I don't really know if you're pretending or not... ft. HasanAbi & Emmia

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I don't really know if you're pretending or not... ft. HasanAbi & Emmia

On June 16, 2019, Destiny held a conversation with Emmia regarding her political ignorance, emotional response to serious discussions, and experiences interacting with the political side of Twitch. Later in the call, Hasan joined the conversation and proceeded to have a heated debate with Destiny regarding crypto-fascism, and the pragmaticism(or lack thereof) of their respective political views.

Emmia and Destiny chat

The first half of the conversation was initially contained to Destiny and Emmia. During which time, Emmia explains how her interaction with what she perceived to be innocuous memes(i.e. "frenworld"), as well as her former relationship with a Breitbart writer, and some racially-charged logs under one of her aliases, resulted in much of the political communities on Twitch labeling her as a "nazi". Destiny eventually concluded that despite his uncertainty with regards to Emmia's reasoning for her engagement with alt-right memes, she should simply renounce her prior engagement with such memes and move forward with her life. Destiny further advises Emmia to do so regardless of individuals who would seek to bring up her past behavior, as they would likely never forgive her regardless of any repetenace she attempts.

Timestamps

Emmia provides her side of the story 1:53 Emmia discusses how her upbringing resulted in her being ignorant to most racial faux pas and political ideologies. She goes on to express her feelings of resentment towards online communities for referring to her as a nazi following a recent conversation with Hasan. Destiny explains crypto-fascism 5:57Destiny responds by explaining the concept of crypto-fascism, and how some people may be lead to believe Emmia engaged in such behavior. Destiny defines crypto-fascism as a term for right-wing extremists who subtly promote their ideas to make them seem harmless. Destiny goes on to describe how this strategy causes confusion and often obscures discussions, making it difficult for people to discern the actual intent behind certain messages or memes. Destiny then explains how this tactic causes "two really bad things to happen": People unknowingly spread these memes without understanding their deeper meanings or implications, which are often rooted in extremist ideologies. Other people then attack those who spread these memes, assuming they understand the underlying hateful messages, which might not be the case. Destiny further explains that the goal of crypto-fascism is to create confusion and division within discussions, making it harder for meaningful dialogue to occur and easier for extremist views to spread under the guise of innocuous content. Destiny argues that some of Emmia's actions(i.e. engagement with memes from the crypto-fascist subreddit "frenworld") led people to believe she was intentionally dog whistling, which is why the feedback she received from some twitch-political communities was so harsh. During this conversation, Emmia expresses that she feels genuinely remorseful for engaging with such communities, and asks Destiny what the best path forward toward avoiding further nazi accusations would be. Destiny confesses to being skeptical of Emmia's genuinity, but argues she should simply renounce her prior engagement with such memes and move forward with her life, regardless of individuals who would seek to bring up her past behavior. Destiny discusses racially charged logs under one of Emmia's aliases 18:51 At one point during the conversation, Destiny shows logs of an individual sending racist messages under one of Emmia's online aliases. Emmia confesses to not recalling sending those messages, and explains she has memory loss issues relating to her SSRI usage(Destiny later confirms that the messages are her's following checking the ip address associated with the account). Regardless, Destiny is amenable to this response, and reiterates once more that the best way for Emmia to move forward is to accept the fact that vindictive portions of the internet will continue to attack her, and refrain from engaging in such behavior again. They also touch on Emmia's previous relationship with a Breitbart writer, which she asserts wasn't due to a real interest in politics at the time. After Emmia leaves, a chatter questions Destiny about whether he thinks Emmia is lying. Destiny replies that speculating on Emmia's honesty is pointless, and the focus should be on whether she avoids engaging with crypto-fascist memes going forward. Destiny also remarks that it is very possible that Emmia did not have a true understanding of politics at the time of dating a Breitbart writer, and provides his own former partners having little knowledge of politics despite his line of work.

Hasan joins the call

Hasan eventually joins the call, and expresses his skepticism with Emmia's claims of amnesia and political ignorance. Hasan repeatedly argues that Emmia is not truly interested in changing her mind, is attempting to remove responsibility from her actions by claiming amnesia, and is engaging in clout-seeking behavior by appearing on Destiny's stream. Emmia takes issue, reaffirms her prior positions, and informs Hasan that issuing an apology just because she's "being pressed on stream" would be disingenuous, and that she plans on issuing an apology on her own stream. Destiny defends Emmia during this portion of the stream, and reiterates that whether Emmia is being honest is irrelevant at the moment, that she has in fact showed remorse for her past behavior, and that she should only be judged on her future behavior.

