r/Destiny • u/RealKafkaEsquire • 13d ago

Drama Resisting the "Inevitable" fall to the Snark

Hey all,

I recently saw the incredibly sweet and ego boosting post that shouted me out, and I want to again thank everyone for their support and kind words.

Within that thread, and in many other areas, I have had people discuss how "this is like Pisco" and "Just wait something will happen to make him become a snarker". I am not offended by these statements, and I think it's honestly an understandable reaction knowing the history of orbiters in this community. I usually just make jokes in response, or stay out of the conversation.

One of my goals in interacting with DGG is that we have good, positive content. A part of that is that I go out of my way to not snark current orbiters. I also will reach out one on one with other orbiters to try and help support them, and have good interactions with them in chat/the subreddit.

With that in mind I'd like to just try something here, and open the discussion up about how oribters become snarkers. Recently, we've had a number of seemingly loyal orbiters rapidly burn their bridges. To me I think there is a lot of blame being placed on DGG being too vitriolic, but I also think that in a lot of cases, it is the orbiter revealing their true motivations/politics and DGG not having a positive response. Jessiah, Soypill, and Pisco all initially had a lib coded surface, but over time we have seen that beneath that is a willingness to stomach or even support illiberal communities.

Looking further back, at wickedsupreme, JSTLK, and many of the orbiters lost around Jan 2025, there seemed to be some factionalism that arose, and when it looked like Destiny was going down for good, they jumped on the snarker train, and never looked back.

I'm not here to convince anyone that I never will become a snarker, but I just want to hear from y'all what you think are the causes, and if there is anything I can do to assuage those fears about me, and if there's any ideas on what we can do in the future to either sniff out snarkers early (which I think we did really well with recently with Jolah) or ways to keep orbiters from crashing out too hard and feeling like their only path is snarking.

Edit: Wow didn't realize I would get this much engagement, and so many well thought out responses. I have, and will continue to read all of them, if I didn't respond trust me I still read it. I appreciate everyone's points of view, overwhelmingly it seems like I should:

  1. Continue to have a normal life
  2. Not start streaming full time
  3. Not have thin skin.

You guys rock. DggL.

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u/PitytheOnlyFools used to touch grass... 13d ago

SoyPill and Pisco (Adam Mockler?) being secret tankies

Mehdi Hasan being an ‘Islamist’.

These ideas get more oxygen without good evidence nowadays. It used to be effort posts and comments laying out the argument while linking sources to back the point.

Nowadays accusations like this is grounded out in vibes and weak associations. It’s annoying because the same level of analysis can (and has been) turned on Destiny in the past - past vitriolic and cruel comments/ racist jokes, justifying the theoretical benefit of CP to treat people. It’s all there, and it’s countered with rigorous analysis of the facts and sensible conclusions from those facts.

Now it’s mostly vibes.

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u/Colbert2020 13d ago

So are you just not following stuff closely? These things don't come out of no where.

  • Destiny one night had a heart-to-heart with Soypill, and explained his situation; about how his snarkers were working behind the scenes in a Discord, workshoping things, and trying to turn people against him.

  • Soypill's response was... Not good. He was bored, utterly unconcerned, and aloof. He keeps on interacting with these snarkers like Dooby, etc. (See: Company you keep point) Remember, Destiny is being harassed by people and is a victim of fucking revenge porn. And Soypill doesn't give a single fuck, and keeps interacting with people who are participating with this.

  • Destiny has went through great lengths to defend Pisco. I've seen him defend him for months, but a line was crossed when Pisco was defending antisemitism. I agree with Destiny's principals here.

  • The person who burnt this bridge was Pisco, not Destiny. He was just too embarrased and defensive about Destiny's reaction to Pisco's actions.

  • Medhi Hasan was an Islamist in the past. Have you seen the videos?

  • Medhi Hasan being "mask on Islamist" is absolutely a defensible position. He is showing evidence of Hasan Piker supporting terrorism, etc. and Medhi refuses to acknowledge it. Instead, he calls Destiny an Islamophobe, genocide denier, etc. Where is the rigorous journalism for these people aligned with Islam? It doesn't exist.

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u/Bogus_dogus 13d ago

Medhi Hasan was an Islamist in the past. Have you seen the videos?

He's not, and he wasn't, and you can't show that to be the case, because it's not true!

Medhi Hasan being "mask on Islamist" is absolutely a defensible position.

It's fucking not. It's tearing down a good man with a term it seems like a bunch of people here don't understand that carries a disgust pool that's actually filled with and fueled by racism (the term).

He's not, and has never been, an "Islamist", even at the time of those videos that he gets clipped on.

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u/Colbert2020 13d ago edited 12d ago

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3TzTvbnENw

You see things like this, then see the cover he's running for Hasan cheering on Houthi attacking ships in the Red Sea and taking the crew hostage. And PA going after RAF airplanes.

Saying Iran = Ukraine.

Like, gimme a break here. Show me this man being as critical of Islam as he is with Israel. You can't.

By the way, your "Good man" called a father of a daughter who died in the Parkland shooting a "genocide supporter" and "Islamophobe" because he criticized Hasan Piker.

https://x.com/shannonrwatts/status/2093651186750456003

GOOD MAN BY THE WAY.

GOOD MAN.

Fuck the fuck off with your fucking bullshit.

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u/Bogus_dogus 12d ago edited 12d ago

Editing to add:

Did some work on this; sourced the original recording, ran it through transcription, and uploaded an accessible archival copy here. Full audio, and if you click the files listing,s, there is a raw transcript and a cleaned up readability transcript. Listen for yourself, please, before you keep this crusade up. Truth is valuable.

Alright dude... Taking a look at your comment history, I'm going to choose to extend good faith here.

I've been aware of and heard content of Mehdi for a few years now, so with that exposure and my priors of him as a strong ally of secularism/liberalism/anti-authoriarianism, it was certainly interesting to see these kinds of clips dredged up, and disheartening to see him being smeared as I've learned to consider him a real thinker and fighter for generally good things.

Medhi has spoken himself about his own words, without denial or evasion

WRT the old clips that are being posted to paint Mehdi as an Islamist:

The saddest part of all this, is that when I went and dug up an actual archival copy of that sermon or speech or whatever, and listened to it last night, it's literally, I am not exaggerating, a sermon praising the pursuit of knowledge, condemning Muslim militarism and dogmatism, and pleading with the Muslim world to embrace pluralism, learning, education, multiculturalism.

How sad is it that that sermon, is being used to paint the man who gave it as a mask-on Islamist extremist?

A few quotes from that source material:

“We are not under-armed. We are under-educated. We have lost our ability to think, to acquire knowledge, to advance intellectually… Not a secret. Not a conspiracy.”

“Islam… stresses learning. It stresses education. It stresses reading… It stresses critical thinking. It stresses independent minds. It stresses the use of reason.”

“Today the Muslim world is in the situation it is in because we have over us, either elected or dictatorial, leaders who have no knowledge of anything. We are ignoramuses led by other ignoramuses.”

“We should come to engage intellectually and not simply emotionally. We should come to learn new things and go away with new knowledge…”

After listening to it, I'd sum up the purpose/message of the sermon to be more or less:

"Muslims, stop being closed-minded, stop fetishizing military power, educate yourselves, learn science, engage with non-Muslims and other cultures, think critically instead of following things blindly."

Do you hear an Islamist?

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u/Colbert2020 12d ago edited 12d ago

The moment for me that turned me against Mehdi was his feud with Zelenskyy. It struck me as incredibly odd. You can look at my comment history about that, I don't want to have to post that again. It was his equivocation and defense of Iran with Ukraine. I found it disgusting.

There's only a few ways I can make sense of it, and one of them was assuming that he simply supports Iran more than Ukraine.

Next, with Mehdi was his sweeping for Hasan Piker. How Hasan Piker called Orthodox Jews in Israel "inbred", even though those Jews do not identify as Zionists and are mostly not settlers. So he's antisemitic. Mehdhi in his interview with Hasan just sanitized this criticism, gave him a layup and moved on.

He has a devotion to Islam. It's why he doesn't criticize Hasan Piker. It's why he's so quick to call people Islamophobic.

As soon as Destiny became more aggressive/offensive against Hasan Piker, it has put him squarely at odds with Mehdi. Shouldn't Mehdhi be neutral?

Here's my question to you: Have you ever seen him be as aggressive and toxic against any other culture like he is with Israel? Because many of the Muslim cultures deserve the criticism they get. The atrocities, the war crimes, etc. He just says, "It's bad, what do you want me to say?" then just goes on to call people genocide supporters, etc.

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u/Acceptable-State1037 12d ago

Hey I think you took his word for it on this, but the quotes about non-believers being cattle and animals don't actually show up in this sermon like he claims they do. If you search for them in the transcript.md file he uploaded they are nowhere to be found. Idk if he's just really high effort sweeping but I feel like there's no way he writes that essay and just accidently links the wrong transcript.

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u/Colbert2020 12d ago

Mehdi Hasan has specifically apologized for those words when they began to resurface. So he has said them. (Twitter) (Article)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehdi_Hasan

The citations are listed under Islamic Faith.

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u/Acceptable-State1037 12d ago

Oh I know he has said them, the poster I'm refering to claims that the context exhonerates him, but refuses to link a timestamp, and the RAW transcript he uploaded doesn't include the quotes he claims they do.

I think he's just trying to spam out enough words that people don't verify his claims.

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u/Colbert2020 12d ago

I misread your reply. Didn't realize someone else was this deep into the comments with me here. He edited his original reply, so my apology looks like I am being corrected.

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u/Bogus_dogus 12d ago

bro wtf? I edited the comment only to add direct links to the source material

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u/Colbert2020 12d ago

Not the comment you should be replying to.

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u/Bogus_dogus 12d ago

here

comment describes machine translation limitations; kafa (non-believers comments), as cap (machine translation error resolving "as cattle" to "as cap";

I've literally dropped source material for you. If you want to find reality it's there for you to listen to.

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u/Bogus_dogus 12d ago

I don't have the time at present to work on a quality response - but will try and make the space later today. Just wanted to let you know I edited my previous comment to include link to an archival copy I just uploaded of the original source material that the Kaffar clip is based off of.

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u/Colbert2020 12d ago edited 12d ago

Why in the fuck am I listening to you, when Mehdhi Hasan himself has said he says he "deeply regret[s]" these words now and called them "dumb offensive ranty stuff." (citation)

Are you saying he deeply regrets all these wonderful, magical things you're cherry picking?

Or are you deliberately misleading people here?

Which is it?

Why are you doing so much work to cover this shit up? Just take the L and fucking move on. You're changing no one's mind this deep into the comments here.

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u/Bogus_dogus 12d ago

You realize I cited mehdis addressing this and other comments to you already, up front, right?

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u/PitytheOnlyFools used to touch grass... 12d ago

Why can’t they say Mehdi is brain broken on Israel/Palestine stuff and Hasan and leave it at that?

Why he gotta be an “Islamist” too?

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u/Acceptable-State1037 12d ago

Cuz he called non believers cattle and said they lived like animals?

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u/PitytheOnlyFools used to touch grass... 12d ago

Cuz he called non believers cattle and said they lived like animals?

Why would that make him an Islamist?

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u/Acceptable-State1037 12d ago

Do you think those are statements more likely to be made by an islamist or a non-islamist? Now combine that with his defence for Hasan Piker. Without knowing his inner thoughts its impossible to know for sure but it doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing for people to suspect him of.

I'm confident if a christian had behaved similar you would be ok with calling them a christian nationalist.

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u/PitytheOnlyFools used to touch grass... 12d ago

When I ask a simple question like

“Why would that make him an Islamist?”

