this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2024
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It has come to light that the original logo in 2004 was a Koffing with a Swastika instead of the normal crossbones thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPG6vIN8Kx8

Video by cecilily - We need to talk about the Nazi past of Smogon

gamer-gulag

This is so outrageous it seems fake, but they adressed it last year and decided not to change the name which is peak freeze-gamer

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[–] CloutAtlas@hexbear.net 60 points 1 day ago

Pokémon Go to the Re-education Camps

hillary-assassin

[–] HumanBehaviorByBjork@hexbear.net 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

ya know, in comparison, this site ain't so bad

[–] GenderIsOpSec@hexbear.net 21 points 1 day ago

the bar is in hell

i'll take the occasional struggle session over actual fucking nazis any day

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago

Every G*mer a nazi, I guess what-the-hell

[–] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 38 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It’s clearly changed since then with how strong of a queer presence is on that site. The video shows to me that Smogon is an example of something that started out as an edgelord hub actually doing something and changing for the better.

[–] GaveUp@hexbear.net 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There's a lot of Nazis in queer spaces, not really an argument

Flashbacks to last year at SF Castro Street Fair where a guy was wearing a jersey with 88 as the number, and SS lightning bolts all over like a sponsor logo

[–] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Okay fine but even then it’s nowhere near the edgelord cesspool it once was.

[–] GaveUp@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago

Letting Kingambit stay in OU is worse imo

[–] Piment@hexbear.net 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I think, at a bare minimum they should change the name and logo, but maybe I'm a lib for that as it would probably just be performative, just seems indefensible to me to keep it

[–] hello_hello@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

but maybe I'm a lib for that as it would probably just be performative

True but we also don't want kids to unknowingly repeat Nazi dogwhistles. Maybe that's why Smogon gets zero attention in official spaces, turns out Nintendo doesn't want anything to do with a community whose name is a reference to gas chambers. I'm just mind-boggled that people don't see this as that big of an issue.

"Yes my community is called SS88 but we are different and mature now and getting more popular than ever"

[–] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 18 points 1 day ago

Yeah that sounds reasonable to me. There’s of course going to be heavy backlash from people who have grown attached to it but enough people will get over it.

[–] KhanCipher@hexbear.net 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Because it is peak white liberal performative nonsense to change the name. It's exactly what every white city dwelling liberal does when they find out something has a dark past, they change the offensive part (or do an overreaction, an example could be made for the prime directive in star trek) then pretend everything is still all hunky dory while doing effectively nothing material.

Maybe I've just had too many encounters with liberals who just never really cared at all to begin with to say that.

[–] hello_hello@hexbear.net 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I don't think it's white liberal nonsense to rename your site from a Nazi dogwhistle to literally anything else, it'd actually own up to the sites past instead of just brushing it under the rug and letting people unwittingly spread a horrible thing. The performative nonsense is having a Jewish (TM) person say that the Nazi dogwhistle is not bad actually and that we have all changed, which is exactly what happened.

then pretend everything is still all hunky dory while doing effectively nothing material.

That's literally what they did by not changing the name but doing an acknowledgement from one of the Jewish community leaders.

[–] Piment@hexbear.net 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yeah, the video mentions that multiple people are still around in leadership positions that were there during the time where that was a thing so you would probably hope to see some accountability from those individuals, In theory you could do that without changing the name and logo, but I feel like a lot of people will never look at it the same way after learning where it came from.

[–] KhanCipher@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

What happened more than likely is one of two things, early internet edginess, or the person paying for the site at the start did the thing that a lot of forum owners did back then "it's my forum, and I can do what I want with it".

I can't find the energy to get worked up over this in either case, mostly because there's bigger fish to fry in the grand scheme of things, and both cases were pretty common in early internet especially the latter which is where the unofficial rule 0 of forum posting comes from, don't piss off the guy paying for it.

[–] Comrade_Mushroom@hexbear.net 33 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

You're telling me the people who started something because they were elitist gamers who wanted to reduce something fun and artistic entirely to a cold, soulless numbers game were also disgusting fascist pigs?

Thank goodness something like that would never happen anywhere else, especially not at my favorite video game company, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.!

