While I was in school, my history class on the Imagery, Media, and Symbols of Fascism described the design language around Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. The class made the particular insightful point that the branding in itself, including body language such as the Nazi Salute, carried a powerful a message of domination, superiority and brutal violence. The Nazi Salute communicated an aesthetic that embodied those characteristics, but importantly it told to audiences that membership is exclusive to a strict hierarchy of people. It said who gets to be German in the most violent way possible. Aram Zucker-Scharff wrote the plain truth about about practicing the aesthetic around Nazism:
Practicing Nazi aesthetics is just being a Nazi. The impact these things make is the execution of Nazism. 4chn making this a systematic part of its culture is indoctrination. "The point of the system is what it does"
This bit by Keenan and Peele perfectly encapsulates a tension between a person you thought you knew and showing the person they really are.
This is just too good not to share. 🤷♀️🤣
Bluesky only lets you upload 1 minute so I cut this in two posts! #elonmusk
— Shira Lazar (@shiralazar.bsky.social) January 23, 2025 at 9:14 PM
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— Shira Lazar (@shiralazar.bsky.social) January 23, 2025 at 9:14 PM
There should not be any equivocation about it. Elon Musk saluted in the most Nazi way. It's important to acknowledge to what we saw is what we saw. To say otherwise is a lie -- a lie to comfort oneself of a reality: the person that built spaceships and electric cars is gone. He's a Nazi, Scott and Kara.
When Scott Galloway said on Pivot, that he is giving Mr. Musk the benefit of doubt, I say to Scott Galloway get the fuck out of here.
Oh fun fact about Scott Galloway: he's a professor at NYU School of Business and teaches marketing and wait for it -- branding.
For more on the aesthetics of Fascism, the GOAT, Rick Steves has an hour long episode on just that: