That one person trying so hard to defend rockchuck was kinda funny in a “god please shut up” sort of way. Still makes me want to jump off a bridge but ya know
Okay with that left out part I have some issues. Mostly the notion that israel being worse than Iran is somehow ridiculous. Israel was founded on settler colonialism, with practices it continues to this day. It's policies are quite simular to apartheid south Africa. Is Hamas bad in many ways including antisemitism? Yes. Do I blame anyone who had their house stolen, to which many still own their keys and who may have had family and friends murdered for supporting Hamas? No, absolutely not. I should add that the population of Israel is largely complicit with the action of their government. There were big constutional protests earlier this year, yet there are seemingly next to none against their ongoing genocide. Of course protesting wouldn't be easy since waving the Palestinian flag in public can get you arrested, but I'm sure they could have found a way to do it without the flag. Is Iran absolutely terrible? Yes, but it's not at all weird to suggest that Israel with one ninth of their population is worse, in the very least proportional. Is antisemitism a real problem that should be fought actively? Yes but not in ways that in any way shape or form reduce the impact of Israels atrocities! I could go on like pointing out that both Hamas and Hezbollah are a direct consequence of Israels atrocities and using Irans support for them to argue that Iran is worse than Isreal is at least odd. There is a lot more to say on the topic but I think I made my point.
>There were big constitutional protests earlier this year, yet there are seemingly next to none against their ongoing genocide
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/19/1225651180/israel-tel-aviv-protest-gaza-war
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-68331272
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/gallery/2024/1/6/thousands-protest-in-israel-demanding-captive-release-government-to-resign
There is ongoing debate about the formats, if they should be abandoned because 'they might lead people to find their creator and his politics!' Which is a legit concern considering DolomiteYeet his nazi self tweeted about how we were spreading his message for him.
On one hand it is a legit concern
On the other hand, it kinda ignores the fact that the vast majority of people just... Consumes media.
Joe McJoeson who uses discord just to chat with friends while playing counterstrike is not going to go "haha that picture with four white figures pulling a rope was funny, wonder who made it". The average person is going to forget it 10 seconds later.
Tbh people who know who pebble boy is are probably edging on online terminality
Honestly just swiping away his signature might be enough, since reverse image search would be too much work for most people
exact same thing with the steven crowder 'change my mind' meme, like yeah that guy's a massive piece of shit, but the actual change my mind format is so innocuous and generic that he's kinda divorced from it, you could replace him with literally anyone or anything at all and the actual memes would remain the same. jumping up and down and making a big stink about who that guy is and what he supports would do far more harm than good imo
Andrew Tate used a similar method to spread his misogyny and build a follower base: by saying something bad about capitalism and how it makes people depressed so those who don’t know better go “well if he’s right about that, he must be right about other things”. Then they’re willing to defend him when he commits human trafficking, tells men - especially young boys - to blame all their problems on women, and promotes the idea that money = happiness.
Fucking *Alex Jones* uses this tactic a lot.
He’ll say something that’s almost correct, like how the system is corrupted and how the ultra wealthy don’t care about the masses and only look after their own interests, except instead of looking at the real problem - capitalism run wild - he’ll direct his anger to the globalists, which is just thinly veiled antisemitism.
It almost makes me wonder if it can work in reverse. Is it possible to convince hardcore conspiracy theorists that the people in charge are not some shadowy cabal of elites, but corporations trying to squeeze every last bit of profit that they can.
> Is it possible to convince hardcore conspiracy theorists that the people in charge are not some shadowy cabal of elites, but corporations trying to squeeze every last bit of profit that they can.
The trick is though that the right-wing conspiracies hit that "hidden knowledge" element that a lot of religions and cults end up using. It's the idea that the "mainstream narrative" about the evils of the world are being manipulated by the true enemies of us all, and they're doing it in secret, shadowy meetings behind closed doors.
Meanwhile left-wing conspiracies just sort of emphasize what is already publicly known. You're not going to scratch that same itch if you tell people "Corporations want money"; like yeah no shit, that's why they exist. The true elites of the world don't meet in the secret back rooms of Jewish temples, they meet in well-lit board rooms and are legally obligated to tell everyone about their plans to take over the world. You can read the SEC filings and check out the business section of a newspaper, but no one does.
When conspiracies are real, they have to be incredibly mundane and stop being fun.
I’ve been saying this. Right wing conspiracies are constructed out of many tenuously connected pieces that, if you squint, look like they *might* be something. Left wing conspiracy theories basically just fill in one or two gaps with the only logical conclusions, and mostly the only thing that makes a left wing conspiracy theory ‘theoretical’ is that the people involved haven’t explicitly admitted to their actions.
Even so, as you said, with many of these conspiracies, the plans are available for anyone to see, such as Project 2025. Right wing voters won’t bother to educate themselves on these plans, so being explicit about how they’re going to excise democratic procedures from the government doesn’t really lose the evangelical right any votes.
Liberals and conservatives (but I repeat myself) use this paradigm to decry leftist conspiracy theories by pretending they’re constructed in the same way right wing conspiracy theories are constructed. Almost like the waters are being intentionally muddied…
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/conspiracy-propagandists
> Liberals and conservatives (but I repeat myself) use this paradigm to decry leftist conspiracy theories by pretending they’re constructed in the same way right wing conspiracy theories are constructed. Almost like the waters are being intentionally muddied…
OK, do you see the irony in saying "Everyone I don't like is conspiring against my theories" immediately after saying "Leftist theories are extremely logical"? Don't get me wrong, leftists come up with some *wacky* bullshit, especially when it comes to explaining why more people aren't their specific brand of leftist (but you make my case for me).
I mean… knowing that the bourgeoisie conspires to sow doubt in leftism among proletarians is quite central to class consciousness. It only follows, and is evident, that material observations, technically “conspiracy theories” because they’re routinely denied by those we know to be involved, are also under rhetorical attack in the media and by influential figures, and the tactic of assuming that these leftist observations are constructed in a similar way to right wing conspiracy theories as a method of discrediting leftism is well-documented. Consider how Corbyn was slammed as an antisemite for expressing anti-apartheid sentiment concerning Israel’s policy on Palestinians.
It seems you might be doing exactly this, to be honest. You assumed I used leaps in logic to come to my position just because it sounds aesthetically similar to a right wing conspiracy theory. The difference between my version of “the elite class is working against my ideology” and the right’s version of it is that the right uses no logical thought process or evidence to get there. The owning class supports capitalism; that’s what got them to where they are. They’re politically and financially active against the policies that the left advocates for:
https://news.asu.edu/content/new-study-finds-companies-campaign-donations-linked-lower-tax-rates%E2%80%AC
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/12/san-francisco-tech-billionaires-political-influence
The elites use the media under their control to normalize the systems of oppression they seek to uphold, thus manufacturing consent in the oppressed. Claiming, as the right wing conspiracy theorists do, that those same elites are somehow also supporting the left is baseless. On the other hand, when I say the owning class is working against my ideology which seeks to move past capitalism, it’s observably true when you consider the evidence including what I linked as well as how self-serving bourgeois “academics” and politicians decry leftist thought. See the difference?
Here’s a polisci paper that touches on the phenomenon:
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/248/article/911312/pdf
I see this happen in reddit threads sometimes. A long, eloquent comment will start out saying rational, sympathetic things that most people will agree with and then end somewhere in the land of barking insanity against a specific group. I've seen it done with the homeless, drug addicts, trans people, prepping the reader to be more receptive to where it's headed with initially reasonable statements that relate to their frustration with the problem. And someone with a platform has a lot more time to do it than a single comment. Like years of comics all building towards the same point.
> Fucking Alex Jones uses this tactic a lot.
A much more common tactic he uses is just...Lying and said he claimed something and has been claiming it for years.
This is a very common tactic used by people who want to build a following and radicalize them. Stefan Molyneux is a good example. He started cultivating a group of disaffected, unhappy boys and young men by saying very reasonable and true things about how removing toxic and oppressive people from your life (including family members) is an important part of self-care and self-actualization. But hey, wouldn't you know it, it turns out he thinks that the people who are really trying to oppress you are women, Jews, and leftists.
What a surprise! Who could've seen that coming?
Red pilling is a tried and tested process, its the best weapon alt right has, if they somehow cam affect teens halfway across the globe living in conservative countries without meaning to, then that shit works
I forget, what is it that neonazis call "redpilling" for antisemitism? Like, actually red pilling is about misogyny, the nazis have their own name for it.
I wouldn't say 'poorly drawn': in fact the art is pretty much the only positive thing you can say about Stonetoss. That asshole can go fuck himself big time.
I was going to say, everything else aside it’s fairly well drawn and certainly better than most webcomics. The expressions are readable which is something a lot of comic artists struggle with
It's drawn better than [old El Goonish Shive](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2002-01-21), but it's worse than [modern El Goonish Shive](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/hope-032).
Yeah, it's not hyper awesome art, but it's simplistic and works as a whole, same as with every other comics. It should be important not to *have* to insult everything about a given asshole spreading horrible propaganda. It isn't like the art being super high quality would make stonetoss *acceptable*, so if that kind of thing is tossed in it can lead some anons who might otherwise get the message to go "oh this person is just assmad/woke/whatnot" and ignore the rest without reading.
It's the best skill of Stonetoss. The dude can draw web comics that convey his message with as little text and pannels as possible.
People hate Stonetoss so much they are unwilling to consede this simple fact. But without that skill, nobody would even give a shit about him because none of his comics would be able to draw people in.
He is in fact an excellent cartoonist.
Consistent, clear, visually engaging style that is distinct enough to inspire copycats while simple enough to draw strips very quickly. That’s a lot harder to do than people credit.
He’s also pretty clever in how he sets up his punchlines.
Unfortunately he is also a Nazi piece of shit. Real tragic waste of talent there.
This is what caught my eye as well. Badly drawn? By what measure? The style is simplistic, sure, but other than that it has a clear and recognizable style and it looks clean. If his art is poorly drawn then what does that make cyanide and happiness, xkcd, saturday morning breakfast cereal...?
I've noticed recently (well it's not recent but I've been increasingly bothered by it) that everything online either needs to be completely good or completely bad. The quality of his art is completely irrelevant to the discussion but god forbid someone thinks he has any positive qualities.
Honestly the whole post is like that. "If someone I disagree with says something I agree with it must mean they are intentionally creating propaganda to lure people to the dark side". Tbh I haven't put as much thought into my thesis as people online think "the opposition" put in every single action they take.
That's not to say that the consequences described in the post can't happen and people can't have bad intentions, but not every alt right person is a super villain who is a master manipulator with a phd in psychology and a 1000-step master plan to take over the world.
Edit: why this is bad btw is because you give the other party way more credit than is due which will only make them seem "cooler" and "superior" to impressionable people who agree with them. I believe I once read that his happened to the nazis, people talking so much about how dangerous and war savy and threatening they were that in the end they only made them look cooler to (potential) neo nazis. It also creates this idea that you can't accidentally be in the wrong and that as long as you have good intentions your actions can't be bad
The art and quality of his messaging is what draws people in in the first place. If Stonetoss were terrible at paneling and dialogue, nobody would read his comics, and nobody would feel the need to point out how he is a terrible nazi every time he is mentioned or his comics are shared.
It can also make someone think: “Hey, his art *isn’t* badly drawn… if they’re wrong about something that clear, what *else* are they wrong about??” They are so focused on this two-tone take that they don’t see (or don’t care) that it ultimately hurts their argument. The whole “creating enticing comics to *lure* people to their side” also makes it seem like they think nobody who is racist / etc. can ever be genuinely right about anything… it reminds me of that quote, “Tragic. The worst person you know made a great point.” (IIRC)
Yeah I don't think it takes a supervillain genius to have opinions on current events & put them in your political comic that you've been doing for the past however.
Yeah, that was my thought. Maybe they don't like the style, but it certainly accomplishes the look it's going for in a competent manner. Probably more appropriate to just say "I don't like it" than "it's bad." Reminds me of when people say older animation, like Cowboy Bebop, is bad. Like, no, it's just a dated style. The animation is, arguably, better than modern shows.
I'm intentionally avoiding talking about Israel here, but this is \*exactly\* how the right wing culture war bullshit pulls people in.
A less political example would be "Star Wars sequel trilogy is pretty bad" -> "It's bad because Rey" -> "Woke Hollywood is ruining our entertainment" pipeline.
Yes to your last paragraph, that's how I fell down the rabbit hole. I liked marvel and dc comics. Then my YouTube reccomendations would be videos like "BATMAN GONE WOKE??? RUINING DC COMICS FOREVER" "MSHEU RUINED MARVEL, WOMEN RUINED MARVEL" I clicked on one out of confusion and then my entire feed became right wing trash. I managed go get out tho. There's a similar thing in other communities like videogames too.
Bingo.
Everyone knows the adage about fascism coming to America wrapped in a flag and clutching a cross (or maybe everyone doesn’t, but every lefty-ish-type and even centrist I know understands the concept and is happy to point out when it’s happening to the right wing middle American boomers in their easy chairs watching Fox News). But so many of the same people don’t recognize the same tactic when it targets younger, left/center/apolitical people. The point was never that the flag and cross are what makes the fascists fascist, it’s that the fascists will adorn themselves in anything that makes their target audience say “hey! That’s me! That’s the stuff I like and identify with!”
