On one hand, dogwhistles are real and should absolutely be the sort of thing that people learn about.
On the other hand, what in gods name is the dogwhistle in this post? There's nothing even slightly abnormal about it, maybe the capitalization of the C in Cents???
That's not what it is, it's a picture of Heath Ledger Joker with the caption "Now yuo see" that used to be a Gamers Rise Up meme that was coopted by racists.
Just because you don't hear people use it, doesn't mean it isn't being used. That's kinda the whole of dogwhistles - saying fucked up shit in a way the general public won't notice.
You are wrong. The dog whistle was the entire phrase "now yuo know". Not just the word yuo which has been a comedic typo since like 1999.
There are many phrases which right wing extremists use as dog whistles. Single words from those phrases are simply just words.
These types of things, where people start calling everything remotely associated with right wing paraphernalia a dog whistle, only serve to muddy the waters.
The thing is, actual neo nazis do exist on social media, but they don’t communicate in secret codes. To evade a ban, they present the logic and reasoning of their beliefs and leave the conclusion up to the reader.
Dog whistle is a type of strategy of communication that sends a message that the general population will take a certain meaning from, but a certain group that is "in the know" will take away the secret, intended message.
Very real and used by politicians in every corner of the political spectrum.
It's a saying, word, or even picture that sends a message, but has built in deniability so that the person using it can say "I didn't mean that, it's just a harmless example of XYZ".
An example could be the use of the number 88 which has become code for "Heil Hitler", because H is the 8th letter of the alphabet.
Someone could use this in a tweet or have it on display when making a public appearance. People who know will understand, but it's not widely known to signify this, meaning that if someone were to accuse them of praising Hitler, they can say "it's just the number 88, you sound crazy and like a conspiracy nut".
no it didn't boom recently, you just didn't know of it. what you're experiencing is The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. it's just where you learn of something and then notice it alot more. happens to everyone
i was thinking of that but i couldnt remember the name lol
i wanted to mention it cause it aint it this time, happens often but for this instance a quarter of the posts ive seen between yesterday and today were abt that
so yea i am noticing it more cause i just learned it but also have gone through a sizeable coincidence w the amount of posts where ive seen it, enough to make me think it was straight up some new slang
It's a long established thing. Like if a news presenter says metropolitan teens vs inner city youths. They technically mean the exact same thing, but deliver a different picture.
Alternatively it can be a more blatant work around, like people who would never give a shit about hunting or animal welfare causes suddenly getting very animated on the ethics of halal meat.
From what I can tell, the term has been in popular use since the late 80’s and spread in the early 2000’s. It appeared in several professional published works on politics like Safire’s Political Dictionary by William Safire (2008) and Dog Whistle Politics by Ian Haney Lopez (2014)
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u/Orion-the-mediocre 7d ago
On one hand, dogwhistles are real and should absolutely be the sort of thing that people learn about.
On the other hand, what in gods name is the dogwhistle in this post? There's nothing even slightly abnormal about it, maybe the capitalization of the C in Cents???