The Language of Extremism: On Dogwhistles

A dog whistle is a term used to describe language with hidden or coded meanings that only a specific audience understands. It’s often used in politics, media and culture to subtly signal support for a particular ideology or group of people without explicitly stating it.

Outside of the context of coded language, it’s a term used to describe flutes that make a sound audible to dogs that humans cannot hear, so the term is derived from the fact that most people who aren’t “in the know” won’t think much of these terms when they hear about them.

It’s language that seems neutral or innocuous to others, essentially, while it is designed to be understood or recognised by the in-group.

In November of last year, we had this discussion on the Blaugust discord server about blog comment moderation and different approaches to it, which prompted me to talk about a commenter on one of my videos who suddenly started spouting wild nonsense about wokeness and DEI, including a bunch of gaming-related anti-woke dogwhistles.

This then sparked a conversation about dog whistles, which folks who aren’t chronically online aren’t aware of, like “modern audience” or specific hand signs.

As such, I just wanted to talk a little about the concept and share some examples of common dog whistles that folks don’t know much about.

Note: 
I'm using poorly drawn images of my OC in this post as well as a few pics of ducks (because ducks are cute), one image of someone who did an awkward gesture and probably didn't know he'd get beat up for it and fined in Germany, as well as an image of colour flags in this post. These don't really have a purpose other than breaking up the text walls. 

Beyond that, this post is a long one. Just know that it used to be longer and be thankful that it doesn't contain any required reading of sorts. There will also be no test. If you have to take a break or wanna skip some sections, here's a table of contents. I hope you enjoy this post.

1. Are all Dog Whistles Bad?
2. Some Examples of Dog Whistles (yay!)
   1. Numerical Codes
   2. Words and Phrases
   3. Hand Signs and Gestures
3. Anti-Wokeness and Gaming
   1. What is Woke?
   2. Anti-Woke Dogwhistles
4. Conclusion

Are all Dog Whistles Bad?

So, to start with, I wanted to talk a little bit about the usage and make some distinctions.

The most important thing to know about this topic is that people don’t always use these terms willingly. There isn’t always intent behind a “dog whistle”. The language is designed to be neutral and seem innocuous to folks outside of the in-group, meaning that just because someone has 88 in their username, that doesn’t mean anything, necessarily.

But also, dog whistles are just coded phrases and don’t have to be inherently bad. “Friend of Dorothy” was a secret code that was used by LGBTQIA2S+ people, especially in the mid-20th century when being openly gay was dangerous, to figure out who you’re safe with. It referred to Dorothy Gale from “The Wizard of Oz” and as such Judy Garland, a beloved icon in the queer community, and it was essentially used in the same way that “Polari” was used in the UK.

To quote the lovely and incredibly cool Jaedia: “I wouldn’t worry much about potentially tripping dog whistles. It’s impossible to stay abreast of everything these days with some caveats, of course.”

There will always be more things that you’re unaware of than things that you’re aware of. That’s just life. If you trip, you’ll find out. That’s the fun part.

Some Examples of Dog Whistles (yay!)

To talk about and to understand dog whistles, it would probably be helpful to mention a few examples.

Just as a side note, given that I live in Germany, I wanted to put a bit of emphasis on Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist dog whistles because I know that a big part of my readership is not German, and since a lot of folks don’t seem to know these.

And that is fine, of course! It makes sense that people who don’t grow up in Germany aren’t aware of the implications some of these coded phrases, numerical codes, etc. have.

Hence, I’ll start with those and later head into other examples.

Numerical Codes

• 88

H is the 8th letter of the alphabet. 88 stands for “HH”, which means “Heil Hitler”. In Germany, in particular, many people are aware of this specific dog whistle, so when you see someone with an 88 tattoo, yeah…

In online spaces, however, someone might have an 88 in their name because of their birth year—an unfortunate coincidence. Some people decide to change their usernames in response to that, while others keep them. Both are very valid.