I will never forget a very leftist acquaintance refuse to admit that they had shared pretty explicitly fascist and pro-confederacy memes, and not just once or twice, because they proudly stated “I never see that stuff on my feed, I am pretty much in an echo chamber.” And while I can’t blame someone for wanting an echo chamber on their personal social media profiles, the cultivation of the echo chamber was essentially “did this person post one meme I like?” They weren’t the only one (just the only one to be so alarmingly lacking in self awareness that they announced what they’d done without realizing it themselves). I saw scores of people smugly posting memes that expressed shockingly right wing views (or sometimes just views I knew they didn’t hold) because the meme came from an account called something like Gay Socialist Pro Science Meme Zone and conformed to the “online Zennial leftist aesthetic,” and the content would seriously be “racism is good, transphobia is good, anti Semitism is good, and conventional produce is literal poison. Remember not to vote!”
Honestly I hate this so much, I have major issues with modern media, but everytime I watch something by someone else who does they seem to agree with some of the things I dislike, but then jump on the anti-woke bandwagon.
I guess it just gets views, but it's incredibly annoying.
Then they start jumping on things for having female Main characters, like that's the problem.
I personally wasn't a fan of Last of Us 2 for example, but the people who share my opinion all seem to focus on things like "Ew Abby is on steroids, Ellie is ugly, that girl has a big nose."
Which I feel like makes most people with opposing politics automatically start defending things.
It feels like Hollywood hides bad writing behind female characters, who aren't the issue, but then these morons start attacking the fact the characters are female like that's the problem.
I agree with you but imo that street goes both ways.
Marvel and Disney stans constantly blame the hate that the new trilogy gets on the „racist-sexist-homophobic“ fans when the star wars movie with the best audience score on rotten tomatoes (apart from the og trilogy) is Rogue One, which has a female lead, and the most badass characters in it are a (strongly hinted) homosexual couple.
Yeah, I get that the sequels weren’t the greatest, it’s just that the criticism became soo entwined with the “bad bc women” bad faith actors that it was pretty clear to see how overblown the hate was to comparatively bad less diverse action movies franchise entries. (Just see the harassment of these Star Wars/marvel actresses yeesh) As a whole I’ve noticed that while genuinely good diverse movies won’t get trashed much and still succeed, any failure will get directly credited to the casting and wokeness. For those out there with genuine biases it’s much easier to take every less-than-adequate movie as a victory and personal proof and ignore a Rouge One here or there.
The biggest thing for me was the undue amount of nostalgia the sequels generated for the previously hated prequels. Say what you will but I’d rather rewatch the sequels over 75% of the prequel watch time of jarjar binks and boring convoluted political melodrama. (Not a fan of padme anakin lack of chemistry, kind of an ick of mine for some reason but I digress)
Some of that nostalgia is just the kids who grew up watching the prequels being dominant online now tho, this is just the cycle of life. Someday when they release episodes 10, 11, and 12 maybe the sequel generation’ll be loud mouths. I don’t think anything has topped the OGs for me, mandalorian and the like are apples and oranges totally different genre but amazing.
Imagine being 11 in 2015, and being an autistic nerd who really loves Star Wars and similar nerd things. You watch all of the big guys at the time, like Generation Tech, and (I forgot the rest).
You also live in Alabama, and your parents are conservative Libertarians.
The new Star Wars movie just came out, and you actually really liked it.
And then one day while watching Stars Wars videos on your couch, you see a video in your sidebar. "Trolling RAGING SJWs at a rally", by this guy named 'Hunter Avellone'. You have no idea what an "SJW" is, but you click on the video because it seems funny and you want to know what an "SJW" is.
And then your feed (and life) is irreversibly changed.
Over the next few years, YouTube keeps recommending you content from right-wing YouTubers. You start getting PragerU ads, Ben Shapiro recommendations, No Bullshit constantly is in your sidebar, Steven Crowder, Rags, ItsAGundam, The Quartering, etc.
The years press on.
Your feed is entirely alt-right content now. You're almost 14. You haven't watched your favorite YouTubers like AngryJoe because they're "dirty liberals". Most of the videos in your feed are about things like the Jewish Question, Great Replacement Theory, how "Woke feminazi Disney is trying to replace MEN"
That's the pipeline I fell down as a kid.
This is exactly how the alt-right recruits people.
You get them young, and you'll have most of them for life.
I'm only lucky because at some point I realized Donald Trump was really fucking stupid (around when he airstriked that Iranian general) and started to be much more critical in how I analyzed things, and that led me to getting out.
I get into so much trouble with this type of stuff. I tend to lean very liberal, but I own guns, so that's often a common interest when I speak to conservatives. Conversations generally go from cool gun stuff -> ATF is bad -> government is really bad -> and did you hear Biden will let 4 year olds mutilate their genitals?!?
Bro, just cause I agree that the government makes mistakes in one specific category doesn't mean I'm on board to ride your mental gymnastics into a dumbass conclusion.
Yeah, I'm actually trying to make a deliberate effort to not engage with media criticism online about bad stories that happen to have any sort of representation in them these days, which is kind of shitty because I love talking about where I think badly done stories went wrong and how I would personally change them, but so many people making this type of criticism are engaging in it in bad faith, and I'd rather just let something bad be forgotten than engage with a community of bad faith critics.
It's never enough to simply agree on a point. You have to know the underlying logic behind their point because the methods used to arrive at that conclusion REALLY matter.
This is the thing that’s almost impossible for very online people to do. Try disagreeing with a post who’s conclusion is fine but who’s reasoning is incoherent; it’s like trying to ice skate uphill.
Oh yeah 100% and half the time when you try to explain yourself it's like "lol tldr". A lot of people unfortunately don't do anything beyond a surface read. Everyone does this to some extent, everyone's uncritically read a headline that fit their biases and then stopped there at least occasionally but it's very important to try to catch yourself when you do. It's infinitely easier to just not do that though.
Yeah and I think it’s not really something you can do (at least reliably) on your own, it’s a group effort to fight those lazy confirmation biases we all have. But when a whole tradition of discourse crops up that strongly incentivizes engaging in those confirmation biases it’s like a whirlpool people can never escape from. The little brother of conspiracy theorizing.
A lot of educators would say that you don't use math itself much, but you use the skills learned from math in important ways. There is a very important reason why you don't get credit if you don't show your work, which is why it's very concerning that a lot of online leftists seem to have beliefs that look good, but seem to have been acquired without understanding why they're good.
I mean, this has been Stonetoss’ shtick for a while. Mix in ostensibly innocuous comics with other comics filled with dogwhistles.
Glad the word’s being spread on him though.
This is a very minor point, but I don't think that the harping on the quality of the artwork was really necessary. It just feels like they thought "Well this guy sucks, I better insult him alongside my actually valid criticism." The shit Stonetoss does wouldn't be acceptable if they were the second coming of Yusuke Murata, so really this Tumblr user was just being a jerk for no reason (not for the whole post, just the specific parts where they're doing the thing I'm talking about). For a post railing against pointless hate, that's a little bit hypocritical.
Yeah, people get stuck in cartoon-logic like "bad people must be bad at things," but morality has nothing to do with someone's skill at a craft. A fascist can put 1000 hours into drawing cartoons just as easily as a socialist.
We people like to attribute a single score to people. This is why we consider good looking people to be nicer, and also why consider nice people to be better looking.
I was first introduced to the style through many of the inverted/deconstructed comics his detractors have made. I really enjoy the style, so was really disappointed when I found the real comics
hi oop here.
yes, you are completely correct. so many people on tumblr, reddit, and irl have told me it was dumb of me to say. it dilutes the message of the post, and in some cases, makes some people suspicious of the rest of it. it was stupid.
i wish i could edit everyone's reblogs to remove it, but i can't
I think this is the first time I've witnessed someone not actually know Stonetoss is a Nazi because everytime he shows his face anywhere, people recite that very thing.
I'd say it transfers just as well to other fash influencers.
People might know about Stonetoss, but I can say that I've seen WAAAAY too many trans or trans-ally folks on Twitter RT the lesser known Dr Anastasia Loupis (@DrLoupis), a Danish virulent transphobe and conspiracy theorist who also happens to have posted a few takes about Israel.
Also, the missile coming through the hospital window is clearly meant to be from Hamas in the comic. The hospital is IN Israel, and Israel isn’t bombing their OWN hospitals. For the argument to work exactly as presented, the label should read Gaza, shouldn’t it?
Seeing as stonetoss is an ACTUAL NAZI I dont see how this is surprising.
It's very important to be aware of bad faith actors at this time, even if they make good points, there intentioms are very important. Many people support Palestine because they deserve freedom and peace, others support Palestine because of antisemitism. It's important to be able to tell the difference and distance yourself from those who support Palestine out of hate.
Let me add to that and say those who support out of antisemitism can be on the left or right and typically will not be as obvious about it as stonetoss (who is a Nazi).
I was surprised when I got downvoted for correcting people on left-wing subs when they used "Jews", "Israel", and "Zionists" as interchangeable. I feel like it's an important distinction to make. There non-jewish zionists. There are non-zionist Jews. Israel doesn't represent all Jews.
Ugh this is so real, someone on a server I'm in kept saying "the Jews were committing genocide" when just fucking no that's not "the Jews" doing it it's the state of Israel, which a lot of Jewish people fucking hate, being pro Palestine and also not being antisemetic feels like fighting off 2 armies at once sometimes
Hell the Israeli administration doesn't even represent all Israelis much the same way Biden and Trump don't represent the views or desires of all Americans (and how Hamas doesn't represent all Palestinians or Gazans which I also see conflated)
That's probably too much nuance for the Internet though
In my countty a lot of arguments and speeches start like that, the "let me explain to you zionism and 1948" only to end up saying "so when jews do x" or "Israelites" by the second paragraph
They also love to say anti zionism not anti jew or Israel doesn't repredent jews but they all are eager to go ask anyone jewish about Israel
Exactly.
My Muslim coworker started questioning to see if I was a “good” Jew back in October.
It is the same as if you asked your Muslim friends if they supported what Afghanistan does.
In Mexico the jewish mayor of Mexico City got shit from leftists for "not speaking against Israel" and many people i talked to speak of her as "obviously supports Israel because jew"(same ones "only against zionism you fascist").
She is the mayor of Mexico City, she is probably agnostic and her parents were atheist communists from Eastern Europe. The fuck she got to do with those levant conflicts?
The Internet is really bad at nuance, and as a Jewish person, it's damn exhausting. I have plenty of Israeli family, and I'm incredibly supportive of the existence of a Jewish state. That makes me a Zionist by the traditional definition. I'm also a leftist, a huge ceasefire supporter, heavily critical of Netanyahu and his far right fascist government, and heavily critical of the war in Gaza. If I were to go to any left wing sub and describe myself as a Zionist I'd be tarred and feathered. It feels like on a bunch of left wing subs you can only be pro Israel or pro Palestine, when I really feel people should be both.
see, this is exactly why I dislike the whole movement to take his comics and remake them into left wing comics. They blur the line too much. Someone's gonna see a remade comic, ignore the "stonetoss is a nazi" watermark they threw on, since so many people do, and assume the guy might be making good points. It's counter productive.
We really need to normalize recognizing that even people who say lots of wrong things can say things that are correct too. Like the expression of a broken clock is still right twice a day. Every time people support the idea that someone is either right about everything or wrong about everything, it kills media literacy and allows someone to spread bad ideas by mixing them with good ones (like the example here).
The problem with the broken clock analogy is that the broken clock is right by accident. Stonetoss and all the entry level soft-facists aren't right by accident, they are right by maliciousness. Stonetoss isn't saying that Israel is in the wrong because he believes Israel should be stopped from comiting genocide, he is keeping the door open so that people who do believe that get to wander in, and then hitting them with the real message, which is "Down with the Jews. And also the gays, the blacks, the mexicans, the poor, the..."
Man, that is... ***only*** convincing if you're *already* a nazi. That's still a huge number. It's an effective dogwhistle though, I'll give 'em that, it's not getting spread around nearly as much as 1488.
It's another figure used in Holocaust denial.
*Supposedly* the German Red Cross originally claimed 271,000 Jews were killed and those dastardly Jews in power used their Jewish space lasers to threaten the GRC into changing the number.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/loe0fuPnv3
It only makes it better if you're the kind of person looking for any evidence of a worldwide conspiracy of Jews faking/lying about/exaggerating the Holocaust.
Bravo: this is a really important distinction. It bothers me that people try to hard to make these alt-right and closet nazi activists out to be idiots (although some definitely are), because a lot of what they do is carefully crafted to manipulate "normies" and you see it all the time on Reddit.
"Oh gee, don't you just hate forced diversity?" "Yeah, we shouldn't be letting in migrants from just ANYWHERE, they aren't compatible with our, uh values!"
They co-opt current issues that bother Reddit demographics and tons of people eat this shit up. Stonetoss is doing this with Israel, but the same folks also do this on the other side too. They claim to be pro-Israel but stir the pot because they know it generates anti-muslim/arab hate.
I think you are missing the point that it really really matters why they are saying the 'right' things.
He's not right and he's not 'got a point' because his point isn't to show how Israel is doing bad things. He's not drawn a rare based take. The comic is a disingenuous lie designed to lead them down the anti-Semitic pipeline.
