Friendlyneighborhoodmenace - Gamma

Hundreds of thousands of people came out today in London to March for a Free Palestine. Hundreds of thousands of people disagreeing with the current government stance on the war. Don’t let the media fool you, people in the UK stand with Palestine.

I was gonna ask about r/197 because I scrolled for a bit out of curiosity, and all the memes I found were just regular memes, nothing seemed Right-Wing or Bigoted about them at all, even if some were a little edgy, though nothing worse than the kinds of jokes that some of my Discord friends make.

But then I saw the comments underneath a post venting about a ban from r/196, wherein someone called the mods, their words not mine, 'virtue signaling cucks who don’t actually give a damn about anyone other then [sic] themselves', which knowing the online Right... Yeah, that definitely smells like fascist talk.

I also found some strange comments under one of the pinned posts, and while it's unfair to judge a whole Subreddit based on just a few people, I am a bit suspicious of it now; I will definitely tread carefully there should I ever decide to visit again.

a summar(ule)y of 196 culture

since the tumblr veterans have been kind enough to introduce us newbies to their site and culture, i think it is only fair that we explain the culture of our glorious former home to any tumblr users who might be interested in the #196 tag. keep in mind, all these things are based on my perspective of the situation.

first of all, some general information (that you might’ve already heard):

196 (r/196 on reddit) was a subreddit with only one (official) rule; "post before you leave." it was mainly a meme/shitposting sub, but it cultivated a large queer and left-leaning community. in protest of the recent api chances in reddit, 196 has shut down indefinitely until reddit reverts these changes.

now for some culture/references that you might come across

spronkus kronkus:

spronkus is this yellow, rabbit-like creature.

they were the mascot of our subreddit. their appearance can vary from images to image, but as far as i’m aware, their full outfit consists of a bandanna in the colours of the trans flag around their neck, a gun labelled as such (other wise you obviously wouldn’t know what you’re looking at), and an axe also coloured like the trans flag.

r/place:

this is a rare event on reddit where the entire website gets a huge white canvas and can start creating pixel art on it. 196 participated by collaboratively creating our mascot, spronkus with "196!" written next to them.

this version of the pixel art was recreated by me as i couldn't find a nice image of it. there were some changes between the first version and the end result, so this might not be exactly how it looked in the end

post titles/"rule":

reddit forces it's users to title every post they make. as most of the posts on 196 spoke for themselves, many user instead titled their posts "rule", to indicate that they followed the subreddit's only rule. some people also tried to make puns with the word or tried to include it in words that shared some letters (example: wor(ule)d).

anarcho-stripperism:

as the amount of cropped porn jokingly posted to the subreddit increased, the moderators decided that porn would be banned from the sub, with one exception: anarcho-stripperism. she made food fucking videos, in which she jokingly tested the fuckability of different food items (fruits, pasta, etc.)

bigotry showcase:

bigotry showcase was a post flair (basically the reddit equivalent of tags) on the subreddit and was later restricted to only be used on saturdays. under this flair people posted instances of different forms of bigotry to make fun it.

eating babies/hungryposting:

at some point, the subreddit started to pretend to like eating babies, which started a variety of memes regarding the subject. even a post flair called "hungrypost" was added because of this

goblinhog:

goblinhog is the most prominent and well-known member of the 196 moderation team. besides this, on 196 he was mostly known for changing people’s flair if you enjoyed him enough about it.

flairs:

flairs are little tags that are displayed under your name in posts or comments, they are also subreddit specific. most subreddits give their users a palette of preset flairs and the option to make your own custom flair. however, in 196 you only had the option to customize your flair during special events. if you wanted to customize your flair outside of those events (which was basically the entire time), you had to ask a mod to do it for you.

punching nazis:

from time to time, the same gif of a person with a nazi armband getting punched in the face, and promptly falling to the ground, was reposted to the subreddit. this became a sort of tradition.

discourse/drama

wasp discourse:

the wasp discourse was a one to two weeks long heated discussion that generally divided the subreddit into two factions. one side said that they were justified in killing wasps if they were attacked by them, while the other claimed that since wasps are just animals, they aren't aware of what they're doing in the same way humans are, and therefore should be spared.

drama about the british:

there was a time when jokes along the lines of "ew, british" became pretty frequent on the subreddit. as a response, some user claimed that this was akin to racism and tried to get others to stop with the jokes. a debate over whether or not it was important or necessary to stop followed afterwards.

pillar discourse:

this was a debate over which type of pillar should be considered the best (ionic; doric; corinthian). i have seen the question "which pillar is the best?" being used as a sort of greeting between 196 refugees on here.

related subreddits

195:

195 was the predecessor to 196, and also was a social experiment with the same premise as 196 (one rule, post before you leave). as the creators of 195 ended the experiment, the community wanted something with the same vibe to continue posting, and thus 196 was born.

