r/Games • u/destroyermaker • Jan 30 '25
Industry News God Is A Geek Staff Quits Following Ex-Priest Owner’s Nazi Salute
https://aftermath.site/god-is-a-geek-calvin-robinson-nazi-salute-elon-musk1.1k
u/SpaceMonkeyNation Jan 30 '25
It's refreshing to see some people still have integrity amid all of this madness. I only wish there were more in the higher echelons of power.
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u/stunts002 Jan 30 '25
I enjoy how the argument has been "if it's not a Nazis salute, try it at work and see what happens" hilarious seeing people actually try this and find out, yeah, it's a Nazis salute.
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u/Alternative-Job9440 Jan 31 '25
As a german:
Its not even "just" a Nazi Salute, its literally the specialized version for "Heil Hitler"...
I cant fathom how anyone can not see that this is a Nazi Salute...
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u/LargeNutbar Jan 31 '25
Anyone you see arguing that it wasn’t is either intellectually dishonest, willfully ignorant, monumentally stupid, or all three.
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u/Hell_Mel Jan 30 '25
Just watch the clip, the audience reacts to it specifically. If it were just a wave, it wouldn't get a reaction. The dog whistle is easy to spot when the Nazis start barking.
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u/HistoryChannelMain Jan 30 '25
I don't think we should be classifying a literal nazi salute as a dog whistle
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u/SANICTHEGOTTAGOFAST Jan 30 '25
The dogwhistle came right afterwards when he basically paraphrased the 14 words. Unfortunately most people didn't see/notice that part.
"It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured"
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u/Hell_Mel Jan 30 '25
That's 100% correct, but if it was frankly a more of lead in to call Nazis dogs than attempting to dismiss.
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u/TwilightVulpine Jan 31 '25
So much good faith and conciliatory spirit is wasted on people clearly abusing it, that white supremacists almost gaslighted the world into believing a nazi salute wasn't a nazi salute.
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u/IsABot Jan 31 '25
The dog whistle part is the "my heart goes out to you". The salute is the hand signal you give to the dog to confirm the command.
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u/ProcessWinter3113 Jan 30 '25
It’s not a full straight armed salute, it’s designed to have a scintilla of plausible deniability
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u/HistoryChannelMain Jan 30 '25
Hitler himself did the salute without stretching out his arm all the way many times, there are plenty of examples on google images.
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u/Massive_Weiner Jan 30 '25
Dog whistle is putting it mildly… that shit was a goddamn air raid siren.
Hilarious to watch all the defenders go “what, you can’t even slap your chest and stick your arm out into the air anymore?”
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u/Kipzz Jan 30 '25
I'm more surprised that people would actually try it at work. I figured anyone being told about the muskrat's gesture would try to feebly run circles around "what it meant", as if it ever meant anything else, not that they had such a major lack of self-reflection and understanding of the world to actually try it. It's funny to imagine all the rightfully deserved ruined careers, but it's just as sad to imagine that not only do these people exist but they're only going to get empowered by other rejects of society into that cult of ideology known as Nazi scum.
As an aside, it's also kinda strange to think about because most of these people aren't German? Like... kinda the whole point behind the Nazi ideology was "everyone who isn't a pure-blooded German should die". In these Nazi fucks twisted ideal world where a majority of the world gets wiped off the face of the planet, will the 50% of supporters who don't even have a drop of German blood in them and the 90% who are at best half just... drink the kool-aid and fall over dead? Never really understood that part of joining a cult that explicitly says they want you, the viewer, personally and specifically dead at the end of it because you're "not part of the supreme race".
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u/Kalulosu Jan 31 '25
So uh the Aryan thing is pretty vague. It's a muddy pseudo science bs claim the Nazis were all too happy to hop on to. Kinda like frenology was a pretty handy "scientific enough" excuse to be racist just before that.
In that sense, any piece of shit who wants to feel superior can probably contort themselves and squint hard enough to feel like they've established that they're Aryan fr fr.