There was also a bit of controversy a while back surrounding a game with some unfortunate naming, which luckily was changed once the developers were made aware of the meaning they were accidentally signalling.

• 14

14 stands for “The Fourteen Words”, a reference to two slogans originated by the American domestic terrorist David Eden Lane, one of the founders of the white supremacist terrorist organisation “The Order”.

The primary slogan is “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” (that’s 14 words). The secondary slogan is “because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the Earth”.

These slogans have also been used by other militant white nationalists internationally for a long time now, so you see “14” pop up quite often as a coded message.

A 14 on its own doesn’t have to mean anything, of course, but in specific contexts or when used very randomly, it can stand out a fair bit.

• “1488” or “14/88”

1488 or 14/88 is a combination of the two, a lot of the time, but more commonly refers to a combination of “The Fourteen Words” and the “88 Precepts” by Lane.

You see this quite frequently as graffiti on walls or bathroom stalls. It’s quite egregious.

• 109/110

This one references the anti-semitic myth that Jewish people have been expelled from 109 countries, implying a desire for a 110th.

Obviously, 110 is also the emergency phone number in a lot of countries, so context matters, but especially in combination with 109, this one’s quite clear when it pops up.

A friend of mine worked for a major game company’s moderation team and would frequently have to go through a list of usernames and decide whether or not they’re hateful or not, and apparently, usernames with “109/110” in them are incredibly common and frequently get flagged in these systems where they then get moderated separately.

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And obviously, there are many other ones that frequently get used in terrible ways but these are some of the more common ones that people might not be aware of.

Words and Phrases

These here do not necessarily constitute “dog whistles” and are more so just euphemisms for bigger concepts that can sound apolitical or unproblematic to outsiders who have no idea about the subject matter. In a way, they fit the description of what constitutes a dog whistle, but just very loosely.

The thing with phrases is that they can be used in language normally and might mean something different to whoever hears them, especially because of people’s biases and connotations. But that’s even more of a reason why we have to be careful when we use terms while assuming that others understand what those terms mean, since not everyone is chronically online or of the same educational or lived background.

The fact that most phrases in this list might sound unproblematic to uneducated people is why I wanted to include them in this post, as they do function in the way dogwhistles do – they signal a certain meaning and an allyship to certain ideals by simply being uttered.

What’s more interesting, however, is that putting a spotlight on these words and phrases can help understand how dog whistles are formed.

• (((echo))) or (((Them)))

This one is known as the “echo” symbol. It is used by white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and alt-right extremists to target Jewish people and suggest that they secretly control global institutions like finance, media, and politics.

The triple parentheses (((echo))) started as a tool in The Right Stuff, a white nationalist website and podcast. It’s designed to “mark” Jewish individuals, businesses and organisations, implying they have undue influence or hidden agendas.

• “Western Values”/”Western Culture”

The terms “Western Values” and “Western Culture” can function as dog whistles, especially in political, cultural and ideological discussions, as they carry specific secondary meanings to a particular intended audience. On the surface level, “Western Values” or “Western Culture” typically would refer to ideals such as democracy, individual liberty, the separation of state and religion, freedom of speech/press, and scientific rationalism. It’s a term typically attributed to the historical legacy of European and North American nations.

That said, the term has a lot of ethnocultural implications, implying whiteness – favouring white European-descended populations while marginalising immigrants or communities of colour. It frequently also excludes people from the Global South and non-Christian backgrounds, labelling them as incompatible with “Western Culture”.

Since 2016 (roughly), the phrase became a euphemism for rejecting Islam as a whole and Muslim immigrants, especially in debates around integration, multiculturalism and terrorism. More specifically, at PEGIDA (and other like-minded) rallies, it was frequently implied that Islam as a whole is a threat to “our way of life” and “Western culture”.

