No, they are not Live-Action Role Players (well, not primarily). They are violent chauvinists with large amounts of funding and increasing connection with the electoral right-wing, intentionally organising to harm whoever they consider to be undesirable (non-Europeans, progressives, etc.). They’re pathetic outcasts, you’re absolutely right, but they cannot be trivialised as just roleplaying.
Many of them are recruited by the NSN targeting vulnerable, alienated young men. They have even been discovered trying to get jobs in the NDIS with the open intention of working only with young men diagnosed with autism.
shads@lemy.lol 1 week ago
Oh I don’t mean to diminish the harms of the movement. We have a disappointingly long history to show what happens when this sort of group is weaponised by the wrong type (I was going to write right type, but that feels wrong) of leader/funder. But on an individual level, can you imagine one of these stains trying to explain their viewpoints to an honest questioner on a one on one basis?
I used to know a powerlifter who looked like what these guys fetishise, but he is their polar opposite ideologically. I would love for him to sit down and in his oh so calm voice ask one of these goons why they think the way they do. Trust me when I say it would never leave their mind that this guy could tear their arms off and beat them with the bloody ends, so if they were stuck next to him on a flight or train ride I think they would be sitting in a couple of different puddles by the end without having made a single valid point, meanwhile my old mate would likely continue his trend of intimidating people before they realise he wouldn’t hurt a fly.