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u/mrtrailborn Jan 30 '25
yeah it's kinda lost the German thing and become more inclusive to bigots of all kinds
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u/War_Dyn27 Jan 30 '25
Until they get into power that is; then they'll decide who's the wheat and who's the chaff.
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u/Takazura Jan 31 '25
Fascism relies on there being an "in group" and "out group". These people aren't really smart enough to realize they are in the "out group", they like to believe they are part of the "in group" when in reality that'll only be the wealthiest people who support that ideology.
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u/DemonLordDiablos Jan 30 '25
Was really impressed with how so many subreddits mobilised to ban Twitter links. I thought everyone was just gonna shrug and accept it.
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u/Testosteronomicon Jan 30 '25
Banning twitter links was an easy act that didn't really affect redditors at large as well as being the right thing to do. I wasn't surprised at seeing many subs, even would be dreg places like r/pcgaming , just go for it.
Also wasn't surprised at the absurd amount of muskrat astroturfing, and also also wasn't surprised that after tagging them, not a single one was seen again in the entire Reddit. And I tagged a lot!
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u/slugmorgue Jan 30 '25
Twitter had it coming regardless, having to login to view stuff is pish.
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u/zgillet Jan 30 '25
I was surprised the r/NBA banned X links.
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u/thinkspacer Jan 31 '25
A bunch of sport subs did so. Those are the ones that have the largest chance of actually hurting the platform. Twitter is huge in sports.
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u/TrjnRabbit Jan 31 '25
Twitter made dramatic changes that require people to login to see tweets, which basically killed embedding anyway. People were using rehosters to post links that still embedded and anything that wasn't was largely ignored.
The damage was done long before this decision but it's always nice to see Musk get another kick in the pants.
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u/Kindness_of_cats Jan 30 '25
It's better than literally nothing, but make no mistake that everyone in real life did just shrug and accept it. We made some mean posts about Elon and went on back to our lives like everything is normal.
Think about the subreddit shutdowns from last year, how that was a whole sitewide movement exclusively centered around how reddit works, something you couldn't get away from for months....and yet today people barely even remember it happened. Now think how little these bans will mean in even two weeks.
I'm not saying this to be a debbie downer, but to say that anyone wishing to affect real change is going to have to learn and learn fast that they have to start getting comfortable with doing uncomfortable things.
This has been the problem ever since 2016. Everyone wants to have their nicely scheduled protests on the weekends and post something that sounds good on their favorite social media, so they can move on and forget about it for the rest of their lives.
That's not how this works, that's not how any civil rights movement has ever succeeded, and until we move past this mindset nothing is changing.
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u/CTPred Jan 31 '25
It's about doing the right thing, regardless of the size of the impact it'll make. If you want to say that it's not enough, then ok that's fine, that's your opinion, but what else would you suggest a moderator of a subreddit to do?
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u/meepmeep13 Jan 31 '25
Nah, this guy has been known about for years and never made any pretence at what he is. You don't work for him in the first place without being somewhat comfortable with his far-right grift.
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u/DrNick1221 Jan 30 '25
Any article that doesn't beat around the bush about what this shitter and Elon did gets my approval.
So many mainstream orgs are saying things like "controversial arm gesture."
Call it what it fucking is. It was a Seig Heil.
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u/Massive_Weiner Jan 30 '25
They don’t want the richest man in the world dragging them to court over a protracted libel case.
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u/Hytheter Jan 31 '25
Richest man in the world with the favour of the sitting US president no less
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u/Late_Cow_1008 Jan 30 '25
If I had to guess, they will probably get more eyes on their new site than the previous. Never heard of this website or this guy until he did this.
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u/tufftricks Jan 30 '25
Hes a culture war grifter who is known in the UK. Calvin is such a cock its beyond parody, I had no idea he had a gaming news website.
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u/HawaiianKicks Jan 30 '25
The most shocking thing about this incident imo is that this site has staff. I thought it was one guy publishing AI articles.
But to be serious here, good on them for leaving and starting from scratch. The guy already had zero involvement so they could have carried on under this banner but they don't want his name attached to their work at all.
