That's not FUNNY

These leftist kids today are a little slow on the uptake. Some are just now figuring out that "the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule." Well, ve haff vays to put a stop to that.
“Once literacy on the extremist underpinnings of strategic humour is established, the next step is to closely monitor dynamics around far-right meme cultures,” the [EU] report states. “Online cultures quickly develop into extremist movements, as seen in the conspiracy cult around QAnon and the anti-government militia in the United States known as the boogaloo movement.”
Wait--there's an anti-government militia movement called boogaloo? Should I have known about this already? I'm beginning to doubt my chaotic fascist bona fides, though I've been carrying a "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" card in my wallet since the first Clinton administration.

OK, yes, I see I've been caught napping, but Wikipedia brings me up to date. I've been advised that, before I engage with a potentially harmful ideology, I should check in with Wiki to see whether the new source is trustworthy and approved.  I am all about compliance.
The term boogaloo alludes to the 1984 sequel film Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, which was derided by critics as a derivative rehash. Subsequently, appending "2: Electric Boogaloo" to a name became a jocular verbal template for any kind of sequel, especially one that strongly mimics the original. The boogaloo movement adopted its identity based on the anticipation of a second American Civil War or second American Revolution, which was referred to as "Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo" and became popularly known among adherents as "the boogaloo".
Participants in the boogaloo movement also use other similar-sounding derivations of the word, including boog, boojahideen, big igloo, blue igloo, and big luau to avoid crackdowns and automated content flags imposed by social media sites to limit or ban boogaloo-related content. Intensified efforts by social media companies to restrict boogaloo content have caused adherents to use terms even further detached from the original word such as spicy fiesta to refer to the movement. The boogaloo movement has created logos and other imagery incorporating igloo snow huts and Hawaiian prints based on these derivations. Adherents of the boogaloo sometimes carry black-and-white versions of the American flag, with a middle stripe replaced with a stripe of red tropical print and the stars replaced with an igloo. The stripes sometimes list the names of people who have been killed by police, including Eric Garner, Vicki Weaver, Robert LaVoy Finicum, Breonna Taylor, and Duncan Lemp.
Adherents attend protests heavily armed and wearing tactical gear, and sometimes identify themselves by wearing Hawaiian shirts along with military fatigues. The boogaloo movement has also used imagery popular among the far-right such as the Pepe the Frog meme.
So, if I have this right, Hawaiian shirts now carry a sinister meaning, especially if mixed with fatigues and memes and anything with "loo" in it, such as "igloo." (The Wiki piece helpful clarifies that the reference is to a "snow hut," but I imagine that a properly labeled camping cooler might do.) Even a swatch of fabric with a tropical pattern may serve as the secret handshake. "Big luau" is a good one, mixing the sounds of "boogaloo" and "igloo." I think I now understand the appeal of an increase in articles about Boolean analysis. Bootleg? Bu Lu Lemon? I see a huge future in merch.

Stop laughing this instant.  This is a deliberate attempt to make official censors look ridiculous by cracking down on posts about spicy fiestas.  We will have no more unapproved jocular verbal templates.

9 comments:

Texan99 said...

OH! These guys were behind the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping scheme. But I thought that was the feds? This is very confusing.

Grim said...

Those guys do have funny memes, though.

The Feds appear to have been “behind” the kidnapping scheme, but the Boogs were targeted by their entrapment efforts.

raven said...

So no one can use the loo anymore?

Tom said...

Heavily armed? Hawaiian shirts and fatigues? "Boogaloo"? Kinda sounds like where all the E-4 mafia go after they get out of the service.

Are we sure this isn't just the junior branch of the American Legion or something?

Grim said...

I gather it kinda is. A lot of recent Rangers seem associated with it. OAF Nation now sells a line of Hawaiian shirts.

james said...

Everything from Hawaiian shirts to igloos belongs to the boogaloos?

Texan99 said...

And spicy fiestas!

Christopher B said...

The sheer 'meta'-ness of this is amazing. An echo chamber of conspiracy theories about conspiracy theories...

ymarsakar said...

This is no where close to the theories I analyze. It istoo simple.