Israel

[Dunners]

If St Greta is so good at predicting the future, you'd have thunk she'd have foreseen this issue arising with her cuddly toy.

[CEB]

My take is that Greta is highly unlikely to have done it to signal allegiance to antisemitic conspiracy theories, but that once things take on a symbolic meaning - even if that meaning is initially based on wrongheaded leaps - future instances by others are less likely to be innocent.
Just as the weird white supremacy hand gesture thing eventually became about arseholes smugly being like “lol triggered by a hand gesture!!”, after something enters the public consciousness, adoption of loaded imagery by design occupies an area of plausible deniability, and so it starts to become incumbent on people to avoid using the symbols in question if they want to make it unambiguous that they are not signalling a belief

She should indeed have had the sense and foresight to avoid using the symbol 5 months before Greta had one in a photo.

Instead of jumping in with the snark, tempting though it is, can you perhaps recognise that it’s not just about Greta and University Challenge, but that (as I alluded to above with reference to Martin Rowson) there has been a growing awareness of the antisemitic trope about octopi and tentacles, existing outside of the fact that you were not personally aware of the historic use of it, and that my point was not actually to assert the likely guilt of this person, but to observe that symbolism thrives in the grey area between “lol how can such an innocent thing symbolise what it’s being accused of” and the former statement being used as an inherent defence when it *is* used to signify something sinister.


Basically, with the UC contestant, my question would be this; if you think the date of the recording is pertinent to whether the combination of octopus mascot and colour scheme of clothing is an allusion to something else, then isn’t that a tacit acknowledgment that if she could plausibly know about the antisemitic connotations of the octopus, then it’s fair to think “hmmmm, a bit iffy”, without it having to mean she’s branded for life as an antisemite?
(And, if it’s the case that future instances are something you’d look upon with more suspicion, there exist Jewish people for whom this *was* their future instance, which they view with more suspicion because of stuff they’ve seen in the months/years before it was recorded)

[CEB]

Lol the Martin Rowson cartoon is far worse than I’d remembered

[Dunners]

This one?

[CEB]

That’s the one. Evil tentacled creature, darkened skin, exaggerated noses all over the place, and the accidental fact that “Gold Sac” is all that’s visible on the box. Nowt to see there, I doubt Rowson even saw Greta’s soft toy

[Daily Express bot]

You noticed the lady student in the University Challenge picture above is wearing Palestinian flag colours?

Yes, but if you look at this article: https://deadline.com/2023/11/university ... 235630887/ you can see where the jacket is advertised and I think it's a stretch to says it's in the Palestinian flag colours. It's similar, but not the same.

Who knows what was in her mind, or in Greta's. I don't think it's conclusive, and I'm giving them both the benefit of the doubt.

Put it this way. If the chap sitting next to her was wearing colours of the Jewish flag of a Man City shirt with a Star of David and had a bearded soft toy in black with a capital ‘M’ on the front of his chest, plonked where the Octopus currently is, do you think he would have got home unscathed?

There is no ‘benefit of doubt’ with reactions to situations like Charlie Hebdo

I admire your willingness for leeway but I think you are being rather naive.

[CEB]

Your analogy breaks down with the fact that a soft toy octopus and an unambiguous depiction of a religious figure are not 1-1 equivalents. I’d be interested in an analogy that *did* feature a comparably ambiguous/deniable mascot

[CEB]

The “is she/isn’t she doing it on purpose” debate, and the ridiculing of those who might see potential antisemitism in it, misses the point IMO. The point is that adoption of symbols fills two functions: the first is signalling to like minded people. The second is to create an association of something ostensibly innocent with something sinister, essentially gaslighting people into sometimes seeing hatred where there isn’t (or might not be) any.
Surely the people to take issue with, if you believe people are over reacting to a soft toy octopus, are those who have chosen to use the octopus as a reference to the evil Jews having their tentacles in everything?

[Daily Express bot]

The “is she/isn’t she doing it on purpose” debate, and the ridiculing of those who might see potential antisemitism in it, misses the point IMO. The point is that adoption of symbols fills two functions: the first is signalling to like minded people. The second is to create an association of something ostensibly innocent with something sinister, essentially gaslighting people into sometimes seeing hatred where there isn’t (or might not be) any.
Surely the people to take issue with, if you believe people are over reacting to a soft toy octopus, are those who have chosen to use the octopus as a reference to the evil Jews having their tentacles in everything?

You are spot on

[faldO]

You noticed the lady student in the University Challenge picture above is wearing Palestinian flag colours?

Yes, but if you look at this article: https://deadline.com/2023/11/university ... 235630887/ you can see where the jacket is advertised and I think it's a stretch to says it's in the Palestinian flag colours. It's similar, but not the same.

Who knows what was in her mind, or in Greta's. I don't think it's conclusive, and I'm giving them both the benefit of the doubt.

Put it this way. If the chap sitting next to her was wearing colours of the Jewish flag of a Man City shirt with a Star of David and had a bearded soft toy in black with a capital ‘M’ on the front of his chest, plonked where the Octopus currently is, do you think he would have got home unscathed?

