I don’t know what everyone means when they use ‘rule’ in the title and at this point I’m too afraid to ask. Please enlighten me.

  • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
    0·
    10 months ago

    For the curious, the original was actually /r/195 on Reddit. It started as a joke between some college roommates, in dorm room number 195. Then it eventually got popular as a sort of shitposting community. But the original 195 was basically unmoderated (because it was just a couple of dudes in college who started it for shiggles,) and was eventually brigaded and taken over by alt-right neonazis. The memes quickly devolved into straight up Nazi propaganda.

    So 196 was created as a sort of “new” 195, and that original brigade and subsequent takeover is why a lot of the 196 memes tend to lean hard left. The 196 sub was sort of a rebellion against the 195 takeover, which means that conservative stuff quickly got shut down. It eventually became a sort of safe space for transgender memes as a result. From there it became a sort of self-sustaining reaction where trans people saw it as safe so more trans people gravitated towards it.

    • Unmarketable Plushie@pawb.socialEnglish
      0·
      10 months ago

      I’m pretty sure neo-Nazis weren’t the reason r/195 shut down. It was just that after 420 weeks the owners decided to end “the experiment”.

      I wasn’t on Reddit then though, so I wouldn’t know.