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20. Death of a Subreddit
69 Plays6 days ago
Helen and Sarah talk about /r/fuckingfascists, a fascist domination roleplay subreddit intended for good liberals, which instead ended up getting eaten alive by nazis.
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Transcript
The Rise and Fall of a Controversial Subreddit
00:00:00
Speaker
In this episode, we look at the implosion of rfuckingfascists, a subreddit dedicated to kinky fascist content that at its height had over 100,000 subscribers.
00:00:11
Speaker
The moderators, vocal liberals, didn't realize that what they had created was less a roleplay community than a hunting ground for actual Nazis, until suddenly and dramatically, they were forced to face that fact.
00:00:26
Speaker
There's really nothing real. There is no real. And that's what's called the postmodern mentality. I couldn't receive the word racist remark. The adventure of life justifies its suffering. i don't want to see him having political succubus with goblins. Do it live.
00:00:41
Speaker
Is Trump to have babies with a goblin? Do it live! And turn against us like Darth Vader. Do it live! Now listen, you write a calling name. Let's get... Let's stay plastered. I was going to have a guest speaker, but the person I had invited in died.
00:00:58
Speaker
some level of masochism.
Meet the Hosts: Helen and Sarah
00:01:02
Speaker
this is helen this is sarah welcome to odium symposium a podcast about the production of bigotry just a quick reminder you can join our patreon at patreon dot com slash odiumsymposium for five dollars a month you can leave a message we'll read it on the show you'll get early access to episodes and we're going to continue to produce connoiseur only episodes from time to time but mostly you arere just being nice to us Also, all listeners are welcome to join our Discord. You can find a link for that in the description.
00:01:31
Speaker
This episode is going to be a little unusual. So you're like moving between countries right now. You're basically podcasting from like a closet. Yeah, exactly. We've been talking about like, oh, it would be so great to have like a podcasting like closet at least like a room like a little room for podcasting. And this is sort of like a monkey's paw situation because this is like the bedroom I'm staying in currently.
00:01:54
Speaker
What if your whole room was a closet? Like, okay. I guess. But yeah, I'm lying in bed. So the listeners who can't see, you know, because we don't release video feed, I'm lying in bed. I'm holding my mic. I'm like, if I jostle the cables too much, the audio disconnects. So this is real low budget indie podcasting right now. We're we're breaking ground here.
00:02:13
Speaker
We're also going to talk about something that nobody has ever talked about before, which is Reddit. I know you've heard of this website. You're a big Redditor. You're always sending me, are they called, advice animals and rage comics. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, in today's modern world where everything is so confusing, sometimes you just need like a puffin to give you some advice, you know?
00:02:37
Speaker
Today we're going to talk about a particular subreddit and its moderation history. And not all of our listeners are going to be familiar with how Reddit moderation works, and it's important to the story.
Reddit's Moderation Dilemma
00:02:47
Speaker
So I'm going to give you a basic rundown. Reddit, which is currently the fifth most visited site in the US, is run by a pretty typical tech company.
00:02:55
Speaker
The company and its agents are referred to as the admins and they do almost no moderation of or guiding of the site. They also don't do much to change the site on a technical level except they get into whatever the latest tech scam is and integrate it so Reddit has NFTs and blockchain integration and AI integration and all this shit inevitably ends up getting ripped out after a few years. They did an IPO not that long ago.
00:03:20
Speaker
I have like a relatively small like retirement investment account because at some point I was able to save like a little bit of money and put it in like a Roth IRA. And I think I bought a share of Reddit.
00:03:31
Speaker
God, I shouldn't have confessed that. i'll Like one was making me confess that on the podcast. It's okay. i'll I'll edit that out. Don't worry about it. Okay, there's a lot of odium we could get into with the admins.
00:03:43
Speaker
But in this episode, they're not the focus. Most of the work on Reddit is done by a completely separate group of people, the mods. Reddit is essentially a collection of forums called subreddits, and each forum has its own moderators.
00:03:59
Speaker
Key point here is that the mods are volunteers, they are not paid, and modding is absolute shit work. You're deleting tons of spam and comments from just like the most stupid and degenerate losers on the internet. Since the work is so bad, and there's so much of it, there are kind of like three types of people who become moderators.
00:04:18
Speaker
The first is people who are constantly power tripping. The second is people who have some sort of like a sense of mission around building community. And the third is people who are looking to hawk products and scams or be sock puppets for corporations.
00:04:34
Speaker
The only things the admins care about are keeping negative media attention off the company and making sure the mods don't have any organizational power. And in particular, can't fuck with the advertisers or jam up the content pipeline.
00:04:48
Speaker
Users largely hate mods, in part because the admins use them as shields. So users largely don't understand the difference between mods and admins. So mods have an adversarial relationship with basically everyone else on the site, and they're kind of like clannish with each other. Yeah, it's not that uncommon for mods to make a rule in subreddits that like you're not allowed to report the subreddit to the Reddit admins, which is like completely wild as a concept. This happens more in Facebook. like Facebook groups will be like, one of the rules youre greet you agree joining, like, don't report us to Zuckerberg. But I've seen it on Reddit, too, and it is, like, yeah, it's exactly this adversarial thing of, like, the admins will delete a subreddit if it, especially a smaller subreddit, if it's more trouble than it's worth, if it's fucking with advertisers. The admins will just, like, ban it or...
00:05:40
Speaker
make it go private or, you know, they can really fuck with subreddits. And so the mods just like, yeah, they really they really hate the admins in general. They'll also do the opposite. Like if a subreddit goes private,
00:05:53
Speaker
then the admins will just forcibly unprivate it if they view it as like an important source of like content or important for advertisers. They have a sense that this is something that could like snowball into some sort of informal unionization.
Unintended Consequences: Kink or Ideology?
00:06:06
Speaker
The subreddit we're talking about today is called Fucking Fascists. and the mods there understand themselves to be of the community building type.
00:06:16
Speaker
Let's get a sense of what the community they're building is based around by looking at a few of the most upvoted posts on the subreddit of all time. Okay, so here's the number one most upvoted post.
00:06:28
Speaker
Okay, ah sorry, I'm like, still unlocked. What's the name of this subreddit again? Fucking fascists. Four years ago. It is tagged with the tag fascism parentheses kink.
00:06:40
Speaker
I love it when racist cops taking advantage of leftists cunts. It makes my cunt so fucking wet to see them break their holes and attitude.
00:06:52
Speaker
It's a porn gif. Some porn video where the the plot of the porn is clearly police are like searching this woman. So this is from four years ago, which is not long after the subreddit was founded.
00:07:06
Speaker
Here's the number two post of all time. And the video is dead, but you can still see the title. Your landlord won't respect your pronouns, but he'll give you job as his personal cum-dum.
00:07:17
Speaker
Okay, so this is a porn subreddit. Last just like straight up porn one I'm going to show you in this sequence. Okay, this one's from three years ago. It's just a kink. It's just role-playing until it's not.
00:07:29
Speaker
And then it's a another porn video... You made your boyfriend a fascist, and now you're living with the consequences as text over just like a woman getting railed. Let's skip down to number five here.
00:07:42
Speaker
This is a mod post. Post tagged serious parentheses non-kink. Just a reminder that actual fascists are unironic and unsexy scum. Hey, this place really blew up, and I'm happy to be here with you all.
00:07:57
Speaker
Just wanted to remind any of our new members that this is ultimately all just kink, and that this sub does not endorse fascism. Alright, so what are your thoughts far?
00:08:16
Speaker
we're all here for our own reasons but remember it's just a game just play serious talk real fascists or scum and have no place here or anywhere for that matter otherwise enjoy yourselves all alright so what are your thoughts so far um but You're going to get me on the record taking a stand on, like, kink discourse? Yes.
00:08:36
Speaker
that's the That's the trap here? Okay. There's a lot of discourse and, like, conversation around, like, some kinks being okay and some not, trying to draw lines, but I just, like, don't really care about. i don't really think that it, like, matters.
00:08:53
Speaker
I just, like, don't trust a subreddit to do a kink well. But like, I think my fears are like largely related to like having been on Reddit and knowing how much like just misogyny exists on Reddit.
00:09:09
Speaker
And therefore, like if this were a subreddit, I don't think I'm much more scared that this is like about how wild this can get than I would be if this were like some supposedly totally innocuous kink, like people who are really into like rubber ducks or something. Like I would believe that the Redditor can make anything horrible.
00:09:30
Speaker
Here's the basic tension. The mods genuinely believe themselves to be good liberals and in fact anti-fascist.
Community Concerns and Growth Challenges
00:09:38
Speaker
And they're running this sub that is wall-to-wall fascist jerk-off material.
00:09:44
Speaker
But it's okay because it's not intended for fascists and because they're not welcoming to fascists. do you see any way this could go wrong? Yeah, it's a public space. So saying like, we aren't welcoming to this group of people is like not, that's not worth anything, right?
00:10:03
Speaker
Like fascists are obviously going to show up. I don't know, kinks that involve these kinds of things, fascism, but even like kinks around like non-consent or whatever, like you need to have lots of conversations with the people involved. You need to like make sure that you have good communication. And that's something which like,
00:10:19
Speaker
like Reddit is not a framework that allows for that, and so like of course you're going to have people who are showing up who are viewing this thing for real. Well, let's look at some of the replies to this particular post that I just showed you.
00:10:30
Speaker
The only good fascist is a very, very dead one. Based, in real life I hate being misgendered, but in kink hot as fuck. Come breed this girly pussy.
00:10:43
Speaker
Another reply, not true, I mog you all. Another reply, shut your ass up. You can see this kind of like pushback against fascist presence is already getting like kind of a mixed response.
00:10:56
Speaker
And also right at the start, there's already a lot of concern about like, is it a good idea to have this subreddit? Another post. are posts expressing concern about this reddit sincere i am noticing an influx of i'm worried about how much this reddit is growing posts and i can't tell if y'all are baiting to be degraded further or actually concerned about people me personally i just find the whole shit interesting and reflective of the insincerity in a lot of people's current political convictions in and outside of kink I don't know how dangerous subs like this actually are, though. I mean, anyone stupid enough to become a legitimate fascist because they're horny ain't doing much for society anyway, Lameau.
00:11:35
Speaker
i don't know. There's like two stories I'm thinking of here. One is that, and I don't want to share a lot of details about this one because it's not really my story to tell the details of, but I do know someone who went on a few dates with someone who was a self-described fascist. And this was like somewhere in the world where there was like a fascist party.
00:11:53
Speaker
that was, like, self-described fascist. And so it wasn't, like, oh, like, internet edgelord, like, I'm a fascist. It was, like, a dude who was, like, I am, you know, to the extent that I'm politically engaged, like, I agree with the fascists. I was, like, you know, for me, like, I just wouldn't date someone who says that. she and And she was, like, well, it's, you know, it's casual, like, the sex is really good. And then the ending of that story is she got sexually assaulted by it. It's just, like, these these questions about, like, the...
00:12:20
Speaker
oh, it's like fun until it's not or like it's kink. Like that's like, I don't think that it's insincere to be concerned about a subreddit like this, right? Like to be like, hey, there's this like kink and I want this community. And then, oh, it seems like a lot of people are here. Oh, it seems like a lot of people are doing this thing for real. Like that seems like a real concern to have. The other thing I'm thinking a lot about reading this is, do you know the author Dennis Cooper? ah No. I was introduced to Dennis Cooper by my girlfriend, Quinny. Who does the episode art, by the way. Yeah, Quinny does the episode art. She's so cool. Dennis Cooper has this book called The Sluts, which mostly takes place like on internet forums.
00:12:55
Speaker
And he somehow really captured like the way the internet works in this book. It's a very upsetting book to read because there's a lot of like really graphic shit going on in it. At least at the beginning, the book is structured around posts on a escort review site reviewing this like twink bottom in West Hollywood who like will apparently let you do anything you want to him.