There is no ‘benefit of doubt’ with reactions to situations like Charlie Hebdo

I admire your willingness for leeway but I think you are being rather naive.

If the episode had gone out live I would have had a different opinion, but back in March the Israel/Palestine issue was nowhere near as prominent as it is now and I think it unlikely that the Oxford team would have intentionally put out an antisemitic trope and fielded a team member in the colours of the Palestinian flag.

There is far, far worse going on right now on the antisemitism front amongst students, than the question of whether a toy octopus was intended to be offensive or not. That's not to excuse the UC incident if it was intentional, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you do given its timing. I might be wrong about it but I don't think I'm naive about it because I can see exactly how it can be interpreted.

[CEB]

Even if it were used deliberately, it wasn’t intended to cause offence, but intended to cause uncertainty and to suggest that it’s possible to get away with signalling such beliefs with impunity.

To assess it according to whether someone was actually trying to out themselves as a racist is to miss the point massively

[StillSpike]

It's certainly lucky they didn't go with the cuddly "Golly" mascot.

[Tuffers#2]

You noticed the lady student in the University Challenge picture above is wearing Palestinian flag colours?

Yes, but if you look at this article: https://deadline.com/2023/11/university ... 235630887/ you can see where the jacket is advertised and I think it's a stretch to says it's in the Palestinian flag colours. It's similar, but not the same.

Who knows what was in her mind, or in Greta's. I don't think it's conclusive, and I'm giving them both the benefit of the doubt.

Put it this way. If the chap sitting next to her was wearing colours of the Jewish flag of a Man City shirt with a Star of David and had a bearded soft toy in black with a capital ‘M’ on the front of his chest, plonked where the Octopus currently is, do you think he would have got home unscathed?

There is no ‘benefit of doubt’ with reactions to situations like Charlie Hebdo

I admire your willingness for leeway but I think you are being rather naive.

Dont you mean different to the jewish flag ? Navy pink orange & green is hardly representative of some other countries flag colourings.

[Tuffers#2]

Yes, but if you look at this article: https://deadline.com/2023/11/university ... 235630887/ you can see where the jacket is advertised and I think it's a stretch to says it's in the Palestinian flag colours. It's similar, but not the same.

Who knows what was in her mind, or in Greta's. I don't think it's conclusive, and I'm giving them both the benefit of the doubt.

Put it this way. If the chap sitting next to her was wearing colours of the Jewish flag of a Man City shirt with a Star of David and had a bearded soft toy in black with a capital ‘M’ on the front of his chest, plonked where the Octopus currently is, do you think he would have got home unscathed?

There is no ‘benefit of doubt’ with reactions to situations like Charlie Hebdo

I admire your willingness for leeway but I think you are being rather naive.

If the episode had gone out live I would have had a different opinion, but back in March the Israel/Palestine issue was nowhere near as prominent as it is now and I think it unlikely that the Oxford team would have intentionally put out an antisemitic trope and fielded a team member in the colours of the Palestinian flag.

There is far, far worse going on right now on the antisemitism front amongst students, than the question of whether a toy octopus was intended to be offensive or not. That's not to excuse the UC incident if it was intentional, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you do given its timing. I might be wrong about it but I don't think I'm naive about it because I can see exactly how it can be interpreted.

It's not even close to the colours in palestines flag.

[Daily Express bot]

Yes, but if you look at this article: https://deadline.com/2023/11/university ... 235630887/ you can see where the jacket is advertised and I think it's a stretch to says it's in the Palestinian flag colours. It's similar, but not the same.

Who knows what was in her mind, or in Greta's. I don't think it's conclusive, and I'm giving them both the benefit of the doubt.

Put it this way. If the chap sitting next to her was wearing colours of the Jewish flag of a Man City shirt with a Star of David and had a bearded soft toy in black with a capital ‘M’ on the front of his chest, plonked where the Octopus currently is, do you think he would have got home unscathed?

There is no ‘benefit of doubt’ with reactions to situations like Charlie Hebdo

I admire your willingness for leeway but I think you are being rather naive.

Dont you mean different to the jewish flag ? Navy pink orange & green is hardly representative of some other countries flag colourings.

At the time numerous National Newspapers reported on it and the BBC had to defend themselves. First time I have seen it today , I immediately thought it was remarkably like the Palestinian flag, albeit I have been brainwashed seeing it daily everywhere of course.

[Tuffers#2]

Put it this way. If the chap sitting next to her was wearing colours of the Jewish flag of a Man City shirt with a Star of David and had a bearded soft toy in black with a capital ‘M’ on the front of his chest, plonked where the Octopus currently is, do you think he would have got home unscathed?

There is no ‘benefit of doubt’ with reactions to situations like Charlie Hebdo

I admire your willingness for leeway but I think you are being rather naive.

Dont you mean different to the jewish flag ? Navy pink orange & green is hardly representative of some other countries flag colourings.

