/asatru/ - Asatru / Heathenry / Paganism

>>9564

So, the above describes exactly why I think we're a fairly small bunch. Now, while I think that it's important that we remain a mostly (and really, I mean almost entirely) folkish Germanic polytheist community, I do not think that it's important whether or not most of us are particularly tight with "chan culture". As such, I put forward the suggestion that we might stand to benefit from essentially advertising the board to the right audiences in order to gain "members" (obviously there's no true membership of an imageboard, but there are still members of a community even if that community is not an official or registered body of any kind) who would fit in with us but otherwise would never have known that we're here. Obviously to prevent the need for any clean-up of people we had no intention of inviting, we would be wise to carefully consider whom we choose to advertise ourselves to, but such consideration is part of the discussion I hope this thread ignites.

Having suggested that we might bring people here, I now wish to suggest something different based on consideration of the fact that our platform as a community (8chan) is not as popular as, say, reddit. While I think that the *chan format for discussion is a good one, it’s clear that many people enjoy using more traditional types of forum or discussion board. I mentioned reddit before and indeed, it has a typical “log in to your username and post” format and let’s face it, /r/Asatru sees more discussion than we do here. Now, there may be other sites out there also enjoying some popularity, and if you know of them then please mention them here, but for now I’m going to be talking about /r/Asatru. As I said, they enjoy a healthy level of traffic and discussion with both a core of common posters and a seemingly strong flow of new people looking to learn more about Asatru. However, in general they have a very universalist lean. There are some folkish-minded posters there, but they form a minority and could not get away with discussion of anything “too folkish”. Keeping in mind the same assertion that I made in my prior suggestion – that what we want is folkish Germanic polytheists, not necessarily a love of imageboards - the basic essence of my second suggestion is that, rather than bringing folkish Asatruars here (or perhaps as well as it), we go to /r/Asatru (or any other site which we think to be a suitable target) and “folkishise” it. This could, obviously, be easier said than done as there’s likely a reason for their universalist learn (let’s face it, reddit is, by and large, full of liberal SJW-types), but I wouldn’t want to say that it would be impossible.

>>9565

Regarding something similar but less of a tall order than “taking over” a subreddit, bearing in mind the board’s universalist learnings and the rate at which it sees people saying “I’m interested/new, tell me things”, at the very least I think we might benefit from having some presence there and doing what we can to shift things our way, whether it’s by a large degree or not. As a basic example of some potentially useful low-level activity, whenever someone asks the relatively common question of “what’s the difference between folkish and universalist Asatru?” or the strongly related question of “does one have to be white/northern European/of Germanic ancestry to follow Asatru?” we could make brief comments refuting any replies they receive of “folkists are racist/neo-Nazis” or “no, of course not – anyone is eligible!” with comments to the effect of “Well, some people think so – folkists typically believe that people should strive to follow the spirituality most relevant to their ancestry, as they’re likely to get more out of it” or something similar. Alongside this, we could make what use we can of the reddit voting system by upvoting any comments supporting folkish thought and downvoting any attacking it. It might seem like a small thing to be doing, but the result is that, while I think converting any hardline universalists would be very difficult, any new or prospective Asatruars, or any fence-sitters, will see a more balanced set of views (and support for these views) on the matter put forward to them. Again, it might seem so small an activity as to seem pointless, but I really do believe that some people are just waiting to have their heads filled with Teutonic lore and, for better or worse, a lot of politics is likely to come along with it, and that we can make a difference for the better in what “kind of Asatruar” at least a few people end up as.

I shan’t discuss exactly how we might go about “folkishisation” of another community, as I feel we should first decide whether or not we think it feasible and desirable before we make any plans to do it, but I think that the above act of making small nudges towards getting folkish thought seen as more acceptable would be a good first step. I know this has been a fairly long post, but I wanted to be very thorough in presenting my suggestions and reasons for putting them forward.

That said, tl;dr:

-/asatru/ is cool but I think we should have more folkish Asatruars to interact with

-we could get some bros from suitable sources

-we could try and shift the “Overton window” of Asatru further to the folkish side of things in places with a lot of traffic (especially seeing a lot of new/potential Asatruars)

>>9564

>>9565

>>9566

If we want to take advantage of Reddit's more mainstream popularity, might it not be more efficient to just start an /r/Folkish Asatru, and promote said board on Reddit?

>>9567

Reddit would purge such a board just as it did every other board that was nonconforming to liberal prerogatives, especially considering this board's rightful racialism/racism, which I personally support.

and then you would have to deal with the non-stop raids and downvote brigade.

but that is how Reddit works among American and Anglo users, perhaps European boards are different?

>>9568

Then trying to hijack /r/asatru into being a Folkish Asatru board is utterly pointless and futile, since the liberal culture there would smash it in the exact way you describe.

>>9567

One problem with a "variant board" is that, aside from what >>9568 says (which I believe may well be true), I think it would really struggle to gain the same traffic. There's /r/Pagan, /r/Heathenry, a couple of others along these lines, and they receive nothing like the traffic that /r/Asatru does and I don't believe they ever will.

>>9569

You may well be right here, though it does depend. Maybe a slow and subtle enough change might not gather the attention sufficient for a "cleansing". Perhaps rather than outright hijacking of the board, simply "shilling", effectively, by making small comments or upvoting the comments actual users of the subreddit who happen to hold folkish views despite their surroundings, in order to balance out the view of the two different "wings" of the religion given to prospective practitioners would be good. Little breadcrumbs comments that let people know that if they think that ancestry matters in an ancestral folk religion, they're not crazy and there are places they can express this thought, might see some people looking for other online communities. Even if they don't necessarily come across here directly, they very well may come across, for example, a facebook group and then be directed here if we do decide that getting some links out into the right circles would be a good idea.

As the example is there, I think that facebook groups do hold a lot of the people we want. Recently, I saw a name join one folkish Asatru group which I recognised from somewhere in the "alt-right-o-sphere" and he mentioned that he mods another group. I had a look at it and saw a couple more familiar names from around the alt-right circles of facebook. Now, the whole alt-right movement definitely sees it majority being JUICE VULT, crusade-calling Christians and while I don't hate such people and while I don't think such people really hate us "edgy neo-pagan LARPers", I think they DO suppress exactly how many of their fellows are actually Asatruars. As I said, I happen across a new Asatru-centic group and see three names I recognise from elsewhere. The next day, in some alt-right group someone asks "Why aren't you guys at church lol?" and two people answer "not Christians; Asatru". I know for certain that this same group has at least one other Asatru guy. Given this, I think there are possibly a few folkish minds who don't get to say much that's folkish within Asatru communities out there, but moreso I think there are several Asatru minds within pro-right and racialist groups who don't get to say much that's to do with Asatru.

As such, given what you two think about the difficulties of reddit and given my recent experience, I think I'm convinced that rescuing the "right Asatruars" from Asatru communities is likely less effective than the plan of rescuing Asatruars from the "right" communities. The big problem I see here is that we want to avoid getting a ton of D00S VLUT spammers. Again, I don't think they (for the most part) really hate us as people and I wish some of the Asatru-Christian hate would fuck off because many of us want such similar things, and I'd by far rather Norwegian arsonists turned their attention to mosques than churches, but I will admit that these "crusaders" can be annoying, if nothing else.

>>9576

>rescuing Asatruars from the "right" communities.

Aye, this sounds far more feasible and effective.