197:

197 is another part of the 196 ecosystem and is commonly understood to be the more politically right-leaning and bigoted as 196, as some people who were banned from 196 continued posting there. besides that, the subreddits were essentially the same in terms of how they functioned.

19684:

this subreddit adds a second rule which banned all mentions of sex (that’s why it’s name is a pun on 1984). some people took this as banning all discussion of sexuality, which resulted in a community that was slightly less accepting of queer people. it is currently still up and running as the 196 moderation team wants a way to stay in contact with the community.

amendments to the posts:

u/femboy_expert:

another well-known 196 user. as the name suggests they're an expert on the subject of femboys, with their flair on 196 reading "phd in feminine boys". as the subreddit was somewhat obsessed with femboys, it's no wonder that they became popular.

u/shitcum_backup:

this was the main account of a pretty popular shitposter on the subreddit. although i didn't see them as much in the last few months, i remember them sometimes having a unique speaking pattern, in which they referred to themself in the third person.

u/monko74:

this user commented "Every day I thank god for not making me a r/196 celebrity," which led to many users of the subreddit treating them like a micro celebrity. there are even a few subreddits solely dedicated to u/monko74.

691:

a sister subreddit that inverts the rule of 196, here you would be (temporarily) banned for posting. some time ago the members of this sub initiated a rebellion/revolution against the bot who performed all the bans (roomba).

u/Smart_Calendar1874:

this wasn’t necessarily part of the subreddit, but it was a pretty popular meme. and since it’s getting posted on here again, and i know enough about it, i’ll add it to the post. this user made a post to r/AskReddit titled "How would you get a small cylinder (5.1in length, ~4.5in girth) unstuck from a mini M&Ms tube filled with butter and microwaved mashed banana? [sic]" it was pretty clear that they were referring to their penis, yet they continued to claim "it’s a cylinder," in the comment section. this lead to comments like "it is imperative that the cylinder […] remains unharmed," in response to people’s advice of cutting the m&m tube.

it's going to be very interesting to see which aspects of 196 culture are going to survive the tumblr migration, and which aspects won't be applicable on this site.

i'm obviously not the ultimate scholar on 196 lore. if i’ve missed or left out anything, or said something wrong, please comment it.

Hey kid I heard you liked masks so I put masks in your masks so you can mask while you mask

Top: in Mario Strikers Charged, one of Shy Guy's animations shows him falling down with his mask coming off. The camera is always angled so he is facing away from it during this, and he puts the mask back on before facing the camera again, preventing the player from seeing what is behind the mask.

Bottom: moving the camera using external tools, we can see that the game does not actually remove the mask from Shy Guy's face. Instead, the mask that falls off is a duplicate mask, and Shy Guy still has the mask when facing away from the camera. After putting on the duplicate mask, it merges with his other mask before he faces the camera.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source

Void is my Favorite Dark Matter, who are already my favorite villains in general.

Soul Melter Mode held it’s promise

leader of a trio of college kids waking past me at walmart: okay. mission number two, finding where the popcorn is.

his friend: wait, what was mission number one?

leader: fucking getting here, travis.

drew junko with my late cat ruby for my moms bday

Palestinians' life-line is a tiny rectangle

Palestinians' life-line is a tiny rectangle because the world couldn't give less of a fuck about them.

Let that sink in.

They have to record every single moment of this massacre. Or it didn't happen.

They have to record themselves holding their dead children. Or it didn't happen.

They have to record themselves crying in despair. Or it didn't happen.

They have to record rescuing children from underneath rubble. Or it didn't happen.

They have to record the countless wounded and dead. Or it didn't happen.

They have to record speaking while surrounded by the body bags of people they know while microphones are pushed in their faces. Or it didn't happen.

They have to do this every single second for 19 days. They have had to do this even before the 7th. There is a 2014 video of a man killed by an airstrike on camera.

Their life-line is their fucking phones.

You have all reduced their lives to their fucking phones.

AND DESPITE ALL OF THAT, US-of-fucking-A Biden, and all you other brain-dead fucks still have the gal to question the amount of casualties.

You have reduced them to a rectangle in their hands and that still isn't enough??? You're all sick. SICK.

A little bit of hope: I've been going to protests every week since this started, and every week the protest is bigger

this tweet has DESTROYED me

I was making chitchat with the woman who works at the plant nursery and I mentioned that two baby trees I bought the other day aren't doing too well, their leaves are yellowing, maybe I'm watering them too much? what could be behind this phenomenon? and she looked like she was trying to find a gentle way to phrase it but then gave up and just said plainly, "Autumn."

another social interaction that will come back to haunt me at 3am five years from now