.
Equating the radical change we need to a genocide is litterally what fascists are doing with the “white genocide” bullshit.
UGOTFW meme “ironically” uses the SAME false equivalence. In doing so, It ends up just actually reinforcing an idea fascists are trying to spread. I’m willing to give up the joke.