"This is really disappointing to me, because what you're doing is the exact goal of the people that start these memes. Like literally, you are the end result of like crypto-fascism, you realize that right? Like what everyone in chat is doing right now, is the entire goal of the people that start to spread these memes. I'm not gonna tell you 100% that "oh no she's definitely 100% genuine, she's not trolling". There is a chance that she's trolling, I mean in terms of her story like matching up with everything else so far, I mean it works for the most part. Like it kind of does, but this idea that your relentlessly fucking shit on... the idea that you would relentlessly shit on somebody that's engaged in like dumb fucking meme culture for a while, because they don't know what it means, is literally exactly the point of things like "all lives matter"."

—Destiny responding to Hasan accusing Emmia of lying

Timestamps

Hasan joins the stream 49:38 Following Emmia's departure, Hasan joins, and expresses his skepticism with Emmia's claims of amnesia and political ignorance. Destiny admits to being unsure with regards to Emmia's amnesia claims, but argues it's entirely plausible for Emmia to forgot messages sent several years ago. Hasan then points to several factors in Emmia's life that lead him to suspect Emmia's alt-right inclination: claiming to not recall racist things said in the past due to amnesia, dating a milo yiannopoulos writer, saying "get rekt illegals". Destiny once again argues that merely dating an individual engaging in politics, does not necessarily place the same political beliefs on Emmia. Destiny goes on to point to examples in his own life of dating people not very politically engaged, despite his own line of work. Hasan takes issue, arguing none of the individuals Destiny has dated engaged in the same memes as Emmia. Destiny replies with the following: "This is really disappointing to me, because what you're doing is the exact goal of the people that start these memes. Like literally, you are the end result of like Crypto Fascism, you realize that right? Like what everyone in chat is doing right now, is the entire goal of the people that start to spread these memes. I'm not gonna tell you 100% that "oh no she's definitely 100% genuine, she's not trolling". There is a chance that she's trolling, I mean in terms of her story like matching up with everything else so far, I mean it works for the most part. Like it kind of does, but this idea that your relentlessly fucking shit on... the idea that you would relentlessly shit on somebody that's engaged in like dumb fucking meme culture for a while, because they don't know what it means, is literally exactly the point of things like "all lives matter"." —Destiny responding to Hasan accusing Emmia of lying The conversation continues, with Hasan routinely arguing that Emmia is not truly interested in changing her mind, is attempting to remove responsibility from her actions by claiming amnesia, and is engaging in clout-seeking behavior. Destiny repeatedly asserts that whether Emmia is being honest is irrelevant at the moment, Emmia has in fact showed remorse for her past behavior, and that she should only be judged on her future behavior. When Emmia eventually returns to the call, Hasan outright accuses her of "abdicating responsibility" for her behavior. Emmia responds that apologizing right now just because she's "being pressed on stream" would be disingenuous, and that she plans on issuing an apology on her own stream.

Hasan and Destiny debate

Hasan and Emmia's conversation was eventually overshadowed by the disagreement Hasan and Destiny would proceed to have with one another. Hasan accuses Destiny of being overly charitable to Emmia, and attempts to point to instances where Destiny went "harder" on other right-leaning individuals who engaged in memes similar to "frenworld". Destiny takes issue with this, arguing that he would never go this hard on a "normie" like Emmia, and points to instances of him being equally charitable to "normies" like PewDiePie. Destiny proceeds to accuse Hasan of perpetuating the "vicious cycle" of crypto-fascism by bullying a "normie" like Emmia into the arms of alt-righters, instead of taking her at her word and evaluating her future actions for what they are. Destiny further asserts that the communities Hasan inhabits, and the individuals demanding Emmia's apology, would likely never forgive her anyways. Destiny proceeds to point to the severe criticism he has received from left-leaning communities despite the breadth of progressive content he has produced.

"There was a week's worth of chapotraphouse threads on me that said I want to fuck 19 year olds, that said I want to abandon my kid, fucking christ I've got like 7,000 videos over the past four or five years of me doing progressive work, like fuck it dude, if I haven't changed people's minds why the fuck would I tell anybody else to waste their time... And i'll maintain that position, left leaning communities are just as cancerous as right-wing communities when it comes to online discourse."

—Destiny responding to Hasan's demands for Emmia to apologize

The conversation diverges further, as Hasan accuses destiny of hyperfocusing on extreme criticism against himself, prompting Destiny to bring up a Chapo thread for analysis. Hasan then claims DGG engages in similar behavior towards himself, but Destiny counters, explaining he bans unfair criticism towards Hasan and that ad hominem attacks are typically downvoted in his subreddit. From here, the two spend the remainder of the call debating the pragmaticism(or lack thereof) of their respective political views. Hasan alleges Destiny deliberately uses provocative behavior to alienate left-leaning viewers, like calling workers dumb. To which Destiny responds by pointing out Hasan’s has engaged in more divisive actions, such as recently stating in a tv interview that he wouldn't vote for Biden over Trump. Hasan argues that a vote for Biden is perpetuating a "business as usual" political structure that gave the United States Donald Trump to begin with, to which Destiny chides Hasan for not considering the individuals who would get hurt by a Donald Trump presidency(i.e women in need of abortions, and LGBT people).

