I thought this was slightly funny.
Mark Zuckerberg is known these days for wearing t-shirts with Latin phrases on them, especially ones where he compares himself to Julius Caesar.
Bluesky made a shirt in the same style, but theirs says “a world without Caesars” in Latin.
Where’s Brutus when you need him?
This is so fetch
Stop trying to make fetch happen
What does this mean? Am I old?
probably not old enough
Last i heard he was in New York
deleted by creator
If Brutus ain’t around, we can count on Luigi
Zuckerberg wears t-shirts comparing himself to Julius Caesar? Why is that every time I think I’m up-to-date on the latest weirdness there’s more of it?
If you think thats weird you haven’t even scratched the surface on Zuck. He actually idolizes Emperor Augustus Caesar so much that he copied the guys haircut for most of his career. Behind the Bastards does a good job of highlighting it. If you want a quick readable version, here’s the first non paywalled article I could find. https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-fascinated-by-augustus-future-of-facebook-2018-9
So… Zuck stans the guy who ended the Republic and turned it into a monarchy that pretended to still be a republic?
Well, that’s not concerning at all.
Thanks for the correction, it’s Augustus Cesar. Still, what an odd connection. Good article btw.
All of this is literally unbelievable for me. I don’t even have words to express how unexpectedly odd reading comments in this thread has been.
I didn’t realize Ed Zitron had another podcast
At Meta’s annual Connect event in Menlo Park, Calif., Zuckerberg wore a custom T-shirt with the Latin phrase “aut Zuck aut nihil,” or “all Zuck or all nothing,” as he revealed the first working prototype of Meta’s augmented-reality glasses.
The phrase was a play on “aut Caesar aut nihil,” which means “either a Caesar or nothing,” or more simply “all or nothing.”
Zuckerberg has long been interested in the Roman Empire. He spent his honeymoon in Rome and two of his children, August and Aurelia, are named after emperors Augustus and Marcus Aurelius.
Incidentally, fascists tend to have a hard-on for ancient Rome, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
Zuck puts out this weird “pick me” or “me too” energy lately, trying to fashion himself as one compatible with Trump’s world. His interest in Rome may precede Trump’s ascension to power, but his coming out is not a coincidence in my view. And yes, a fascination with Rome started as so many other things as an “innocent” meme and became a fascist dog-whistle.
I think fascists idolizing the Roman Empire goes back as far as Mussolini. The fasces, after which fascism is named, was a Roman symbol.
I’m not racist. I’m just really into 1940’s German artillery. For the engineering, you know. /s
Roman empire, like the nordic pagan BS is also a (extreme) right-wing fetish.
So glad to see our new PM celebrating his election win like this:
Sorry but which country is this? Can you elaborate on that photo?
Reverse image search brings up articles for belgium referencing a nationalist party, apparently younger dude is his son?
Noted: Avoid Belgium if I ever go to Europe.
You can avoid the whole of Europe, most countries are getting closer to the 4th reich.
Almost time to send the kids to the eastern front again.No point in dunking on Muricans then if Europeans are going to do the same shit?
Oh I definitely will, always have since the other side of their uniparty is not much better for the rest of the world.
Besides those 2 factions there isn’t a significant alternative. The vast majority belongs to 1 of those 2.
The dems will eventually fall in line and collaborate, like much of the European parties did before and during WW2.
“embracing patriotism” and " banning left wing elements" as the new proposed plan for the dems is already a good step.
They have no culture of resistance, generally apathetic and pacified.
If a European country would suddenly live under the same conditions Americans do now and loong before, regardless of which side was in charge it would be in flames. I can name a few things: no social benefits, mass homelesness, authoritarian police that kill plenty people, largest percentage of people put in jail… No country would take that.
And now they want to ‘save their democracy’?
And how? By not shopping at chain X for one day or maybe change their avatar.
True warriors.
Belgium.
As I said, after winning the national election.
While we have an even more extreme party (VB)he is the leader of the NVA, basically a nationalist separatist party that wants to split the country and indepence for the Flemish speaking part.
Historically they were the party that collaborated with the nazis.
While they are careful to not be associated with extremism sometimes their true nature shows.
To be fair, Roman history is really cool.
True, but there is a lot of Roman history and some find it cool for the wrong reasons.
All history is cool. Roman history just has a lot to study.
Agreed. But if you’re going to fixate on one era, you could do a lot worse than Roman history.
Other cool eras to fixate on:
- Joseon Dynasty and Sejong the Great in Korea
- Chola Empire - naval empire before navies were really a thing
- Ethiopian Empire - somehow survived with strong empire neighbors
There’s a lot of really cool history, Roman history is extra cool though since you can see so much of it in Europe.
You can also hear it every day if you’re an English speaker. The Roman conquest of England greatly affected the English language.
Yes but I can’t let this chance go by to piss off the English and say they’re a German colony, the country they love to hate.
Speak a germanic language.
England, literally land of the Angle. Where are the Angle from? And who’s the other part of the Anglo-Saxons?