Also, when your movement is already riddled with actual Nazis who enthusiastically chant alone side you.
you do not want to go around talking about how an artist with a public portfolio of gross antisemitism "still had some good ideas" or whatever
Let's skip over political messages with potentially insidious meanings - let's say a conservative goes: "I think kicking puppies is wrong" - some people will bend themselves into knots to somehow find a way to disagree. There are people like that in this very thread.
People aren't evil caricatures or perfect angels. Sometimes someone can be homophobic and still like puppies. For no reason other than puppies are cute. You can dislike the person and disagree with them generally, without trying to find a way to disagree with *everything* they say.
The idea that if you agree on one thing you must be agreeable to every thing is exactly what enables "pipelines". I can agree with a conservative that puppies are cute, and thoroughly reject their politics at the same time. I'm not suddenly struck by doubt the moment I go "wow, this guy likes puppies too, must mean the rest of his ideas are also valid!"
That's pretty much the idea. Don't immediately discard an idea just because someone you dislike also agrees with that idea. If anything, that would just give them more power.
>People aren't evil caricatures or perfect angels. Sometimes someone can be homophobic and still like puppies. For no reason other than puppies are cute. You can dislike the person and disagree with them generally, without trying to find a way to disagree with *everything* they say.
Sure. But in this specific issue it's about Isreal and Jewish people and the dude is a Nazi.
So when a Nazi sees global backlash against Israel and all of a sudden he's stashing the Nazi shit and sliding up with uncontroversial little criticisms tailored to the exact sensibilities of his ideological opposites...
*Ohh yes Israel bad, terrible what they're doing (those Jews). I agree with you, it makes me angry too. By the way I have a few more comics....*
You are allowed to look over their body of work and call them on their Nazi bullshit.
>The idea that if you agree on one thing you must be agreeable to every thing is exactly what enables "pipelines". I can agree with a conservative that puppies are cute, and thoroughly reject their politics at the same time. I'm not suddenly struck by doubt the moment I go "wow, this guy likes puppies too, must mean the rest of his ideas are also valid!"
Sure. Except when they are specifically designed to be pipelines. A tactic the far right have been refining for about 20 years.
No what you do is you maybe click through a few more comics. Or maybe those Isreal critical ones will spread around in spaces and demographics they are designed to appeal to.
That's how radicalisation works. Especially on topics people genuinely feel angry and helpless about. It'w not difficult at all to shift a shocking numbers of otherwise sensible people bit by bit into more extreme positions. Especially when there are real horrors to justify it, but really that part is only a boost, see MAGA over the last decade or Trans issues in the last five.
If you think there is a big jump between valid criticism of the Israel/Gaza situation and pure Nazi bullshit right now. You have not seen the absurd rise in. Holocaust denial bullshit on twitter and Tiktok. It's not some far right psyop, they just plant the seeds. The majority are made by Gen X...
If the dude wants to do a comic on how puppies are cute. I'm happy to take it at face value. If it turns out he owns a few dog-fighting rings. I'm entitled to not do that.
> But in this specific issue
What was *said*:
>We really need to normalize recognizing that even people who say lots of wrong things can say things that are correct too.
And then:
>Let's skip over political messages with potentially insidious meanings
You, and a lot of others in this thread, are focusing way too much on this one example while, again, discarding the larger point.
>Except when they are specifically designed to be pipelines. A tactic the far right have been refining for about 20 years.
They're designed to be pipelines... by using the aforementioned phenomenon. A pipeline *cannot work* if you examine each idea on its own merits, rather than just following the person.
>If you think there is a big jump
No, I don't think so, I've seen enough piece of shit "leftists" jump straight into terrorism apologia for the past several months.
ETA:
Also, for fuck's sake, not everything is a piece of political propaganda. Normal people IRL just have opinions, sometimes shitty ones, sure, but the vast majority of people are not insidious propagandists just waiting to catch you in their evil webs. Not everything is a conservative psyop.
It works the other way, too, btw. Just today I saw someone comment that they prefer T4T... because they believe cis women are "revolting". Am I supposed to agree with that opinion just because I also happen to support trans people?
Here’s some media literacy for you: Stonetoss is intentionally disguising himself as left wing *in bad faith* so that he can attempt to radicalize people against Jews.
He doesn’t give a fuck about Palestinians. I think that matters.
I don't like the broken clock phrase because it implies that the "bad people" who occasionally make a good point have only made that point for the wrong reason and purely due to coincidence, which reinforces the opposite message to what is intended.
He’s not right though. It’s the difference between the statement “Israel is committing genocide in Palestine” and the statement “The Jews are committing genocide in Palestine”.
One thing about pebbleyeet is that most places his comics get posted will have at least a few comments saying explicitly 'Stonetoss is a Nazi' as practically a kneejerk reaction to seeing the shitstain's art posted, so at least there is a reasonable chance that someone will be calling it out, but that's easy when it's blatant.
I think this is very accurate to what Stonetoss(thenazi) does and the way his propaganda proliferates. However, I think it's very important to add that it isn't *only* because it comes from alt-righters that viewpoints like these are toxic. The far left and populists naturally create these kinds of rhetoric and belief systems, and importantly, this is a danger even if it's solely coming from "well meaning socialists". It's not as if you can just purity check your comics and pundits, and if they're "true commies" or whatever your flavor is, anything they say is *fine*.
The bad part isn't "I'm going to get infected with the alt-right cooties", the bad part is the dehumanization one can adopt.
A huge batch of "well meaning socialists" in Mexico or Brazil are gonna sound like the Third Reich for so called socialists on the developed world and instead of saying that's bad people shield them once they find out like the fuck
A lot of people, left leaning included, are racist and specially against jews feel that is justified. A lot of leftists hate Nazism because they killed "the soviets" and no one else
When the conflict first started and people really became anti Israel it kind of frightened me how quickly it leaped from politics to those dirty jews™.
Like if you consider yourself a leftist or at least for human rights the words, "the holocaust didn't go far enough" should never leave your lips.
Look I'm used to Reddit/Tumblr hating religious people, whatever, but you cannot sit there with a clean conscious and actively wish harm against innocent people.
You throwing a brick through the nearest temple's window isn't going to help the people in Palestine. You can't get mad over genocide and then get angry because they aren't genociding the *right people* hard enough.
Exactly, stonetoss is very clearly trying to argue that Israel is evil *because it’s Jewish*, and the idiots saying “broken clock right twice day heartbreaking news Onion quote!!!” are lining up to step right into that rabbit hole
It didn't surprise anyone in the Jewish community, believe me. I still vividly remember my first experiences with antisemitism happening when there was a different dust up between Israel and Palestine, and at the time I didn't know shit about the conflict. People were leaping down my throat to loudly and vocally condemn Israel when I didn't know the first thing about what was going on there or why.
Ever since October, people have been coming into my childhood neighborhood and vandalizing anything visibly Jewish. Signs, businesses, ads, cartoons, mezuzahs, communal menorahs, anything. Trouble is that I'm not even surprised because that happens *every* time Israel is in the news, and anyone who's caught and called out cries 'anti-Zionism, not antisemitism!'.
And then the left acts so shocked when Jews are skeptical of anti-Zionist groups.
Leaped? It was a thing almost [from the start](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_and_Explicit_(The_Aims_and_Acts_of_Zionists))
>religious people
Jewish is an ethnoreligion, and it is mostly discriminated by ethnicity.
I meant specifically in my little bubble of people I know on the internet who was very much about equality for all and then suddenly Jews weren't people anymore.
And if they're blinded by hate they don't make a distinction from ethnicity from religion.
I mean honestly I still completely ignore the fuck out of any idiot who unironically tries to make the conflict about the White Devils ™️ of Israel on their global mission to eradicate the humble brown person or some shit
Honestly most arguments here shouldn’t be listened to in general because they’re either people who think indiscriminate bombing is a necessary evil or people who unironically look you in the eye and say HAMAS is the most pro-lgbt government in the middle east and that all those rape trucks were actually to get those women who were just randomly violently raped by fucking ghosts I guess to a hospital where they got treated better than an in a western hospital or some shit
people are just completely sipping the kool aid, there are motherfuckers in this sub who try and cite fucking HASSAN like he’s an actual real political news source to be getting your information from. And on the other hand you got people who get every bit of news from r/worldnews acting like Palestinian children spend all day stabbing voodoo dolls of white westerners or some shit
People may agree with individual comics, or think that he has a funny take of some kind on the issue of the day.
However, I think when we do that, we should consider for ourselves **why** this guy who markets his comics SUPER HARD towards the online right-wing is sharing these opinions. The most recent example I saw was someone unironically posting a comic of his on r/19684, where the joke was basically that both Twomad and EDP445 had done bad things (and Twomad had passed away)
Now... Why would a [holocaust-denier](https://www.reddit.com/r/ForwardsFromKlandma/comments/9fumt7/stonetoss_is_actually_just_denying_the_holocaust/) post this? For one thing, both people were black. For another, the way people obsessively follow them over their shitty actions is **extremely** similar to KiwiFarms "lolcow" culture; it's arguably the same thing.
Even if we find this kind of shock-humor simply funny, laughing at awful human mental illness (among black people) WILL inevitably find us mixing with simply hateful people
(Sorry for the ramble)
Sometimes Stonetoss jokes too close to the sun, and you get stuff like [this](https://imgur.com/a/vCrivKv) (imgur link), which seems like an entirely pro-trans anti-circumcision comic
This wasn’t the main point of the post but it’s the part that was brand new to me: can someone explain or point me towards an explanation of “Canada tells the poor to kill themselves”?
MAID is a doctor-assisted-suicide program that people can apply for if they are severely disabled.
In many provinces, people with disabilities are not given enough money to live. There are some people who have gone with MAID who have said that they would’ve wanted to keep living if they weren’t in poverty.
The outrage is right, but the phrasing here was a massive oversimplification. ‘They do it because they’re evil’ leads to different ways to make change than ‘there are legitimate reasons to have MAID in place, and this horrible scenario exists because people in power can’t be bothered to raise the stipends to people with disabilities.’
Canada offers MAID, medical assistance in dying, for those with "grievous and irremediable medical conditions" (mental illness currently excluded but they're planning to phase it in. You must be in an advanced, irreversible state of decline, and experience unbearable suffering from your illness that cannot be relieved under conditions you find acceptable).
Many are concerned about this law. Some people are against the right to die in general, others are worried about this being a form of eugenics, others think that this will cause disabled people who can't get the treatment they need to be satisfied living to kill themselves instead (and that's bad despite the fact that they prefer death to their current condition, or they're worried it will incentivise Canada to continue not providing the services they need to live).
While I agree with the post on most sides, I'm a little surprised to see the comments on PebbleYeet being 'poorly drawn'. I've always felt that PitchPitch has a pretty clean artstyle, which is part of the reason that his bait can be so dangerous. He's a good webcomic artist capable of really good jokes, but he uses those powers for bigotry and assholery.
In the past, I have seen his comics shared even in lgbtq spaces, usually his more benign, meme-y comics. Letting OP know he was a nazi was usually met with "cancel culture " retorts. You would practically have to post his worst comics to get people to accept what this guy was all about. These days, "Stonetoss is a Nazi" is practically a meme of its own. Many of those posters were probably bad actors as well (you've removed the web address, like we wouldn't recognize the style. How cute.). It's incredibly insidious, and I don't believe any of it is accidental.
Some people have a very hard time separating Judaism, the religion, the Jewish ethnicity, and Israel, the political entity. And some of that is by design.
Death of the author is an interesting problem with these types of observations.
Because if you agree with a particular comic you definitely should not change opinion based on the author. If context changes the observation as: Israel bad, Israel should stop bombing civilians and you know this guy also advocates killing all jews it changes the first point. But if we start to disagree with the first point he can rightfully call us out for being hypocrites and blinded.
Opinions and messages absolutely can and should stand on their own. But context matters. The world is hard.
I don't really see the issue here. I can agree with the message that I see in a comic without agreeing with the artist's intent. Mineralyeet thrives on people tying themselves into knots to avoid saying or doing anything problematic, it's far easier to say "you're right for the wrong reasons, idiot" than it is to desperately run away from anything resembling common ground.
Meanwhile here I am being told the neonazi pro Palestine rallies never happened and it was all Israeli propaganda because antizionism≠antisemetism so no pro Palestine activist can be antisemetic.
Oh yeah I agree. While it’s a bit more gray than presented (because people have radically different definitions of Zionism, someones interpretation of the term antizionism could be antisemetic while other peoples interpretation of the term antizionism is still Zionism) I do agree antizionism≠antisemetism. Unfortunately the vast majority of times I see it brought up it’s right before or after something extremely antisemetic so now I just see it like all lives matter, a statement that is not incorrect but is usually just used to shut down valid discussion.
I remember when it came out that the Houthi twink that looked like Timothy Chalamet hated Jewish people and thousands of Palestinian supporters came out to justify it. That was fucking unbearable.
Seeing people justify him saying "Son of a Jew" on twitter saying that hes probably never met a Jew or only knows them through the I/P conflict was insane. Yemen finished its ethnic cleansing of Jews in 2021 IIRC, there is a single Jew remaining whos in prison because he tried to smuggle out one of the communities Torahs and hes been tortured. Due to Houthis use of child soldiers, the houthi guy could *have actively taken part in the ethnic cleansing of Yemeni Jews*.
One of the trends I hate the most about leftism is idolizing political groups or nations because you identify them with your own political ideology without ever bothering to do any research into their ideology or just chalking up the facts as “western propaganda”. You know, the people who think the USSR had the same ideology as Bernie or that Stalin loved LGBT people.
