A note on meme bigotry

If you’re not aware, there was a major harassment campaign eight or nine years ago organized by a fascist message board and targeting a number of female, nonbinary, and nonwhite game developers and journalists. Innuendo Studios did a pretty good video about it recently. We bring it up here, however, because one of the effects of this campaign was to popularize an AAVE slang word from the rap community among white supremacists to express approval of their faves.

If you began saying “based” as a term of approval after 2014, you are perpetuating a racist appropriation by racists of a word that’s not yours and never was.

Obviously there are other memes associated with this same community and reinforcing its bigoted ideals (e.g. Pepe, Nordic Man and Wojak comics, anything where the hypermasculine or hypermuscular character represents “the good one”, etc. etc. etc.), but there’s a reason why sitelen pona Pakapa is not and will never be available to use with ilo Linku. It’s because many toki pona communities do not have effective moderation when it comes to meme white supremacy.

If yours is one of these communities, don’t be here. Be in a discussion with your mods and mates about their actions and yours, and the work you need to do.

Sorry to be a bummer. Just sharing some resources.