I don’t want to be too specific, and exhibit a person or a club, so I have chosen to modify the facts slightly, to keep the involved parties uninvolved.
I was recently asked to make a banner for a Nordic show event for a certain kind of pet. In this case we will say it was a dog show. One of my suggestions was a dog wearing a viking uniform, as it is a Nordic show and I imagined that Vikings was one of the common denominators.
The club was thrilled, and they used the banner to invite members from multiple Scandinavian countries. I got several positive replies and comments from multiple members saying that they thought the image was really cute!
Some time later, the Swedish delegation protested, saying that they could not publish the invitation banner to their members, because viking helmets with horns were a symbol of right wing extremists and that they represented Nazis.
Initially I thought that this was a joke, but i don’t want to judge before knowing if this indeed is the case in Sweden. Do people look at horned viking helmets and think “Nazi” instead of “Viking”?
And yes - this is made with AI. Love it or hate it, it makes for very affordable illustrations for clubs and groups that have no money and make no money
This is not true at all. We are not offended by hornd helmets. Just Google “Swedish viking merch” and your find plenty of "junk"😁. Or look at any international (specially hockey) game. Swedes are dressy in blue, yellow and toy helmet whit horns and braids.
But it so true that some right wing groups trying to use viking as symbols, especially the “Tyr” rune.
When I look at horned helmets I just think it looks silly, childish in a way. I don’t think it has something to do with Nazis??
Horned helmets have more in common with German operas than vikins as well
As far as I know, vikings never had helmets with horns, so it might be controversial from a historical perspective :)
Never heard of viking helmets being used as neo-nazi symbols, but I’m not very up to date on the subject and occasionally they claim new symbols as theirs. Tried looking it up and could not find anything other than one being present on Soldiers of Odin’s logo
You might want to be a little bit careful if the AI puts a Thor’s hammer in the image, as it is popular symbol among neo-nazis. It’s also used without racist connotations, but it depends on the context how it comes across, kind of like the US Confederate flag.
Certainly not! Horny viking helmets have always been a staple symbol of Scandinavian culture, memery and other general fun.
Eh, I would say not really.
It’s true that the far right broadly embraces symbolism from the pre-christian era, much the same way they embrace general nationalism and Swedish flags.
As long as you keep it on a decently tasteful level with regards to the viking helmets, I see no reason why it would give me far right-vibes.
I guess in an effort to avoid doubt, you could play up the cuteness of the animal in question. The far right are not really known for cuteness, which would distance the symbolism from that group.
I don’t know what that would be referring to. I would probably have liked your design as well :) // 28 year old born and raised swede
Nazis will try and appropriate any European culture symbols. Specially Germanic but also Celtic, Roman, Greek… Some say you can’t do anything to avoid it, I disagree but since this is .world I’m gonna tell it subtly: nazis tried to take on punk symbols, aesthetics, and music back in the day but you don’t see many nazi punks anymore, do you? ;)
The story I always heard was that the horned helmet was an anachronism from opera, specifically the operas of Richard Wagner, who expressed anti-Semitic views and whose works were co-opted by the Nazis after his death, maybe that’s where they formed the idea?
