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Overwatch League bans OK sign due to perceived hate group connections

Helios

Member
Source: https://www.dexerto.com/overwatch/o...ue-to-perceived-hate-group-connections-520982


During the Inaugural Season, The League banned images of popular meme Pepe the frog because of its adoption by white supremacist and hate groups.

On April 4, during an interview with the LA Gladiator’s Gui-un "Decay" Jang following the team’s 3-1 win over the Shanghai Dragons, a fan behind Decay in the audience help up the “OK” sign
After the interview, one viewer complained on Twitter to the League about them showing a “white power hand symbol” during the broadcast.
“Who was that human trash flashing the white power hand symbol during the interview with decay?” the tweet read. “Hope they’re banned from going to further matches.”
In response, it seems Blizzard told fans in the arena that they were no longer allowed to use the hand symbol, because of the connotation it carries.
The fan who used the sign apologized later on twitter, but the whole incident has sparked a debate about whether or not the “OK” sign should be considered a hate symbol or not.
 
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brap

Banned
WTF??? I guess that's why pewdiepie uses it!!!
eVYmJA5.jpg
 

Bakkus

Member
Telling a lie enough times does not make it true. But the Overwatch team doesn't seem to be aware of that. Or, they just bow down to the everchanging extremist left standards.
 

Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
The random flashing for the camera probably was to capitalize on this strange fear of the "OK" sign, but I doubt they were legit using it for any white power connotation. Just "lmao this is apparently a hate symbol" memes.
I have trouble finding it funny that people are afraid of seeing "OK" though. Just fuckin annoyed.
 
Just about anyone uses that hand gesture. People who don't know anything at all about 4chan and white nationalists using it for trolling and attention. This is how you empower things like that. They'll just find more and more things to do for attention and they'll make people who do knee-jerk things like this look ridiculous and authoritarian. No point banning ok signs. Ugh.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Why is this considered offensive?

4chan comes up with trolling ideas to associate with "white supremacy," knowing that idiots on Twitter will shriek in horror and alter their behavior, then demand that everyone else does too, plunging us deeper into Clown World.

https://www.adl.org/blog/how-the-ok-symbol-became-a-popular-trolling-gesture

The “OK” hand gesture originated as one of these hoaxes in February 2017 when an anonymous 4channer announced “Operation O-KKK,” telling other members that “we must flood Twitter and other social media websites…claiming that the OK hand sign is a symbol of white supremacy.” The user even provided a helpful graphic showing how the letters WP (for “white power”) could be traced within an “OK” gesture. The originator and others also suggested useful hashtags to help spread the hoax, such as #PowerHandPrivilege and #NotOkay. “Leftists have dug so deep down into their lunacy,” wrote the poster, “We must force [them] to dig more, until the rest of society ain’t going anywhere near that s***.”
 

CatCouch

Member
What!? The "OK" sign is a problem now?

It seems it's a hoax so why is it being banned after, what appears to be, only one person complained? Doesn't this just help validate the hoaxers?

All I can do is shake my head at this and just move on.
 

Boss Mog

Member
It's crazy how some guy on 4chan completely makes up a connection between the OK sign and white power just to troll, and now it's literally being labelled that way everywhere. It boggles the mind.
 
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Armorian

Banned
It's crazy how some guy on 4chan completely makes up a connection between the OK sign and white power just to troll, and now it's literally being labelled that way everywhere. It boggles the mind.

I truly can't belive what is happening in US/UK (and some other western countries) for few years now.
 

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
As always......... *context*

That’s whats missing in these things. This guy was clearly trolling in the video, there was no reason to do it and it was on for the camera to troll.

If this was some guy who just finished a mate and somebody shouted “you ok?” And he stuck his hand up like this? Thats fine. It’s been the socially acceptable hand gesture for “ok” for a very long time.

Context. Always important.
 

Armorian

Banned
As always......... *context*

That’s whats missing in these things. This guy was clearly trolling in the video, there was no reason to do it and it was on for the camera to troll.

If this was some guy who just finished a mate and somebody shouted “you ok?” And he stuck his hand up like this? Thats fine. It’s been the socially acceptable hand gesture for “ok” for a very long time.

Context. Always important.

I just found out that "ok" sign and clowns are racist and homophobic (maybe even anti semitic IDK), this memes were extremely niche on places like 4 chan before "offended" leftist brought them to spotlight.
 

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
I just found out that "ok" sign and clowns are racist and homophobic (maybe even anti semitic IDK), this memes were extremely niche on places like 4 chan before "offended" leftist brought them to spotlight.

Just because the origins of the hand gesture were not racist, it doesn't mean its not been adopted as a racist gesture now. It's pretty much seen now as a white power thing. But, like I said... Context. That stupid cow Zina Bash during the Kavanaugh hearings? Racist. Clear as day. It was being done for no reason at times, just because she was on camera. Don't give me the "she was asked a question" stuff either, because that's a one time excuse. You don't sit there with it on your arm for ages. The video above? Racist. Those stupid whitehouse intern on that photo? Racist. These were people that knew about the sign, knew about what it meant on both sides of the fence, and did it anyway. However, Bill Mother Fucking Clinton doing it, or Obama doing it, while talking... Not racist. Why? Because it was done before it was ever seen as a racist symbol, or hell, it was simply just the way they move their hands when talking. Why would Obama be flashing a white power symbol anyway?

Its all about the context, the use and the time. Its nothing about offended leftists, lol (thanks for showing what side of the fence you are btw), its more so about the way once something, no matter how innocent it was beforehand, is adopted for the wrong reasons... You just don't fucking do it. End of story.
 
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Winter John

Member
The problem with these extremists is they leave themselves wide open to falling for dumb shit like this, and it's the rest of us who have to pay the price for their insanity.
 
Just because the origins of the hand gesture were not racist, it doesn't mean its not been adopted as a racist gesture now. It's pretty much seen now as a white power thing. But, like I said... Context.

If context matters that much to you, you should be aware that not everybody who plays Overwatch is American. The rest of the world really doesn't care what meme or hand-gesture you deemed problematic in the context of your silly cultural zeitgeist. From Pepe, over milk, to the frikkin' OK hand-sign, if you want to make yourself a puppet in this ever-changing ridiculous culture war of yours, be my guest. Me personally, I don't give a rear end what silly new trolling scheme 4chan has dredged up to get people's knickers in a twist in order to influence their behavior.

For me, this :messenger_ok: will always be the OK sign because, first, I simply refuse to give internet trolls this power over me and second, I want no part in your hysterical americocentric moral panic. By caving in to these silly requests and twitter spats, Blizzard is not only forgetting about the rest of the world who simply don't care about whatever petty political and cultural controversy is preoccupying the American public, but they also empower the trolls who want to provoke this exact reaction from them.

As long as they keep responding to these demands, this attempt at censoring an ever increasing set of innocuous symbolry will never stop. Once this controversy is over, the trolls will have popularized a new meme, sign or emoticon to start the game anew. It's a game that you cannot win, unless you refuse to simply play it.
 

CuNi

Member
Guys calm down. In like 1 or 2 years, they'll ban humans from the arenas since we're toxic and they'll just place dummys in the Stadion so it looks crowded.

It feels like if this trend continues, names will be banned soon since they could be discriminated as well.
 

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'

Here's the way I see it. I say "oh no, you're too close to me, you're going to bum me like your dad!", because you know, in this example I'm 12, and this is what kids talk like. Its a joke, and would likely get the reply back "Fuck off, your dads the rapist not me". It's all a laugh and a joke and we all have fun and stab each other in the eyes with pencils. You know, kids stuff. This sort of comment>reply shit is common with just about anybody on the planet. You make comments with no basis in reality to get a rise, to have a laugh. No harm in it.

Then... A few weeks later. It turns out that the person in the comment line, well his dads just been arrested for raping kids. Actual, hard ass sticking in there shit.

Now then... We have an issue. Do you keep on laughing and joking with each other, because it was normal the other day? Or do you have a tiny little bit of respect for yourself and others, and maybe, just maybe, stop saying to that one kid his dads going to bum him? Granted these are kids so we know the answer, the kids got no future left. But ok, move the example to adults, because I take the piss about all sorts with my mates, and so do they me.

That's the issue. I grew up with the "OK" hand sign, and it will ALWAYS be ok to me. I grew up with cartoons where cross dressing rabbits would shoot people in the face. I don't get offended by shit so easily. But if my friends dads just been on a all you can eat arse evening and raped the local care home, I don't walk past the care home windows dropping my trousers. I'll continue to do the damn OK hand sign, when I want to show people I'm ok, or something is good, or whatever. I WON'T be appearing on live TV, or on a photo for the world to see, explicitly doing it JUST to piss people off. There is a huge difference.

Back to the "look at Obama, he's doing it!" shit, again... He's shown doing it in pictures before 4chan made it a "thing". Also, he does it in his mannerisms. When I talk openly to large crowds of people, I wave my hands around a lot. Its involuntary. You can tell when somebody talking and conveying emotion. You can also tell when somebody is a sack of shit and is doing it for a VERY specific reason.
 
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