AHC: Corrupt a symbol

In this challenge, you need to take a symbol that is well-known in the modern world (e.g. the rainbow for the LGBTQ+, the Star of David for Jews) and have it be corrupted in the same manner the Nazis ruined the swastika.
 
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...wait there is a song!
The smiley is high, our lips are closed, we smile with silent solid steps.Comrades smile by the red front blah blah
 
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Kaze

Banned
There is a right wing nut that wants to make the "#" (hash-tag) symbol a fascist one for his own personal group of racists in the US.
 
There is a right wing nut that wants to make the "#" (hash-tag) symbol a fascist one for his own personal group of racists in the US.

Unless America puts a fucker like that in charge and he commits some atrocity anywhere close to the Holocaust, there’s no way any symbol will become as taboo as the swastika, which is so unacceptable that even my iPhone’s autofill doesn’t know it. (Of course, it didn’t know the name of the District of Columbia’s NFL team either, so maybe it’s a bit more sensitive than any of us would like, and that’s neither here nor there.)

In any case, you need to associate a symbol so strongly with an unspeakable atrocity that it completely overrides any other association to being a mere footnote in order to accomplish this. The red star is close but still not quite there. If all you saw when you saw a red star was the systematic murder of Koreans based on ideology, it would be this. Bonus points if it meant something else before.
 

Kaze

Banned
The OP said only corrupt the symbol - it said nothing about unspeakable atrocity, where in that nationalist group has already done so, they have set a historic Black Church on fire.
 
Unless America puts a fucker like that in charge and he commits some atrocity anywhere close to the Holocaust, there’s no way any symbol will become as taboo as the swastika, which is so unacceptable that even my iPhone’s autofill doesn’t know it. (Of course, it didn’t know the name of the District of Columbia’s NFL team either, so maybe it’s a bit more sensitive than any of us would like, and that’s neither here nor there.)

In any case, you need to associate a symbol so strongly with an unspeakable atrocity that it completely overrides any other association to being a mere footnote in order to accomplish this. The red star is close but still not quite there. If all you saw when you saw a red star was the systematic murder of Koreans based on ideology, it would be this. Bonus points if it meant something else before.

I'd add to that the hammer and sickle. It's not taboo like the swastika, and Stalin racked up quite the body count.
 
Apparently there is now a perception that the "Ok" gesture has got something to do with White Supremacy!?

It seems to have started out as a 4chan hoax, that for some reason people have started taking seriously. To the extent that some extremists have tried to claim it, much to the bewilderment of the rest of us.
https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-hand-gesture

It gets even sillier when you consider that it has a number of legitimate uses in Scuba Diving, Sign-Language and Medical Testing.
 
Apparently there is now a perception that the "Ok" gesture has got something to do with White Supremacy!?

It seems to have started out as a 4chan hoax, that for some reason people have started taking seriously. To the extent that some extremists have tried to claim it, much to the bewilderment of the rest of us.
https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-hand-gesture

It gets even sillier when you consider that it has a number of legitimate uses in Scuba Diving, Sign-Language and Medical Testing.

The hoax has gotten so out hand that the Australian army has issued instructions not to do it in photos. FFS !
 
The hangman's noose came close about a decade ago as it became associated with lynching, racism and white supremacy. Go back some decades and it was looked at as a symbol of morbidity for Halloween decorations. In the sixties, the Addams Family summoned butler Lurch with a gong sounded by pulling a hangman's noose.
 
Members of a particular British rhythm-and-blues outfit get exposed for some serious MeToo allegations. Their famous logo takes a serious "tongue"-lashing, as it now bears far more sinister connotations.

(And while it feels strange to say this about a group well-known for their debauched proclivities, I have no reason whatsoever to think that their members have ever engaged in any sort of criminal sex-abuse. Now, poppy-plant abuse, on the other hand...)
 
Apparently there is now a perception that the "Ok" gesture has got something to do with White Supremacy!?

It seems to have started out as a 4chan hoax, that for some reason people have started taking seriously. To the extent that some extremists have tried to claim it, much to the bewilderment of the rest of us.
https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-hand-gesture

It gets even sillier when you consider that it has a number of legitimate uses in Scuba Diving, Sign-Language and Medical Testing.

I think it's also used in skydiving
 
Apparently there is now a perception that the "Ok" gesture has got something to do with White Supremacy!?

It seems to have started out as a 4chan hoax, that for some reason people have started taking seriously. To the extent that some extremists have tried to claim it, much to the bewilderment of the rest of us.
https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/okay-hand-gesture

It gets even sillier when you consider that it has a number of legitimate uses in Scuba Diving, Sign-Language and Medical Testing.


It is the one I thought of immediately. It happens all the time with words and it is just going to get worse. It is the speed of it that is getting scary.

Speaking of people rather than symbols, once most notable people could expect to be pilloried after they died. More recently the heroes of our youth are getting pilloried in their old age. I recently saw man who would have copped ethnic slurs in his youth, came to fame on a subversive comedy program, works for a public broadcaster, get chewed out by a younger lady for being too establishment and not understanding what it is to be a minority in his middle age. I didn't feel bad for the man, but for the lady. In 20 years time she will be the establishment. Who is going to chew her out? It is all so fast and there are so many places a person can get caught out. Maybe I am getting old?


But yeah. Corrupting a symbol is too easy these days. Get it associated with some idiots. Make a fuss. Someone on the other side will pick it up and run with it because people are stupid. Media takes it further, a negative spiral will start up and that is the end. What used to take world war now takes 20 minutes on the internet. :(
 
I'd add to that the hammer and sickle. It's not taboo like the swastika, and Stalin racked up quite the body count.

The thing with hammer and sickle is that it was created by Soviet Communists, and it were certain Soviet Communists who then committed the described atrocities.

I think to seriously corrupt a symbol you need a history of it being used by a totally different group in a totally different context before being hijacked and then associated with terrible horrors.
 
It is the one I thought of immediately. It happens all the time with words and it is just going to get worse. It is the speed of it that is getting scary.

Speaking of people rather than symbols, once most notable people could expect to be pilloried after they died. More recently the heroes of our youth are getting pilloried in their old age. I recently saw man who would have copped ethnic slurs in his youth, came to fame on a subversive comedy program, works for a public broadcaster, get chewed out by a younger lady for being too establishment and not understanding what it is to be a minority in his middle age. I didn't feel bad for the man, but for the lady. In 20 years time she will be the establishment. Who is going to chew her out? It is all so fast and there are so many places a person can get caught out. Maybe I am getting old?


But yeah. Corrupting a symbol is too easy these days. Get it associated with some idiots. Make a fuss. Someone on the other side will pick it up and run with it because people are stupid. Media takes it further, a negative spiral will start up and that is the end. What used to take world war now takes 20 minutes on the internet. :(
That's far from a modern phenomenon, even the Bible pointed out how easy evil/stupid can corrupt good.

As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.
-Ecclesiastes 10:1
 
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