Similarly, the terms are frequently used to resist progressive policies, specifically anything feminism, LGBTQIA+ rights or racial justice related, often idolising the past and invoking a sense of nostalgia. “Früher war alles besser” (Everything was better in the past) and so on.

Women’s right to work and vote, women’s health care and reproductive rights, gay marriage, single-parent households, DEI efforts, gender-neutral language, et cetera… According to the people who make use of these terms in these contexts, all of these topics threaten the traditional or “real” Western values. You see these sentiments uttered a lot at AfD (Germany) and MAGA (U.S.) rallies.

The term is more specifically used by conservative and right-leaning parties and politicians with nationalist bases, media pundits and think tanks that frame discussions as a clash of cultures rather than what they actually are about, as well as many far-right groups who employ these phrases to circumvent moderation online and push their supremacist and exclusionary views.

• “Blood and soil” or “Blut und Boden”

Literally, a Nazi slogan.

You see this sometimes in band songs or other contexts, and it seems pretty obvious to me but I’ve had acquaintances that didn’t know about this and ended up humming those songs in places where you really shouldn’t do that.

The idea behind “blood and soil” is that a person’s blood (aka their genetics and heritage) are tied to that person’s country or state (soil). “Deutschland den Deutschen” (Germany to/for the Germans), essentially.

It promotes racial purity and nationalism in a very, very bad way. Again, it’s literally a nazi slogan, but it frequently does get echoed in a lot of places.

• “(Anti-)Globalist” & “Cultural Marxism”

Both of these terms are used as a way to suggest that some elites (read that as (((elites))), if you will) are trying to undermine or destroy “Western values” and the world via their influence and wealth.

Anti-Globalism opposes the interconnectedness of the world in various aspects, but typically is used as a euphemism for nationalist, antisemitic and/or xenophobic sentiments, particularly due to the veiled antisemitism that is tied to the conspiracy theories explained above.

Cultural Marxism originally referred to a set of ideas within Marxist theory that related to culture (like the works of the mid-20th-century Frankfurt School) but has since been distorted and appropriated into a catch-all phrase describing some alleged coordinated effort by left-wing intellectuals, academics or activists to subvert or destroy Western values.

These two words get thrown around a lot, often interchangeably, really just meaning that whoever is being called a globalist or a cultural marxist is aiming to destroy Western values by being politically correct, promoting multiculturalism, advocating for marginalised people’s rights, and other things.

But there’s a lot more, really, from the anti-progressive rhetoric and racial or ethnic undertones, all of which are accompanied by the antisemitic overtones. To folks who aren’t in the know, it sounds like a critique of left-wing policies or perspectives, whereas the actual meaning is opposition to gender equality, diversity, social justice, racial justice, and multiculturalism.

Hand Signs and Gestures

• “The Nazi Salute” or “Sieg Heil”, or as the ADL calls it, “An Awkward Gesture”

The Nazi Salute is a salute that Nazis did. It’s a salute that is associated with Nazis and their ideology as well as Hitler’s regime. Again, it’s a salute that Nazis did. Just to be clear.

Some people call it a Roman salute but those people are stupid. If you did that “Roman salute” and argued so in Germany, you’d go to jail. Because it’s not a “Roman salute”. There is no evidence suggesting that the Sieg Heil or Nazi Salute was used in the first century BCE. In fact, during Caesar’s rule as dictator of Rome, Romans often showed respect through gestures like raising a hand (a more general salute) or by bowing their heads.

Anyway, I digress. You do a Nazi salute by raising your right arm at a 45-degree angle and a flat hand whose palm is facing downwards. “Traditionally”, you’d also shout “Sieg Heil” which translates to “Hail Victory” but even if you omit the “Sieg Heil” or “Hail Victory”, it is still considered a Nazi salute.

Again, it’s illegal in Germany to do that. I wanna see Elon Musk try that.

