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1. Embed this notice
   13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 02-Jan-2024 19:37:02 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

   Make 2024 the year that we stop ceding cultural ground to fascists.

   The fash love attaching themselves to cultural and artistic movements and subcultures with the express intention of claiming everything and everyone within those subcultures as their own.

   The corollary of this is that we have to support anti-fascists within subcultures that are subject to this.

   No, not everyone interested in medieval history is a "deus vult" chanting neo-monarchist who has wet dreams about a new crusade against a Muslim infidel.

   Nor is every Crusader Kings or Divinity player out using the Steam forums as a recruiting platform for the alt-right.

   Not every neo-pagan is also a neo-Nazi, nor every satanist, heathen, or Asaturar - hell, the Icelandic Ásatrúarfélagið, which should hold some sway in this, repeatedly speaks out against racism within heathenry, in the face of a long and organised project of entryism by the international far right.

   Nor is every black metal fan or musician a racist, homophobe or bigot.

   And not everyone with either a scholarly or practical interest in ancient Greek philosophy is a mammoth-hunting sexist, crying "men's rights" at the sight of a woman with a voice.

   The same goes for enthusiasts of romantic landscape painting, classical sculpture, European architecture, fantasy fiction, goth, furry culture, and LARP.

   Fascists specifically want to lay claim to a certain kind of cachet, coolness, cultural validity, rebellion, or edginess.

   This list - which could be far longer - comes from my own experience fighting them out of spaces I enjoy being in or am adjacent to.

   But more specifically, fascists want everything. Today it's someone's niche tabletop gaming hobby or music subculture, but the end game is that they wish to be the cultural arbiters of what is acceptable, what is decadent, and what art and culture mean.

   Fascist works and movements exist within the fields I've named, but the broader project is to devour culture and shit the remnants back out as a bland narrative of white supremacism, stripped of context, diversity, history and deeper meaning.

   Do not go along with this.
   Do not go along with them.

   Support anti-fascists within fields and subcultures subject to far-right entryism, appropriation or activity.

   By agreeing to let fascists lay claim to that weird special interest group over there, by dismissing the people in that subculture who're actively fighting them off as apologists, cat's paws or useful idiots, we accept the fascist narrative that they - and only they - get to own and define culture.

   Do not take their fucking word for it when they say something belongs to them.

   They think the world belongs to them, and they're wrong about that, too.

   #AntiFascism #art #culture

   • Embed this notice
     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jan-2024 00:05:42 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • Andrea, Transbian Casanova :neurodiversity: :transgender_symbol:

     @Andrea thank you. I'm a bit cross about people being so willing to hand stuff over without a fight.

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     Andrea, Transbian Casanova :neurodiversity: :transgender_symbol: (andrea@furry.engineer)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jan-2024 00:05:43 JST Andrea, Transbian Casanova :neurodiversity: :transgender_symbol:

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear I've rarely seen somebody lay it out so thoroughly and firmly, bravo.

   • Embed this notice
     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jan-2024 03:36:51 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • The Galactic Shitpost Outpost

     @CosmicTrigger

     They fucking are, though.

     I was at a Bad Religion gig once, and one of these just would not leave me the fuck alone cross-questioning me about my (non) gender presentation and just followed me around debating my existence.

     I'll add that the week before, I'd been at the same venue, at a folk metal gig (Turisas), a few people asked about my gender (which was the same non-gendered presentation, only with warpaint and actual armour, because I've never met a bit I won't over-commit to) and there were all 100% respectful.

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     The Galactic Shitpost Outpost (cosmictrigger@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jan-2024 03:36:52 JST The Galactic Shitpost Outpost

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear

     In my experience, these guys are the fucking WORST, because growing up listening to the Dead Kennedys and The Clash and CRASS you'd think they'd be the opposite of this

   • Embed this notice
     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jan-2024 04:20:29 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • The Galactic Shitpost Outpost

     @CosmicTrigger You're not wrong.

     To be entirely fair, I used to help organise a big goth meetup group, and we did on a couple of occasions have to bar sexists, racists and homophobes (frequently the same person was all three).

     But that was a couple of times across seven years or so that I was involved and the willingness to throw out and generally refuse to associate with people for being shits was incredibly important.

     And yeah, goths do seem to bat above their weight when it comes to social and political awareness.

   • Embed this notice
     The Galactic Shitpost Outpost (cosmictrigger@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jan-2024 04:20:30 JST The Galactic Shitpost Outpost

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear Ever notice Gen X GOTHS aren't like this tho?