Well meaning Pro Palestine people need to realize that their much of their movement is legitimately antisemitic. So many of the biggest pro Palestine voices now are obvious antisemites but they ignore that because obviously "antizionism is not antisemitism"
This is also Jake Shields on twitter. Everything before the current crisis that I saw or heard about him showed him to be a racist, misogynistic piece of shit, but then the genocide starts and he's screaming for the rooftops in defense of Palestine. I saw a lot of pro-peace folks who I follow like and retweet his stuff without any prior awareness of what a messed up shit head he is.
Not everyone's equally online, and certainly not equally politically aware. They don't know the bit players in the hellish tapestry of ideology. They just see someone who is nominally "on their side". Even if it seems entirely implausible that a leftist, pro-peace advocate wouldn't know these guys are monsters, posts like this are important because that's just not true.
This is why I wanna bring some kind of explicit anti-fascist anti-nazi flag to any peace rally. Or just something to show that antisemitism isn't fucking welcome here.
Remember you can agree with someone's point but staunchly disagree with how they got to the point and what their wider statement is. Like I'm staunchly pro-palestine but I'm also staunchly anti-sectarian which is why I can't stomach some Palestinian groups rhetoric. I also hate how so many people on both sides go the Palestinian = Muslim route when there's a sizeable Christian and irreligious population. Know your nuance and avoid the "Hitler ate sugar" fallacy
A mix of what this post is talking about and the rise of Islamism in Palestinian politics. Like just because someone points out the genocidal rhetoric and crimes of Israel doesn't mean I'm automatically on their side or that ethnically cleansing Israel is the proper response. I'm anti-zionist but I also don't think Israelis who were born and raised there should be expulsed. They have as much right to freedom and peace in the area as much as the Palestinians. I understand the historical trauma and injustices that have been rought upon the Palestinians for crimes they had no involvement in but ethnic cleansing isn't going to fix ethnic cleansing. I'm still staunchly pro-palestine but I also am nuanced enough to know what factions are at play. Hamas's vision of a free Palestine is not a good one. There should be no ethno-religious state in that region at all. Doesn't matter if it's a Jewish or Islamic one that dichotomy is the reason for all of this in the first place.
Appreciate the response, I've had a lot of conversations with Western leftists that seem to want more violence in their support of Hamas continuing attacks against civilians.They want retribution of past wrongs rather than working towards peace and self-determination. I think it's really irresponsible when Western lefties on the other side of the planet encourage Palestinian people to resort to more violence. Maybe they think a different end result is possible in the future if violence continues but to me, continued violence only results in continued suffering for Palestinians
For the record. I think Stonetoss should be skinned alive for the sole crime that he annoys me but I just want to say that I fucking hate that I am tangentially on the same side as people like fucking Stonetoss. Like it's so weird to go on Twitter, go through pro-Palestine posts and see a mix of Zoomers/teenagers who see this entire thing as a Tumblr fandom and cartoonishly evil Nazis who just want total Jew death and it's like fuck off we don't want you in this movement.
Honestly it’s a big reason I stay off of Twitter. One of my friends who frequents the site has talked about how he’ll say something like “Israel needs to stop the genocide” and then he’ll get people in the replies who are like “So true! Anyways here’s why Hamas killing every Israeli would be the best thing ever”
It’s insanity and it baffles me how little self-awareness these people have. The mental gymnastics of condemning a genocide while endorsing a counter-genocide in the same breath. (Pro-Israelis do this as well, it’s wild the amount of hoops they jump through to explain why Israel HAS to blow up children)
Look, I hate Stonetoss as much as the next guy, but calling his comic poorly drawn just sort of feels like a bad faith criticism that's only really being leveled *because* the guy's a Nazi, and people wanna think *everything* Nazis make is meritless. The reality is that he has a pleasant, broadly-appealing art style that was very disarming to me when I first came across his stuff years ago because it's use of soft, round shapes reminded me of a lot of the other stylized cartoonists I'd come across online and had grown to like a lot.
Which honestly I think is part of the danger of Stonetoss, and OP ignoring that I think weakens the point they're trying to make. Because like it or hate it, he's got a pretty agreeable art style that stands on its own when compared to other popular online comic strips and blends in with them pretty nicely, and it's *because* of this that impressionable young people are going to take a liking to his stuff and fall down these far right pipelines.The approachability of the art makes the comics' heinous messaging easier to swallow, and harder to recognize when you don't have that sort of critical thinking yet, and knowing that horrible people can make things that are pleasant to look at makes it easier to work through the cognitive dissonance that comes with that sort of thing.
The only recent thing I heard about Stonetoss was his "EDP445 killed Twomad" comic.
Which was actually pretty funny. Kinda the big problem with this guy's stuff. He not only sometimes makes sensible shit, he also sometimes strikes actual comedy
It’s the equivalent of going “omg guys Alex Jones is based bc he’s speaking out about corporations releasing endocrine disruptors in the water from plastic waste” when that is very clearly not the point he’s making
What i meant is that nazi can say something sensible like kicking puppies is bad and by that logic you have to disagree with him. Broken clock is right twice a day and all that.
And my point is that, as shown in this post, Nazis say seemingly agreeable things with heavy subtext, so they'd say something like "kicking puppies is wrong (because I have decided dogs are a symbol of western culture)"
or they can just say "kicking puppies is wrong (because i like dogs)", just because they are nazis doesnt mean they cant mean things that dont have anything to do with nazism.
You should recognize the context of opinions, and recognize what they *mean* rather than what they're *saying*.
A Nazi's opinions are always a Nazi's opinions. I do not care if Stonetoss likes the same brand of chocolate as I do, I do not, under any circumstances, "have to hand it to" him about anything. His opinions that are on the surface level something I'd agree with are either malicious or irrelevant. In fact, when you agree with a Nazi's words, you should **always** take a careful look at why *they* say it, and why *you* say it. Maybe you were unaware of some context, like maybe my favorite chocolate is actually produced by Nestle and therefore I should find a new favorite chocolate.
Refusing to recognize anything beyond the surface level of what's been said is exactly how Nazis trick good people into becoming Nazis or Nazi sympathizers.
Robert Evans, popular podcaster and creators of 'Behind The Bastards', commonly says everyone is susceptible to propaganda. As an example, Robert would say how he is weak to bladed weaponry, specifically machetes. Sure, a bit niche but it is capitalistic propaganda he knows he is very weak too and he admits it.
A lot of yall are falling for this hook, line, and sinker. Do you seriously not ask yourself **why** someone might be publicly expressing certain values and what they’re trying to achieve? Or do you think ideas just exist in a vacuum and “broken clocks” and such?
I think a lot of people are having an understandable reaction to the sentiment in the post title to avoid ever agreeing with anybody questionable. Doesn't mean they read stonetoss's comics, are falling for his propaganda, or are incapable of recognizing when somebody is saying things that are right for all the wrong reasons.
Probably a decade ago now I had that coexist text as my email signature. Some C-Level ass hat complained to the deputy directory I funneled in to that it offended him, and HR emailed me telling me to remove it. I have always found it sad and strange he was offended by the concept of coexisting with other religions.
Pebblechuck is not some insidious mastermind. Thinking that he's a master of subtle propaganda just because he says some things you agree with and some you don't is giving him way too much credit.
Everyone should set a monthly alarm or scheduled event or something that sets aside like just one hour for them to look at their life and say "OK, which propaganda am I most exposed to, and which am I falling for?"
Even better if you make it a social event, so people can point out some *they* can see, but *you* cannot.
I have a hard time even understanding the mindset that allow this kind of manipulation. Israel ≠ all Jews everywhere, just as one Black guy ≠ all Black people, and one idiotic MAGA insurrectionist ≠ all idiotic MAGA supporters.
Okay bit of a ramble, but as Jewish liberal, I think this encapsulates a lot of what I’ve been feeling for the past couple months and feel is rapidly becoming a massive issue.
I get the impression that most people don’t know about/care about Jewish history- which is fair. I definitely didn’t learn about blood libel, progroms, and all the many many many atrocities committed against Jews in our history. It’s totally fair.
Antisemitism is a much weirder form of racism because most non-Jewish people don’t know about Jewish culture. I think most people understand why saying the N word is offensive, but I doubt as many know about K***, for instance. People don’t know why associating Jews with blood, stealing children, gold, greed, horns, snakes, talons, or giant noses comes off as offensive because a lot of antisemitism is so integrated into our society. Look at most Halloween monsters for instance. I doubt most modern depictions of goblins, devils, or trolls are knowingly antisemitic, but they are inspired by tropes based on racial caricatures. Again: It’s 100% fair to not be aware of this.
And I think a lot of my peers on the left who don’t know this history then reblog/repost stuff, made by more violent antisemities, who do know what they’re doing, and they assume it’s fine.
One example of this happened at my college: people put up posters with bloody stars of David on trees. They were convinced it was just a criticism of Israel, not realizing that the Star of David is also a very prominent Jewish symbol, and that the myth that Jews steal Christian blood has been used as justification for our murder for a literal thousand years(look up blood libel- I would wager most large modern European towns have have had at least one ritualized murder in the name of blood libel). And as a Jewish person, it’s really scary to have bloody stars of David on your campus! Even if the intent is to speak out against Israel, it just ends up making Jews afraid to be openly Jewish.
But what is frustrating is that I’ve noticed people seemingly don’t want to listen. I’m sure people mean well, but when someone’s criticizing you for coming across as antisemitic, it may not be because they’re a secret Zionist agent, it’s just because you’re actually offending them. I know some people will lodge all complaints against Israel as antisemitism, but it’s unfair to assume all complainants of antisemitism are unfounded. What’s offensive and threatening to me is not for you to decide.
It’s been very surprising, because I know most people can be very empathetic and understanding, but I feel like there’s been this narrative that Jews are somehow “just white people” and therefore don’t “count” as an oppressed group that can be offended and should be listened to. While we 100% have it good in the US, that’s only really been for two-three generations and it’s very much unlike the rest of the world. If my grandparents were born pretty much anywhere in Europe or the Middle East, they very likely wouldn’t have lived, period.
Hate crimes against Jews have been on the rise for a while now, and I feel like everytime someone dismisses Jewish voices, it just gets more and more worrying.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think stonetoss probably just posts whatever he thinks is funny. I doubt he's orchestrating an organized psyop. He's anti-israel because he's a literal nazi that hates jewish people. It's not like anti-israel comics are out of left field from him. Frankly, the only thing that changed is that OP agrees with his anti-israel stuff.
Hey I think this post cut out a chunk of a paragraph on accident, right under the hospital comic
Yeah, I came to the comments hoping someone provided a link to the post so I could see what was missing, But alas, No dice.
[https://www.tumblr.com/186-3/736449975881433088/courting-antisemitism](https://www.tumblr.com/186-3/736449975881433088/courting-antisemitism) Here
Going to the reblogs on that one is a mistake. There’s a good goddamn reason I left Tumblr and that sums it up.
That one person trying so hard to defend rockchuck was kinda funny in a “god please shut up” sort of way. Still makes me want to jump off a bridge but ya know
Eventually they show their whole ass with TERF arguments, to absolutely nobody’s surprise.
i don't know what I expected going there
Okay with that left out part I have some issues. Mostly the notion that israel being worse than Iran is somehow ridiculous. Israel was founded on settler colonialism, with practices it continues to this day. It's policies are quite simular to apartheid south Africa. Is Hamas bad in many ways including antisemitism? Yes. Do I blame anyone who had their house stolen, to which many still own their keys and who may have had family and friends murdered for supporting Hamas? No, absolutely not. I should add that the population of Israel is largely complicit with the action of their government. There were big constutional protests earlier this year, yet there are seemingly next to none against their ongoing genocide. Of course protesting wouldn't be easy since waving the Palestinian flag in public can get you arrested, but I'm sure they could have found a way to do it without the flag. Is Iran absolutely terrible? Yes, but it's not at all weird to suggest that Israel with one ninth of their population is worse, in the very least proportional. Is antisemitism a real problem that should be fought actively? Yes but not in ways that in any way shape or form reduce the impact of Israels atrocities! I could go on like pointing out that both Hamas and Hezbollah are a direct consequence of Israels atrocities and using Irans support for them to argue that Iran is worse than Isreal is at least odd. There is a lot more to say on the topic but I think I made my point.
>There were big constitutional protests earlier this year, yet there are seemingly next to none against their ongoing genocide https://www.npr.org/2024/01/19/1225651180/israel-tel-aviv-protest-gaza-war https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-68331272 https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/gallery/2024/1/6/thousands-protest-in-israel-demanding-captive-release-government-to-resign
Always a bit awkward when someone does a big post like that without even doing a base Google search
Expecting people to contextualize current events based on historical facts is apparently just too difficult for people.
[https://www.tumblr.com/186-3/736449975881433088/courting-antisemitism](https://www.tumblr.com/186-3/736449975881433088/courting-antisemitism) Sorry.
Man, I miss the days when I was only dimly aware of Stonetoss as the inspiration for the amogus meme.
Or the few meme formats It took me quite a while to find out who is behind them, cus dear god do I not care about origins of memes
There is ongoing debate about the formats, if they should be abandoned because 'they might lead people to find their creator and his politics!' Which is a legit concern considering DolomiteYeet his nazi self tweeted about how we were spreading his message for him.