The reason I bring up Musk here is that he did a very good Nazi Salute recently over here and Neo-Nazis all over the world, especially in Germany, cried tiers of joy when they saw that beautiful gesture. Everyone knows that it’s a Sieg Heil. And yet. Here we are debating, I guess.

• The “OK” hand sign

Originally very innocent but it got co-opted by white supremacists to represent “WP” (White Power), especially online. The idea comes from the letters W and P, where the three fingers (thumb, index and middle) form a “W” and the circle made by the thumb and index finger can be seen as a “P”.

The OK hand sign was also seen as a symbol signaling some type of allegiance towards the KKK due to the pinky, ring and middle finger forming the long stroke of the “k”with the index and thumb forming the two small strokes of the “k”.

During the Satanist panic, however, people also seemed to see it as a dog whistle of sorts for Satanic cults or whatever as the three fingers each form 6, hence resulting in 666.

• The Wolf Sign (Wolf’s Hook)

This is a gesture the as originally just a wolf’s head. In elementary schools in Germany, we would call it the “Flüsterfuchs” (whisper fox) or “Schweigefuchs” (silent fox), essentially being a sign that the children would understand as “shut up” (but more polite and less intrusive).

Anyhow, teachers don’t use this one anymore, sadly, because the “Wolf’s Head” or “Wolf’s Hook” symbol has been used by Nazi groups like the “Waffen-SS” and other far-right movements which eventually became more widely known, hence why it’s being steadily removed from school contexts, and it’s also seen as a problematic gesture due to Neo-Nazis co-opting and reviving the symbols again in their contexts.

• The “Three Percent” Salute

This one is done by doing a peace sign with a stretched out thumb, referencing the “Three Percenters”, an anti-government militia group in the U.S. that believes only 3% of the population fought in the American Revolution. They have anti-government, pro-gun and far-right views. They’re very extreme, actually, and simply calling them “far-right” and “pro-gun” is an understatement, honestly.

• The “One” Gesture

This one is a hand sign where the index finger is raised and the other fingers are curled or closed into the palm, symbolizing the number 1. The palm faces forward.

Again, it’s a normal hand gesture, typically, but in the context of ISIS, it is used to symbolise monotheism and the “Islamic State’s” radical interpretation of Islam, and as such is used to signal an alignment with their ideologies.

That said, obviously, the gesture just means “one” and simply doing it doesn’t make you a terrorist or whatever.

There are a number of examples of soccer players of all nationalities, for instance, doing the gesture in photos, signalling they’re “number 1”, the best of the best, or something along those lines. In some of those people’s cases, however, tabloid media and alt-right platforms have tried to fabricate narratives and manufacture outrage that they’re actually signalling support of ISIS, most likely due to their roots or ethnicity or whatever.

Anti-Wokeness and Gaming

We touched briefly on anti-Woke dog whistles with terms such as “Cultural Marxism” and whatnot, but I’ll talk in the following section more so about specific terms you’ll see in the context of gaming and online discussions of games as media.

What is Woke?

Originally, the term “woke” emerged from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and referred to being aware of social injustices, especially those related to race and discrimination.

It was often used to describe someone who was conscious of issues like racism, inequality, oppression and justice. The term comes from the idea of being “awake” to the lived experiences and the realities of marginalised people, as opposed to being ignorant or unaware.

Nowadays, however, the term has taken a much broader meaning due to it being co-opted and weaponised in different ways by far-right groups and conservatives, toddlers cosplaying as adults and even the mainstream media.

To a degree, it still is about a commitment to social justice, equality, equity and a heightened awareness of systemic oppression, of course… In contemporary discourse, however, it mostly has taken a more pejorative nature, especially by (often conservative or bigoted) critics who change the meaning depending to whatever they oppose – by which I mean that people like “Think Before You Sleep” (a right-leaning commentary YouTuber who frequently publically insults people he deems unattractive under the guise of giving them (unsolicited) life-improvement feedback) will understand the term as just tokenism and rainbow capitalism… or communist (his words, not mine). It’s weird.