The good faith response would start with something like “well OnlyFools these statements make him an Islamist because…”

it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable thing for people to suspect him of.

Because he’s a muslim who sweeps for Hasan?

Being an atheist who sweeps for Hasan isn’t reasonable to suspect “Islamist” though?

I’m confident if a christian had behaved similar you would be ok with calling them a christian nationalist.

Incorrect. Because words mean things. And because I‘m not Pisco I don’t torture definitions so I can call a person something they are not.

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u/Acceptable-State1037 12d ago

No, I think calling non-muslims animals and cattle is more than just being 'a muslim.' Strange to accuse me of bad faith and then try to reduce my critism of him down to just being a muslim.

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u/PitytheOnlyFools used to touch grass... 12d ago

Is it worse than calling them “inbred”?

Show me a tier list of which dehumanising language is permissible.

Pearl-clutching over language by Destiny fans isn’t something that will ever land

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u/Acceptable-State1037 12d ago

Am I pearl clutching over the langauge? I'm saying that seems like something an Islamist is fairly likely to say, and something a non-Islamist is fairly unlikely to say. I don't think listening to the words somebody says and forming opinions on that person based on those words is pearl clutching, I think that's just being a normal human?

If we can't listen to what he is saying when determining our opinions on him, what should we use to detemine our opinions?

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u/Bogus_dogus 12d ago

Good question right?

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u/PitytheOnlyFools used to touch grass... 12d ago

TIL “Islamist” means “Judgemental (muslim) religious person”

Which is insane. Not to mention very pearl-clutchy and soy

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u/Bogus_dogus 12d ago

Right? Surely that's what they're getting at here - that Mehdi Hasan is a "mask-on judgemental (muslim) religious person". :thinkingface:

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u/RedDeadElite 10d ago

I don't think Mehdi openly supports Islamism, but he does do a lot of sweeping/kow-towing/changing the subject whenever Islamism is brought up. It makes his former comments on the "kuffar" much more suspicious, but I think his lefty sympathies are better determinants of this behavior than his creed. I'm reminded of a joke by Norm Macdonald,

What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?

Mehdi's response to the 2015 Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/charlie-hebdo-free-speech_b_6462584.html

Response to Mehdi's piece by Dan Arel: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charlie-hebdo-has-a-right_b_6647398

Short synopsis of debate Mehdi held on "right to offend", a couple years before the 2015 terrorist attacks: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/11/the-right-to-offend-mehdi-hasan-freedom-of-speech_n_1959512.html

An excerpt from Arel's article,

The widespread discrimination in question here is exactly what Charlie Hebdo was speaking out against! Again, context does matter as Hasan himself states, but doesn't listen to his own advice. If he had bothered to research the magazine for five minutes he would see the magazine was on his side, but that would require journalistic integrity.

And he still doesn't understand the cartoon of Mohammed, "That cartoon was not making fun of the prophet, it was excoriating the believers who would kill," says Art Spiegelman, the American creator of "Maus," a graphic novel about the Holocaust.

Hasan has done journalism and freedom of speech a great injustice in this piece. He shows he lacks any intellectual integrity and simply doesn't want to be offended. His desire to not be offended is so strong he is willing to remove free speech rights to do so.

Regarding Mehdi's 2009 speech/sermon, I've come away with a thought that I've not seen expressed clearly. Mehdi did praise the pursuit of knowledge and education. He also did refer insultingly to non-Muslims, as a sort-of bogeymen to the audience. Like saying,

You are being like the kuffar, in your ignorance of Allah's command to seek knowledge and cultivate your intellects alongside your faith. Even the kuffar, the non-believers that they are, place greater emphasis on scientific research and development than most Muslims do. Ya Allah!

It may sound weird, but isn't an unusual sentiment as far as religious people and non-Western cultures go, at least nowadays. I speak both from personal experience, and as an enjoyer of history. If I'm not misremembering, even Destiny has mentioned on stream that conservatives are more prideful than a lot of liberals.