[inflatableDodo]

Ahh, was just checking my assumptions. I have members of my family who still complain about having to call Zimbabwe Zimbabwe and who have old SA flags from the '70's, despite them not being from Africa, if you catch my drift, so I was not so subtly digging. For reference, I find it about as disconcerting as if someone decided to call themselves 'ConstantinopleKnight', or similar. If my uncle called himself 'RhodesianHunter' online, he would definitely not be referencing the dog breed.

[RhodesianHunter]

I've used this username in various forms pretty much since usernames were a thing. It's only in the past couple of years that people have started asking me about it in this context. Is there a reason as far as you know that the history of Rhodesia has suddenly become more interesting to people with no real connection?

I'm sadly going to have to pick something else next time around.

[inflatableDodo]

Well, in the UK we have the people who long for the heyday of empire as well as the folk who treat skin tone as a sports team, and both groups are on the telly a lot more recently, though I don't think have actually increased in number. As an indication of the connotations, some people here may refer to Zimbabwe as Rhodesia as an indication that they support aparthied and some others may do it out of a misguided nostalgia for the days when we were in charge of stuff.

[jonhendry18]

Dylan Roof, the white supremacist perpetrator of the 2015 Charleston church shooting, had a website called "The Last Rhodesian" and wore a jacket with Rhodesian and apartheid-era South African emblems.

[RhodesianHunter]

Sigh. That's too bad. Thanks for the info!