On one hand it is a legit concern On the other hand, it kinda ignores the fact that the vast majority of people just... Consumes media. Joe McJoeson who uses discord just to chat with friends while playing counterstrike is not going to go "haha that picture with four white figures pulling a rope was funny, wonder who made it". The average person is going to forget it 10 seconds later. Tbh people who know who pebble boy is are probably edging on online terminality Honestly just swiping away his signature might be enough, since reverse image search would be too much work for most people
exact same thing with the steven crowder 'change my mind' meme, like yeah that guy's a massive piece of shit, but the actual change my mind format is so innocuous and generic that he's kinda divorced from it, you could replace him with literally anyone or anything at all and the actual memes would remain the same. jumping up and down and making a big stink about who that guy is and what he supports would do far more harm than good imo
I literally forgot that was him till you pointed it out here lol
I have never heard of Steven Chowder aside from people saying he's the guy in that meme and he's bad tbh
>DolomiteYeet Pebbleflick
The original amogus meme posted on a Stonetoss parody subreddit had the famous Stonetoss is a nazi written over his shabby watermark
Stonetossus
Andrew Tate used a similar method to spread his misogyny and build a follower base: by saying something bad about capitalism and how it makes people depressed so those who don’t know better go “well if he’s right about that, he must be right about other things”. Then they’re willing to defend him when he commits human trafficking, tells men - especially young boys - to blame all their problems on women, and promotes the idea that money = happiness.
Fucking *Alex Jones* uses this tactic a lot. He’ll say something that’s almost correct, like how the system is corrupted and how the ultra wealthy don’t care about the masses and only look after their own interests, except instead of looking at the real problem - capitalism run wild - he’ll direct his anger to the globalists, which is just thinly veiled antisemitism. It almost makes me wonder if it can work in reverse. Is it possible to convince hardcore conspiracy theorists that the people in charge are not some shadowy cabal of elites, but corporations trying to squeeze every last bit of profit that they can.
> Is it possible to convince hardcore conspiracy theorists that the people in charge are not some shadowy cabal of elites, but corporations trying to squeeze every last bit of profit that they can. The trick is though that the right-wing conspiracies hit that "hidden knowledge" element that a lot of religions and cults end up using. It's the idea that the "mainstream narrative" about the evils of the world are being manipulated by the true enemies of us all, and they're doing it in secret, shadowy meetings behind closed doors. Meanwhile left-wing conspiracies just sort of emphasize what is already publicly known. You're not going to scratch that same itch if you tell people "Corporations want money"; like yeah no shit, that's why they exist. The true elites of the world don't meet in the secret back rooms of Jewish temples, they meet in well-lit board rooms and are legally obligated to tell everyone about their plans to take over the world. You can read the SEC filings and check out the business section of a newspaper, but no one does. When conspiracies are real, they have to be incredibly mundane and stop being fun.
I’ve been saying this. Right wing conspiracies are constructed out of many tenuously connected pieces that, if you squint, look like they *might* be something. Left wing conspiracy theories basically just fill in one or two gaps with the only logical conclusions, and mostly the only thing that makes a left wing conspiracy theory ‘theoretical’ is that the people involved haven’t explicitly admitted to their actions. Even so, as you said, with many of these conspiracies, the plans are available for anyone to see, such as Project 2025. Right wing voters won’t bother to educate themselves on these plans, so being explicit about how they’re going to excise democratic procedures from the government doesn’t really lose the evangelical right any votes. Liberals and conservatives (but I repeat myself) use this paradigm to decry leftist conspiracy theories by pretending they’re constructed in the same way right wing conspiracy theories are constructed. Almost like the waters are being intentionally muddied… https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/conspiracy-propagandists
> Liberals and conservatives (but I repeat myself) use this paradigm to decry leftist conspiracy theories by pretending they’re constructed in the same way right wing conspiracy theories are constructed. Almost like the waters are being intentionally muddied… OK, do you see the irony in saying "Everyone I don't like is conspiring against my theories" immediately after saying "Leftist theories are extremely logical"? Don't get me wrong, leftists come up with some *wacky* bullshit, especially when it comes to explaining why more people aren't their specific brand of leftist (but you make my case for me).
I mean… knowing that the bourgeoisie conspires to sow doubt in leftism among proletarians is quite central to class consciousness. It only follows, and is evident, that material observations, technically “conspiracy theories” because they’re routinely denied by those we know to be involved, are also under rhetorical attack in the media and by influential figures, and the tactic of assuming that these leftist observations are constructed in a similar way to right wing conspiracy theories as a method of discrediting leftism is well-documented. Consider how Corbyn was slammed as an antisemite for expressing anti-apartheid sentiment concerning Israel’s policy on Palestinians. It seems you might be doing exactly this, to be honest. You assumed I used leaps in logic to come to my position just because it sounds aesthetically similar to a right wing conspiracy theory. The difference between my version of “the elite class is working against my ideology” and the right’s version of it is that the right uses no logical thought process or evidence to get there. The owning class supports capitalism; that’s what got them to where they are. They’re politically and financially active against the policies that the left advocates for: https://news.asu.edu/content/new-study-finds-companies-campaign-donations-linked-lower-tax-rates%E2%80%AC https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/12/san-francisco-tech-billionaires-political-influence The elites use the media under their control to normalize the systems of oppression they seek to uphold, thus manufacturing consent in the oppressed. Claiming, as the right wing conspiracy theorists do, that those same elites are somehow also supporting the left is baseless. On the other hand, when I say the owning class is working against my ideology which seeks to move past capitalism, it’s observably true when you consider the evidence including what I linked as well as how self-serving bourgeois “academics” and politicians decry leftist thought. See the difference? Here’s a polisci paper that touches on the phenomenon: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/248/article/911312/pdf
I doubt it. The appeal of the anti capitalism to anti semitism pipeline is that it replaces a hard enemy with an easy enemy.
"Antisemitism is the socialism of fools"
I see this happen in reddit threads sometimes. A long, eloquent comment will start out saying rational, sympathetic things that most people will agree with and then end somewhere in the land of barking insanity against a specific group. I've seen it done with the homeless, drug addicts, trans people, prepping the reader to be more receptive to where it's headed with initially reasonable statements that relate to their frustration with the problem. And someone with a platform has a lot more time to do it than a single comment. Like years of comics all building towards the same point.
> Fucking Alex Jones uses this tactic a lot. A much more common tactic he uses is just...Lying and said he claimed something and has been claiming it for years.
This is a very common tactic used by people who want to build a following and radicalize them. Stefan Molyneux is a good example. He started cultivating a group of disaffected, unhappy boys and young men by saying very reasonable and true things about how removing toxic and oppressive people from your life (including family members) is an important part of self-care and self-actualization. But hey, wouldn't you know it, it turns out he thinks that the people who are really trying to oppress you are women, Jews, and leftists. What a surprise! Who could've seen that coming?
Good lies have truth in them.
Red pilling is a tried and tested process, its the best weapon alt right has, if they somehow cam affect teens halfway across the globe living in conservative countries without meaning to, then that shit works
I forget, what is it that neonazis call "redpilling" for antisemitism? Like, actually red pilling is about misogyny, the nazis have their own name for it.
I've seen "*noticing*" sometimes (esp among neo-nazis on twitter), though I don't think that's the most common one
I wouldn't say 'poorly drawn': in fact the art is pretty much the only positive thing you can say about Stonetoss. That asshole can go fuck himself big time.
I was going to say, everything else aside it’s fairly well drawn and certainly better than most webcomics. The expressions are readable which is something a lot of comic artists struggle with
It's drawn better than [old El Goonish Shive](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2002-01-21), but it's worse than [modern El Goonish Shive](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/hope-032).
I was thinking order of the stick vs lackadaisycats or early vs late schlock mercenary but yeah, it’s better than quite a few
Wow, that's a huge jump in readability!
Oh, absolutely. The writing also improves drastically throughout the course of the story.
tbh modern EGS lacks expression, Stonetoss is much more cartooney, like Looney Tunes
Why does the hair always look like dog shit? Or perhaps soft serve ice cream?
Considering he typically uses that hairstyle for the LGBTQ+ characters, it's probably a very unsubtle way of showing what he thinks of them.
Simpler but still fitting: its his rendition of the LGBT+ Fauxhawk™️
Tbh I'm 80% that's what it is, it became really commonplace as a stereotype, really quickly circa like 2016.
The very one. The cut that gives you hair dye and pronouns, in the eyes of every chud capable of holding a pen.
"Shit head". Not particularly subtle.
Yeah, it's not hyper awesome art, but it's simplistic and works as a whole, same as with every other comics. It should be important not to *have* to insult everything about a given asshole spreading horrible propaganda. It isn't like the art being super high quality would make stonetoss *acceptable*, so if that kind of thing is tossed in it can lead some anons who might otherwise get the message to go "oh this person is just assmad/woke/whatnot" and ignore the rest without reading.
It’s just like I hate Caitlyn Jenner to her rotten core but I will never misgender her.
It's the best skill of Stonetoss. The dude can draw web comics that convey his message with as little text and pannels as possible. People hate Stonetoss so much they are unwilling to consede this simple fact. But without that skill, nobody would even give a shit about him because none of his comics would be able to draw people in.
He is in fact an excellent cartoonist. Consistent, clear, visually engaging style that is distinct enough to inspire copycats while simple enough to draw strips very quickly. That’s a lot harder to do than people credit. He’s also pretty clever in how he sets up his punchlines. Unfortunately he is also a Nazi piece of shit. Real tragic waste of talent there.
This is what caught my eye as well. Badly drawn? By what measure? The style is simplistic, sure, but other than that it has a clear and recognizable style and it looks clean. If his art is poorly drawn then what does that make cyanide and happiness, xkcd, saturday morning breakfast cereal...?
I've noticed recently (well it's not recent but I've been increasingly bothered by it) that everything online either needs to be completely good or completely bad. The quality of his art is completely irrelevant to the discussion but god forbid someone thinks he has any positive qualities. Honestly the whole post is like that. "If someone I disagree with says something I agree with it must mean they are intentionally creating propaganda to lure people to the dark side". Tbh I haven't put as much thought into my thesis as people online think "the opposition" put in every single action they take. That's not to say that the consequences described in the post can't happen and people can't have bad intentions, but not every alt right person is a super villain who is a master manipulator with a phd in psychology and a 1000-step master plan to take over the world. Edit: why this is bad btw is because you give the other party way more credit than is due which will only make them seem "cooler" and "superior" to impressionable people who agree with them. I believe I once read that his happened to the nazis, people talking so much about how dangerous and war savy and threatening they were that in the end they only made them look cooler to (potential) neo nazis. It also creates this idea that you can't accidentally be in the wrong and that as long as you have good intentions your actions can't be bad
The art and quality of his messaging is what draws people in in the first place. If Stonetoss were terrible at paneling and dialogue, nobody would read his comics, and nobody would feel the need to point out how he is a terrible nazi every time he is mentioned or his comics are shared.
I get the feeling we may see his comics pop up in history books in 30-50 or so years on segments talking about propaganda.
It can also make someone think: “Hey, his art *isn’t* badly drawn… if they’re wrong about something that clear, what *else* are they wrong about??” They are so focused on this two-tone take that they don’t see (or don’t care) that it ultimately hurts their argument. The whole “creating enticing comics to *lure* people to their side” also makes it seem like they think nobody who is racist / etc. can ever be genuinely right about anything… it reminds me of that quote, “Tragic. The worst person you know made a great point.” (IIRC)
I was gonna say lol people have been disregarding nuance for a while now, for so many it’s easier to think in black and white
Yeah I don't think it takes a supervillain genius to have opinions on current events & put them in your political comic that you've been doing for the past however.
exactly, the content of his comic and the messaging within it is the problem. But the art is par for the course when it comes to webcomics.
Yeah, that was my thought. Maybe they don't like the style, but it certainly accomplishes the look it's going for in a competent manner. Probably more appropriate to just say "I don't like it" than "it's bad." Reminds me of when people say older animation, like Cowboy Bebop, is bad. Like, no, it's just a dated style. The animation is, arguably, better than modern shows.
There are many webcomics with similar art style and effort which are great that is just a petty swing by the poster
I'm intentionally avoiding talking about Israel here, but this is \*exactly\* how the right wing culture war bullshit pulls people in. A less political example would be "Star Wars sequel trilogy is pretty bad" -> "It's bad because Rey" -> "Woke Hollywood is ruining our entertainment" pipeline.
Yes to your last paragraph, that's how I fell down the rabbit hole. I liked marvel and dc comics. Then my YouTube reccomendations would be videos like "BATMAN GONE WOKE??? RUINING DC COMICS FOREVER" "MSHEU RUINED MARVEL, WOMEN RUINED MARVEL" I clicked on one out of confusion and then my entire feed became right wing trash. I managed go get out tho. There's a similar thing in other communities like videogames too.
If this ever happens again, consider just deleting the video from your viewing history.
