Innuendo Studios
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2019–2025
18:16 · 2.1M views · Jan 25, 2019
An Innuendo Studios video essay from the Alt-Right Playbook series that uses the Seinfeld 'the card says moops' scene to explain bad-faith argument tactics. It describes how reactionaries use sincerity and irony as shields in online debate.
HN commenters recommend the series for understanding bad-faith 'just kidding' dynamics and trolling online.
7 comments from Hacker News
I can only recommend watching Innuendo Studios' _Alt-Right Playbook_ series for a deeper understanding of the dynamics, but if you don't have the time I'd at least recommend watching this one: this video All of 4chan, but especially /b/, is built around "haha just kidding ... unless", ridiculing people for getting offended while "trolling" with the most nefarious opinions and defending them "as a joke". This escalated with /pol/ which at some point became mask-off unironically white supremacist. This is not just about 4chan being too white and too male and everybody self-identifying as NEET (whether as a joke or in earnest). The perpetual "ironic" regurgitation of racist, misogynist and anti-Semitic talking points attracted Nazis because it allowed them to hide in plain sight and they very successfully used it as part of their pipeline by getting people to repeat their jokes until they stopped laughing.
While to a large extent that is true, I think a larger part of the issue is that people actually have different foundational mental models of how the world "really" works. Conservatives, for the most part, believe that a hierarchy of haves and have-nots is not only natural, but inevitable . It is consistent for them to therefore extrapolate that anyone claiming to work on flattening the hierarchy (by giving to the have-nots) must really be trying to get their in-group further up the hierarchy, at the expense of those currently benefitting from it. That's why "He’s not hurting the people he needs to be" can be rationalized as in their self interest. In their view, there is some constant, immutable amount of "hurt" that some demographic has to bear. "No such thing as a free lunch" and such. So deep down, conservatives interpret any calls to reduce that harm as instead being an existential threat to redirect that harm to their group. I really recommend Ian Danskin's videos on the subject, they explain it better than I can in one HN comment, with plenty of scholastic sources: this video (Linked is "Always a Bigger Fish". Many of the historical sources justifying the argument are discussed in the "endnote" video that follows, but this video is the one that lays out this particular argument, along with the later video "I Hate Mondays")
As to the "no comments section" policies, I'm gonna be honest: I don't blame them one bit. No one owes anyone a platform, and considering how easy and cheap it is to host your own content, why should anyone be forced to broadcast someone else's opinion? The truth of the matter is there are more trolls these days - see especially "The Card Says Moops" ( this video ) as to one reason why. If you say "get your own website and post there" it raises the bar just enough that trolls won't do it. I think this is a good thing. Note that I am firmly in favor of Net Neutrality and carriers (eg ISPs, registrars, etc) banned from having tiers or otherwise hampering access. What I oppose is people crying censorship when big name sites kick out the despicables. As I pointed out above, anyone can get a website and domain name.
"The card says moops" this video The liberal can't argue with inauthentic memes. They must give the benefit of the doubt by their own rules. The conservative sees this as an exploit that they can use to win the game every time. Because they see it as a game, amoral, based on scoring symbolic points for their preexisting tribal identity ("This family has always rooted for Liverpool"). They see it as a Conflict, not even of competing interests, but an inherent conflict of identity. The liberal insists on seeing it as a disagreement between friends, or an opportunity for education. An earnest Mistake. All of their rhetorical tools are based on persuading someone reasoning in good faith.
> I really don't get it. I don't state this to attack that political group, I just very much don't understand. "Are you the party that believes in the right to bear arms because you're distrustful of all authority and what if we need to overthrow the government someday? Or do you believe that cops are civil servants and we should trust their version of events whenever they shoot a black man for looking like he might have a gun?"[0] [0]The Card Says Moops: this video