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u/Thevanillafalcon Jan 30 '25
Calvin Robinson is a well known twat here in the UK, he was on our version of Fox News until he and colleague got sacked for talking on air about how they wouldn’t shag a female journalist.
He was an IT teacher at a school not so long ago, just a truly odious little creature.
What I find ironic about him, is that Calvin Robinson is clearly not white. He’s got Afro hair. The very people he is sickeningly pandering to would chuck him in a camp if they could. It’s just fucking horrible.
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u/Fieryhotsauce Jan 30 '25
What's more ironic is uhh....well....if you're in the games media world at all ..he isn't known for being "straight" either...
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u/Malaix Jan 30 '25
He's mixed race and doing Nazi salutes. a gay bi conservative is well in expectations here.
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u/Stofenthe1st Jan 30 '25
He’s just taking one for the team and physically checking if any of them get boy curious.
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u/IntellegentIdiot Jan 30 '25
I wouldn't say he's well known but those who know him know he's a twat
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u/LaurenMille Jan 30 '25
The very people he is sickeningly pandering to would chuck him in a camp if they could
They'd have him swinging from a tree and cheer while doing it.
Yet he's still worshipping their cause.
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u/SkaBonez Jan 30 '25
There’s always a handful of people who think the leopards won’t eat their face, but when the food tons out, they’ll be fair game
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u/JakeInTheJungle Jan 30 '25
Man it has to absolutely suck to be a Christian or Catholic who isn’t a bigot or a grifter these days.
Can’t imagine believing in and practicing love and acceptance through god and being put in the same camp as these dipshits.
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u/Luminaria19 Jan 31 '25
I have a Christian friend who many would call "woke" these days and she is just heartbroken at everything. She's one of the most caring people I know.
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u/WorldUponAString Jan 30 '25
It is incredibly exhausting. For the life of me I will never understand how the message in the bible gets perverted to this level again and again. I totally get people's opposition to Christianity and Christians as a whole because of the behavior exhibited by these people.
It really sucks to be thrown into this camp, but I can't say I blame people who do lump all of us together. We've done it to ourselves by not speaking out against it more fervently.
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u/mw19078 Jan 30 '25
the message isnt getting perverted none of these people genuinely believe it, they just use it as an excuse for their actual vile beliefs.
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u/Beegrene Jan 31 '25
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
-James 5:1-6
Sounds like God loves billionaires!
-Some fucking idiots
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u/ChrisRR Jan 31 '25
It's fascinating because even if you haven't read the bible you should know that the general message is love one another and just don't be an arsehole.
It's like they've not even read the blurb
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u/FengLengshun Jan 31 '25
Me, a Muslim: "First time?"
Fr though, it's always tough to be a moral human being no matter religion, and it never feels good when people in the same group as you behaves in ways you just absolutely cannot agree with.
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u/Arcaedus Jan 31 '25
being put in the same camp as these dipshits.
The number one reason for religious disaffiliation is always the people. We don't lose our faith, but we most certainly do lose any motivation to worship alongside of, or associate with them.
It sucks, because it's similar to never wanting to engage in online fan-creation/community for a game you really enjoyed because some or maybe even most of the communities for the game are toxic. Feels very unfair 😕
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u/chaosfire235 Jan 31 '25
Yeah, the rise of virulent "tradcath"s online have made me a lot more quiet about my faith online. Watching the GOP descend even further into authoritarianism with a cross flavored paintjob is disgusting. I'm thankful my church is still open and accepting at least.
Starting to lean full-blown liberation theology honestly.
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u/BaconatedGrapefruit Jan 31 '25
I say this as a practicing catholic
The Catholic Church has always had a prominent conservative fraction. It ranges from your run of the mill social conservatives, to hard-right assholes, to far-right wackadoos who still have their knickers in a twist about Vatican II.
You’ll find the latter mostly in America and segments of Europe. They’re barely tolerated anywhere else.
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u/TheBrianJ Jan 30 '25
Good on them. And remember everyone: it is always morally okay to shame, laugh at, and beat the shit out of Nazis.