00:13:16
Speaker
And there's a really interesting parallel where people are like, hey, like, trying to figure out, like, the reality what's happening to this guy, like, that's not the hot part here. The hot part here is, like, making up these... stories so some people make a spin-off forum for fantasizing about like having sex with and murdering aaron carter but most people in the forum don't go to that forum because they're like well that's fake that's just like you fantasizing that's lame you're just talking about some celebrity and like what you want to do to him we like the reality of this forum even though most of them understand that all the posts on this forum are also made up
00:13:50
Speaker
So there's this really like ambiguous nature of like how much is the like fantasy versus the reality like part of what's happening here. This is also a problem for this subreddit, right? Because, okay, of course you have this concern about, are there actually fascists here?
00:14:05
Speaker
But a lot of people on the subreddit, are they like they don't want to break the kayfabe ever. So they're gonna be doing... like fascist role play on posts like this, even though they're supposed to be, these are supposed to be like the breaking kayfabe discussion posts, but they're going to think, oh, but I'm still just doing role play. Now, the thing about that that's more complicated is like role playing a fascist just makes you a fascist.
00:14:32
Speaker
Like, I don't know. So there's like, there's layers going on here and this is going to be so bad. I can already, we're like five minutes in and this is going to be so bad. There's a lot to address in what you said. One thing is,
00:14:45
Speaker
They have hookup threads for people to just like identify other users of the subreddit. Oh, no. and Yes, and DM them and hook up with them.
00:15:00
Speaker
And they're like, we don't encourage this, but we know people are going to do it anyway, so here's the thread where you can do it. That is ill-advised, I would say. i would say that's an error, yeah.
00:15:12
Speaker
Also... To me, the big issue is not so much that like people are going to show up to the subreddit and they're going to see this fascist propaganda and they're going to be like, oh, now I get that fascism is cool. I mean, maybe it could happen.
00:15:31
Speaker
But much more likely to me seems to be fascist infiltration and propagandizing through replies and conversation. You know, fascists thrive on this ambiguity around whether they're being ironic and role playing or not. That's the format in which they can get their message across most effectively. We saw that in, for example, the searcher episode.
00:15:55
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So I agree. Like, I don't think it's a question of like people are going to come and like sort of consciously be like, oh, now I understand fascism is hot. But you're right. It's going to be I'm I like it's hot to pretend to be a fascist. And the longer that you find it hot to pretend to be a fascist, the more fascist you become. Right. Like, no no, no, no, no. That's not that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that, like, completely independent of you doing this role play.
00:16:22
Speaker
People are going to, like, in conversation with you, communicate that, like, actually, you know, fascism is really just, like, another ideology. In fact, let's look at the replies to this post.
00:16:34
Speaker
This has been entertaining, and I totally agree because people can differentiate between fantasies and reality. Do you know there has been someone reporting several conservative or even neutral comments in this post as possible fascism? Lamao.
00:16:48
Speaker
I think perspective taking is important. This is so funny already. Like, this is like the centrist. Like, you know, we have to hear out both sides. We have to write it. It's it's happening in the fascist porn subreddit.
00:17:02
Speaker
I think for perspective taking is important because you don't have to agree with opposing views, but it's important you understand where they're coming from. There have always been extremisms on various political spectrums. If you only listen to one side of the arguments, you'll be sure to fall into the trap of getting brainwashed by politicians with their own agendas and become an extremist yourself.
00:17:21
Speaker
So just be a critical and independent thinker. Easy. Speaking as a politically neutral Asian female. Oh my God. Like, I don't want to necessarily... right i don't i have no basis for knowing that this person is lying about their identity, but it's just so funny how many documented cases there are of, like...
00:17:42
Speaker
white guy republican and shud like forgetting to switch to his alt twitter account and being like as a black man i agree with this yeah absolutely i mean if you want to check out a subreddit don't check out fucking fascist check out r as a black man because it's just like endless examples of right-wingers doing that And like, you know, there's fascist Asian women.
00:18:05
Speaker
Like, I'm not playing this game of like that, you know, they must be lying because if they really were an Asian female, they'd have perfect politics. Like, of course not. But I don't know. Speaking as a politically neutral Asian female, most shitty treatments I've got both IRL and online, including racism, actually come from far left and then in scare quotes, fascists.
00:18:24
Speaker
They just want to feel morally superior to you without actually practicing what they preach. They pretend to listen, they censor your speech, they kink shame you because you don't conform to their versions of diversity and inclusion, empowerment and liberation, while on the other hand promoting misandry, racism and other double standard bullshits.
00:18:41
Speaker
I've been called a fascist sympathizer simply because I agree with certain conservative values and notions and support erotic content with misogyny as a kink and VAs who produce them. So yeah, I'm not worried about this sub promoting fascism because by exposing the toxic and hilarious aspects of all kinds of extremism, and it actually takes power away from them rather than promoting and strengthening them.
00:19:04
Speaker
And then there's a reply from OP. Incredible reply. I'm not gonna lie, based on this comment, I definitely get why leftists would call you a fascist. No shade, though, because it's your life to live. I'm just like, oh yeah, nah, I see why they're being saying that to that girl as I read it.
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, so she didn't fall for it. That's so funny. It's also, there like, she's doing the thing again, i noticed that we talked about in the last episode, where...
00:19:32
Speaker
when she says far left quote fascists, like the accusation towards the left is that it is like the far right, but you still have to take as given that the far right is bad. Like, and that doesn't enter into the calculation at all. Like,
00:19:51
Speaker
the the sort of the watermark you're going for is to say that the far left is as bad as we already all have to understand and know the far right to be. And yet that never enters into this like horseshoe theory type bullshit.
00:20:05
Speaker
At about one year into the subs existence, I found a poll. It asked its users like, where are you on the political spectrum? And about 10% of the users self-identified as far right.
00:20:17
Speaker
The mods are very aware of these people, and i found one of them, I think, referencing this poll like years later.
Relying on Users: A Flawed System?
