7 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Elon Musk misleadingly suggests other celebrities made controversial 'Nazi' gesture
Wait, HOW is this good for his brand???
Comment by horseradishstalker at 23/01/2025 at 22:23 UTC
8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
One of the things people need to understand about narcissists (and I don't know as he is as I'm not qualified to diagnose his specifically) is they consider any attention a good thing. They want all eyes on them and if that is their brand as far as they are concerned it's attention. It's not terribly rational, but then mental illnesses aren't usually rational.
Comment by veryreasonable at 23/01/2025 at 22:50 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
How is it not!?
It gets him in the spotlight. Everyone is talking about him. It's all the YouTube algorithm wanted to feed me for days. It's all over social media.
And it wasn't simply and uniformly, "Well, Elon is a Nazi!" which might indeed be "bad for his brand." Instead, most of the talk has been people discussing how "everyone's calling everyone a Nazi and that's stupid - now they even did it to Elon!" Or, at the very least, it's been people going back and forth about whether it was a "joke" or a "troll" or if it was "real" or "heartfelt" or any combination or thereof.
It's an action that places him right at the centre of memes and culture war shenanigans, which if you haven't noticed are pretty hot-button things these days.
Basically: everyone who already hated him is unmoved. And some of his haters are still discussing how this particular thing was a gaff, joke, or troll. And his fans? They are think it's hilarious! He's a hero to the trolls, and he's a new standard-bearer for anyone who thinks they or someone they like has been called "Nazi" unfairly by "unhinged liberals." The Venn-diagram of this last group and supporters of the current American administration is basically a circle.
The only gamble is that any neutral people are at least as likely to think he's a shit-disturber or just an idiot than an actual Nazi. So far, that seems to be the case! So he's lost nothing, and got a boost in both overall popularity, and popularity with both the terminally online and the hyper-partisan among his fans.