So many communities use little subtle symbols and stickers and such to help identify each other in public.

For instance, those of us in the BDSM/kink community can pretty easily recognize the triskelion (looks kinda like a yin/yang except has three droplet shapes inside the circle instead of two, is also usually black and white) if we see a sticker like that on a laptop. Most normies would have no idea what that means though.

Are there ways we can sort of identify each other in public that is subtle and not very obvious? A hammer and sickle sticker or Soviet/Chinese flag (or really any red flag with gold stars that looks remotely Communist) on our laptop would draw a lot of unwanted attention if we are just trying to chill in a cafe or some shit.

It’d be nice to know occasionally if I had allies in the same room every now and then, shit’s lonely.

    • bleepingblorp@lemmygrad.mlOP
      15·
      2 years ago

      I see your point. I guess I am just split between my paranoid side that has go bags and learned Spanish with intent and the loneliness of living in a conservative area with no active parties and orgs, lemmy being my only outlet.

      Loneliness won this post I suppose.

    • TeezyZeezy@lemmygrad.ml
      7·
      2 years ago

      Ehh. I feel like most people on here are legit.

      Regardless, openly identifying as a communist doesn’t seem like such a dangerous thing to me.

      I could be wrong though. What do you think? I love the idea of being able to identify others.

      • Psychotronics@lemmygrad.ml
        7·
        2 years ago

        That depends on where you are. I, for example, live in Brazil. Right now, going around with a hammer and sickle isn’t a great idea.

      • 𝕰𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖔' 𝕲𝖗𝖆𝖎𝖓@lemmygrad.ml
        5·
        2 years ago

        It varies greatly depending on where you live and other material conditions – personally, if my posts here were connected to my identity, I would very likely lose my job, and that’s mild compared to some other countries. Living in the imperial core, I have very little confidence that my country won’t stoop to criminalizing communism

    • FossilPoet@lemmygrad.ml
      3·
      2 years ago

      If they wanted to find us, they would. There have been times I felt known by at least one agency (not law enforcement though) for inconveniencing and felt targeted, years ago though. Don’t feel like I got as much accomplished either trying to hide from it.

      Short of living an extremely difficult and inefficient life and not being able to share our views publicly (antithetical to being a communist outside of obvious inapplicable settings), I don’t think there’s much we could or should do on that front outside of actually meaningful action (e.g., organizing parties). I believe there is this negatively correlated line that comprises of power/impact versus safety. Lemmygrad doesn’t have much of the former unfortunately. Might get targeted for symbolic action at most.

  • Ratto@lemmygrad.ml
    10·
    2 years ago

    Punch a landlord and yell “get mao’d dickhead” and that’ll identify you to me.

  • TeezyZeezy@lemmygrad.ml
    10·
    2 years ago

    I said this on another thread, but I’ve had a hammer and sickle on my car and a pin that I wear for a year now. No unwanted attention, or even comments, really, outside of a glance or two. Most of these glances seemed to be out of confusion than anything else.

    Perhaps I’m an anomaly, but I live in a purple state in the US and see alot of people due to my job, so if anywhere were to give me shit for it, I’d think it’d be here. Perfect mix of libshits and fascists (why am I saying the same thing twice).

    I guess my reasoning behind being so open is that if we don’t even want to openly identify as communists, how can we expect ourselves to organize and make actual noise? A simple gesture like that seems like a pretty easy and safe thing to identify others and, if the other is so inclined to start shit talking, dunk on fascists. Maybe I’m totally wrong and risking my life in good Ole Amerikkka though.

    • FossilPoet@lemmygrad.ml
      6·
      2 years ago

      While I agree with you in essence, I don’t put a hammer and sickle on my stuff publicly because I know at the least my shit would get stolen/damaged a lot more. I don’t think I’d get hurt, but it’d make life harder. It’s just my area, the bluest city in a red state. Attempts were made at stalking when I stayed involved in local affairs pseudonymously back in undergrad here. I think wearing one though might be a different story outside of a comment here and there but no threat.

      I think it’s actually kind of funny how the circle-A doesn’t remotely deal with any of this because of how exposed we are to it via grafitti and film/TV.

  • HaSch@lemmygrad.ml
    9·
    2 years ago

    Colour-inverted or black-and-white Chinese/Soviet flag. If someone gets feisty, say it’s a dissident symbol or some shit

  • tribuneoftheplebs@lemmygrad.ml
    9·
    2 years ago

    What about the five-pointed red star? It’s the historical symbol of of most revolutionary leftist movements and it usually blends in pretty well, considering its not an exclusively leftist symbol. Downside is it has the same effect as a Che shirt, it’s been commodified significantly in the past few decades.

    • ButtigiegMineralMap@lemmygrad.ml
      3·
      2 years ago

      Lol I have both a Che Rage Against the Machine shirt and a Olive colored shirt with a big red star in the middle, for both shirts there is the excuse that it’s just a regular shirt. Hell I even have a Russian jersey and S04 jersey from back when they used Gazprom and occasionally in my area it earns me a Здравствуйте but usually nobody recognizes it. Those ones are a bit more of a compromise anyways because it isn’t Soviet but I’m part Russian so its cool I guess