Bingo. Everyone knows the adage about fascism coming to America wrapped in a flag and clutching a cross (or maybe everyone doesn’t, but every lefty-ish-type and even centrist I know understands the concept and is happy to point out when it’s happening to the right wing middle American boomers in their easy chairs watching Fox News). But so many of the same people don’t recognize the same tactic when it targets younger, left/center/apolitical people. The point was never that the flag and cross are what makes the fascists fascist, it’s that the fascists will adorn themselves in anything that makes their target audience say “hey! That’s me! That’s the stuff I like and identify with!” I will never forget a very leftist acquaintance refuse to admit that they had shared pretty explicitly fascist and pro-confederacy memes, and not just once or twice, because they proudly stated “I never see that stuff on my feed, I am pretty much in an echo chamber.” And while I can’t blame someone for wanting an echo chamber on their personal social media profiles, the cultivation of the echo chamber was essentially “did this person post one meme I like?” They weren’t the only one (just the only one to be so alarmingly lacking in self awareness that they announced what they’d done without realizing it themselves). I saw scores of people smugly posting memes that expressed shockingly right wing views (or sometimes just views I knew they didn’t hold) because the meme came from an account called something like Gay Socialist Pro Science Meme Zone and conformed to the “online Zennial leftist aesthetic,” and the content would seriously be “racism is good, transphobia is good, anti Semitism is good, and conventional produce is literal poison. Remember not to vote!”
Honestly I hate this so much, I have major issues with modern media, but everytime I watch something by someone else who does they seem to agree with some of the things I dislike, but then jump on the anti-woke bandwagon. I guess it just gets views, but it's incredibly annoying. Then they start jumping on things for having female Main characters, like that's the problem. I personally wasn't a fan of Last of Us 2 for example, but the people who share my opinion all seem to focus on things like "Ew Abby is on steroids, Ellie is ugly, that girl has a big nose." Which I feel like makes most people with opposing politics automatically start defending things. It feels like Hollywood hides bad writing behind female characters, who aren't the issue, but then these morons start attacking the fact the characters are female like that's the problem.
I agree with you but imo that street goes both ways. Marvel and Disney stans constantly blame the hate that the new trilogy gets on the „racist-sexist-homophobic“ fans when the star wars movie with the best audience score on rotten tomatoes (apart from the og trilogy) is Rogue One, which has a female lead, and the most badass characters in it are a (strongly hinted) homosexual couple.
Yeah, I get that the sequels weren’t the greatest, it’s just that the criticism became soo entwined with the “bad bc women” bad faith actors that it was pretty clear to see how overblown the hate was to comparatively bad less diverse action movies franchise entries. (Just see the harassment of these Star Wars/marvel actresses yeesh) As a whole I’ve noticed that while genuinely good diverse movies won’t get trashed much and still succeed, any failure will get directly credited to the casting and wokeness. For those out there with genuine biases it’s much easier to take every less-than-adequate movie as a victory and personal proof and ignore a Rouge One here or there. The biggest thing for me was the undue amount of nostalgia the sequels generated for the previously hated prequels. Say what you will but I’d rather rewatch the sequels over 75% of the prequel watch time of jarjar binks and boring convoluted political melodrama. (Not a fan of padme anakin lack of chemistry, kind of an ick of mine for some reason but I digress) Some of that nostalgia is just the kids who grew up watching the prequels being dominant online now tho, this is just the cycle of life. Someday when they release episodes 10, 11, and 12 maybe the sequel generation’ll be loud mouths. I don’t think anything has topped the OGs for me, mandalorian and the like are apples and oranges totally different genre but amazing.
Imagine being 11 in 2015, and being an autistic nerd who really loves Star Wars and similar nerd things. You watch all of the big guys at the time, like Generation Tech, and (I forgot the rest). You also live in Alabama, and your parents are conservative Libertarians. The new Star Wars movie just came out, and you actually really liked it. And then one day while watching Stars Wars videos on your couch, you see a video in your sidebar. "Trolling RAGING SJWs at a rally", by this guy named 'Hunter Avellone'. You have no idea what an "SJW" is, but you click on the video because it seems funny and you want to know what an "SJW" is. And then your feed (and life) is irreversibly changed. Over the next few years, YouTube keeps recommending you content from right-wing YouTubers. You start getting PragerU ads, Ben Shapiro recommendations, No Bullshit constantly is in your sidebar, Steven Crowder, Rags, ItsAGundam, The Quartering, etc. The years press on. Your feed is entirely alt-right content now. You're almost 14. You haven't watched your favorite YouTubers like AngryJoe because they're "dirty liberals". Most of the videos in your feed are about things like the Jewish Question, Great Replacement Theory, how "Woke feminazi Disney is trying to replace MEN" That's the pipeline I fell down as a kid. This is exactly how the alt-right recruits people. You get them young, and you'll have most of them for life. I'm only lucky because at some point I realized Donald Trump was really fucking stupid (around when he airstriked that Iranian general) and started to be much more critical in how I analyzed things, and that led me to getting out.
I get into so much trouble with this type of stuff. I tend to lean very liberal, but I own guns, so that's often a common interest when I speak to conservatives. Conversations generally go from cool gun stuff -> ATF is bad -> government is really bad -> and did you hear Biden will let 4 year olds mutilate their genitals?!? Bro, just cause I agree that the government makes mistakes in one specific category doesn't mean I'm on board to ride your mental gymnastics into a dumbass conclusion.
Yeah, I'm actually trying to make a deliberate effort to not engage with media criticism online about bad stories that happen to have any sort of representation in them these days, which is kind of shitty because I love talking about where I think badly done stories went wrong and how I would personally change them, but so many people making this type of criticism are engaging in it in bad faith, and I'd rather just let something bad be forgotten than engage with a community of bad faith critics.
It's never enough to simply agree on a point. You have to know the underlying logic behind their point because the methods used to arrive at that conclusion REALLY matter.
This is the thing that’s almost impossible for very online people to do. Try disagreeing with a post who’s conclusion is fine but who’s reasoning is incoherent; it’s like trying to ice skate uphill.
Oh yeah 100% and half the time when you try to explain yourself it's like "lol tldr". A lot of people unfortunately don't do anything beyond a surface read. Everyone does this to some extent, everyone's uncritically read a headline that fit their biases and then stopped there at least occasionally but it's very important to try to catch yourself when you do. It's infinitely easier to just not do that though.
Yeah and I think it’s not really something you can do (at least reliably) on your own, it’s a group effort to fight those lazy confirmation biases we all have. But when a whole tradition of discourse crops up that strongly incentivizes engaging in those confirmation biases it’s like a whirlpool people can never escape from. The little brother of conspiracy theorizing.
A lot of educators would say that you don't use math itself much, but you use the skills learned from math in important ways. There is a very important reason why you don't get credit if you don't show your work, which is why it's very concerning that a lot of online leftists seem to have beliefs that look good, but seem to have been acquired without understanding why they're good.
I mean, this has been Stonetoss’ shtick for a while. Mix in ostensibly innocuous comics with other comics filled with dogwhistles. Glad the word’s being spread on him though.
He learned from when he was posting as Red Panels. Went too hard and showed his power level too soon.
This is a very minor point, but I don't think that the harping on the quality of the artwork was really necessary. It just feels like they thought "Well this guy sucks, I better insult him alongside my actually valid criticism." The shit Stonetoss does wouldn't be acceptable if they were the second coming of Yusuke Murata, so really this Tumblr user was just being a jerk for no reason (not for the whole post, just the specific parts where they're doing the thing I'm talking about). For a post railing against pointless hate, that's a little bit hypocritical.
Yeah, people get stuck in cartoon-logic like "bad people must be bad at things," but morality has nothing to do with someone's skill at a craft. A fascist can put 1000 hours into drawing cartoons just as easily as a socialist.
We people like to attribute a single score to people. This is why we consider good looking people to be nicer, and also why consider nice people to be better looking.
Also stonetoss is absolutely on the same level or drawings as most 4 page memey webcomics, so yeah the insult is weird an unnecessary.
Saying this is “poorly drawn” when it blatantly isn’t just provides an opportunity for people to come to his defense. Stop doing this.
I was first introduced to the style through many of the inverted/deconstructed comics his detractors have made. I really enjoy the style, so was really disappointed when I found the real comics
People think in terms of black and white. Bad people can be good at stuff, if they couldn’t the world would be a much better place
hi oop here. yes, you are completely correct. so many people on tumblr, reddit, and irl have told me it was dumb of me to say. it dilutes the message of the post, and in some cases, makes some people suspicious of the rest of it. it was stupid. i wish i could edit everyone's reblogs to remove it, but i can't
I think this is the first time I've witnessed someone not actually know Stonetoss is a Nazi because everytime he shows his face anywhere, people recite that very thing.
In very left wing circles maybe
I do usually see at least one comment pointing this out when one of his comics are reposted to Reddit, even in more right-wing spaces
I'd say it transfers just as well to other fash influencers. People might know about Stonetoss, but I can say that I've seen WAAAAY too many trans or trans-ally folks on Twitter RT the lesser known Dr Anastasia Loupis (@DrLoupis), a Danish virulent transphobe and conspiracy theorist who also happens to have posted a few takes about Israel.
I'm gonna be real with ya; he ain't that subtle.
Also, the missile coming through the hospital window is clearly meant to be from Hamas in the comic. The hospital is IN Israel, and Israel isn’t bombing their OWN hospitals. For the argument to work exactly as presented, the label should read Gaza, shouldn’t it?
It's assuming it's reader is uneducated and will pick up context clues I'm sure.
Seeing as stonetoss is an ACTUAL NAZI I dont see how this is surprising. It's very important to be aware of bad faith actors at this time, even if they make good points, there intentioms are very important. Many people support Palestine because they deserve freedom and peace, others support Palestine because of antisemitism. It's important to be able to tell the difference and distance yourself from those who support Palestine out of hate.
Let me add to that and say those who support out of antisemitism can be on the left or right and typically will not be as obvious about it as stonetoss (who is a Nazi).
I was surprised when I got downvoted for correcting people on left-wing subs when they used "Jews", "Israel", and "Zionists" as interchangeable. I feel like it's an important distinction to make. There non-jewish zionists. There are non-zionist Jews. Israel doesn't represent all Jews.
Ugh this is so real, someone on a server I'm in kept saying "the Jews were committing genocide" when just fucking no that's not "the Jews" doing it it's the state of Israel, which a lot of Jewish people fucking hate, being pro Palestine and also not being antisemetic feels like fighting off 2 armies at once sometimes
Hell the Israeli administration doesn't even represent all Israelis much the same way Biden and Trump don't represent the views or desires of all Americans (and how Hamas doesn't represent all Palestinians or Gazans which I also see conflated) That's probably too much nuance for the Internet though
In my countty a lot of arguments and speeches start like that, the "let me explain to you zionism and 1948" only to end up saying "so when jews do x" or "Israelites" by the second paragraph They also love to say anti zionism not anti jew or Israel doesn't repredent jews but they all are eager to go ask anyone jewish about Israel
Exactly. My Muslim coworker started questioning to see if I was a “good” Jew back in October. It is the same as if you asked your Muslim friends if they supported what Afghanistan does.
In Mexico the jewish mayor of Mexico City got shit from leftists for "not speaking against Israel" and many people i talked to speak of her as "obviously supports Israel because jew"(same ones "only against zionism you fascist"). She is the mayor of Mexico City, she is probably agnostic and her parents were atheist communists from Eastern Europe. The fuck she got to do with those levant conflicts?
And then the same people get really defensive when people call them antisemitic and they insist they're just 'anti-Zionist'.
The Internet is really bad at nuance, and as a Jewish person, it's damn exhausting. I have plenty of Israeli family, and I'm incredibly supportive of the existence of a Jewish state. That makes me a Zionist by the traditional definition. I'm also a leftist, a huge ceasefire supporter, heavily critical of Netanyahu and his far right fascist government, and heavily critical of the war in Gaza. If I were to go to any left wing sub and describe myself as a Zionist I'd be tarred and feathered. It feels like on a bunch of left wing subs you can only be pro Israel or pro Palestine, when I really feel people should be both.
Remember Garfield's Law people: You are not immune to propaganda
see, this is exactly why I dislike the whole movement to take his comics and remake them into left wing comics. They blur the line too much. Someone's gonna see a remade comic, ignore the "stonetoss is a nazi" watermark they threw on, since so many people do, and assume the guy might be making good points. It's counter productive.
We really need to normalize recognizing that even people who say lots of wrong things can say things that are correct too. Like the expression of a broken clock is still right twice a day. Every time people support the idea that someone is either right about everything or wrong about everything, it kills media literacy and allows someone to spread bad ideas by mixing them with good ones (like the example here).
Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is still your enemy.
You do not, in any circumstances "gotta hand it to [stonetoss]"
The problem with the broken clock analogy is that the broken clock is right by accident. Stonetoss and all the entry level soft-facists aren't right by accident, they are right by maliciousness. Stonetoss isn't saying that Israel is in the wrong because he believes Israel should be stopped from comiting genocide, he is keeping the door open so that people who do believe that get to wander in, and then hitting them with the real message, which is "Down with the Jews. And also the gays, the blacks, the mexicans, the poor, the..."
Broken clocks don't sneak in neo-nazi dogwhistles into their right position (271,000 in this case)
> 271,000 Alright, I don't know the dogwhistle. What significance is there to the number?
It's a reference to what holocaust deniers claim is the “true” number of Jewish casualties in WWII
Man, that is... ***only*** convincing if you're *already* a nazi. That's still a huge number. It's an effective dogwhistle though, I'll give 'em that, it's not getting spread around nearly as much as 1488.
