2025 RationalWiki 'Oregon Plan' Fundraiser

There is no RationalWiki without you. We are a small non-profit with no staff—we are hundreds of volunteers who document pseudoscience and crankery around the world every day. We will never allow ads because we must remain independent. We cannot rely on big donors with corresponding big agendas. We are not the largest website around, but we believe we play an important role in defending truth and objectivity.

Fighting pseudoscience isn't free.
We are 100% user-supported! Help and donate $5, $10, $20 or whatever you can today with PayPal Logo.png!
Donations so far: $10064.65Goal: $10000

Talk:Alt-right

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Icon altright.svg

This Alt-right related article has been awarded BRONZE status for quality. It's getting there, but could be better with improvement. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

Copperbrain.png

Archives for this talk page: , (new)


Three sources[edit]

They look good to use, but I've revamped this page enough for the moment. Maybe someone else can use these, or I can use them myself later. Chillpilled (talk) 16:49, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Comment[edit]

I sadly acknowledge the link between some otakus and right wingers in both the West (Europe, America, and in this case, Argentina), and Japan. I contest, however, the way the lede paints weebs and otakus outside Japan as having such a huge overlap with the alt-right.

I also noticed many K-pop fans and Swifties being progressives, so I absolutely won't deny that. But at the same time, millions of young new weebs/otakus are progressives Gen Zs, many are LGBT, and are vocally progressive. I really think the lede, and maybe other parts of the article, should not paint western otakus as "would be" alt-righters, as I am a leftist life-long otaku myself, and was painfully struck by the voice of some parts of this article. We are not a monolith.

Of course, I'm not denying any war crimes or atrocities, or denialism by the political right in Japan. But it should also be noted Japan has some progressive elements in their government too, and multiple supreme court cases challenging the constitutional interpretation on same sex marriage for instance, and the modern Korean government is also very tight wing, but I'm digressing (just don't make modern Japan look like Russia while painting SK as some kind of progressive paradise) — Unsigned, by: 2603:7080:ef41:8b00:2865:cb7f:3573:afaf / talk / contribs

Anime is a broad art and individual titles multiple political ideologies (if it has one at all), depending on who creates it. IMHO that statement (which came from an editor with "certain viewpoints") needs a source, else I'm thinking it should be removed. Or at least a re-wording. It's not that some of the far-right isn't into anime, they are... and one can probably infer this from some of the sources of the alt-right like the Gamergate crowd. But everyone is into anime these days. And I'm sure that plenty of the alt-right do not know much about anime at all.
I will also say that from what I know, although one can certainly find Japan-style-conservative anime, themes that I think the alt-right would not approve of (like pacifism and anti-imperialism) run through quite a lot of anime (and then there's the anime that's just entertainment and nothing more...)
I mean, imagine if I made a statement like "all country music fans are MAGA Trump stans" in this article, in an article that already noted Taylor Swift's leftist fans (Swift once did make country music.) And that's before we get to long-time "politically left" country artists like Willie Nelson... BobJohnson (talk) 18:26, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Concerns over weeb/alt-right overlap[edit]

I sadly acknowledge the connection between some weebs/otakus and the alt-right. But I have issues with the tone of the lede and how it seems to paint the situation as:

Weebs/otakus= primarily alt-right, alt-right adjacent K-pon l, BTS fans= progressive, progressive adjacent

I agree that a good number of Swifties and Kpop fans I've noticed are progressive in their views, but to paint so many otakus as right wing is a painful thing for me personally as a leftist weeb/otaku. This is my and my community's identity, and none of us are bigots or rightists in beliefs.

I do think the connection should be mentioned since it is (sadly) a noticeable trend, but it's unfair to generalize like the voice of the lede and article currently do--millions of young, gen-z weebs/otakus are progressive and left leaning, now especially that anime and manga are so widespread in the world. So, so many trans youth are deep in the anime community. I know that they'd balk against this characterization.

And I'm not denying the Japanese right wing's deplorable actions by the way; they hated manga and anime for decades before they started to lean in to get domestic support once it became so economically powerful. I'm certainly not downplaying past actions by the Imperial government against Koreans, and that the right wing fosters racism. But it's also misleading to paint Korea as a unified, progressive country as it is also very conservative in many ways.

I posted anonymously before in the wrong area (archives) and I hope this time it's the right place. — Unsigned, by: Ideonology / talk / contribs

Not all Western Japanese anime and manga fandom are related to alt-right, but it is true that not a few of them are. Find out what purpose 4chan was created for. Of course, South Korea is more conservative than Japan in LGBT issues. However, Western K-Pop fandom and Western anime fandom have little to do with South Korea/Japan's actual society. In the U.S. and Argentina, for example, BTS is liked by leftists and disliked by ultraconservatives, but in South Korea, far-right conservatives also considered BTS a symbol of S.Korean patriotism.Umaru16 (talk) 22:57, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
The connection to anime fandom and alt-right is undeniable. They are called white samurai. Umaru16 (talk) 22:59, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
The original 4chan transplants from SomethingAwful, including Christopher Poole himself, are actually relatively centrist to even left-leaning compared to the extremism of both the alt-right and 4chan today. Though, I think they mostly did foster an aversion to popular feminism that Gamergate eventually thrived off of. But some would be shocked by the "social justice" tendencies of some of the earliest available /b/ threads archived that at least I know of (2006/2007)... though there's also threads in the clear opposite direction, so, chaos would be the way to put it. Chillpilled (talk) 23:02, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
I don't think South Korea is a progressive country. South Korea is quite social conservative, but the Western K-Pop fandom is very progressive and has little to do with South Korea's social conservatism. Umaru16 (talk) 23:03, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Western anime conventions with minorities and progressives[edit]

I would like to know the motive for the author of this article to not update the opening to be more reflective of reality regarding otaku and alt-right. In Seattle and other US cities, and France, there's a multicultural and queer veneer over anime conventions constantly (my own experience, but I've been to them for years now) — Unsigned, by: 2603:7080:ef41:8b00:fec7:412c:d921:38ea / talk / contribs

This is just an obscurantist label[edit]

If someone is a nazi call them a nazi. If someone is a white supremacist call them a white supremacist. If someone is a psychopathic right-libertarian, call them that.

I fail to see what in the world makes this label unique and separate from 'right-wing'. The label seems to imply there's some sort of "good" and "mainstream" right-wing as opposed to the "bad" "alternative" kind. No, they all suck, and this label distracts from that. Hope isnt lost (talk) 22:07, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Blame Richard Spencer, who is clearly not a Nazi, Do You Believe That? for coming up with the term in order to let people know that he clearly is not a Nazi. Do You Believe That? BobJohnson (talk) 22:37, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
They all suck, yeah, but at the time the alt-right first formed there was still a clear ideological difference between the alt-right and the mainstream right. There are just as many ideological differences in the "right" camp as there are in the "left" camp. Carthage (talk) 06:22, 30 January 2025 (UTC)