00:20:26
Speaker
And they have a two-pronged strategy to keep this 10% or so from turning the sub into a straight-up fasc sub.
00:20:36
Speaker
Here's an announcement post. A reminder that we mods rely upon you to help us identify real fascists. Despite the hard nature of the kinks displayed in this sub, we totally support equality and human rights for all.
00:20:50
Speaker
It's not okay for someone to have real discriminatory and hateful views such as transphobia, homophobia, and racism, etc. There is no compromising when we enforce our rule 1, you can rest assured of that.
00:21:02
Speaker
If you discovered someone with such real tendencies, please keep reporting them, such as specific comments by them until we notice and take actions or send a mod mail if someone shows their true colors in DMs.
00:21:13
Speaker
As mods, we're still normal people with our own lives, and we have limited time and energy spent on Reddit, so we rely upon you to keep this sub a safe and healthy kinky space for all.
00:21:23
Speaker
Like, I'm sorry, you're just, like, not building a community. Like, even in the best version of what this could be, it's not a community. It's ah it's a porn board. And I don't say that to, like, disparage porn, right? I'm not trying to be, like, you know, i don't want to be, you know, anti-sex work on this pod or whatever. Like, porn is good, whatever. But, yeah, you're not, like, building a community in a safe space. You're building a place where people are, like, sharing pornography.
00:21:48
Speaker
And like that has to inform your moderation here, right? Like if you think like I'm going to be able to root out all of the like unsavory types who view my porn, you're just not. Like you actually need to like realize this is such such a fool's errand to build a community.
00:22:04
Speaker
It's going to get so much worse. Oh my I would also say that if your community depends on constantly fanning the flames of paranoia and asking people to report their fellow community members to the mods for secretly being real fascists, like that's not a great structure upon which to build. There's this like liberal obsession with the idea of, like which I now realize, you're right, is like very fascist.
00:22:31
Speaker
the idea of the hidden fascist the fashion who hots the fascist who hides among us and secretly controls controls things right trump might as well have stood on stage and just been like look if you elect me i'm going to implement fascism it's going to be great we're going to purge the ethnic minorities like it was pretty clear he didn't say the word i'm going to implement fascism like he didn't use those words but he like did say we're going to purge the ethnic minorities right like Yeah, it's it could not have been less secretive.
00:23:02
Speaker
At the same time, in this particular context, there's a bunch of secret fascists. Like, they are actually here. They're not delusional about that.
00:23:15
Speaker
Okay, I'll accept that. But I do think that, like, then you have to take that a step further and you have to say, okay, we're building this porn subreddit where functionally there's no difference between...
00:23:26
Speaker
like a real fascist and a fake fascist. And so the solution to that can't be, we're going to like run this paranoid game of trying to figure out who's a real fascist. It has to be to understand that like you need to practice boundaries in your life between this community and the rest of your life because this isn't a community. Again, it's like a porn aggregator.
00:23:51
Speaker
Okay, so the first prong was to get people to report fascists and then the mods would ban them. This is the second prong. Twice a month, for two days each time, they do a subreddit aftercare where you're not allowed to roleplay or kink post, you can only post about real shit and about how much you hate fascists.
Introducing 'Aftercare' Days: A Solution?
00:24:15
Speaker
I get the sense there's like a mixed reception to this. Eventually it goes down to twice a month for one day each time. ah Personally, i would be pretty pissed if I was a user.
00:24:28
Speaker
i I don't know, like I'm going over to the subreddit and I'm like, I want to jerk off. And they're like, sorry, no jerk off material for two days. The mods are doing aftercare with you. Yeah, I also feel like I find that like a really offensive and infantilizing use of the word aftercare. Like that's not what aftercare is, right? Like aftercare is a, oh my God, this is painful. This is so painful.
00:24:56
Speaker
At the same time that they're like aware of these problems, they pretty clearly think they have all of this like well in hand. And the attitude of the mods toward real-world politics is, let's say, lackadaisical in the run-up to the 2024 election.
00:25:13
Speaker
Here's an announcement. During the debate announcement, here's a reminder for everyone that while we may be a political kink server, political discussion is against our rules.
00:25:24
Speaker
All fun and games until we start getting serious with politics and bring the mood down. We're here to enjoy some kink, not talk about who's best, or get all stuffy about world leaders. After the election, things start to go downhill.
00:25:39
Speaker
So they get absolutely flooded with fascists, and they end up putting the sub on private for a while, which means you can't see it or interact with it at all unless you're already subscribed to it.
00:25:50
Speaker
And the admins will only let you do this for a brief time, because in the past, going private has been used as a strike tactic by mods. After the subreddit comes back from being private, they have a new rule.
00:26:02
Speaker
You have to be approved by the mods to make new posts. No restrictions on replying, just top-level posts. So in theory, the problem is solved.
00:26:16
Speaker
And now the fascists know they can't win because they're being watched like hawks and they'll stay contained. Reddit is not like a well-archived site. And in particular, when the mods of this subreddit ban people, they also go back and they delete all their past posts. So I can really only like get glimpses into the history here. There are major announcements people reference that should be there, and they just aren't. But still, I could tell going through that cracks kept showing up.
00:26:46
Speaker
Like, check out this announcement. Announcement and clarifications. And then it's that like meme image of Captain America like doing a PSA with captions so you have a kink that you pretend goes against your beliefs.
00:26:59
Speaker
Hello friends, we have a few things to go over from the mod team. Don't mind the image, it's semi-related and so this post can be more visible. unfortunately we have received solid information that a previous mod who was still very active was actually a maga fascist so we had to pull our trick we had to pull the trigger there this is your reminder that anyone can be a fascist and to help keep this space safe we encourage you to speak up most times it'll be someone sweet to get your defenses down but always trust your gut slash intuition And feel free to message a mod if you have any second thoughts. We also want to thank the person who reported them. We know it can be scary to speak up when they're active in the community.
00:27:39
Speaker
So the mod team got infiltrated by an actual fascist. And then a month later, there's another post about a guy named Aussie Leftist. When we started our search for moderators, Aussie's application was well written and convincing. Enough time had passed for the team to not remember the report against him exactly. i did, however, so this one is on me.
00:28:01
Speaker
When we were voting for moderators, I didn't take this past report into account and supported Aussie becoming a mod, and so he did. Almost immediately, I got a message from an account that later deleted. The message was cryptic and yet warned against him being a, quote, predator.
00:28:15
Speaker
Unfortunately, that account provided no context, but as luck would have it, the next day, today, I received another report, this one extremely thorough, about who cruel Bonk was. and also proved him and Aussie the same person.
00:28:28
Speaker
In summary, the man was a manipulator who very obviously didn't draw a line between kink and real life and was involved in situations with dubious consent. He should not only have not been a moderator, he shouldn't have been on the subreddit at all.
00:28:40
Speaker
This is a major fuck-up on the side of our team and something I personally am ashamed of. Aussie slash bonk has been removed as a moderator and also banned. Being on the mod team doesn't make any of us above moderation. That's a philosophy we all stand behind and unfortunately this is not the first time we have had to enforce it.
00:28:57
Speaker
i don't know there's a lot going on here. Like, okay, yeah, the mods keep getting infiltrated by fascists, because of course, I don't want to say everyone who finds something hot as a kink finds, you know, has this political belief in real life, but of course, like, a big part of fascism, as we've repeatedly talked about, is, like, libidinal enjoyment and, like, sexuality. Like, this is something we've talked about, like, repeatedly, and so, like, of course...
00:29:21
Speaker
It's not even a question of like fascists are doing infiltration on purpose to try to like recruit. Although of course that's also happening. It's like, yeah, like fascists are going to find this stuff hot they're going to show up to your porn board they're going to want to moderate it And like, maybe this guy was on purpose. Like I'm going to get a bunch of new fascists. Maybe this guy was like, I'm just going troll a bunch of libs. Who knows?
00:29:47
Speaker
Here's another announcement they make about this time. Rules update. Greetings everyone. As a bit of rules clarification, do not give money to IRL fascists. We know that red hats and confederate bikinis are popular around these parts, but we do not want to see them in any kind of selfie content.
00:30:02
Speaker
Fascist kink is hot, fascism itself is not. Do not purchase fascist paraphernalia, including but not limited to fascist flags, bikinis printed with fascist iconography, merchandise from IRL fascist groups, i.e. MAGA hats.
00:30:15
Speaker
Have a happy Pride Month and good luck to those of you in Los Angeles. Given that the user who posted this is tagged with trans commie mommy, uncritical support to this mod. I support her.
00:30:31
Speaker
Let me point out the distinction that they're attempting to draw here between fascist content and fascist content that's affiliated with something in particular.
00:30:45
Speaker
So like, what you're allowed to find hot and post about on here is just the broad general idea of fascism. But once you particularize it down to something that like,
00:30:59
Speaker
actually affects people in real life, then you have a problem. Also, pretty clearly, the subreddit is just, like, causing money to get funneled directly to fascists. So I think that's bad.
00:31:14
Speaker
The line that you're talking about, right? The line that she's, like, trying to draw here. I feel like I'm just repeating myself a bunch. But it's, again, this is not something that can be handled at the subreddit level. Like, this is a kink which, like, deals with some really problematic things. And...
00:31:29
Speaker
The answer can't be like, okay, we're going to build a community on this subreddit. The answer has to be like, understand that the subreddit is not a community and it's an aggregator of porn. And like this whole thing needs to be just torn down and like rebuilt from scratch with entirely different principles.
00:31:45
Speaker
I think the complacency of the mods is evident in this reaction to the Charlie Kirk shooting. A stern discussion of where we are from pigslut182. We're going to see a lot of pigslut182 from here on.
00:32:04
Speaker
Amazing. Hello everyone, I'm back again with a quick message. In recent days, we here at the mod team have seen an uptick in some negative behaviors, rule-breaking posts, and the like. As another mod mentioned previously, we understand that these are trying and controversial times. As much as you may dislike or disagree with someone, though, genuinely celebrating violence sets a bad precedent. Come on. Discourse around... Sorry, the come come on was me editorializing. That's not in there.
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, is extremely complacent. lot to say about this.
00:32:38
Speaker
that when the only tactics you use in discussion are escalation and demonization of others you'll only ever make a more toxic environment yeah this is extremely complacent i have a lot to say about this Nobody has ever had their mind changed by being directly insulted, humiliated, or infuriated. That's not true. Again, me editorializing. It's natural for people to dig their heels in when their beliefs are challenged. If you only ever stoop lower than your opponent, you'll be in an eternal race to rock bottom.
00:33:01
Speaker
Don't let some hateful, small-minded shithead with one set of beliefs turn you into a hateful, small-minded shithead with another set of beliefs. That makes you both hateful and small-minded, and then nobody makes any progress toward the change they want to see in others in the world. We're all human.
00:33:16
Speaker
Of course we here at Fucking Fascists don't abide or allow any right-wing wackos and authoritarian assholes for their beliefs, but we don't want to see you, our users, become equally toxic in a different way.
Complacency and Real-World Impact
00:33:26
Speaker
You can stand up for yourself and engage in this subject matter without becoming a monster yourself, so please don't. Okay, I'm going to break one of my cardinal rules here, which is, you know...
00:33:37
Speaker
Never get into a fight with a pig slut because she'll drag you down into the mud with her, but she likes it. um But yeah, this is so funny. This is the, this is exactly the same as the post that the politically neutral Asian female made where people were like, oh yeah, I get why you're being called a fascist. Like I'm going to report pig slut 182 as a potential fascist to the other mods. Yeah.
