Birthyear

This was my favorite number until recently. I had no idea. Fucking nazis ruin everything.
Now, I'm horrified at all the times anyone might have asked me to pick a number between 1 and 100 before I knew.

Cashier: That'll be 11.88 Me: Whoa what the fuck
- Luckily it wasn't 3 more dollars.

I've long use "2015" appended to my initials for screen names. It has no particular significance. I started using it over a decade before 2015. I was signing up for an account, and I added my age then to the current year. Thus, I ended up with 2015 as "my" number.
Early on, it was no problem. It was still well in the future. Around 2015, it became impossible to use the number. Inevitably someone would claim the number for a username before I did. Now, 2015 is easy again to claim appended to my initials. Unfortunately, now when I use it, I get accused of being 10 years old.
- Hey, what's this 10 year old "scientist" doing on Lemmy? Get outta here kid

Even if I were born in 1988, I surely wouldn't use the number in a username. Same if my initials would AH or HH.
- Unfortunately most people are completely clueless about dogwhistles.
  
  Which is exactly why they’re called dog whistles. It’s so only certain people (the ones in the know) are able to find the true message. The entire point is to signal solidarity and find like-minded bigots, without exposing yourself. Because they know that if they just come out and blatantly say it, they’ll face a lot of backlash. So instead, they hide behind dog whistles.
  
  Ngl I had no idea about 88 until now.
  
  True. I was born in 1988, I used to have 88 in a username until someone pointed it out to me.
  
  which is why they are so effective!
  
  Seconded, if I wasn't married, interfaith I wouldn't know even half the dog whistles.
- People with 88 in their usernames are probably people who've been rocking the same username for 20+ years at this point. I think my username naming scheme hasn't changed since I was single digits in age logging intk AIM and MSN Messenger
  
  I dunno, if I had a username (I don't care how old) and found out it had a racist dogwhistle, I'd change accounts.
  Like how my fiance came home onr day and threw out his Punisher shirt because "asshole cops are co-opting the Punisher, even though they're exactly whose asses the Punisher would be beating on!"
  
  Mine is old enough to drink (21+ in USA)...
- I made mine long before learning about the connection between "88" and the Nazis, and at this point, anyone who sees my username and immediately jumps to "nazi" is a certified moron.
- Also, advertising concrete details about yourself in the most public field of a user profile
- I was in a tf2 clan called the Hampshire Heavies, guess what the handle was... Luckily we were pretty well known, but incidentally some thought I was a sympathizer.
  That's how I found out that HH (and 88) were dog whistles, I had no idea before.
- Now I will never look at my Helly Hansen rain jacket the same way again.
  
  Don't ask what Hugo Boss was doing during the Second World War in Germany
  
  There was a time around the 00s in Germany where they were used as a dogwhistle, at least that was the story going around back then. Anyone wearing one of these was being looked upon with a lot of suspicion by the general youth
- Derek Dash. Derek, the name, suprisingly peaked in popularity (in the US) around the 80s so according to my calculations, you were born then.
- What's wrong with Humbert Humbert? A man with a poetic sould who did nothing wrong except shooting that guy (no, really, is HH a thing outside of Lolita?)

Why yes, I was born in 1988 but luckily when I first started making usernames in middle school, I decided to use the random number 45 in them instead. Yup, good old 45, nothing awful or related to white supremacists associated with that number... Sigh.
- I stole this name from the b3ta front page, and honestly I'm incredibly lucky it gained an association with kittens and pornography.
- I mean at least its when they lost.
  
  There's an orange fascist associated with that now
- It doesn't help that prowe is an anagram for power.
  
  Shit, hadn't considered that either. Not a whole lot I can do about that either since it's based on my name.

88 is such a fun number to say, too. Nazis ruin everything.
- 88 is a really tasty ice cream in Sweden
  
  So is Sitting Bull. Swedish confectionery isn't terribly woke.
  e:
- Even its Bingo call is starting to look dated.

Wish them a happy birthday (with appropriate number) and see if they self-report.

88 was a cool number, but then Nazis came and ruined it. It was the equivalent of drawing that S letter you all did in high school. Edgy cool shit. They ruined my birth year and back to the future, and the name of a band I played in when I was a teenager.
Also they are pieces of shit in every other aspect, of course, specially regarding, you know, humanity.

