[ryandrake]

The Gun Fetish subculture in the US have been weirdos for a very long time. I bought a gun decades ago to do some pistol shooting at the range, and doing online research was just as silly/surreal back then. Pages upon pages of jacked up dudes in Oakleys advertising all sorts of security and survivalist gear. Bald eagles and American flags everywhere. People wearing belt-fed ammo and kevlar vests. It's all marketing. You've got to sell the idea that there's danger everywhere, and your small town home is under imminent threat of invasion by some enemy.

Problem now is the algorithms. You go search for reviews for a 22 caliber pistol, and after a few searches, your various feeds are filled with militias, doomsday preppers, and all the usual right-wing tomfoolery.

[soderfoo]

What I find most interesting about modern society is that every subculture has these hardcore adherents.

It's so predictable now. I was at a friend's house a month or so back. He was showing off his fancy outdoor pizza oven, in which he would be making pizza in that evening.

First thing I asked him is, "How deep in to this are you?" I immediately knew there had to be pizza oven nerds online arguing over which pizza spatula (called a peel I learned) is best, and the ongoing battle between wood purists vs metal fanatics.

He was wondering how I knew so much. If you look in to any interest or hobby, the rabbit hole is deep, and the politics and patterns are typically the same. So I'm not surprised it applies to firearms as well.