The guys from The Daily Stormer sure want you to believe this.
"The unindoctrinated should not be able to tell if we are joking or not. There should also be a conscious awareness of mocking stereotypes of hateful racists. I usually think of this as self-deprecating humor - I am a racist making fun of stereotype of racists, because I don’t take myself super-seriously.
This is obviously a ploy and I actually do want to gas kikes. But that’s neither here nor there."
Indeed, that’s how they hide just how vicious and evil their agenda is. They know full well that decent people generally reject fascism and genocide. But by hiding it as “edgy humor” they can push it into the mainstream. And it works - racist humor can function as a pathway to actual racism:
In other words, when we consider groups that most people discriminate against, and feel they are justified in doing so, disparaging humor towards that group does not foster discriminatory acts against them. On the other hand, for groups for whom the prejudice norm is shifting, and there is still no consensus not to discriminated against (women, gays, Muslims and so on), if you hold negative views against one of these groups, hearing disparaging jokes about them “releases” inhibitions you might have, and you feel it’s ok to discriminate against them.
Previous studies by Ford and others on sexist humor showed the same pattern. People who are sexist to begin with and enjoy sexist jokes show higher tolerance for sexist events, tend to accept rape myths, and tend to show greater willingness to discriminate against women.
These studies illuminate some aspects of humor that people sometimes tend to ignore. First, humor depends largely on the context and on the personality and the attitudes of the audience. Jokes are never neutral. The same joke can be funny or not, but can also be racist or not racist depending on who tells it and to whom. The jokes I presented at the beginning of the post may be anti-Semitic to some, but to others, including most Jews they are not considered offensive. Depending on the views you hold against or in favor of Jews, or what you consider to be justified or unjustified racism, you might find derogatory jokes against Jews funny or not funny, and hearing these jokes may or may not prompt you to discriminate against them.
Second, humor is not always positive and fun. We tend to think about humor as something that is innocuous, something that might be good for our health, moods, relationships and so on, but humor also has its dark side, and we should all be aware of it. Sometimes humor can lead to negative and harmful outcomes against others, and we should be conscious of when and how it can happen.
Our humor tells us what is acceptable to laugh about, what we can joke about, what can be funny. And the shift can often be quite subtle. Why is the joke at the beginning of the article funny? If you don’t already accept the stereotype that jewish stepmothers automatically hate their son-/daughter-in-laws, the whole joke falls flat. The joke is asking you to accept that stereotype, and treat it as normal. It’s a step up from the “how do you starve a mexican” line, but it’s still not great. And that’s how places like /pol/ and The Daily Stormer operate. They use humor as a path to get people paying attention that otherwise wouldn’t. “It’s just edgy humor!”
No. It’s not. And we need to stop giving people the benefit of the doubt on this. If the way you’re acting is indistinguishable from a neo-nazi propagandist, you need to stop. Best case scenario: you’re a decent person and stop. Otherwise, no, you don’t belong in polite society, “joke” or not.
All this is kind of a moot point, given that this particular nazi was, indeed, making specific, credible threats on twitter (if not necessarily to other employees).