The pope just died on Hitler’s Birthday at the age of 88. COINCIDENCE!?
Also oh no, I just posted the 88th comment!
- Hitler was born on the 20th though.
  
  lol oh damn I thought he died on the 20th. But I guess it was technically the 21st.

lol that's so stupid who would put their birth year in their username
- Those of us who were lucky to get whatever email we wanted before everyone else got to the internet.
  sudden concerns over username
  
  1988 is fine, but if you were 500 years older there'd be a problem.
  
  Its not that hard to come up with a name that doesnt include random numbers at the end
- Pretty common in the earlier days of the internet.
  
  I was calling myself stupid but you beat me
  
  Whoosh
- I am a dumbass and thought you were joking that you were 123 years old.
  
  wdym joking? I am!

"I was born in 1988, and made this account when I was 14" Born after 2000, frequently posts dogwhistles and bigoted stuff.

Also when I see a Black Metal band with "wolf" in its name
- "Oh hey, Demons & Wizards has the singer from Blind Guardian? Who else is in this side proj-- FUCK."
- Also when I see a Black Metal band ~~with “wolf” in its name~~
  
  It's indeed a genre where you need to do some background check
  But you can find Black Metal bands that hate all humans equally
  
  Bad history, but it's like my second favorite genre man... and most (uhhh) of the new ones are fine 😬
- Music video of WW2 German marching song. Big anti-nazi disclaimer at the start. Then immediately the video starts to a swastika flag waving.
  
  Displaying a swastika or other human horrors in a video/artwork doesn't mean you're promoting it (maybe it was in your example)

My friend's birthdate includes both "14" and "88". I also remember being much younger and the '88 kids were all about "double infinity", usually stacked, and some even got it tattooed.
- One sailor to another, 1931: "Check out this Hindu good luck symbol!"
- Damn imagine getting shit on for being born almost 500 years before most of that shit was relevant.

I'm not going to lie. One of my old reddit accounts had 88 in its username. Not because for malicious reasons though. It was a random number I came up with since the username I wanted was already taken. I got banned from r/comicbooks for that despite proof that I was NOT connected with any racist content.
- I caught a ban from there for talking about alien ethnicity.
  There's some cover depicting the 616 Justice League opposite their equivalents from another Earth. The Doylist view is: how these characters look is arbitrary. All changes are an excuse for costume edits and better representation. But in-universe, these are not characters. They're people with backstories. And some of those backstories make the changes a head-scratcher. Green Lantern, nah, he's just a guy. Could be anyone. Wonder Woman, Themyscira's basically Cyprus, of course Amazons could look African.
  But Superman's a fucking alien. Most aliens do not look human. Mars is right next door, and the Manhunter is green. Matching a single ethnic group on Earth is already a miraculous coincidence. Does Krypton fit our species's entire spectrum? Are there exceptions? Could Supergirl have shown up colored blue, and gone "wow, hair can be red?" An alternative is that their universe's Krypton is an entirely different monoculture - and if nothing else changed, that might raise some questions for Ma & Pa Kent.
  Meanwhile: they left Batman almost identical. Even though Bruce Wayne is just a product of his rich parents.
  But yeah, I think those mods are just touchy. God forbid you ask follow-up questions.
- You can't really prove you're not secretly pro-Hitler though. It's simply not possible for anyone to do.
  
  Sounds like something someone secretly pro-hitler would say.

my brother has used 88 in his username all his life (it's his birthyear). Never heard anyone complaining about it until like 2-3 years ago.

It's impossible to talk about this subject without giving away my entire birthday, but - in short - yes, I was born in 1988. And the rest of the numbers in my birthday have other significant historical meanings.
- Bro was born on 18 Brumaire

My dad's birthday is August 8th. He has used 88 in his email addresses since back in the old @aol.com days. I tried explaining to him that he probably shouldn't but he's loved the number 8 since he was a kid because of his birthday.

Unfortunately, 1988 was a bumper year for future fascist fucks.

I've sometimes included it in my usernames just to catch the fuckers who will cozy up thinking I'm one of them. I love flipping that script in pvp games.

And what if I was?
- Then putting it in your username just makes you unoriginal and basic.
  
  My username is probably older than you, based on this comment.
  
  lol, “Your username sucks, you’re unoriginal and basic.” Imagine if we actually tossed out flippant comments like this in person.

