> TheDonald.win forum commenters debated how best to build a gallows for hanging — or simply terrifying — members of Congress deemed disloyal. What kind of lumber? What kind of rope? And how many nooses?
And wallstreetbets debates how to please your wife's boyfriend. That is to say both /r/thedonald and /r/wallstreetbets (who has also harmed people via their encouragement of gambling the markets) have similar cultures of irreverence, hyperbole, trolling, and joking with the intent of setting people off. They find it funny when taken out of context and used to terrify people. For example, it's the same thing behind how 4chan jokingly made the OK sign into a white supremacist hand sign, thus causing a moral panic.
I'm not saying one way or the other as to whether the comments here are right. But you're dealing with a forum that trolls people by posting cartoon frogs, mocking the OK sign, and calling each other centipedes.
> For example, it's the same thing behind how 4chan jokingly made the OK sign into a white supremacist hand sign, thus causing a moral panic.
A lot of the 4chan dynamic involves people starting with something edgy as a dumb joke, and then the site's large subset of actual idiot racists taking it seriously. The OK sign was a great example of that - some people started it as a dumb joke and then actual racists enthusiastically embraced it. Hell, 4chan's racism in general started as a dumb joke and ended up with 51 people being murdered in Christchurch.
So I wouldn't use the fact that some subset of people have an edgy sense of humor as a license to hand-wave away other violent idiots who were serious as a heart attack with their planning.
And wallstreetbets debates how to please your wife's boyfriend. That is to say both /r/thedonald and /r/wallstreetbets (who has also harmed people via their encouragement of gambling the markets) have similar cultures of irreverence, hyperbole, trolling, and joking with the intent of setting people off. They find it funny when taken out of context and used to terrify people. For example, it's the same thing behind how 4chan jokingly made the OK sign into a white supremacist hand sign, thus causing a moral panic.
I'm not saying one way or the other as to whether the comments here are right. But you're dealing with a forum that trolls people by posting cartoon frogs, mocking the OK sign, and calling each other centipedes.