Basically, aggressive feminist groups use a hand gesture as a disrespect against men (or misogynists), but the gesture is so general and anti-feminism is so large in Korea, that a lot of people mistook the otherwise normal picture in anime/games as a hidden attack against men. It caused riots and several people lost their jobs or sometimes the entire projects/companies went down.
I think it's not a good idea to associate a very natural gesture with horrible intentions...
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/02/business/south-korea-busi... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Im4YAMWK74
I imagine it's a very good idea, if you have horrible intentions.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ok-sign-wh...
> It has become an extremist meme, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The ADL maintains a "glossary" of every random meme and inside joke from 4chan and claims that they are all somehow connected with Nazis.
The ADL itself is in fact considered a hate organization by many people.
>Under the guise of fighting hate speech, the ADL has a long history of wielding its moral authority to attack Arabs, blacks, and queers.
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/emmaia-gelman-anti-def...
While the usage of the ok sign likely began as a LARP hoax, it has since become adopted as a high sign/shibboleth by actual white supremacists and adjacent fringe groups like Boogaloo Boys, similarly to Hawaiian shirts.
That’s the entire point of these types of signaling behaviors - they’re plausibly deniable, innocuous or not obviously offensive or aggressive, and they’re usually inscrutable or indecipherable to the out-group while being effective as signifiers of the in-group.
Both are conspiracy theories for the same reasons.