Ruled by…The Windsors? Doesn’t sound right.
Or did they change their Von Saxen-Gotha name for some mysterious reason in 1914?
Yeah, I can picture much of roman history in my mind and put into context. Asian history is almost like fantasy lore and no matter how much I learn about it I cannot wrap my mind around how recent tieping rebellion is even though christanity played a huge role in it.
Taiping Rebellion is a mess.
Which country? Looks like a swede in italy 😋
Lol his face… It’s like he knows this is a bad idea and he has no idea how he ended up there.
That or he’s just an idiot and his face always looks like that.
Poor thing is his son, molded by daddy.
You should see the video, he just looks scary in it. The empty look, no thoughts, just following orders.
His sister already had mental problems at a young age and got help, this one doesn’t know it yet.Oh. Great.
Which country is this?
Belgium
He’s not doing those roman salutes in public yet, though.
But it’s kinda funny that the oligarchs are so obsessed with Rome, famous for baking a fallen empire, while enabling the fall of the US.
And Nazis. Maybe, just maybe it has something to do with unchecked power?
Such a shame that Coppola’s movie was bad. He was onto something there.
The reason behind his weird android haircut is that he thought it looked Caesar-esque.
I wonder why all these high profile people are so fascinated with a dictator that oversaw the transformation of a republic into an empire. Just like fascists were/are. Must be just a coincidence! Just like that Musk salute from the heart.
To be fair, that was more Augustus.
This is my kind of monetization.
Feels way better than getting features pulled and put behind an increasingly higher paywall.
Give it time.
So is lemmy or mastodon selling shirts yet? if not, why not?
I was on Reddit for 12 years with nearly a million Karma, and I got permabanned soon after the Inauguration for repeating an anti-MAGA opinion I had posted numerous times before he was elected.
I came over to Lemmy, and discovered that I was only one victim of a bloodbath, demonstrating that Reddit had decided to forego their free speech mission, and grovel for their new masters. Pathetic punk ass corporation.
I never wore a Reddit shirt, but I’d happily wear a Lemmy shirt.
I had an 11-year old Reddit account permabanned and they didn’t even give me a reason. Feels bad man
Don’t feel bad, Reddit has been sliding for a long time. Lately, every thread started with dozens of bad puns, followed by Russian bots.
I used to visit certain subs just to out the Russian Karma Farmers. I got so good at finding them that finding them became almost a game. When I identified them, I would address them directly, I would identify them for everyone else in the thread, and make fun of their lame propaganda.
Then I would address their supervisor, and tell them that this guy was terrible at his job, that I clocked him within a few hours of his registration, and hed be better off at the beet processing factory. They would disappear almost immediately, with no pushback, confirmation they were frauds.
Lemmy has fewer people, but so far all we’re really missing is the worst of Reddit.
Yeah I think I just naively didn’t notice until recently. I hate that the departure feels so political, because I mostly followed really chill subreddits. I don’t see as much active discussion here on Lemmy yet, but I love the fediverse concept and am here for seeing this place flourish.
At ease soldier! Thanks for fighting the good fight. Are bots not so much a problem on Lemmy?
It’s really refreshing to see all these new accounts on Lemmy. I came here during the first mass exodus of Reddit almost 2 years ago. So I can tell you lemmy has come along way since then. It’s exciting to see its recent growth.
I habent seen anything like the bot action on Reddit.
I miss some great subreddits, especially a lot of cool guitar subs. I still look at them, but it does bother me that Im not able to give advice to new guitarists, or even tell luthiers how beautiful I think their guitars are.
Feel you. my 8 yr old alt (my only account left) mysteriously has had a total karma of zero.
Since shortly after election strangely enough. Wonder what happened there /s.
They just go where the money is, and if that means going to a dictator, that’s what they’ll do.
Poor blue maga, while anyone with a consciense was permabanned from Reddit loooong ago by Jessica Ashoosh, now their slightly more right wing sister party has done it to them.
You had so much free speech as long as it was the US regime narrative.
Says more about you people than Reddit.
No one’s taken my lunch money in awhile wearing Linux t-shirts. I need to up my game - I’d buy a Lemmy shirt.
I imagine selling t-shirts would be against the Marxist/Leninist ideology of Lenny’s devs?
But given the volume of non-tankie instances now up and running, I’m sure some enterprising admins would be willing to give it a go.
…and as long as they’re ethically sourced (no sweatshops), high quality (materials and GSM), and reasonably priced (accounting for the other two factors) - I’m all for it!
If they are ethically made by union labor, there is nothing anti marxist about selling a shirts. 😁
Agreed. In fact seeming merch is pretty grass roots tbh. It’s how many musicians make a living
The Mastodon project put a lot of energy into a high quality plushy.
That must have been frustrating when the user base responded “but I already got my Blåhaj”
But Plushtodon is fren for Blahaj
well, because everyone has the right to sell one, basically
Mastodon has merch, but it sells out near-instantly.