Destiny then demands that Hasan explain his logic for abstaining from voting in the next election. Hasan explains that a vote for Biden would merely perpetuate the status-quo even further, asserts that politicians like Biden will never push for change that interferes with the "interest of capital" or corporations, and contends that Biden is "basically a Republican". Destiny counters, accusing Hasan of stating one of the most hilariously stupid things he has ever heard, remarks how individuals on the right will "literally cheer" for any republican candidate to get through in an election, and asserts that not voting for a democratic candidate because it "doesn't deal with capitalism" is an incredibly privileged position to anyone not spending all their time online "larping about socialism". The conversation eventually concludes as Destiny accuses Hasan of being an accelerationist and unpragmatic, Hasan asserts the "neoliberalism" and capitalistic nature of the Democratic party has corrupted it, and Destiny once again criticizes Hasan of arguing from a point of extreme privilege and ignoring individuals who would suffer under a Trump presidency.

Timestamps

A rehash of the aforementioned points occurs for some, with Hasan arguing that Emmia's refusal to apologize during this stream and her claims of amnesia are disingenuous, Emmia refusing to submit to any on-stream pressure to apologize and reaffirming her SSRI-induced memory loss, and Destiny defending Emmia while accusing Hasan of contributing to crypto-fascism. At one point, Hasan accuses Destiny of being too charitable to Emmia and points to several instances of him "going harder" on other right-leaning individuals who engaged in memes similar to "frenworld". Hasan also attempts to make the case that Emmia has said worse things than Roseanne Barr. Destiny takes issue with this, arguing that he would never go this hard on a "normie" like Emmia, and points to instances of him being equally charitable to "normies" like PewDiePie. Destiny also argues that Roseanne Barr has tweeted out memes relating to Pizzagate, while Emmia's engagement with alt-right memes has been much more innocuous. The conversation continues as Destiny and Hasan take more direct attacks towards one another. Destiny argues once more that Hasan is currently perpetuating a cycle of driving "normies" towards the alt-right by not taking Emmia at her word, and further asserts that the communities Hasan inhabits, and the individuals demanding Emmia's apology, would likely never forgive her anyways. "There was a week's worth of chapotraphouse threads on me that said I want to fuck 19 year olds, that said I want to abandon my kid, fucking christ I've got like 7,000 videos over the past four or five years of me doing progressive work, like fuck it dude, if I haven't changed people's minds why the fuck would I tell anybody else to waste their time... And i'll maintain that position, left leaning communities are just as cancerous as right-wing communities when it comes to online discourse." —Destiny responding to Hasan's demands for Emmia to apologize Hasan and Destiny debate political pragmatism 1:34:42 Hasan accuses Destiny of hyperfocusing on extreme criticism he receives, to which Destiny pulls up a chapo thread and offers to go through it with Hasan. Hasan then accuses Destiny's community of engaging in the same behavior with himself, to which Destiny argues he bans individuals giving unfair criticism of Hasan and points out that adhominems are typically downvoted in his subreddit(unlike in chapo threads). Hasan counters, accusing Destiny of purposely engaging in "edgy" behavior with the explicit purpose of driving lefties from his audience(i.e. calling workers dumb), to which Destiny points out that Hasan has engaged in even more divisive behavior and points out that he recently said in a tv interview that he wouldn't vote for Biden over Trump. Hasan argues that a vote for Biden is perpetuating a "business as usual" political structure that gave the United States Donald Trump to begin with, to which Destiny chides Hasan for not considering the individuals who would get hurt by a Donald Trump presidency(i.e women in need of abortions, and LGBT people). Destiny then asks Hasan to explain his logic for abstaining from voting in the next election. Hasan explains that a vote for Biden would merely perpetuate the status-quo even further, asserts that politicians like Biden will never push for change that interferes with the "interest of capital" or corporations, and contends that Biden is "basically a Republican". Destiny counters that this is one of the most hilariously stupid things he has ever heard, points to how individuals on the right will literally cheer for any republican candidate to get through in an election, and asserts that not voting for a democratic candidate because it "doesn't deal with capitalism" is an incredibly privileged position to anyone not spending all their time online "larping about socialism". The conversation eventually concludes as Destiny accuses Hasan of being an accelerationist and unpragmatic, Hasan asserts the "neoliberalism" and capitalistic nature of the Democratic party has corrupted it, and Destiny once again criticizes Hasan of arguing from a point of extreme privilege and ignoring individuals who would suffer under a Trump presidency.