00:34:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's the same post. It's the same fucking post. I feel like I've mentioned this a couple times on the podcast before but this idea of nobody has ever had their mind changed by being directly insulted humiliated or infuriated That's not really true Like i'm not saying that those are the best ways to change someone's mind And I do think that you know people do dig their heels in like that's a thing that people do But I can think back to times in my life where I said stuff I hadn't really thought about and somebody was like Hey, that's stupid as dog shit. And then you were like, oh wait And it made me feel bad and then I was like, why do I feel bad? And I was like, oh because I did say something stupid this accepting that like No one will ever change their mind having that experience. Like I'm sorry like skill issue like Yeah, people who only ever dig their heels in are called assholes right like
00:34:50
Speaker
And to be like, oh, the celebration of Charlie Kirk shows... Sorry, the celebration of Charlie Kirk's death shows that politics is more tense and fraught now than in recent memory. Like, after we've already seen ICE raids. Like, that's crazy. Speaking of ICE raids, after this, ICE invades Minneapolis.
00:35:12
Speaker
And people are posting their fantasies about ICE kidnapping and raping people. And it's freaking the mods out. And then ICE agents murder Renee Goode and Alex Preddy in the streets. And the mods start crashing the fuck out. We're going to hear from Pigslut182 again. If you voted for Trump or are a conservative or authoritarian, leave this place now.
00:35:36
Speaker
The title sums up my thoughts. Get the fuck out of this subreddit. You do not belong. We do not like you. You are not welcome. This subreddit does not want your kind here. Simple. Go. Shoe. Scrams. Link back to whatever hole you spawned from. Leave us alone.
00:35:50
Speaker
If you wanted to make a post that would actually make fascists leave, I couldn't think of a worse one. Like, is there anything that fascists love more than liberals having, like, a completely empty crash out?
00:36:03
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That has, like, no power to do anything? You can't come into our club. Yeah, like like this is our safe space. you like They yeah love that shit. They want to violate your boundaries. That's the whole idea. Yeah, that's that's what this subreddit is like. You moderate a subreddit, which is about how they find that shit hot like
00:36:25
Speaker
I'm so excited. Like, the idea of this person leading some kind of, like, community-wide aftercare is, like, hilarious to me. Here's another post. Again, from pigslut182. And this one is quite long.
00:36:39
Speaker
At what point are we complicit? Hello, everyone. This is Brandy. Back again for some reflections. This post isn't coming from me in my capacity as a moderator, but as a user, and doesn't reflect any official stance of the mod team, but merely my own.
00:36:54
Speaker
I've been stewing lately. In the aftermath of the shooting of Renee Goode and now of Alex Pretty, I've been acutely aware of beyond troubling trends here in this subreddit. First, when we put the community on pause after receiving a wave of input from users that we ought to update our policies, the amount of hostility that I and the moderators received for merely trying to respect the wishes of you, our users, was appalling.
00:37:19
Speaker
From our official posts to our mod mail and DMs, I'd never seen so much open vitriol and toxicity here. Especially given that the hate was aimed at our intention to listen to feedback and attempt to improve safety standards, it makes one think.
00:37:32
Speaker
Are the majority of the users here actually genuine fascists and assholes? It seems like it. Any post made under non-fascist flares and any comment and support seems to be flooded with downvotes and flagrant cruelty in its comments.
00:37:46
Speaker
Any post made expressing serious topics in OOC communication or aftercare is liable to receive waves of bigotry, hate, toxicity, and frankly, just stupid comments from actual fascists that are seemingly upset.
00:37:59
Speaker
I and other mods have always done our best to make clear that this kink should be based entirely in fantasy, as this slice of power dynamic kink can and does have dangerous real-world consequences.
00:38:10
Speaker
Genuine fascists, authoritarians, and right-wingers are not welcome here. That said, it's seemingly clear to me at least that a majority of our users likely are bigots, assholes, authoritarians, and bootlickers who are just clever enough to avoid being overt and getting banned. That leads me to the question at the top. At what point does this group and its users become complicit in the normalization of heinous ideas for Nazis and not an escape and safe space for people with an edgy kink?
00:38:35
Speaker
I fear we may have passed that inflection point.
The Decision to Shut Down: A Mod's Perspective
00:38:38
Speaker
Personally, I'm weighing going to the rest of the mods and petitioning that we nuke this sub. I realize I'll likely get a ton of hate and pushback from a tide of braindead Nazis hiding their stripes, but fuck them.
00:38:50
Speaker
I volunteer my time, experience, temperament, and judgment to try and keep this place as safe as possible, for people to explore a sensitive kink with as little fear as possible. not to empower and embolden pigs and monsters.
00:39:03
Speaker
If the community has tipped past the point of catering to liberals exclusively to primarily right-wingers Nazis and Nazi apologist right-wingers, then it's gotta fucking go. If any of this post has upset or scared you, the reader, you're probably part of the problem.
00:39:18
Speaker
For the rest of you who are actual liberals just trying to express your fantasy safely, I apologize. I don't mean to deprive anyone of a safe space, but to give you the behind-the-scenes perspective, this place isn't safe.
00:39:30
Speaker
It hasn't been safe for some time, and it's not like the line is even close. It's as safe as it can be within the confines of its current setup in Reddit's policies, but I doubt it's safe enough to feel comfortable for many users, and it likely won't be unless truly drastic measures are taken.
00:39:46
Speaker
It's still better than every other fascist-themed kink sub out there because those are all run by actual fascists, who we banned from here. There's no better alternative for this kink on Reddit, but even this place is inherently dangerous, despite our best efforts.
00:39:58
Speaker
It's a rock and a hard place. I don't want to take the safest alternative away from liberals who want a safe space to explore this kink. I also don't want to cater to you subhuman Nazis in this community either.
00:40:10
Speaker
That said, it seems that unfortunately, consent and safety-minded liberals are the minority here, not the majority. Perhaps it's better off if I simply discourage that minority of good people from using Reddit to engage with this kink at all.
00:40:24
Speaker
Maybe it's simply too dangerous. Perhaps it should get wiped out by Reddit. And I should beg and plead with the admins from my position of authority to nuke not only this, but every other sub in this kink space, because I guarantee that they're all much worse than this.
00:40:36
Speaker
I don't know. I'm tired of catering to you ingrate inbred MAGA incel hicks against my better wishes and judgment. I'd really prefer if you all just left, then I could sleep better at night.
00:40:46
Speaker
i'm rambling but i truly am wrestling with my course of action and i'm utterly sick of having to treat you idiotic authoritarian dicks with even a modicum of respect that you don't deserve yeah this is pretty bad i mean like definitely she should step down like i'm not saying that as like she failed as a moda needs to step down i'm saying you're doing this as a volunteer like you are volunteering to moderate this subreddit you should walk away like you are hit the bricks Yeah, like, you don't have to stick around. You're talking about not to, like, disparage porn, but you're talking about a porn aggregator that you volunteer or moderate. And you're, like, up every night, like, having doing soul searching, having an existential crisis about what the outcome of that is going to be. And it's like, just doesn't matter that much. Like...
00:41:34
Speaker
You could just not worry about it. You could just leave. They view themselves as community builders. They view this as community. They build, they tried, they really tried, they sincerely tried to build a safe space around this kink.
00:41:48
Speaker
And it just didn't happen. They couldn't make it happen. It was logistically impossible. Safe kinky spaces are very hard to build in person when you are trying to decide how much I want to reveal about my life on this podcast.
00:42:08
Speaker
When you are like actually in community with people, this shit blows up all the time. Not because there's like always hidden fascists, but because people have conflict. It's hard to deal with conflict.
00:42:19
Speaker
The idea that you're somehow going to be able to do that at scale on a subreddit is just completely disconnected from reality. She's a volunteer content moderator for exact Reddit, the tech company.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yeah. That's all she's doing. She's producing. She's producing revenue and traffic for them. Yeah. I don't know. It's really sad because I get that people feel isolated and atomized. Right. I get the whole loneliness epidemic, whatever. We can talk about why people are driven to these online spaces in a search for a community, but it doesn't change the fact that like online spaces aren't giving a community access.
00:42:56
Speaker
There's all sorts of structural reasons, whether it's the logistics of being online or the fact that everything is geared towards making money for Reddit, that, like, this stuff isn't going to happen. And if you think you're going to be able to solve really thorny questions of, like, how to build kinky but, like, consent-forward communities like this, just, like, for Reddit, like, it's just not going to happen. And...
00:43:20
Speaker
If that's like the thing you think you need to build in order to like enjoy this kink, then like maybe you're just not ready to enjoy this kink. Like, I'm sorry. Like maybe go and like take a walk, sit in the park for a little bit. Ask your neighbor if, you know, if they want to watch the game, right? Build a community that way, right? You want to build a community like I don't know, there's lots of ways to build community. like It doesn't need to be like solving the problem of consent on Reddit. like Oh my god. Okay, so the moderators of the sub petition Reddit to have it set to private permanently.
00:43:57
Speaker
And of course Reddit, because they don't give a fuck and because they are not interested in giving moderators this sort of power, just repeatedly turn down the requests.
00:44:08
Speaker
So here's what they do. They set it so that all new posts have to be approved and no new posts will be approved. And then they make a new subreddit, which is private from the start, called authoritarianplay.
00:44:24
Speaker
You have to request to be allowed into that subreddit. I felt like it would be a little bit far for me to petition to join and then go spy on them and see how things are going there.
00:44:36
Speaker
But I mean... Come on, man. It's the same deal. It's the same fucking deal. Yeah, like, how did they not realize that part of the problem is they actually have no ability to determine, like, who is a fascist and not because, like, actually, like, the whole, every post where they're talking about finding fascists is like, just do a gut check. Just trust your gut. And it's like, I'm sorry, like, you can't, right? Like, that's just not how it works. People can lie. And their gut in particular, like, pretty clearly sucks. Like, they got infiltrated reputedly.
00:45:06
Speaker
I have a solution for them. If they were going to make a new subreddit anyway, they should have moved to the Fediverse. Federated. the fuck up, Helen.
00:45:18
Speaker
If they had put this all in the block, Jake.
00:45:22
Speaker
Okay, hold on, hold on. That's an entirely different bit of janky technology. know, I just wanted to make you mad. It's philosophically different, even. Helen is giving me shit because I post on a federated version of a subreddit about rationalists.
00:45:37
Speaker
Shut the fuck up. Oh my god. So far, the Reddit admins have not seen fit to reactivate the subreddit, but they could do it at any time.
00:45:49
Speaker
And as I mentioned, like in the past, when a subreddit has been deactivated by being privated or by other means like this workaround, they've stepped in and been like, no, the content must flow. So at any moment, this whole experiment could just like get restarted with presumably...
00:46:08
Speaker
Mods much less sympathetic to their methods. So really, they're completely boxed in. I mean, they're fucked. They screwed up. This shouldn't have been a thing.
00:46:20
Speaker
My like first impulse is definitely, yeah, you just shouldn't have made this. Like, sorry. Like I get that you find this kink hot and I do think it's entirely possible to find like whatever, what are they calling it now? Authoritarian play. Like I find, you know, you could find that hot and not like be an actual authoritarian in your life.
00:46:38
Speaker
And I just don't think that you're going to be able to like walk that line on a subreddit. It's just, it's so doomed. It's really weird, too, because i feel like few, if any, of our listeners are going to have a problem with the broad concept of just like domination kink.
00:46:55
Speaker
And what's specific to what they're doing is it has to be tied into like real world political themes and influences, but like not too tied in.
00:47:11
Speaker
And like, that line is so arbitrary. I feel like this whole project is just kind of ideologically suspect because what makes it distinctive is the specificity that they also feel like they can't engage with as a community or otherwise they're just going to be like fascists and like victimizing people in real life.
00:47:40
Speaker
Like that edging into actual victimization, like actual exploitation of actual concrete human suffering just seems to be so intrinsic to what they're trying to do here.
00:47:53
Speaker
I think part of the problem is part of that kink also has to do with discomfort, right? When they're trying to ban they're you know, exactly when they're trying to draw this line between like, okay, we want, you know, these posts, which are, you know, screenshot from a porn and then some caption that like gives it a context of like, these are the,
00:48:13
Speaker
the police search, you know, this is ice searching you or whatever, right? But then you want to be like, okay, but you're not allowed to put like Confederate bikinis. You kind of have to realize like, that's not really. oh by the end, they do end up banning ice posts.
00:48:26
Speaker
But see, even that it's like, we right we don't want to be funneling money to like fascist producers of like paraphernalia. But then it's like, okay, right. All of this has to do with making you feel comfortable consuming this content. But then like even that in itself is contradictory because part of the kink here is that it's making you uncomfortable, right? Because for a lot of the people who are engaging in this kink, they are imagining themselves the object of domination, not like the subject doing the dominating.
00:48:52
Speaker
Part of the line here is also like, okay, I want this to be like exactly as uncomfortable as as as I want to feel, but then anything edgier has to be banned.
00:49:02
Speaker
Like that line is going to be in a different place for everybody who's engaging with this kink. And a lot of the people who are engaging with the kink are going to be straight up fascists. And a lot of the people who are, and some of the people who are engaging with the kink might be straight up, you know, communists who just find this situation hot to think about in a sexual context.
00:49:19
Speaker
I don't know. I don't have like a ah firm vision of like what this thing should look like, partly because I'm just like not into this. Like, I just don't. To me, it's not that big of a cost to be like, yeah, just don't have this kink around, right? Just don't just don't engage in this kink. But like if you genuinely want to engage in this kink and you know whatever, if we want to be like kink positive on this podcast or whatever, it's like, yeah, you just have to realize that you're not gonna have your like safe space community of you and like thousands of other Redditors who are all like getting together and doing aftercare together twice a month. That's just not what any of those words mean.
00:49:58
Speaker
Do you want to do FAG ratings? Who are we rating? The mod team. Okay. So on this show, we use the world's most advanced system for the measurement of bigotry. We rate each of our subjects on a three-part scale with a number from one to five for each.
00:50:13
Speaker
In exceptional cases, we might go up to a six or down to a zero. First, how ferocious are they? Second, how arrogant are they? Third, how gullible are they? Okay, I think if we're rating the mod team, to me, this seems like a pretty easy...
00:50:29
Speaker
one on ferocity. Agreed. There's really no malice in these people that I can see. I mean, if we're going to talk about the like the fascists who infiltrated the mod team, like then we're talking fives or sixes probably, because some of those people probably are just like straight up gripers, right?
00:50:46
Speaker
If we're talking like the the liberal mods who are doing their best to hunt out the secret fascists, they're doing the opening scene of Inglourious Bastards, but to the rest of the mod team.
00:51:02
Speaker
Yeah, those guys. Those guys. Those guys are a one. How about arrogance? This is the only one where I feel there's room for ambiguity. I think there's real ambiguity because part of me could say like, oh, they're a one on arrogance because, you know, they're just trying to build a subreddit. They're just trying to enjoy porn. They have this kind of like foolish idea of what that is going to be.
00:51:25
Speaker
They're not an Ayn Rand, right? Ayn Rand is our highest arrogance rating. They're not someone who is like, I have discovered a whole new system of philosophy. It's called being correct. Like,
00:51:38
Speaker
But on the other hand, I could be like, there are five for arrogance because they think that they have like magic gut check ability to just like pick who's a real fascist and who's pretending and that they're going to like solve all these thorny problems of sex and consent. Well, I guess we can ask this question. Like, is complacency the same as arrogance? Because if it is, that jacks their score up.
00:52:00
Speaker
Well, i that's the thing. I think it's not. I think that what I'm... describing his arrogance really is more a kind of complacency and i think that their arrogance is like maybe a two for me i think i'm gonna give him a one on this okay finally gullibility oh boy oh boy okay so gullibility requires a little bit of explanation here Each of our subjects has a role in the production of bigotry.
00:52:28
Speaker
A higher gullibility score means they're inhabiting that role without any awareness of doing so, while a low score means they're hyper-aware of their role. The role... we usually, like, explicitly have to have this conversation, but we've been talking about this already, what their role is, right? Their role in the production of bigotry, a specific type of bigotry we're talking about is, like, fascism.
00:52:47
Speaker
Their role is, like, normalizing ideas, funneling money to fascist creators, like providing ah like a place where fascists can like congregate and recruit and do all these things and meet victims in real life Yeah.
00:53:06
Speaker
And they're like... It's weird. They are like at times aware that this is their role, but they think they are like walking the line until they aren't right until the end.
00:53:21
Speaker
But somehow, actually, the fact that they're somewhat somewhat aware... but then they're like, we're going to solve the problem by like changing this rule actually shows less awareness for me. Right. Because it's like, you kind of saw a glimpse of it, but then you totally misunderstood the scope of the problem and what the problem actually is. And so for those reasons, I think there are six, like these are the most gullible motherfuckers I've ever seen.
00:53:44
Speaker
If I could give them a seven, I would, but yeah six is already like our exceptional range. They're getting a six. Yeah. We've decided a little bit that because gullibility is different, we should think about these two scores separately. So they're sort of like, how bad are they score? Is the F and A ratings together? I've given them a three, you've given them a two.
00:54:03
Speaker
That's very low. um But with a 6G rating, like, they're putting up numbers. what ah What a time to be alive. Yeah, I hate it. We fucked up. We fucked up. We shouldn't have done computers.
00:54:15
Speaker
What were we thinking? They should have killed Alan Turing earlier and for different reasons. Let's say goodbye. Bye. Bye. There's really nothing real.
00:54:27
Speaker
There is no real. And that's what's called the postmodern mentality. I couldn't receive the word racist remark. The adventure of life justifies its suffering. i don't want to see him having political succubus with goblins. Do it live.
00:54:40
Speaker
Is Trump going to have babies with a goblin? Do it live! And turn against us like Darth Vader. Do it live! Now listen, you. The right calling name. Let's get it. Let's stay plastered. I was going to have a guest speaker, but the person i had invited in died.
00:54:57
Speaker
Some level of masochism