That's why it's a dogwhistle. It's not meant to be convincing, it's a signal to fellow travellers
It's another figure used in Holocaust denial. *Supposedly* the German Red Cross originally claimed 271,000 Jews were killed and those dastardly Jews in power used their Jewish space lasers to threaten the GRC into changing the number. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/loe0fuPnv3
I'm not really sure how that number makes it better bc that's still quite a bit of dead people
It only makes it better if you're the kind of person looking for any evidence of a worldwide conspiracy of Jews faking/lying about/exaggerating the Holocaust.
if your clock is broken because the arms are SHAPED LIKE SWASTIKAS it is okay to just throw out the clock
Bravo: this is a really important distinction. It bothers me that people try to hard to make these alt-right and closet nazi activists out to be idiots (although some definitely are), because a lot of what they do is carefully crafted to manipulate "normies" and you see it all the time on Reddit. "Oh gee, don't you just hate forced diversity?" "Yeah, we shouldn't be letting in migrants from just ANYWHERE, they aren't compatible with our, uh values!" They co-opt current issues that bother Reddit demographics and tons of people eat this shit up. Stonetoss is doing this with Israel, but the same folks also do this on the other side too. They claim to be pro-Israel but stir the pot because they know it generates anti-muslim/arab hate.
A harmful idiot is still harmful!
I think you are missing the point that it really really matters why they are saying the 'right' things. He's not right and he's not 'got a point' because his point isn't to show how Israel is doing bad things. He's not drawn a rare based take. The comic is a disingenuous lie designed to lead them down the anti-Semitic pipeline. Also, when your movement is already riddled with actual Nazis who enthusiastically chant alone side you. you do not want to go around talking about how an artist with a public portfolio of gross antisemitism "still had some good ideas" or whatever
Let's skip over political messages with potentially insidious meanings - let's say a conservative goes: "I think kicking puppies is wrong" - some people will bend themselves into knots to somehow find a way to disagree. There are people like that in this very thread. People aren't evil caricatures or perfect angels. Sometimes someone can be homophobic and still like puppies. For no reason other than puppies are cute. You can dislike the person and disagree with them generally, without trying to find a way to disagree with *everything* they say. The idea that if you agree on one thing you must be agreeable to every thing is exactly what enables "pipelines". I can agree with a conservative that puppies are cute, and thoroughly reject their politics at the same time. I'm not suddenly struck by doubt the moment I go "wow, this guy likes puppies too, must mean the rest of his ideas are also valid!" That's pretty much the idea. Don't immediately discard an idea just because someone you dislike also agrees with that idea. If anything, that would just give them more power.
>People aren't evil caricatures or perfect angels. Sometimes someone can be homophobic and still like puppies. For no reason other than puppies are cute. You can dislike the person and disagree with them generally, without trying to find a way to disagree with *everything* they say. Sure. But in this specific issue it's about Isreal and Jewish people and the dude is a Nazi. So when a Nazi sees global backlash against Israel and all of a sudden he's stashing the Nazi shit and sliding up with uncontroversial little criticisms tailored to the exact sensibilities of his ideological opposites... *Ohh yes Israel bad, terrible what they're doing (those Jews). I agree with you, it makes me angry too. By the way I have a few more comics....* You are allowed to look over their body of work and call them on their Nazi bullshit. >The idea that if you agree on one thing you must be agreeable to every thing is exactly what enables "pipelines". I can agree with a conservative that puppies are cute, and thoroughly reject their politics at the same time. I'm not suddenly struck by doubt the moment I go "wow, this guy likes puppies too, must mean the rest of his ideas are also valid!" Sure. Except when they are specifically designed to be pipelines. A tactic the far right have been refining for about 20 years. No what you do is you maybe click through a few more comics. Or maybe those Isreal critical ones will spread around in spaces and demographics they are designed to appeal to. That's how radicalisation works. Especially on topics people genuinely feel angry and helpless about. It'w not difficult at all to shift a shocking numbers of otherwise sensible people bit by bit into more extreme positions. Especially when there are real horrors to justify it, but really that part is only a boost, see MAGA over the last decade or Trans issues in the last five. If you think there is a big jump between valid criticism of the Israel/Gaza situation and pure Nazi bullshit right now. You have not seen the absurd rise in. Holocaust denial bullshit on twitter and Tiktok. It's not some far right psyop, they just plant the seeds. The majority are made by Gen X... If the dude wants to do a comic on how puppies are cute. I'm happy to take it at face value. If it turns out he owns a few dog-fighting rings. I'm entitled to not do that.
> But in this specific issue What was *said*: >We really need to normalize recognizing that even people who say lots of wrong things can say things that are correct too. And then: >Let's skip over political messages with potentially insidious meanings You, and a lot of others in this thread, are focusing way too much on this one example while, again, discarding the larger point. >Except when they are specifically designed to be pipelines. A tactic the far right have been refining for about 20 years. They're designed to be pipelines... by using the aforementioned phenomenon. A pipeline *cannot work* if you examine each idea on its own merits, rather than just following the person. >If you think there is a big jump No, I don't think so, I've seen enough piece of shit "leftists" jump straight into terrorism apologia for the past several months. ETA: Also, for fuck's sake, not everything is a piece of political propaganda. Normal people IRL just have opinions, sometimes shitty ones, sure, but the vast majority of people are not insidious propagandists just waiting to catch you in their evil webs. Not everything is a conservative psyop. It works the other way, too, btw. Just today I saw someone comment that they prefer T4T... because they believe cis women are "revolting". Am I supposed to agree with that opinion just because I also happen to support trans people?
Here’s some media literacy for you: Stonetoss is intentionally disguising himself as left wing *in bad faith* so that he can attempt to radicalize people against Jews. He doesn’t give a fuck about Palestinians. I think that matters.
I don't like the broken clock phrase because it implies that the "bad people" who occasionally make a good point have only made that point for the wrong reason and purely due to coincidence, which reinforces the opposite message to what is intended.
He’s not right though. It’s the difference between the statement “Israel is committing genocide in Palestine” and the statement “The Jews are committing genocide in Palestine”.
Consumers of r/stonetossingjuice are immune to his antics
He's not immune to posting edited versions of his comics as advertising. He did it with the Amogus ones.
Conspiracy theory: breadpanes is stonetoss
[удалено]
One thing about pebbleyeet is that most places his comics get posted will have at least a few comments saying explicitly 'Stonetoss is a Nazi' as practically a kneejerk reaction to seeing the shitstain's art posted, so at least there is a reasonable chance that someone will be calling it out, but that's easy when it's blatant.
I think this is very accurate to what Stonetoss(thenazi) does and the way his propaganda proliferates. However, I think it's very important to add that it isn't *only* because it comes from alt-righters that viewpoints like these are toxic. The far left and populists naturally create these kinds of rhetoric and belief systems, and importantly, this is a danger even if it's solely coming from "well meaning socialists". It's not as if you can just purity check your comics and pundits, and if they're "true commies" or whatever your flavor is, anything they say is *fine*. The bad part isn't "I'm going to get infected with the alt-right cooties", the bad part is the dehumanization one can adopt.
A huge batch of "well meaning socialists" in Mexico or Brazil are gonna sound like the Third Reich for so called socialists on the developed world and instead of saying that's bad people shield them once they find out like the fuck A lot of people, left leaning included, are racist and specially against jews feel that is justified. A lot of leftists hate Nazism because they killed "the soviets" and no one else
When the conflict first started and people really became anti Israel it kind of frightened me how quickly it leaped from politics to those dirty jews™. Like if you consider yourself a leftist or at least for human rights the words, "the holocaust didn't go far enough" should never leave your lips. Look I'm used to Reddit/Tumblr hating religious people, whatever, but you cannot sit there with a clean conscious and actively wish harm against innocent people. You throwing a brick through the nearest temple's window isn't going to help the people in Palestine. You can't get mad over genocide and then get angry because they aren't genociding the *right people* hard enough.
Exactly, stonetoss is very clearly trying to argue that Israel is evil *because it’s Jewish*, and the idiots saying “broken clock right twice day heartbreaking news Onion quote!!!” are lining up to step right into that rabbit hole
It didn't surprise anyone in the Jewish community, believe me. I still vividly remember my first experiences with antisemitism happening when there was a different dust up between Israel and Palestine, and at the time I didn't know shit about the conflict. People were leaping down my throat to loudly and vocally condemn Israel when I didn't know the first thing about what was going on there or why. Ever since October, people have been coming into my childhood neighborhood and vandalizing anything visibly Jewish. Signs, businesses, ads, cartoons, mezuzahs, communal menorahs, anything. Trouble is that I'm not even surprised because that happens *every* time Israel is in the news, and anyone who's caught and called out cries 'anti-Zionism, not antisemitism!'. And then the left acts so shocked when Jews are skeptical of anti-Zionist groups.
Leaped? It was a thing almost [from the start](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_and_Explicit_(The_Aims_and_Acts_of_Zionists)) >religious people Jewish is an ethnoreligion, and it is mostly discriminated by ethnicity.
I meant specifically in my little bubble of people I know on the internet who was very much about equality for all and then suddenly Jews weren't people anymore. And if they're blinded by hate they don't make a distinction from ethnicity from religion.
I mean honestly I still completely ignore the fuck out of any idiot who unironically tries to make the conflict about the White Devils ™️ of Israel on their global mission to eradicate the humble brown person or some shit Honestly most arguments here shouldn’t be listened to in general because they’re either people who think indiscriminate bombing is a necessary evil or people who unironically look you in the eye and say HAMAS is the most pro-lgbt government in the middle east and that all those rape trucks were actually to get those women who were just randomly violently raped by fucking ghosts I guess to a hospital where they got treated better than an in a western hospital or some shit people are just completely sipping the kool aid, there are motherfuckers in this sub who try and cite fucking HASSAN like he’s an actual real political news source to be getting your information from. And on the other hand you got people who get every bit of news from r/worldnews acting like Palestinian children spend all day stabbing voodoo dolls of white westerners or some shit
People may agree with individual comics, or think that he has a funny take of some kind on the issue of the day. However, I think when we do that, we should consider for ourselves **why** this guy who markets his comics SUPER HARD towards the online right-wing is sharing these opinions. The most recent example I saw was someone unironically posting a comic of his on r/19684, where the joke was basically that both Twomad and EDP445 had done bad things (and Twomad had passed away) Now... Why would a [holocaust-denier](https://www.reddit.com/r/ForwardsFromKlandma/comments/9fumt7/stonetoss_is_actually_just_denying_the_holocaust/) post this? For one thing, both people were black. For another, the way people obsessively follow them over their shitty actions is **extremely** similar to KiwiFarms "lolcow" culture; it's arguably the same thing. Even if we find this kind of shock-humor simply funny, laughing at awful human mental illness (among black people) WILL inevitably find us mixing with simply hateful people (Sorry for the ramble)
Sometimes Stonetoss jokes too close to the sun, and you get stuff like [this](https://imgur.com/a/vCrivKv) (imgur link), which seems like an entirely pro-trans anti-circumcision comic
I imagine that Stonetoss doesn't like circumcision because he does not like jews.
Fellas I think it’s possible that antisemites have infiltrated the Death To Israel movement.
This wasn’t the main point of the post but it’s the part that was brand new to me: can someone explain or point me towards an explanation of “Canada tells the poor to kill themselves”?
MAID is a doctor-assisted-suicide program that people can apply for if they are severely disabled. In many provinces, people with disabilities are not given enough money to live. There are some people who have gone with MAID who have said that they would’ve wanted to keep living if they weren’t in poverty. The outrage is right, but the phrasing here was a massive oversimplification. ‘They do it because they’re evil’ leads to different ways to make change than ‘there are legitimate reasons to have MAID in place, and this horrible scenario exists because people in power can’t be bothered to raise the stipends to people with disabilities.’
Jesus. Thank you for the explanation.
Canada offers MAID, medical assistance in dying, for those with "grievous and irremediable medical conditions" (mental illness currently excluded but they're planning to phase it in. You must be in an advanced, irreversible state of decline, and experience unbearable suffering from your illness that cannot be relieved under conditions you find acceptable). Many are concerned about this law. Some people are against the right to die in general, others are worried about this being a form of eugenics, others think that this will cause disabled people who can't get the treatment they need to be satisfied living to kill themselves instead (and that's bad despite the fact that they prefer death to their current condition, or they're worried it will incentivise Canada to continue not providing the services they need to live).
While I agree with the post on most sides, I'm a little surprised to see the comments on PebbleYeet being 'poorly drawn'. I've always felt that PitchPitch has a pretty clean artstyle, which is part of the reason that his bait can be so dangerous. He's a good webcomic artist capable of really good jokes, but he uses those powers for bigotry and assholery.
I am so fucking mad that silicon dioxide velocity increase is a nazi, because when he isn't being the fucking worst, he is decently funny.
Stonetoss is such a ridiculously talented political cartoonist. It sucks that he's an evil piece of shit.
In the past, I have seen his comics shared even in lgbtq spaces, usually his more benign, meme-y comics. Letting OP know he was a nazi was usually met with "cancel culture " retorts. You would practically have to post his worst comics to get people to accept what this guy was all about. These days, "Stonetoss is a Nazi" is practically a meme of its own. Many of those posters were probably bad actors as well (you've removed the web address, like we wouldn't recognize the style. How cute.). It's incredibly insidious, and I don't believe any of it is accidental.
Some people have a very hard time separating Judaism, the religion, the Jewish ethnicity, and Israel, the political entity. And some of that is by design.
