Gauntlet Removed

Memes: the real threat. I hadn't heard of any of this before it showed up in my Google Feed.

I didn't find last season of South Park funny, but Christ, was it on point with its perspective on what online interaction has devolved into. Honestly, the SPLC is writing condemnations of fifteen-year-old kids on 4Chan who are inventing more and more theatrical displays because it gets them a front page article with SPLC. "Dank memsters" are showing up for rallies and riots because, who would have thought, they're attention whores. They're not evil, they're just idiots.

You know, this shit never even appears for me in real life. People I meet are decent, I'm decent to them, everyone's very reasonable, good even. What is it about the Internet? Why does anonymous access to everyone's emotions turn everybody into an asshole? Maybe that's a rhetorical question.

The internet is the fastest form of communication and memes are the quickest way to spread anything to the most amount of people possible. More people know drews blinking face than know what this website is for example, how nuts is that?

It's odd to me, I see the internet is mostly full of people who seem to casually disregard any sort of criticism as an angry mob, or "SJW's". To be honest it's pretty brilliant to use memes to pretty much dismiss any and everything as an overreaction, it pretty much explains the current state of the US and the rest of the world honestly. You basically boil everything down into a joke which puts people off guard, and then bam you have alt right in the white house. I didn't find anything about that article over the top besides maybe the title, it's like if you ever point out or critique anything negative (especially video game related around these parts of the internet) you become an angry crazy person overreacting to everything.

I didn't know about this until this thread (waiting for the PC release so I'm not following much destiny nees), but it seems like removing the design was absolutely the right call. And the article pointing out the design was right to do so.

I've never seen or heard of this "kek" and what it represents before this news. Even from that perspective the similarities are hard to dismiss. I think removing the gauntlet was the right move. I'm sure it'll be back with updated art in the near future.

@bane: They didn't remove the item from the game, rather just changed the in game art for it. Which makes sense since millions of players likely have that item at a high level and rely on it for their Power Level, so removing it all together would screw a whole lot of people. Though there is a question of whether or not they changed the in game picture of what the armor looks like. I personally don't have the Gauntlets in question so I can't confirm or deny what exactly they did to it, but a changed in game art but leaving the display is what I was told. Hopefully they fix that in a hotfix later this week as well because that's still pretty bad if you see that KEK everytime you inspect your Armor.

I don't blame them at all for removing it, looking at this comment section alone it is the safe play. The internet is always one step away from outrage, best to just appease it.

That's how I feel about this whole thing for sure. I'm not sure people get how designing sci-fi bullshit is. You just throw letters together. I'm not being totally naive that it's possible, but I think jumping to say oh it's definitely a flag or symbol who I, who is pretty informed I think, had never seen before is a stretch and kinda gross to me.

Waypoint can be good at times but their methods and stuff sometimes... really off putting and not as dead on as they certainly act like they are. They do no journalism in this case but are telling you exactly how it is in the post for example. I really like Rob Zacny but his tweets about this were bad basically saying he knows 1000% it is intentional because he knows other times hate symbols are used intentionally. Then, when there's doubt, you say "Oh well it was something else/means something else" and that's a racist defense for this stuff... You're putting it at there is absolutely 0 room for a mistake or coincidence. Okay dude that's iron clad.

Taking it down ASAP was the right move and good on Bungie.

Yeah, I'm not one for the outrage culture or anything, but I can understand why they removed that. It's definitely similar. I kind of doubt it was in there as a white supremacy thing. I honestly wouldn't be surprised of an artist had seen it somewhere, forgot the origin, and accidentally plagiarized it.

This is stupid. I don't buy that this was done on purpose, not a fucking chance.

What is the scenario where it is an accident?

Regardless of whether you not you believe it was intentional (this is almost irrelevant as I would expect it would be tough for any party, internal or external, to prove it without some sort of awkward witch hunt) it is a good idea to remove symbols being used for hate from a commercial product. If anything, it's probably a good idea for companies to filter through their art assets to ensure this sort of stuff doesn't appear in the final product. For example, you don't want porn being published onto your twitter account right?