Ofcourse they ain’t making shit from custom domains. Anyone who is interested in connecting a domain to their Bsky account and has the skills or patience to learn how to probably already has a domain bought at another registrar to connect to.
Also they only make referral fees because they’re not a registrar themselves
Also most people won’t care anyway. Even big businesses are unlikely to really be that bothered.
For years everyone’s been fine with Twitter and that never had custom domains.
But up until recently, Twitter used the blue checks to verify identity. Bluesky (as far as I know) doesn’t verify anyone’s identity. Instead, your domain name is your verification.
Yeah, business are pretty much the most consistent in verifying via domain. They get shouted at for it as soon as they join. Now most brands know to do it ass a measure of, idk, good faith in the platform and its norms.
No, its because they don’t advertise it at all. The page for buying them has the date 2023 on it.
it’s a fire shirt not gonna lie
You are thinking of Nero!
Oh fuck me, HOW in like 25 years did I not get that pun?!
I was today years old too.
Maan, same 🤯
Best nerdy program name ever.
I got my copy of Nero from limewire. It only took 3 full wipes of windows to find one that wasn’t a Trojan.
The good old times 😁
touché
Who got a link? I wanna buy one
https://worldwithoutcaesars.com/
edit: fyi it’s a cool $50 after shipping
Not for me, I live in Australia. USD$80 shipped. I’ll pass
To Italy I should pay 40USD more for shipping and 17 for taxes…c’mon, decentralize and sell something from Europe!
Their custom domain business can’t be big, I am assuming they merely get some referral commission from sending business to a registrar, that can’t be a lot of money.
Or am I missing something?
True, but they also just don’t fucking advertise it at all, and its on a forgotten subdomain only linked to in a blogpost, and the date on the page still says 2023 at the bottom.
of course the android wears a shirt with latin phrases.
I’m going to state an unpopular opinion. Bluesky should have ads, not a personalized ads that track users, but just simple ones at the very top of the feed. Consumers today are too addicted to free services, and companies need to be financially independent so that they can support a quality product.
Free services? Where?
Free services don’t really exist.
Could you suggest alternate wording that succinctly conveys what the commenter obviously meant?
I probably could if I could be bothered to do that.
Which means no.
Why the first comment if you were not going to bother to elaborate?
Elaborate what exactly?
And I honestly thought that he was screwing around with me, because it was such a strangely worded sentence.
Thanks for letting us know! 🥰
😘
If you mean somebody, somewhere is footing the bill, then sure, if you torture the definition of “free” enough, then nothing on Earth is free. It is worth pointing out that if you enjoy (for example) Wikipedia, then you should donate if you can, because Wikipedia runs on donations. If you’re just trying to be a pedantic jackass, though, that’s another thing.
You’re saying this on lemmy.
I swear there really are two types of people who learn latin…
Lawyers and biologists?
I was going for a specific type of nerd with fascist sympathies ans a very different specific type of nerd with antifascist sympathies. But also yes
Laywers and biologists. Like they said
It’s the same with the Norse, its either a Nazi or someone who wants to bury a Dænaxe into a Nazi.
“The king is dead, long live the king”.
Or: Same shit, different wrapping.
This for-profit social platform will be different guys!
Well, one is a public benefit company, the other is not. So not exactly the same shit.
I mean why is this surprising? Custom domains are a very niche thing; the majority of people don’t know or don’t care.
That’s all well and good, but the problem remains: Namely, the fact that Meta earns far more every day than all companies worldwide earn from the sale of T-shirts put together - much, much more. And Meta pretty much doesn’t even sell anything physical (Oculus, c’mon). They mainly just sell massive reach for advertisements and PR (influencing opinions). In addition they sell, the personal data of users to make that work devilishly acuarate. As long as the vast majority doesn’t care how this business model works and what power the centralization of attention actually means even for their own reality, nothing will change, I’m afraid.
Why is he doing that? Is he competing with Elon Musk on stupidity?
It occurred right around when the kingdom in orange took power. Somehow zuck thought that it would be advantageous to his interests to compare himself to Caesar during an obvious triumvirate. The orange one and phony stark would be crassus and pompey by extension. But I think commodus is a far more appropriate roman emperor for zuck to choose as his patron saint
lol well Commodus associated him self with Hercules and fought in fake gladiator matches in the arena, so they both had a lot to overcompensate for as it seems. Good match.
It’s odd to me that someone would feel the need to compensate for their socially awkward highschool years by learning Brazilian Ju-Jitsu and taking growth hormone. You’d think being rich would be enough for these people but it’s not.
For a brief period of time, I entertained the hope that the t-shirt was Zuck’s way of warning the world that the US was slipping into a fascist dictatorship, but that was not the case. It seems clear that that he wore the shirt out of hubris. It was his way of telling the world that he was the modern era’s Caeser and the two others men running the failing superstate were crassus and pompey. An absolutely mindless message given how it ended for all three of these men.
By the way, isn’t the word “commode” derived from Commodus? We should name something after Zuck. Perhaps this new strain of bird flu that’s been spreading wildly because of a lack of a federal response?
