this post was submitted on 23 May 2026
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Literally the one that excelled at the online pivot.
He's basically the old white guy from American History X, except because our timeline is extra crazy, he got involved with Chinese WoW gold farms and realized online games was even easier to recruit than webpages.
Like, he's absolutely a piece of shit, but decades ago before the alcohol turned his brain completely to mush, he put in the first steps to getting us here. Not just politically but socially/culturally.
He was extremely effective, but he wouldn't have been if he was forced to do all that shit in person where he could be punched in the face.
Steve Bannon hanging out with 10 year olds on a playground sets off alarm bells, but do it from behind a WoW avatar and it doesn't stand out.
Again tho, it's not the online games, its not the in person DnD, not the punk shows, not skateparks, not social media...
Those are all just places, and if Nazis are tolerate in any places, they set up shop and start recruiting. The only way to get rid of it and to keep it gone, is constantly being aware in every space that some day a Nazi might show up, and if they do the most important thing is that they leave. If everyone does that, it works. But everyone has to do it, they can't have a safe space because they'll only use it to make everywhere else less safe.
YIkes, I thought he was some old fashioned nazi who was kinda social media savvy I didn't know about that gaming business, that's some real creepy shit. I suppose it is the perfect recruiting grounds for people looking for things to do or who have been disaffected, half the work is already done for them. I know forums were a huge thing for them and probably Discord now too. I just can't believe we would let nazis march around in the US today after sucking our own dicks for so long about WW2.
Bannon wasn't just spreading hate and grifting gold, he was running a multimillion Goldman's Sachs venture in third party online micro transactions:
https://www.wired.com/2008/11/ff-ige/
Can't get any crazier right?
You might recognize the CEO Bannon took over from, is the child actor that played Young Gordan Bombay in the Mighty Ducks...
And honestly, I'm like 99% sure it's what started crypto in the first place. The oligarchs got a hit of digital money they control with almost zero oversight, and a couple years later crypto started popping up.
That article is 2008, and the first Bitcoin was created January 2009.
So this guy fled the country with his buddies after his bloated dotcom failed and to escape pedophilia accusations, he played WoW remotely and became a millionaire and came back to the country? Fucking hell. There really are two different worlds. What is it with the demented urge to become a billionaire or even millionaire? Immortality? We'll all be dirt, just enjoy your time.
The story is crazy, good read. It's unbelievable how much money is involved in online gaming or specifically for virtual merchandise, people laughed at NFTs but then they'll go pony up for some other dumb shit like that. It's criminal that Blizzard and those companies let it go on, but they were making bank as well. Antonio Hernandez is a hero even if the company was falling apart already. Gaming companies took what he was doing and incorporated it into their business models I guess. That's interesting I never really thought of the connection between digital items in early MMOs and crypto but that progression makes a lot of sense and I'm sure how can a bunch of greedy fucks resist money for nothing? It's always people who are bending the agreed upon rules to suit them who ruin the fun for everyone else, too bad that notion is celebrated in America thanks to decades of romanticizing gangsters. Fascinating read thanks!