     And on top of that, they're usually also anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, and very accepting of all gender preferences?

     Which is weird since goth music itself isn't all that political.

     Maybe I'm biased tho, cuz that's my scene.

     I like punk music some, but not as much as I like goth music.

   • Embed this notice
     smeg (smeg@assortedflotsam.com)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jan-2024 18:06:52 JST smeg

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear I'm a medieval nerd, love Crusader Kings, and I'll push back against this bullshit!

     My fascination with the period has to do with how absurdly limited the worldview was, how progress wasn't viewed as inevitable, and yet how society evolved despite that.

   • Embed this notice
     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jan-2024 18:06:52 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • smeg

     @smeg

     Fuck yeah. :)

     I am very over the weird-ass ahistorical Templar fetishists getting to to define the narrative of who the interest group.

     I acquired an interest in the medieval history of Western Europe because my country was made a Crusader state by the French in around ~1200, and they left some really awesome castles around the place.

     Of course, some of the castles dated from when we had previously been governed cooperatively by the Byzantines and the Umayyad caliphate.

     Anyway, cutting myself off for rambling, but history belongs to everyone, I'm digressing, and the fascists don't get to claim the awesome castles as Their Stuff either.

     Continuing the tangent I've been listening to some lectures by Prof Dorsey Armstrong on the intellectual life of the middle ages and it's been fascinating.

   • Embed this notice
     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jan-2024 20:10:42 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • :shromeyes: :baba_shroomie: :shromeyes:

     @shroomie Speaking purely from my own experience (I'm a retro gaming person and a doom fan from way back, although I only keep track in passing these days), your fandom is pretty robust.

     Although retro games fandom in general can have a conservative streak that gets extreme in places (cough that 8-bit guy cough), in my experience there's less active right-wing recruiting there than in gaming communities that skew younger.

     In the case of Doom fandom specifically, you've got a useful built-in weather vane for community sensibilities in the very visible figures of Romero (proudly indigenous, anti-racist, pro-LGBT rights, generally) and Carmack (lowkey reactionary, pally with both the "anti-woke" set and the longtermism movement).

     Obviously, neither of them is any kind of political demagogue, but someone attempting to normalise far right ideas in Doom fandom would be likely to lean on Carmack as an example.

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     :shromeyes: :baba_shroomie: :shromeyes: (shroomie@0w0.is)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jan-2024 20:10:44 JST :shromeyes: :baba_shroomie: :shromeyes:

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear@eldritch.cafehow can i tell if a space i’m in could be subject to a far-right takeover? like i’m a (classic) doom fan, right? we exist in an almost paradise where pretty much 90% of the hundreds of hours of community content is completely FLOSS, but there’s a problem in that the game doesn’t have explicit political commentary (you can argue that doom is a parody/commentary on the military-industrial complex, what with the main conflict of the game being caused by secret teleportation experiments from the Union Aerospace Corporation, which works with the military to the point that personnel are stationed there, which attracts the attention of demonic forces, but this reading isn’t extremely obvious and can easily be shrugged off by bad actors.) and the community is mostly white men. do you think we’re prone to an alt-right infiltration, and if so what can i do?

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     Reilly Spitzfaden (they/them) (reillypascal@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Jan-2024 20:33:10 JST Reilly Spitzfaden (they/them)

     in reply to

     • Mixtery Kit O'Connell

     @HauntedOwlbear @kitoconnell as someone with an interest in ancient history and linguistics, and thus Proto Indo-European, I very much agree. I've unfortunately seen some white supremacist stuff in that area, and it's important to kick them out rather than ceding ground.

     clacke likes this.
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     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Monday, 12-Aug-2024 21:21:47 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • cwicseolfor

     @cwicseolfor The metal festival I'm going to this week has an aggressively defended No NSBM policy, and this is the way to do it.

   • Embed this notice
     cwicseolfor (cwicseolfor@urbanists.social)'s status on Monday, 12-Aug-2024 21:21:48 JST cwicseolfor

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear THIS. You can prevent your favorite (metaphorical) bar becoming a nazi bar by KICKING OUT THE DAMN NAZIS WHEN YOU SPOT THEM. It's not that hard to make a place inhospitable to harmful ideas, you simply call them out. Being nice and polite to nazis comes at the cost of being kind or inclusive to anyone else.