this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
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So if someone made an account 20 years ago ending with 88, like say if you were born in 1988, should they now delete their account just because someone might misconstrue it as a completely unrelated “dogwhistle”?
Okay, but lets compare this to using runes.
As you've pointed out, there is an innocent explanation for someone using 88. It could be an honest mistake, there are people (usually whites who aren't endangered by Nazi ideology) that aren't tuned-in enough to know about common Nazi dogwhistles.
There's no honest mistake in using the double sowilo runes. No innocent explanation.
There is one innocent explanation, with a big caveat: some child-left-behind in marketing googled "Slavic emojis" and found this page, and clicked on a few random ones, not knowing about the connotations some of them have.
Caveat: they didn't send the email in Germany, so someone knew it was nazi shit and sent it anyway
Not even, because they used two, side-by-side.
The comedy of errors that would be required to explain it innocently would be an Adult Swim sketch.
Yeah, the two together is one of the options on there. For the same reason that some search queries return those runes with a 1488 appended
Wait shit I didn't see it
In hindsight, an idiot accidentally copying a different cryptofascist's work actually is another innocent explanation. "Oops, I didn't know the "cool rune guide" I was copying from was actually made by neonazis."
Sort of like how Graham Platner might have gotten his Nazi tattoo because one of his buddies in the Marines, who actually is a neonazi, told him it was a good idea and that it was just a cool looking skull tattoo.
20 years ago 88 was as much of a nazi dogwhistle as it is today
Must depend on where you live and whether you’re terminally online.
I only found out this year that 88 is now Nazi related.
you're lucky not to know what 88 signified before the internet because it mean that you were never affected by the people it attracted.
There's no misconstruing, 1488 is a nazi dogwhistle whether someone intends it to be or not. If your username includes that number, you should delete that account and make a different one, because people are gonna treat you like a nazi.
Just using 88 is slightly less unacceptable, but the same thing applies; if your username includes that number, people are going to treat you like you're a nazi.
ϟϟhas exactly one meaning in the modern day. You can use those runes without knowing that meaning, but that meaning is still there. It is nazi symbolism whether you intend your use of it to be or not.Yeah, I’ll go tell all my friends and relatives who were born in 1988 and wanted a specific username which were already taken and used (or even if they have a name and surname that’s already taken) and added 88 as an affix since it’s the year they were born in (as people have been doing for decades on the internet) that they are now all Nazis.
Seems pretty obtuse.
Well that's not what I said, is it? My favorite thing about Lemmings is that none of you can read. Do you maybe want to try this one again? I'll give you a free redo
Your words.
I’ll tell them to expect to be treated like Nazis then. Which is absolutely wild, because in their 38 year existence this has never happened. Once.
"[...] that they are all now nazis."
"[...] people are going to treat you like you're a nazi."
Spot the difference. I'll give you a hint: one of them involves being a nazi, and one of them involves being mistaken for a nazi. You managed to misread my comment so badly that you thought I was saying that everyone who has 88 in their username is a nazi, and that's because you can't read.
But even that's totally irrelevant. I specified 1488 in my comment. You know anyone with 1488 in their username who isn't a nazi? Because if you do, I have bad news about your nazi friend.
Even moreso with
ϟϟ. Much like 1488, it only means one thing. The people who use it virtually always use it to mean that one thing. It is very hard to stumble into accidentally using it, and if you do, you should be embarrassed for having stumbled into using nazi symbolism.