Calling something woke simply mean you disagree with it. Anything that isn’t specifically geared towards your personal taste is woke because you are not a fan of it, even if you don’t have to consume said media.

The term is mainly used pejoratively to describe what the critics in question see as extremely performative and pointless activism and virtue signalling. That said, definitions vary vastly from person to person, and people will just call anything and everything that isn’t conservative “woke”. If you’re even slightly progressive, you’re “woke”. Being anti-capitalism is woke, but being a very-capitalist company that does performative campaigns is also woke.

The term really doesn’t mean anything except for “progressive” or “not conservative”, I guess, but it’s a catch-all that works for the purpose of invalidating the opposing site or to simplify complex issues into an “us versus them” type of thing.

Anti-Woke Dogwhistles

In the context of gaming, anti-woke dog whistles are phrases, terms and symbols used to subtly criticise or reject progressive values, such as diversity, inclusion, or social justice, which are often associated with “woke” culture.

Typically, these are intended to target the gaming community’s embrace of diversity… even if it’s just representation in the form of a character not being white or not being Duke Nukem. Anyhow, just like before, this following list just contains a few of many different dog whistles and doesn’t encompass all such dogwhistles by any means. On top of that, simply using a term doesn’t mean that you support the ideology behind it, just like before.

• “Modern Audience”

Usually, “Modern Audience” is just corporate-speak for a contemporary audience, often referring to actions such as adding representation, updating graphics or creating content for modern consoles.

That said, in reactionary circles and the anti-woke chronically online crowd, the term is frequently used mockingly. It’s a term that entails a lot of very egocentric sentiments that completely reject the way in which gaming as a hobby has become more mainstream.

To an outside perspective, it’s innocuous, a lot of the time, but in these circles, using the term signals resentment towards so-called “forced diversity”, “DEI efforts” and just the general idea that games, films, comics, shows, and other forms of media aren’t only made for cis white straight dude-bros anymore.

• “Forced Diversity”

This one is used as a big talking point about virtue signalling, tokenism and rainbow capitalism. Theoretically, it’s about artificially inserting diverse representation into the content of a game for the sake of political correctness, rather than it being organic to the story or making sense in the universe. So, in theory at least, this is something that both “the left” and “the right” are criticising equally… but most of the people who insert this term into discourse don’t actually mean tokenism. They pretend it’s tokenism they’re upset about when it’s not.

A lot of people will just look at a black person in any given game and exclaim some nonsense about forced diversity without even having had a chance to play the unreleased title.

An example of this can be seen with a variety of Mark “Grummz” Kern’s tweets about Subnautica 2, which features a playable black character (*gasp*). And people were very upset about this because… It’s a black person… That’s it. Apparently, (sarcasm) black people cannot swim, so the inclusion of a black person in the cast of Subnautica is entirely based on forced diversity rather than just having a person of colour as a playable character.

Again, a lot of these ideas – virtue signalling, tokenism and rainbow capitalism, that is – are in line with what so-called “woke” people are also against… but how this sort of criticism is voiced is often aimed at marginalised people rather than the companies themselves, which is misguided, to say the least.

It’s quite similar to post hoc justifications: You express a racist sentiment, but then justify it after the fact as a less problematic-sounding concept, such as “forced diversity” or, heck, even tokenism.

• “DEI” (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)

DEI stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and is essentially a framework of principles meant to create a welcoming environment which is representative of all individuals, regardless of background, identity or beliefs. It’s just a framework, though, and what it entails is different from company to company.

As a dog whistle, though, it’s often used whenever people see a marginalised identity in a game or whenever a protagonist isn’t male, white, cis and straight… or when a female character doesn’t look “amazing”.

Whether DEI efforts are in place or not doesn’t matter to people using the term. The term is literally just being used to attack anyone and anything that isn’t them.

