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this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025
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Privacy
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Look, I can't comment on the significance of binary 88 in this instance with any confidence, but a lot of people use their birth year in their username.
Is it stupid? Absolutely, alongside demonstrating a total lack of any creativity whatsoever. But it's 100% a thing.
Edit: Lol, will also note the first 'people also search' suggestion coming up when Googling Andy Yen is "When was Andy Yen born", and in the 5 seconds of drunken searching I still haven't seen a birth date.
A lot of people who like trump were coincidentally totally born in 1988.
To be clear, I'm not arguing that people don't put 88 as a clear dog whistle to white supremacists/general Nazi bullshit. This is more to the comment "who puts their birth year in their username?" bit specifically. The answer is a lot of people.
I also am not excusing Yen for his pro-Trump comments - that was fucking bullshit and I'm deeply disappointed - I'm just saying the YOB thing is a thing, but also coincidentally I also can't seem to find a source to prove if he's also doing the YOB thing or something else.
Note to self: Limit Lemmy to 3 beers max, particularly where Trumpian bullshit is involved. And thank god for autocorrect. Apologies, I really should not be interneting right now.
If I were born in 1988 I would not put an encoded "88" in my username. I wouldn't want people to think I was dogwhistling.
To be clear, anyone who supports trump is already nazi-adjacent enough to get no benefit of the doubt, and I don't buy the "It's my birth year" shit from any of them. Even if they were born in 1988, that's not the reason 88 is in their username.
I also don't believe that someone whose entire personality centers around cannabis has "420" in their username because they were born on April 20th. I don't believe that some fratboy who is constantly making horny comments has "69" in his username because he was born on June 9th, either.
88 is so much worse that I wouldnβt even compare then to the anodyne 420 & 69 examples.
I'm just saying that if a stoner tried to convince me that he had 420 in his username because he was born on April 20, I wouldn't buy it.
Yes, I understood that. Iβd be more willing to be convinced in the 420 case, because the stakes are so low. Unlike being a Nazi, nobody gets punched in the face for being a stoner.
Police have a long history of punching stoners in the face and worse. If you don't want to get called a nazi, don't do nazi shit with an 88 in your username.