No Soup For You

These days, it is generally agreed that calling someone a Nazi online is, or should be, an automatic debate killer. After all, according to one of the most important rules of the Internet, comparing your opponent to Hitler in any way means that you automatically lose the argument. Strongly implying that he is Hitler by references to 'mein Fuhrer', National Socialists, camps, or even the phrase "You know who else was a vegetarian?" is also strongly frowned upon.

The idea is, presumably, that comparing your opponent to someone so extraordinarily horrible invalidates your argument, because it’s unreasonable to asusme that your conversation partner could compare on the morality scale to someone who brought about the deaths of tens of millions of human beings. That’s right, even if they’re arguing in favor of Michael Bay movies.

But is that always the intention when we play the Hitler card on people who are wrong on the Internet? After all, in popular culture these days, Hitler is less a monster and more a figure of riotous fun. Calling someone 'Hitler', then, is less about you having a skewed or absent sense of proportion, and more along the lines of you calling them a ridiculous douchebag. It might not be historically sensitive, but on the Internet, it’s the way things have turned out.

And for this, we can probably thank the original bearer of the exaggerated Hitleresque moniker, The Soup Nazi, and his great phrase:

The 'No Soup For You' guy is probably the one who started it all, and good or bad, he has played a big role in reducing Hitler and Nazis from the world’s greatest monsters to a bunch of weirdo schmucks. Wear this T-shirt, and celebrate this iconic legend.