Reddit users fill Kanye subreddit with Holocaust posts - The Washington Post

The leafage offered a spontaneous amusement of enactment for Jewish Americans and a ocular practice of pushback against West, who has legally changed his sanction to Ye, aft weeks of his antisemitic remarks. It came aft Ye connected Thursday said helium liked Adolf Hitler and aboriginal tweeted an representation of a swastika.

“As a Jew and an aboriginal Kanye fan,” one commenter posted, “I ne'er looked successful this sub[reddit] until this greeting and I saw each the holocaust remembrance posts. I’m successful … tears close now. Thank you for lasting up for us.”

The posts see Holocaust-related photos and accusation intended to dispersed consciousness astir Nazi Germany’s persecution and killing of 6 cardinal Jews. People are besides posting acquisition publication and movie recommendations, photos from visits to Holocaust memorial and depository sites, and photos they accidental are of household members who were persecuted nether the Nazi regime.

“Photos I took erstwhile I visited Auschwitz. This is real. This is what happened to millions of guiltless men, women and children arsenic the effect of unchecked dehumanizing rhetoric against them,” one idiosyncratic wrote, attaching photos of the tract of the Nazi decease camp. “Never again.”

Sprinkled passim those posts is different a awesome of fans’ disavowing of Ye: Memes praising Taylor Swift, who has been seen arsenic a nemesis of Ye — and his fans — since helium interrupted her 2009 MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech. “Hey guys! Just getting into Taylor but don’t cognize wherever to start. Any suggestions?” wrote 1 idiosyncratic who posted a photograph of Swift.

“I looked up to you. And present you ruined it all,” one commenter wrote. “Ashamed that you were erstwhile my favourite artist. Ashamed that I called you the GOAT. … I americium done with you.”

The displacement connected the subreddit started Thursday, aft Ye praised Hitler and Nazis in an interrogation with right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. It came a small much than a week aft Ye dined with former president Donald Trump and achromatic nationalist Nick Fuentes, an lawsuit for which immoderate Republicans chastised Trump. Fuentes besides appeared connected Jones’s amusement with Ye.

Wearing a afloat mask, Ye told Jones helium liked Hitler, past said, “I emotion Jewish people, but I besides emotion Nazis.”

Thursday night, Ye tweeted a photograph of a swastika combined with the Star of David. His Twitter relationship was suspended aft the tweet. Both incidents drew wide condemnation from politicians, Jewish groups and others.

The disapproval included users connected the subreddit, wherever connected Thursday afternoon, 1 idiosyncratic posted, “This is present a Taylor Swift Subreddit. We had a bully tally fellas.” Hours later, aft the swastika tweet, different idiosyncratic declared the thread “officially a holocaust consciousness sub,” and Holocaust-related posts began pouring in.

Reddit users station anonymously. A connection sent to the moderators of r/Kanye from The Washington Post was not returned. Information posted connected Reddit, similar elsewhere connected societal media, is not verified by fact-checkers.

Attempts to scope Ye were unsuccessful.

Hate code and antisemitism online can lend to real-world violence, experts say, and the existent governmental clime has increased fearfulness among American Jews. An April reappraisal by the Anti-Defamation League, an enactment that fights antisemitism, recovered that the U.S. saw a grounds fig of antisemitic incidents successful 2021, with an mean of much than 7 per day.

Pamela Nadell, manager of American University’s Jewish Studies program, said she believes the United States is approaching a 2nd “high tide of American antisemitism,” referencing the play betwixt World War I and World War II that historians person mostly termed the highest of antisemitism successful the country.

That makes learning astir the Holocaust and the Jewish acquisition with antisemitism “of large value” for each Americans, she told The Post.

“What has happened from October done the extremity of November … we person deed a constituent successful American beingness wherever we present cognize that antisemitism is wholly normalized,” she said, referring to Ye’s comments, his gathering with Trump and Fuentes and accusations of antisemitism that person besides been precocious leveled against basketball subordinate Kyrie Irving. “There is surely a rising consciousness of fear, justifiable fear. And I would accidental astir horror.”

Nadell recommended that radical who privation to larn much astir the Holocaust commencement by looking astatine the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which includes an encyclopedia.

Ye’s actions person drawn outrage for weeks, from his wearing of a “WHITE LIVES MATTER” T-shirt astatine his Paris Fashion Week amusement to an antisemitic rant and mendacious accusation about the execution of George Floyd on the podcast “Drink Champs.” A leaked portion of an interrogation with Tucker Carlson connected Fox News besides elicited condemnation, arsenic did an October tweet by Ye saying helium would spell “death con 3” connected “JEWISH PEOPLE.”

Ye was dropped by Adidas, Gap, Balenciaga and different companies and has been intermittently suspended connected Twitter. On Thursday, right-leaning societal app Parler announced that a woody for Ye to bargain the institution had been canceled. A spokesperson said it was “mainly owed to his caller and well-publicized concern difficulties.”

While immoderate Redditors connected r/Kanye posted messages of gratitude for the Holocaust material, others questioned wherefore it had taken immoderate fans truthful agelong to denounce Ye. One idiosyncratic who identified themselves arsenic a “Jewish erstwhile Ye fan” urged radical to larn astir Jewish civilization beyond the Holocaust, saying, “Antisemitism is not a happening of the past. … We request your allyship!”

Another idiosyncratic asked for speechmaking worldly and movie recommendations, saying, “Thanks to Kanye I’m gonna larn much astir the past of the Holocaust.”

Even discussing Ye’s antisemitism presents a dilemma, due to the fact that it creates much publicity for his harmful remarks, said Leonard Saxe, manager of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies astatine Brandeis University.

“I don’t cognize whether this Reddit attack of posting tons of remembrances and accusation astir the Holocaust volition work, but it’s astir apt amended than straight talking astir him and however odious his views are,” Saxe told The Post.

“It’s a unspeakable situation, this infinitesimal successful clip erstwhile hatred and distrust and different societal forces look to beryllium stronger than ever, but educating radical astir the Holocaust is important,” helium said, adding, “Turning the absorption connected the peoples whose lives [Hitler] destroyed and remembering them, that’s a bully thing.”