@efesell: the one where I just said I don't believe it. Instead I believe the people making this game are like me and like you. Normal. But let the witch hunt continue. Either way this type of thing doesn't interest me.

Man, this bullshit.

The difference is the swastika is a very well known symbol, where this absolutely isn't. The chances someone eventually draws a swastika in some form if they are oblivious to its existence is almost 100%, except every person on the planet is aware of its existence. That isn't the case here. The letter E is depicted as three stripes in so many different places. I can walk through the city and and see at least 5 signs that have their 'E' represented as such.

On top of that, I can't for the life of me find out what kek 'means' other than LOL. I specifically have to google search for 'kek white supremacy' otherwise I won't find it. I will find the LOL definition and several restaurants near me named Kek, apparently.

I'm not saying it's impossible for this to be intentional, but being confident that this was designed by a racist with intent is way less likely.

It's the PewdiePie of gauntlets!

@zevvion: must be your personalized google algorithm, i look up kek first entry is an article on alt right deity.

I wont claim to be a graphic designer, but i am an art major who studied graphic design. There is no way this design wasnt intentional, you can argue what that intention was but they knew what symbol they were referencing. From the layout, simiar font choice, backwards k, and color scheme alone. And if you want you could go down the Reddit rabbit hole and read from people(at least claiming to be) game artists, developers, and programmers affiliated with this alt right nonsense if people dont believe they exist in this industry.

@oursin_360: I don't get how people can not see the similarities. If the gauntlet had a white star in the middle with red stripes and blue trim, everyone would look at it and say it was meant to evoke the American flag, even if it was never explicitly stated.

listen, the gauntlet was just in the heat of the moment...

@ripelivejam: Who among us has NEVER equipped a high-level item while playing a video game?!

Who cares its just one pair of gauntlets.

@zevvion: Again, this isn't about kek isolated from all other known uses, it's specifically in reference to the kekistan flag that was intentionally designed to mirror the Nazi flag. In this article it shows them side by side (since I really don't want to put the actual Nazi flag on this board) and shows how obviously similar the two are as well as describes the intent behind dissimilarities ("It's obviously different, can't you tell I was just trolling"). This is why even though I really want to believe this was an accident, the way these assholes do things makes me lean to this being intentional.

A lot of people are blindsided by this and never knew. It's hard to stay up to date about what these kinds of people are up to. I specifically know because I used to be on 4chan a lot about 10 years or more ago and I know how they speak and act. I continued to keep tabs on what was going on in that community because of the Garbage Games that happened a few years ago and because of the election nonsense here in the states. I need to be aware of who I follow online and make sure they aren't awful people underneath their public persona. I'm just surprised that even though the Charlottesville protests and murder were prominent in the news, the fact that people were wearing and holding the kekistan flag next to people holding Nazi and Confederate flags slipped by.

I think it was a good idea to remove this, but I find it hard to pass judgement on whether it was intentional or not. Frankly I'd just rather not guess, considering how little information I have on hand. I find the design rather generic to be honest. Could it be intentional? Uh huh. Could it not be? Uh huh. Hard to say just looking at it though. That said, someone on GAF said that the accompanying text that comes with the gauntlet is damning or something?

:D lmao

Ugh. Fuck off, really? (Dear miss this is not a fuck off to the OP or anyone on this site, but to the article) If it was a reference to Kekistan, remove it. Pretty sure it wasn’t so let it be instead of controlling media based on “it happens to look like.” What’s next, games portraying Mesopotamia getting censored for having a symbol that resembles a Nazi swastika?

Stop policing thoughts and media. I’m fine if you don’t want to allow some asshole to slip something genuinely offensive through but this isn’t offensive, it’s freakin’ graphic design. YOU ARE GIVING UP LIBERTY AND CONTROL BECAUSE OF A FEW RACIST PRICKS AND A LOT OF EDGY PRE TEENS ON THE INTERNET. How does that not sadden you more than a design offends you despite not being intended to offend anyone?

Stop allowing assholes to take over symbology and meaning. Keep that for yourself. Ignore the shitheads until they step to you and then destroy them when they do.