[–] ProfessorOwl_PhD@hexbear.net 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

wanted to reduce something fun and artistic entirely to a cold, soulless numbers game

As an autistic person who enjoys numbers games this feels kinda ableist tbh. People find joy in different things, you're not better for disliking numbers.

[–] Comrade_Mushroom@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You could be right! I've just come across a lot lot lot lot lot lot lot lot lot of people who sure did think they were better than everyone else for liking vidya game numbers more than others. And you only need to spend about 90 seconds with any group of WoW players who treat that game that way to uncover a social environment as disgustingly bigoted as anything you'd find on 4chan. And those guys sure didn't hesitate to utilize slurs of all varieties when putting down anyone and everyone who dared to care even a little bit about anything other than what the 3rd party website that ranked them said about how big their numbies were, at every available opportunity.

"Hardcore" Pokemon players could be different, I dunno. And I'm certain it's not a 1-to-1 edgeworth-shrug

I know I shouldn't generalize, it's not a thing I appreciate when others do. I just have a built-in bias because the most vile words I have ever heard another human speak came from number-centric WoW players who thought you were a lesser human being if you didn't care about your numerical parses as much as they did theirs; it is a type of person I struggled with for more than a decade, during which time I never met a single group of "hardcore" players who, as a whole, managed to avoid this type of behavior. (And many of the people who started out as players of the game exhibiting this behavior, are now high-ranking members of the company.)

[–] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

From what I understand of the current pokemon competitive community, it's actually really cool people, a lot of the most well known folks in the community like BigYellow and PlagueVonKarma are nonbinary or trans, and it seems to be a really supportive community where people encourage each other rather than the sort of toxic communities the far right creates. I've had quite a few people start up a nice chat with me after a match, which I can't really say for most competitive online communities.

[–] Comrade_Mushroom@hexbear.net 2 points 17 hours ago

It's good to know there's at least one good group out there. I only ever met one competitive Pokemon player and he was a pretty nice kid.

i don't think taking the children's RPG too seriously is nazi behavior

[–] NewAcctWhoDis@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago

Good thing we have you to tell those elitists the proper way to have fun

[–] screaminginvoid@hexbear.net 20 points 1 day ago

Good video, worth a watch if are invested in the community. At the end she argues that the site has changed, and cites the presence of a diverse community as evidence of that. Personally I am not going to use the site anymore because I am concerned about the ideology of the hosts and admins. If Smogon was and potentially still is a safe harbor for antisemitic behavior it will never be a safe space for any minority group. The logo is still a koffing, they just got rid of the swastika.

[–] LeylaLove@hexbear.net 31 points 2 days ago

WHY MUST EVERYTHING I LOVE SUCK?

I have 1000s of matches on Pokemon showdown and have been lurking Smogon for years. What the fuck.

[–] Hime@hexbear.net 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Smogon council be like joker-gaming

[–] git@hexbear.net 8 points 1 day ago

Smogon deez nuts

[–] LocalOaf@hexbear.net 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

is Bulbapedia bad too or is that okay

every once in awhile I wanna browse that just looking at random pokemon I don't know

[–] PointAndClique@hexbear.net 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not sure but please don't tell me if serebii.net is cursed i don't think i could take it rn

[–] UmbraVivi@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I know people who are friends with the guy who runs it and he's cool from everything I've heard

[–] PointAndClique@hexbear.net 8 points 1 day ago

Good stuff that's a relief

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

TIL, and I really didn't like pokemon to begin with.

[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Digimon and Medabots fans stay winning

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Digimon

Yeah I support our troops, V-Pet troops.

[–] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago

I'm shocked at this, YouTube doesn't have a clip of the season 2 characters entering the digital world that was in every episode.

[–] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 9 points 1 day ago

MEDABOO-O-O-O-O-O-TS

SICK DNB

"go getcha friends"

ITS TIME TO BATTLE

ROBATTLE

TO THE TOP!

[–] TheDrink@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago
[–] courier8377@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago

VGC fans stay winning

[–] Waldoz53@hexbear.net 13 points 2 days ago

ahhhh Gamers

[–] PointAndClique@hexbear.net 11 points 2 days ago
[–] hexaflexagonbear@hexbear.net 9 points 1 day ago
[–] coeliacmccarthy@hexbear.net 8 points 2 days ago

leave me alone

[–] CrawlMarks@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Disappointed but not surprised

[–] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: