Defense seems strong, although the actual linked videos (to the extent I could watch them because they are super boring) don't seem entirely as innocent as he described.
He probably deserves some measured criticisms, but the levels of intense attack on here seem absurdly exaggerated. But who knows, I've given the wrong people the benefit of the doubt before.
Yeah, props to him for linking all the relevant videos, but there are lots of little winks and nods to 4chan humor, which at this point is so intertwined with the alt-right movement that it's hard to make a distinction.
I've had my fair share of belly laughs on 4chan, and I think its freewheeling culture has been responsible for some of the funniest and irreverent pieces of content on the web, especially from /tv/. But events like Trump's election have helped me realize that I can't just handwave 4chan's often purposefully-bigoted discourse as coming from a minority of fringe neckbeards who will never have any real impact on the world. I was living in my liberal bubble in California.
I think a lot of us with a taste for weird, rude, subversive humor had a soft spot for 4chan. We just kind of assumed most people were "in on the joke", that only a small but vocal minority of users actually believed in such cartoonish bigotry. Then they helped elect an actual cartoonish bigot. Turns out people who spend a lot of time "pretending" to be assholes are in fact actual assholes.
The link between 4chan and the alt-right is undeniable at this point, and if Fantano continues to indulge in their imagery and language, that says a lot about his level of empathy for the less privileged. It doesn't make him an alt-righter per se, just someone who is living in a bubble, like I was.
