I should have said in #46 that I have no idea if the ADL’s description of the use of the OK sign among actual white supremacists is accurate, or just reflects the ADL’s agenda. The left adopted and spread 4chan’s hoax, before and after they knew it was a hoax. I do not know whether or not it was subsequently adopted by actual white supremacists. My knowledge of actual white supremacists is nil.
Not reading what the ADL says, but here’s what I know: It started years ago as the circle game, a child’s game. Then some on 4chan played a prank, claiming it was a white supremacist symbol. But, then the 4chan joke caught on, and teens and college students were using it with each other.
Those Disney photos were taken in 2019, right? That year, I worked around high school-age kids, and that symbol became popular, but not everyone using it knew what they were doing. My teen thought the other teens were playing the circle game. Some other teens didn’t know what it was; they flashed it, just because everyone else was doing it. And my college student said other students were flashing the symbol as a “joke” white supremacist symbol to each other.
What “Gru” did was only evident in the second photo. But, he (?) was doing one of three things:
- Either he was playing the circle game as a joke,
- Or he was using a popular gesture he didn’t know had any meaning at all,
- Or he was being a creep with an innocent child.