I feel bad for any Back to the Future fans hahaha
- 88 My Pal Hitler

Probably because I’m older but I would just default to thinking that if I saw it

You could make a kind of "community nazi index" by having a bot collect the usernames in threads and finding the ones with two numbers at the end. The really racist ones will have "88" statistically stick out.

Maybe they just like Dallas Cowboys wide receivers??

Chinese never cared, 88 is "double prosperity" to us chinese and it will never change. Western gatekeeping is annoying as heck.
- Right, everything is somehow going to offend someone. Honestly. I had no idea of 88 being offensive until a few years ago, and it was on Reddit/Lemmy echo chambers; I have never heard or seen 88 being used intentionally offensively IRL; I have never been made aware of it, anyway.
  Yes, I've used 88. I was born in 88.
  I think in Greek culture it's offensive to "show your palms"/an open hand, they treat it like a middle finger. Americans accidentally do that all the time.
  I want to say maybe 8 years ago now they tried to sound the alarm about the OK symbol (👌) being a dogwhistle for "White Power", and they listed off a number of weak examples. And I think everyone collectively said shut the fuck up, nobody cares, the OK symbol is used everywhere & the great majority of people don't use it to express "White Power". How ridiculous.
  Don't ask for permission to do painfully basic things. They'll take everything from you, they'll take your 88s, your OK symbols, and idk anything else they feel like being offended about. I hear Nazis breathe oxygen & drink water. Damn, guess we need to stop that, too. Or maybe, just maybe...just don't be a Nazi & live your life. ¯°_o)/¯
  
  88 is not offensive. It's a nazi dogwhistle. There's a big difference.
  I also assure you that Americans don't do the Greek "mountza" all the time.
- I will continue to see and use 88 at weddings and assume wealth and fortune. If I'm in a room with white guys and guns I'll see 88 as dangerous.
- That's fine. In the US, it's a dog whistle for Nazis. It's not gatekeeping when it is simply factual. There's a giant facility off the highway here in Nebraska called "Tactical 88" (with a logo that's quite literally based on a nazi symbol: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsadler) that is 100% a nazi training facility. They even have a giant billboard that says "free AR-15 for signing up".
  Fascists love to use it all over the place. So here, in this context, it has a very specific meaning. And when we are dealing with a fascist takeover of our goddamn country, we have every fucking right to tell Nazis using nazi dog whistles to fuck off.
  
  Chinese folks live in the US too. There's a popular Asian-american music label called 88 rising.
- It's not gate keeping if it's symbolic as hate to people here. That's neat for you, assuming you're really chinese. But the sincerity and severity of 88 as a symbol of hate, has to be taken as that's the most likely, as it's far more dangerous to dismiss hate as potentially innocent, than the opposite. And I suspect that you're not arguing this point at face value.
  
  If it's a hate symbol there, then keep it there. More often than not american treat the internet as "theirs", then judge everyone like an american. The comment on the pic did not differentiate anything, so i might as well judge it as is.
  assuming you're really chinese
  as it's far more dangerous to dismiss hate as potentially innocent, than the opposite.
  Even you're doing exactly that, assuming everyone is american/westerner unless proven otherwise.

People actually born in 88 forever subject to the username police. How dare you not be born with preexisting knowledge of nazis and their dog whistles.
- You're allowed to change your nickname. Many of us go our whole lives without putting our birth year in a screen name.
  People born in 1988 is 37 now. Honestly, I don't even question whether screenname88 is a Nazi. Anyone between ~25 and 60 with their birthday in a screen name is a weirdo too.
- You know, I have to admit, in over 20 years I've never been harassed about my username in the context of nazis.
  
  That’s awesome.

Who CARES if they want to Support Hitler? TRUE ANTI SEMETISM is when you Support CHILDREN BEING BOMBED IN SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS!
- Uh... no. Not even close.
  I understand where that sentiment comes from, but "antisemitism" is prejudice and hostility targeted specifically at Jewish people. Semites or the Semitic people are an ethnic group originating from the Middle East that includes Jews, Arabs, and Akkadians. Antisemitism is the (false) belief that those "Semitic races" are inferior to the "Aryan race" based on pseudoscience, racism, and religious discrimination.