-The "okay" hand gesture has
become a cultural flashpoint,
transforming from an innocent
sign to a hate symbol.
The Anti-Defamation League
officially included it
in its hate-on-display
database in 2019.
The evolution was gradual.
It started on the anonymous
online message
board 4chan in 2017.
When a troll campaign
tried to trick the media
into believing the gesture
was a secret symbol
of white supremacy.
But as the campaign spread,
the sign was actually adopted
by the alt-right.
A term for those on the far
right who embrace
white nationalist views.
It was then used to "trigger
liberals"
who thought the hand gesture
identified secret Nazis.
-The tricky part of discussing
these things
is that it's simultaneously
incredibly stupid
and incredibly consequential.
We're talking about a dumb
troll campaign
that targeted people in order to
make a group of racists online
amused for
a little period of time.
And then at the same time,
we are talking about
the okay hand sign at all
because of the real rise
in visibility of white supremacy
and racist ideas
and increasing access
to power of those ideas.
-The concept only continued
to pick up steam online
and make headlines
in the following years.
And the intention behind
every instance is hard to know.
Some examples include white
nationalist Richard Spencer.
And right-wing Internet
provocateur Milo Yiannopoulus.
It's also been used by interns
in the Trump White House,
a writer for the fringe
right Gateway Pundit,
and a Chicago Cubs fan who was
later banned from Wrigley Field.
However, it was the use
by the Christ Church
shooting suspect that marked
a shift in the conversation.
-The use of that hand sign
by the Christ Church suspect
I think is something that really
needs to be underlined here.
His use and engagement
with this part meme culture
I think took some of
the ambiguity
of a lot of these things
and made it harder
to excuse it away.
Whatever his intentions,
the fact that that this person
who was accused of killing
so many people,
has used this sign,
sort of seemed
to change the tone
of the discourse around it.
-The okay sign, isn't the first
seemingly innocuous bit
of culture
claimed by alt-right groups.
Pepe the Frog went from
innocent cartoon
to alt-right meme
during the 2016 election,
thanks to a similar
online evolution.
But flashing the okay sign
has an additional element,
its use in every day life,
including by public figures.
But post 2017, the frequent use
of the symbol
opened the door for
misinterpretations and a debate.
Is it being used knowingly
as a symbol of white supremacy
or not?
-The intersection of ambiguity
and racism
can be weaponized in order
to manipulate the media,
to manipulate popular opinion,
to spread ideas
into the discourse
that have no place being there.
That is something that has
helped the okay hand sign,
Pepe, any of these things
like it
that have some degree
of ambiguity or playfulness
or irony that has been
baked into it get away
with spreading earnest white
supremacist Nazi racist ideas,
um, along with them.
-The confusion presents
civil rights groups,
like the Anti-Defamation League
with a challenge,
how to educate people
about the sign's darker
meaning without giving oxygen
to the movement.
-The significance here is that
the ADL is attempting,
at least,
to make this less ambiguous.
It's a sign of how even
ironic racism
is now being taken
more seriously and experts
are asking us to look beyond the
explanation of just trolling.
And understand how something
is actually being used
and how the spread of a symbol
like that may carry the ideas
that it's being
associated with it.
No matter what the ADL says,
there are always going to be
people who make the sign
because they're unaware
of this entire conversation
that has played out, right?
The symbol has existed long
before a bunch of people
on a message board
decided it would be funny
to trick the media
into saying it was racist.
