Early internet subcultures excused fascist imagery as ironic play under techno-optimism

Evidence

Yet Anonymous’s contradictions were impossible to ignore. While supporting Occupy Wall Street, members freely used homophobic slurs. They protested racism in the online game Habbo by arranging a group of Black avatars into a swastika. Their nihilistic pranks often veered into outright cruelty, from harassing grieving families of dead teenagers to targeting epileptics with flashing lights. But in the techno-optimist spirit, these flirtations with fascist imagery were again excused as ironic. At Baltimore’s Otakon anime conference in 2007, teens attending a 4chan panel marched around with Sieg Heil salutes—performative fascism for the lulz. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 271

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘omnivore monoculture’ thesis: these subcultures were inward-signaling tribes whose ironies later got flattened when all their content became mainstream feeds.
• QUESTION: Was the ‘ironic fascism’ framing genuinely disarming to participants, or a self-justifying cover adopted after the fact?