At the time numerous National Newspapers reported on it and the BBC had to defend themselves. First time I have seen it today , I immediately thought it was remarkably like the Palestinian flag, albeit I have been brainwashed seeing it daily everywhere of course.

Best get to the opticians for a colour blind test.

[Dunners]

This could be a game changer. Be interesting to see how the IDF respond to this.

I'm sure now they have got this important business out of the way, the SNP can have a look for those missing WhatsApp messages for the covid enquiry.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

Good job presiding!

[Proposition Joe]

Back to the octopii, this included some interesting examples:

[CEB]

If there was a photo of, say, a Millwall fan doing the “OK” hand symbol, I daresay it’d be possible for someone to do a thread of all the other contexts in which the OK sign was used in a way that didn’t signpost white supremacy.

The point overall is not “anyone using an octopus symbol is obviously antisemitic”; the point is that in a connected world, in a social media context where memes are pretty much a language, as soon as anything is imbued with a meaning - no matter which “side” bestows that meaning - then it will be used as part of a culture war that involves either searching out and “outing” suspected Bad People, or deliberately triggering the Other Side.
I definitely don’t suspect Greta Thunberg of any ulterior motive, and I have no real investment either way in the UC contestant. The point, which that thread doesn’t engage with, is how quickly these things move in modern times, and how quickly a culturally loaded image/slogan/picture can be adopted.

It’s disingenuous to be like “X group is upset about a cuddly toy” if you’re, in another context, able to spot that (for example) a cartoon of a frog is very likely to signify that someone is politically far right (and if you’ve ever been infuriated by some naive person being like “lol why are you upset by a frog???”)

Im sort of more interested in it as a phenomenon than as trying to work out what evil intent a given quiz contestant may or may not have. We’re kind of effectively seeing how symbols gain meaning in real time.

Example: right now, there’s the thread PJ posted, which does a good job of showing that the octopus has been used in a variety of contexts.
But if, say (and yep, I’m getting hypothetical here but I’m just talking about how a meaning might be cemented BY the discourse around it), a Liverpool fan moaning about Spurs getting a VAR decision in their favour posted next month “Spurs always seek to get these decisions in their favour” alongside an octopus emoji, then that would, now, clearly be antisemitic, right?

[CEB]

tl:dr; the argument isn’t that *any* depiction is antisemitic. It’s that memes, cartoons and the culture of alt right shitposting type sh*t means that plenty of people are happy to throw a bit of chaos into the mix by imbuing cultural artefacts with meaning, and when that happens, people *do* adopt them to tacitly signal belief, and others *do* fall into the trap of then seeing “hate symbols” everywhere.
The A-OK white supremacist thing was literally curated into a “hate signal” by alt right sh*t posters purely for the hell of it, until it became one.
Discourse around this stuff is sort of broken

[Proposition Joe]

tl:dr; the argument isn’t that *any* depiction is antisemitic. It’s that memes, cartoons and the culture of alt right shitposting type sh*t means that plenty of people are happy to throw a bit of chaos into the mix by imbuing cultural artefacts with meaning, and when that happens, people *do* adopt them to tacitly signal belief, and others *do* fall into the trap of then seeing “hate symbols” everywhere.
The A-OK white supremacist thing was literally curated into a “hate signal” by alt right sh*t posters purely for the hell of it, until it became one.
Discourse around this stuff is sort of broken

I've seen palpable frustration expressed by some Jewish commentators online about how this trope (specifically the one about the plush toy, rather than the octopus in general) was being created live in front of them. Even something which isn't necessarily antisemitic or racist can become it if enough people claim it to be, whether well intended or not and I have no doubt that these toys are gonna be bought by people and used in a horrible way, which they never would have done but for the - at least partly - manufactured furore post-Greta (and now UC). Don't know how you stop this kind of thing from happening.

[Hoover Attack]

The point, which that thread doesn’t engage with, is how quickly these things move in modern times, and how quickly a culturally loaded image/slogan/picture can be adopted.

These things apparently move so quickly nowadays, they can travel back in time...

[faldO]

Don't know how you stop this kind of thing from happening.

By calling it out and refusing to accept the pseudo-intellectual arguments around it which, for example, seek to assign blame to "alt right sh*tposters" rather than the identitarian and divisary politics of the left.

Perhaps just accept that, in the case of Greta and/or UC, there was nothing more to it than young people selecting a toy that they liked for its own sake, no ulterior motive, and leave it at that. The world doesn't always need to be complicated.

[Proposition Joe]

Don't know how you stop this kind of thing from happening.

By calling it out and refusing to accept the pseudo-intellectual arguments around it which, for example, seek to assign blame to "alt right sh*tposters" rather than the identitarian and divisary politics of the left.

Perhaps just accept that, in the case of Greta and/or UC, there was nothing more to it than young people selecting a toy that they liked for its own sake, no ulterior motive, and leave it at that. The world doesn't always need to be complicated.

From what I've seen, it's very much not anyone on the left who's claiming Greta or the UC contestant have done anything wrong. But the media are more interested in amplifying the voices of those who either need to take a breath or those who are just pure sh*t stirring.