Until someone admits they did this intentionally, anyone assuming it was intentional lacks any sense of justice.

The design of the armor and the “flag” in question have little in common. This is ridiculous. Why do we let racists do this to us??? The whole thing we should be fighting is letting racists influence anything, especially art! We should neither hold back nor over exert to cater to a world with racists.

In fact now that I think about it, I doodled a jar back in high school before I had any idea about kekistan or any Meaning behind kek other than it’s what lol translated to in cross-faction chat or something, and I had a very similar decal on the hood. I should see if I can dig up my old sketch book. And then burn it because it’s racist. Oh but now I’m an evil book burner! Must be a racist heathen hating baby killer. Must be it. How didn’t I notice earlier??

Countdown to locked...

This is all mighty silly. I mean good on Bungie for taking a stance, but how long until something else innocent gets hijacked by bad people, and we can't use it anymore?

This was also the first time I heard about kek being used in any other way than meaning lol.

We live in weird times everything is getting censored. Do you remember 90's ? Song lyrics etc... No one was making big things out of it. And nowadays it just became silly really.

@kopcik: Yeah, I remember the 90s. I remember parents freaking out over Marilyn Manson music. I remember the media freaking out over movies like The Matrix and games like DOOM inspiring school shootings.

The nature and scale of moral panic has certainly changed as the internet in general--and social media in particular--has become more ubiquitous, but to suggest that no one was making a big deal of stuff in the 90s is just demonstrably false.

If you talk to people older than myself, you might hear them bring up the ways that rap music and D&D were feared in the 80s.

I think there was a time before that when rock music was the scary thing.

I mean, go back far enough, and the very idea of FICTION NOVELS was seen as dangerous. Moral panics have always been a thing. But this isn't even a case of that. This is a case of something having a pretty significant similarity to a shitty thing that people don't want to be associated with.

The thing about kek and kekistan is it's just made to anger people, the movement means nothing if you run the kek flag you want to be identified with nothing that's the dumb point. It has ZERO connections with white supremacy it's a dumb meme to make "SJW's" ( i think that word is stupid but you know what i mean ) Angry / Triggered. Sure Swastikas in Hindu temples freak me out ! But that doesn't mean i want to infringe upon there culture and ban them , this is getting awfully close to censorship and that's not a good thing.

@soulcake: I mean, other than showing up at multiple white supremacist rallies, sure it has nothing to do with white supremacy.

Just don't really know what to make of people who can just be all "sigh...outrage culture.." about references to white supremacy.

I mean..actually I probably do but it's still sad.

@thatpinguino: But, like, they were there IRONICALLY, so that makes it okay, right?

@thatpinguino: They go there to show there non identity it's a dumb joke and going to those dumb rallies gives them attention. There a dumb faction of meme guys who like to tell you about there non identity. Believe me i have done way to much research on this dumb faction.

it doesnt "mean nothing" dude. you should look up the term dog whistle.

Yeah sounds like all those dudes that got confronted after recent rallies and were just like "Well I just uh... wanted to see what this was all about... it's not like I'm with these guys you know.."

All very believable.

@soulcake: Guess what, when you go to a rally with a bunch of white supremacists and don't immediately leave it's not a joke anymore. You're in a rally with white supremacists. You're part of it. The symbol is a part of it. I don't really care if the first burning cross was meant as a sick ironic joke, now it is a symbol of white supremacy and it's a hate symbol.

@thatpinguino: They just do it for the shock value and it works, cause where arguing about it on the internet :D.

@soulcake: Sure dude. Sure. You can just say you don't care about white supremacy. At least be honest.

And that's a lock, I'd wager.

@thatpinguino: Ok man i don't wanna get banned off this site so i am not gonna reply anymore , but here's a little story in 1940 my Grandfather got in prisoned in a german "workcamp" for so called spying he was just working in Germany as a painter but they didn't trust him for some odd reason. he barely made it out alive after the whole German empire collapsed, he saw multiple people getting killed and tortured, he told me some off the most gruesome stories i have heard . My Country get utterly Destroyed TWICE by Germans. Believe me when i say that i do care about the rise of fascism and racism this day and age.

@soulcake: Then why would you say this is just a joke? Why give the people showing up at rallies any benefit of the doubt?

@aviont: People see what they want to see. They bring their own baggage to the table when things like race or sexism or whatever is discussed. As frustrating as it is them overreacting to what they see as an overreaction brings a nice dash irony to the whole thing.

It's tempting to argue but sometimes you have to pick your battles with that stuff.

The whole point of the memes is to get people to laugh it off.

Go to /pol/. Go to the sites that push this shit. They advocate genocide. They advocate racial purity. They advocate white power. That is the bread and butter of their belief system, it always has been.

They aren't idiots though. You can't come out swinging with genocide. You can't come out with racial purity. But they've realized if you come out with memes, with frogs, with stupid sayings, when people call you out on it you can say it was ironic. You can say it's all about the lols. You can say you obviously don't believe the stuff you've been spouting, because look at the memes you attach to your belief structure. Only a fool would assume the man with a pepe badge is a true threat, even as he talks about death camps.

The entire goal of the memes isn't to be a joke. It's to get ordinary people like you to look at this situation and find it farcical, and to view them as less of a threat then they actually are.

When I first saw the link I almost laughed it off myself. I assumed it was Patrick or Austin pushing something a little too far again, which doesn't help anybody. But that is a 1 for 1 of their flag, and that flag is now associated very heavily with white supremacy and fascism in America. The quote that it had attached to it also plays far too strongly into the white supremacy /pol/ side of things.

Now are there kids who are attention whores playing off this as well? Totally. I bet a lot of the people on /pol/ or /td/ don't actually believe the shit they peddle. Or they didn't at first. They just want to be a part of something bigger. But hey guess what! That's how Nazism happened. That's how the Klan worked. That's how hate builds. You've got a few dedicated true believers, and a whole bunch of idiots that just want to be a part of something bigger, or want to belong. And they'll just as happily go the full distance if asked, because they've either gotten too far in, or they've started to get conditioned by hanging around the true believers long enough.

This shit exists on the internet because nobody gave a shit, so sorry you are equally part of the problem here. Don't just go yelling at the kids on your lawn. We are all to blame here. When things got worse, we ignored them. When GG started and people started getting death threats, we ignored them. When people started getting attacked, we ignored it. Now we have literal Nazis taking to the streets with pepe insignia telling everyone the gamers are here to kill darkie, and it's on us because we fucking let this shit fester in our communities. It's also now on us to stand up and keep them contained in their own shitty communities and let them know they are shitty people who don't fit in at places like Giantbomb anymore so the attention whores/kids realize they aren't a part of a cool organization, but are despised and should probably ditch their "friends" sooner rather then later.

And if you don't like that, fine. I get it. But don't come around complaining that other people aren't super happy NAZIS are out and about in America again. And don't try pulling the "I don't meet these people." card. I live in liberal ass Seattle and I had to kick a NAZI out of my store a few days ago after he started trying to rough up a black customer. And guess what. He had a Kekistan flag stitched onto his jacket, and a pepe pin on. When I forced him out he kept trying to tell me he was being ironic. Neutrality is dead. It's been dead since November. Welcome to the hellworld we've inherited, we can't just escape to video games anymore.

@nals: Exceptionally well said. Thank you.

It's eye opening to see white supremacist apologists exist on the Giant Bomb forum.

Yikes.

@nals: i wish i could find the video of i believe either the creator of the alt right movement or another group giving a speech on how to use memes and ironic symbolism as a weapon. I found it around the time of the election last year but since lost all track of it. Anyway casual dismissal is exactly the point of this stuff.

@fatalbanana: how could anyone In here see those and deny they're intentionally similar? It is without a doubt a reference to the white supremacist group on the part of the artist who put it in the game.

@development: Agreed, whether it was intentionally malicious or not I'm not sure but leaning towards the former. I think that's beside the actual issue though.

This art style has nothing to do with the American flag. People are just seeing things.

@rocketskates: yeah I'm wondering if these are people storming in from the trump subreddit or what.

I'd like it if the gauntlet comes back with the peeing Calvin decal slapped on it.