They could even keep Mickey. Just give him a narrow mustache and a Nazi uniform like you see in Indiana Jones movies and they're good to go.

Except, I'm guessing Infestation '88 is about being hunted by Mickey, so maybe they should change that too.

there are no other dog whistles

Uh-oh.

There's some pretty obscure ones to that came and went in a hurry like a glass of milk.

I feel like some have also been claimed for general use. I don't really associate Pepe memes with the alt right anymore

The "ok" sign thing pissed me off. I had learned from a very young age that it was sign language for "ok" (it combines the signs for the letters) and when I went to swim class, my mom would watch and when I'd look over to her she would sign that to me that everything was ok, and sign "I love you" (🤟 — not to be confused with 🤘ROCKANDROLL🤘) to me as well. For the record, no one in our family is deaf, we just learned some basic sign language because communication is cool.

It's not like it's a good idea to just go on flashing "ok" signs and pretending it hasn't been coopted by facists

Why not? Symbols only have meaning given context. In Germany, a swastika is a symbol of hate, whereas in India it's a symbol of prosperity and good luck. It's usually not hard to differentiate them, so there's no real reason to avoid a symbol just because some idiots have decided to use it to mean something else.

On the flip side, there's a fantastic reason to keep using them: the best way to beat a troll/bully is to ignore them. Don't give them the emotional response they're looking for and you remove all rewards for their behavior.

So if the alt-right coopt a symbol, use it more. Don't let them impact you or they'll keep doing it.

This isn't "the 'OK' hand gesture is used by nazis"

This is shit like a game about gassing rodents to death, lots of "14 88" references, references to german WW2 military technology, etc.

Care to explain yourself

This. Cryptofascism relies on being able to scream, "It was just a joke / I didn't know!"

Mistakes can happen and you might accidentally engage in a dog whistle as a normal person.

A dozen mistakes all pointing to the exact same thing are unlikely.

And to be fair, it could be one person at the top putting all these wink wink indicators in, and the majority involved might just be normal folks.

I still won't be buying the game.

So, out the door any media playing with steamboat Willie being public domain is suspect because of rat adjacent symbolism?

Counting characters seems like basically numerology, if you want to get to a specific number it's not hard. If you count the space it's 14 characters, but you could just as easily not count the space. What if it had been "infestation: 88”? Not Nazi because of the colon, or do we skip the space now?

Using the conclusion of your argument as evidence to make further leaps is also not super sound reasoning.

It's an asset flip game capitalizing on steamboat Willie and the "make a now public domain children's character scary" money grab. It's exactly what happened with Winnie the Pooh.

It's a horror game with a mouse as the scary creature. The only cultural touchstones we have for mice are either cute, infestation or disease. Exterminators are who you call when you have a mouse problem, and people wearing gas masks are one of the most prolific assets you can buy models for in asset shops.

Dogwostles exist, but it's important to actually look at context.