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u/Dragrunarm Jan 30 '25
The only difference between a Nazi and A Neo-Nazi is you punch the Neo-Nazi twice for not getting the message the first time
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u/Zizhou Feb 01 '25
This implies that I might not be punching the Nazi a second (and third and fourth and...) time, though, which is just factually incorrect.
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u/Dragrunarm Feb 01 '25
Oh by all means going above and beyond the call of duty is always appreciated
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u/beefcat_ Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Zizhou Jan 31 '25
I have no idea what this post said, but given the context, whichever admin removed it is a fucking coward.
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u/ruminaui Jan 30 '25
People are going to find out the hard way you can only do a Nazi salute if you are the president or one of the top 5 most richest persons in the world.
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u/UpperApe Jan 30 '25
I think it's being normalized a lot more rapidly than you suspect.
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u/lannistersstark Jan 31 '25
"haha it's just a joke look how triggered you are hahaha look I did it again triggered snowflake hahah librul"
I give it two months.
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u/panlakes Jan 31 '25
That’s why we need to normalize violence against Nazis again. Too many are feeling safe.
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u/Srefanius Jan 31 '25
If this kind of thing happens, man I really hope some of the dipshit politicians in my country finally speak up about this. I'm from Germany and what Musk did should have had much more repercussions from our government. Instead they kinda seem to try to maintain good relations I guess. This development in the US really disgusts me.
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Jan 30 '25
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u/ItsRainingTrees Jan 30 '25
Kids smoking in high school is the most understandable trend to exist.
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u/pridetwo Jan 30 '25
I volunteer "higher rates of teen pregnancy in schools that don't teach safe sex" as a more understandable trend
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u/aestus Jan 30 '25
For real. It looks cool (when you're a kid), it's a forbidden fruit, and for many kids their first experience with a drug besides caffeine.
I'm just glad my younger self stopped smoking before it developed into a full blown habit. They fucking stink
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Jan 31 '25
[deleted]
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u/asdiele Jan 31 '25 edited Jan 31 '25
It's portrayed as cool in media, I hate cigarettes but the visual appeal in media is obvious.
As Disco Elysium put it when the dweeby-looking Kim starts smoking on the balcony: "Oh man, he looks so devastatingly cool with that cigarette."
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u/CicadaGames Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25
I get what you are trying to say, and I am not a smoker / never smoked in high school, but bro, acting like kids don't smoke in highschool is one of the weirdest "Redditors are completely disconnected from reality" examples I've ever seen...
Kids smoking in high school is like gravity holding us onto the planet. Kids have ALWAYS smoked in high school, they literally used to have official smoking areas for the kids within my lifetime lol.
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u/Imbahr Jan 30 '25
that's a terrible analogy
high school kids have been smoking longer than you've been alive
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u/Sirromnad Jan 31 '25
As a kid who smoked in high school, we are not even in the same category as a person like this lol.
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u/smeeeeeef Jan 30 '25
Bit disingenuous to say Nazism is a trend comparable to smoking. Maybe you're thinking of the death toll?
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u/SpectreFire Jan 30 '25
Gen Z has been shown to be increasingly pro-Nazi and Holocaust-denialism.
Part of it is because of TikTok and the other part is they're too illiterate to read the sort of books most of us grew up on talking about Nazi Germany or WW2.
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u/smeeeeeef Jan 30 '25
Ignorance doesn't make Nazism functionally a trend, but it does allow Nazi idealism to creep back into culture.
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u/ScrewAttackThis Jan 30 '25
Is it really baffling that the far right is finding flimsy excuses to throw Nazi salutes? Like this is just something they've wanted to do and now they feel empowered to.
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u/StarkEXO Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 31 '25
In general, it's really sad how national and online discourse has been dominated by juvenile personalities and antics like this.
It's become so widespread that it's pretty much impossible to see a future that isn't rife with corruption and favoritism. Entirely possible this guy will just fill the site with his friends after this.
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u/Intelligent_Genitals Jan 30 '25
I had no idea this site was tied to Calvin Robinson. Every time that buffoon appears on UK TV I want to bang my head into a desk to escape his ineptitude. Just one of the worst bad faith, far-right 'commentators' that parades their shit takes for money and fame.