As a result, it’s much in lieu with “forced diversity” but a lot less on the nose. On top of that, this term frequently gets used hand in hand with conspiracy theories about supposed grants that developers get from “(((them)))” to undermine the Western society or whatever.

There are real grants that get paid out to people to fund certain games, yes, but there’s no conspiracy behind it. You can apply for them in most countries.

Conclusion

I just wanted to highlight a few and talk a bit about the topic.

As it stands, most of our communication (around 70% iirc) is body language, with the rest being gestures and facial expressions mostly, and only less than 10% being the actual words. You can communicate without speaking a single word.

Online, however, we don’t see the other person. We cannot possibly be 100% certain about their intentions when they type the words they type.

Any sentence we read online could be read and interpreted in a positive, neutral or negative way. We don’t know where there is bad faith or good faith… and especially on socials, letter limits cause a lot of communication to be lost along.

This further perpetuates the death of nuance.

Assuming positive intent is much easier to live by. As Naithin put it: “If people didn’t set out to be offended by everything possible and to take the worst possible meaning of a given set of options, we’d all be much happier.”

Furthermore, simply seeing a dog whistle you recognise somewhere doesn’t necessarily mean that that person is a nazi or whatever.

Heck, when I was three years old and when I was asked how old I was, I’d make the OK sign. Mostly because Mario did that. Three-year-old Magi, the 2nd-gen immigrant child, doing a Satanist-KKK-Nazi sign? Oh my god. Lock me up. How dare. /jk

Just because someone uses some sign or emoji or term or slogan or whatever, that doesn’t mean that the intention is really bad or that that person is perhaps signalling some type of affiliation with some ideology or group or whatever.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s incredibly hard to understand someone’s intent behind messages for sure, and simply seeing a dog whistles doesn’t mean that you can be absolutely sure that the person is part of a certain ideology. As such, I wouldn’t worry too much about using them… but being aware of certain concepts and ideologies and the way in which dog whistles are used does really help making sure that you’re not misunderstood by others.

It’s unfortunate when you’re born in ’88, you know? But if your name is ShowerAdministrator1488 or whatever, you cannot possibly expect others to not think you’re a nazi, to put it in very extreme terms.

As such, my conclusion here would be that when you encounter it, try to assume positive intent. Trust me, it’s easier. When folks I get to know say something that is “iffy” because of these connotations, I ask them to elaborate because I don’t know what they mean necessarily. About 98% of the time, it’s nothing, and the other times, it’s someone who actually believes it, I guess. Sometimes we’d clear it up, sometimes it’s whatever. What I’m getting at is that most of the time, people use these unknowingly.

“Derp”, for instance, is a slur used to mock neurodivergent people. “The Derp Class” = Special Ed. Eventually, it got co-opted as a meme. I don’t like it, so I say goofy. Other people use it still, and that’s fine. Just cause I don’t like it, that doesn’t mean that others cannot reclaim it.

Queer was a pejorative term but has since been reclaimed, which is good, but I also know folks who don’t use the term because of its history, despite the reclamation of the term.

Words change in meaning and terms like “woke” being co-opted into some perverted and overexaggerated concept that is literally just “not hateful but with extra steps so that we can paint them as the bad guys and harass them” is sadly something that happens, and the only way to work against that is to lead with kindness and do better, assume positive intent, stand up for what’s right, and to not tolerate intolerance, I guess, but like, don’t play chess with pigeons.

What I’m getting at is… You cannot know everything. Of course, there are caveats to it, but generally speaking, I’d say that if you use a term that has these connotations and “negative attachments” unknowingly, that’s fine. When someone tells you to not use some words (oh, here’s another post by me, just as a suggestion), you can either choose to listen or not.

You’re your own person. Also fuck nazis.

This post was originally written by Dan Dicere from Indiecator.

If you see this article anywhere other than Indiecator.org then this article has been scraped. Please let me know about this via E-Mail.