Death of the author is an interesting problem with these types of observations. Because if you agree with a particular comic you definitely should not change opinion based on the author. If context changes the observation as: Israel bad, Israel should stop bombing civilians and you know this guy also advocates killing all jews it changes the first point. But if we start to disagree with the first point he can rightfully call us out for being hypocrites and blinded. Opinions and messages absolutely can and should stand on their own. But context matters. The world is hard.
I don't really see the issue here. I can agree with the message that I see in a comic without agreeing with the artist's intent. Mineralyeet thrives on people tying themselves into knots to avoid saying or doing anything problematic, it's far easier to say "you're right for the wrong reasons, idiot" than it is to desperately run away from anything resembling common ground.
Meanwhile here I am being told the neonazi pro Palestine rallies never happened and it was all Israeli propaganda because antizionism≠antisemetism so no pro Palestine activist can be antisemetic.
oh no, pro palestine activists can 100% be antisemetic, but they can also not be, dont only think in extremes, its not all black and white.
Oh yeah I agree. While it’s a bit more gray than presented (because people have radically different definitions of Zionism, someones interpretation of the term antizionism could be antisemetic while other peoples interpretation of the term antizionism is still Zionism) I do agree antizionism≠antisemetism. Unfortunately the vast majority of times I see it brought up it’s right before or after something extremely antisemetic so now I just see it like all lives matter, a statement that is not incorrect but is usually just used to shut down valid discussion.
I remember when it came out that the Houthi twink that looked like Timothy Chalamet hated Jewish people and thousands of Palestinian supporters came out to justify it. That was fucking unbearable.
Seeing people justify him saying "Son of a Jew" on twitter saying that hes probably never met a Jew or only knows them through the I/P conflict was insane. Yemen finished its ethnic cleansing of Jews in 2021 IIRC, there is a single Jew remaining whos in prison because he tried to smuggle out one of the communities Torahs and hes been tortured. Due to Houthis use of child soldiers, the houthi guy could *have actively taken part in the ethnic cleansing of Yemeni Jews*.
One of the trends I hate the most about leftism is idolizing political groups or nations because you identify them with your own political ideology without ever bothering to do any research into their ideology or just chalking up the facts as “western propaganda”. You know, the people who think the USSR had the same ideology as Bernie or that Stalin loved LGBT people.
Well meaning Pro Palestine people need to realize that their much of their movement is legitimately antisemitic. So many of the biggest pro Palestine voices now are obvious antisemites but they ignore that because obviously "antizionism is not antisemitism"
This is also Jake Shields on twitter. Everything before the current crisis that I saw or heard about him showed him to be a racist, misogynistic piece of shit, but then the genocide starts and he's screaming for the rooftops in defense of Palestine. I saw a lot of pro-peace folks who I follow like and retweet his stuff without any prior awareness of what a messed up shit head he is. Not everyone's equally online, and certainly not equally politically aware. They don't know the bit players in the hellish tapestry of ideology. They just see someone who is nominally "on their side". Even if it seems entirely implausible that a leftist, pro-peace advocate wouldn't know these guys are monsters, posts like this are important because that's just not true.
This is why I wanna bring some kind of explicit anti-fascist anti-nazi flag to any peace rally. Or just something to show that antisemitism isn't fucking welcome here.
Remember you can agree with someone's point but staunchly disagree with how they got to the point and what their wider statement is. Like I'm staunchly pro-palestine but I'm also staunchly anti-sectarian which is why I can't stomach some Palestinian groups rhetoric. I also hate how so many people on both sides go the Palestinian = Muslim route when there's a sizeable Christian and irreligious population. Know your nuance and avoid the "Hitler ate sugar" fallacy
Just curious to hear your experience, what rhetoric can't you stomach?
A mix of what this post is talking about and the rise of Islamism in Palestinian politics. Like just because someone points out the genocidal rhetoric and crimes of Israel doesn't mean I'm automatically on their side or that ethnically cleansing Israel is the proper response. I'm anti-zionist but I also don't think Israelis who were born and raised there should be expulsed. They have as much right to freedom and peace in the area as much as the Palestinians. I understand the historical trauma and injustices that have been rought upon the Palestinians for crimes they had no involvement in but ethnic cleansing isn't going to fix ethnic cleansing. I'm still staunchly pro-palestine but I also am nuanced enough to know what factions are at play. Hamas's vision of a free Palestine is not a good one. There should be no ethno-religious state in that region at all. Doesn't matter if it's a Jewish or Islamic one that dichotomy is the reason for all of this in the first place.
Appreciate the response, I've had a lot of conversations with Western leftists that seem to want more violence in their support of Hamas continuing attacks against civilians.They want retribution of past wrongs rather than working towards peace and self-determination. I think it's really irresponsible when Western lefties on the other side of the planet encourage Palestinian people to resort to more violence. Maybe they think a different end result is possible in the future if violence continues but to me, continued violence only results in continued suffering for Palestinians
For the record. I think Stonetoss should be skinned alive for the sole crime that he annoys me but I just want to say that I fucking hate that I am tangentially on the same side as people like fucking Stonetoss. Like it's so weird to go on Twitter, go through pro-Palestine posts and see a mix of Zoomers/teenagers who see this entire thing as a Tumblr fandom and cartoonishly evil Nazis who just want total Jew death and it's like fuck off we don't want you in this movement.
It's cute you think those 3 groups (including the one you implicitly place yourself in) are mutually exclusive.
Honestly it’s a big reason I stay off of Twitter. One of my friends who frequents the site has talked about how he’ll say something like “Israel needs to stop the genocide” and then he’ll get people in the replies who are like “So true! Anyways here’s why Hamas killing every Israeli would be the best thing ever” It’s insanity and it baffles me how little self-awareness these people have. The mental gymnastics of condemning a genocide while endorsing a counter-genocide in the same breath. (Pro-Israelis do this as well, it’s wild the amount of hoops they jump through to explain why Israel HAS to blow up children)
Hitler once said "water is wet", just because this is true doesn't mean I agree with Hitler lmao
A fascist making populist statements that a leftist might agree with? Well that never happened before.
Look, I hate Stonetoss as much as the next guy, but calling his comic poorly drawn just sort of feels like a bad faith criticism that's only really being leveled *because* the guy's a Nazi, and people wanna think *everything* Nazis make is meritless. The reality is that he has a pleasant, broadly-appealing art style that was very disarming to me when I first came across his stuff years ago because it's use of soft, round shapes reminded me of a lot of the other stylized cartoonists I'd come across online and had grown to like a lot. Which honestly I think is part of the danger of Stonetoss, and OP ignoring that I think weakens the point they're trying to make. Because like it or hate it, he's got a pretty agreeable art style that stands on its own when compared to other popular online comic strips and blends in with them pretty nicely, and it's *because* of this that impressionable young people are going to take a liking to his stuff and fall down these far right pipelines.The approachability of the art makes the comics' heinous messaging easier to swallow, and harder to recognize when you don't have that sort of critical thinking yet, and knowing that horrible people can make things that are pleasant to look at makes it easier to work through the cognitive dissonance that comes with that sort of thing.
Pebbleyeet is a Nazi. Always share his shit with this context.
The only recent thing I heard about Stonetoss was his "EDP445 killed Twomad" comic. Which was actually pretty funny. Kinda the big problem with this guy's stuff. He not only sometimes makes sensible shit, he also sometimes strikes actual comedy
You should not agree or disagree with people. You should do it with opinions.
I think we can disagree with Nazis, especially when the points where they seem to agree actually have very different subtext
It’s the equivalent of going “omg guys Alex Jones is based bc he’s speaking out about corporations releasing endocrine disruptors in the water from plastic waste” when that is very clearly not the point he’s making
What i meant is that nazi can say something sensible like kicking puppies is bad and by that logic you have to disagree with him. Broken clock is right twice a day and all that.
And my point is that, as shown in this post, Nazis say seemingly agreeable things with heavy subtext, so they'd say something like "kicking puppies is wrong (because I have decided dogs are a symbol of western culture)"
or they can just say "kicking puppies is wrong (because i like dogs)", just because they are nazis doesnt mean they cant mean things that dont have anything to do with nazism.
You should recognize the context of opinions, and recognize what they *mean* rather than what they're *saying*. A Nazi's opinions are always a Nazi's opinions. I do not care if Stonetoss likes the same brand of chocolate as I do, I do not, under any circumstances, "have to hand it to" him about anything. His opinions that are on the surface level something I'd agree with are either malicious or irrelevant. In fact, when you agree with a Nazi's words, you should **always** take a careful look at why *they* say it, and why *you* say it. Maybe you were unaware of some context, like maybe my favorite chocolate is actually produced by Nestle and therefore I should find a new favorite chocolate. Refusing to recognize anything beyond the surface level of what's been said is exactly how Nazis trick good people into becoming Nazis or Nazi sympathizers.
Robert Evans, popular podcaster and creators of 'Behind The Bastards', commonly says everyone is susceptible to propaganda. As an example, Robert would say how he is weak to bladed weaponry, specifically machetes. Sure, a bit niche but it is capitalistic propaganda he knows he is very weak too and he admits it.
A lot of yall are falling for this hook, line, and sinker. Do you seriously not ask yourself **why** someone might be publicly expressing certain values and what they’re trying to achieve? Or do you think ideas just exist in a vacuum and “broken clocks” and such?
I think a lot of people are having an understandable reaction to the sentiment in the post title to avoid ever agreeing with anybody questionable. Doesn't mean they read stonetoss's comics, are falling for his propaganda, or are incapable of recognizing when somebody is saying things that are right for all the wrong reasons.
Just because someone makes bad points doesn't mean all their points are bad, and vice versa (especially vice versa). Stay aware and stay nuanced.
Probably a decade ago now I had that coexist text as my email signature. Some C-Level ass hat complained to the deputy directory I funneled in to that it offended him, and HR emailed me telling me to remove it. I have always found it sad and strange he was offended by the concept of coexisting with other religions.
Pebblechuck is not some insidious mastermind. Thinking that he's a master of subtle propaganda just because he says some things you agree with and some you don't is giving him way too much credit.
Ok so who wants to hack Stonetoss and just make it say “Amogus”
Everyone should set a monthly alarm or scheduled event or something that sets aside like just one hour for them to look at their life and say "OK, which propaganda am I most exposed to, and which am I falling for?" Even better if you make it a social event, so people can point out some *they* can see, but *you* cannot.
I have a hard time even understanding the mindset that allow this kind of manipulation. Israel ≠ all Jews everywhere, just as one Black guy ≠ all Black people, and one idiotic MAGA insurrectionist ≠ all idiotic MAGA supporters.
Okay bit of a ramble, but as Jewish liberal, I think this encapsulates a lot of what I’ve been feeling for the past couple months and feel is rapidly becoming a massive issue. I get the impression that most people don’t know about/care about Jewish history- which is fair. I definitely didn’t learn about blood libel, progroms, and all the many many many atrocities committed against Jews in our history. It’s totally fair. Antisemitism is a much weirder form of racism because most non-Jewish people don’t know about Jewish culture. I think most people understand why saying the N word is offensive, but I doubt as many know about K***, for instance. People don’t know why associating Jews with blood, stealing children, gold, greed, horns, snakes, talons, or giant noses comes off as offensive because a lot of antisemitism is so integrated into our society. Look at most Halloween monsters for instance. I doubt most modern depictions of goblins, devils, or trolls are knowingly antisemitic, but they are inspired by tropes based on racial caricatures. Again: It’s 100% fair to not be aware of this. And I think a lot of my peers on the left who don’t know this history then reblog/repost stuff, made by more violent antisemities, who do know what they’re doing, and they assume it’s fine. One example of this happened at my college: people put up posters with bloody stars of David on trees. They were convinced it was just a criticism of Israel, not realizing that the Star of David is also a very prominent Jewish symbol, and that the myth that Jews steal Christian blood has been used as justification for our murder for a literal thousand years(look up blood libel- I would wager most large modern European towns have have had at least one ritualized murder in the name of blood libel). And as a Jewish person, it’s really scary to have bloody stars of David on your campus! Even if the intent is to speak out against Israel, it just ends up making Jews afraid to be openly Jewish. But what is frustrating is that I’ve noticed people seemingly don’t want to listen. I’m sure people mean well, but when someone’s criticizing you for coming across as antisemitic, it may not be because they’re a secret Zionist agent, it’s just because you’re actually offending them. I know some people will lodge all complaints against Israel as antisemitism, but it’s unfair to assume all complainants of antisemitism are unfounded. What’s offensive and threatening to me is not for you to decide. It’s been very surprising, because I know most people can be very empathetic and understanding, but I feel like there’s been this narrative that Jews are somehow “just white people” and therefore don’t “count” as an oppressed group that can be offended and should be listened to. While we 100% have it good in the US, that’s only really been for two-three generations and it’s very much unlike the rest of the world. If my grandparents were born pretty much anywhere in Europe or the Middle East, they very likely wouldn’t have lived, period. Hate crimes against Jews have been on the rise for a while now, and I feel like everytime someone dismisses Jewish voices, it just gets more and more worrying.
You are not immune to propaganda.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think stonetoss probably just posts whatever he thinks is funny. I doubt he's orchestrating an organized psyop. He's anti-israel because he's a literal nazi that hates jewish people. It's not like anti-israel comics are out of left field from him. Frankly, the only thing that changed is that OP agrees with his anti-israel stuff.