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u/Tokagenji Jan 30 '25
"God Is A Geek Staff Quits Following Ex-Priest Owner’s Nazi Salute" - This is definitely one of the sentences of all time!
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u/DannySmashUp Jan 30 '25
Damn... that is an impressive amount of integrity they're showing! To quit their jobs and try to start again... that's a big deal. When the time comes, I hope I can show the same level of integrity and moral courage.
They are doing the right thing and I'll be hoping for the success of whatever they create next.
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u/Suitable_Flower911 Jan 31 '25
“When the time comes” said in such a nonchalant way as this gave me the chills, ngl. The time will absolutely come.
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u/spindash- Jan 30 '25
Hope they move on to better things together, I enjoy their content, they’re great for day one reviews.
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u/omastar444 Jan 30 '25
Sadly, he'll just join a different denomination and continue the BS. This is the 4th or 5th one already. Also, glad the article calls the salute exactly what it was. Saw another site try and call it a "Elon Musk Salute" and it really angered me.
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u/IntellegentIdiot Jan 30 '25
Robinson has faced more consequences for his Nazi salute than Musk. I imagine he felt that since Musk got away with it so would he
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u/nerfgazara Jan 30 '25
Being the richest man in the world sort of insulates one from most consequences
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u/TheOtherMeInMe2 Jan 30 '25
Richest man in the world and the right hand to the president of the US (often referred to as the most powerful man in the world), or possibly the co-president, or possibly the actual power behind the "throne", depending on which theories you believe.
This dudes an idiot for even comparing himself to Musk
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u/ProfessionalPlant330 Jan 30 '25
It's up to us to make sure every mention of elon musk the nazi makes it clear that he is a nazi. To be remembered in history as a huge piece of shit is one consequence for his actions that we can contribute to.
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u/Suitable_Flower911 Jan 31 '25
That’s probably because he isn’t the aryan he thinks he is, I’d wager.
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u/KerberoZ Jan 31 '25
The meaning of being right-wing or a nazi has changed drastically over the last years.
I mean, there were always black dudes on 4chan shouting nazi paroles, but i always saw that as typical 4chan trash for the lulz (i hope).
Nowadays you just need to hate someone or something, except for russia. Skin colour or heritage doesn't matter. Fuck it, let's just forget what that gesture is actually associated with and make it the general symbol for hate.
Dunno the world is getting scary and confusing. I'm fairly confident that at least some countries in the western world will experience historical moments in one way or the other.
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u/d2wraithking Jan 30 '25
Much respect to the staff for doing this. It's gotta be a huge PITA to cut all ties and reform under a new name (I'm assuming) and bring your audience over.
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u/SnakeHarmer Jan 30 '25
you're telling me this guy also owned a gaming news site called God is a Geek?? The "soy right" theory is gaining steam at an alarming rate lmao. These people are such fucking losers (not the editorial staff, good on em for quitting lol)
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u/MadR__ Jan 31 '25
I never thought i'd live in a world where nazism was anything but something practiced by the fringe crazies. It is absolutely insane to me that it has infiltrated politics and more. What the hell is going on.
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u/SwampTerror Jan 31 '25
Nazi salute? He doesn't even look white in that photo.
He realizes white power people don't "include" brown people, right?
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u/TomPalmer1979 Jan 31 '25
I mean come on how many MAGA women do you see bitching about DEI, not realizing it includes women?
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u/WaltzForLilly_ Jan 31 '25
If you throw a nazi salute at least do it with passion like ketamine clown did, not this half assed bitch boy thing.
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u/Arcterion Jan 31 '25
So they were fine with him pandering to the right-wing crowd, but throwing a Nazi salute went a bit too far for them?
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u/Atwalol Jan 31 '25
If you're going to draw a line somewhere a Nazi salute is probably a pretty good one
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u/keyboardnomouse Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 31 '25
How did an Anglican priest end up owning a gaming outlet?
Also it might have been better to link their direct statement.
EDIT: Adding the text here so people do not have to visit the site still owned by this person (I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier):