As a side note, I wonder why exactly this phenomenon doesn't appear to have grazed the socialist movement. While it may seem obvious at first glance, there is more than enough potential for edgy sadists and misanthropists to exploit our symbolism.
Boards like 8ch's /leftypol/ had plenty of edgy humour, with NAZBOL GANG being a mainstay among edgy teens even to this day. There are no shortage of Western propaganda proclaiming that genocidal communist regimes surpassed even the Nazis, from Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot, not to mention the wild claims like baby boiling. And yet, it seems, the general consensus just doesn't ascribe the same horrific terror to the hammer and sickle that it does to the swastika, with these sadists (thankfully) not caring to exploit it.
My main theory is that the hammer and sickle just isn't offensive to the general population, the same way the Republican elephant isn't offensive in the US. It's not used as an offensive symbol, we just don't use it performatively. Meanwhile, a swastika is used by neo-Nazis as an openly offensive symbol towards non-Whites and queer people. It can be interpreted as 'I want to kill you', not merely 'I disagree with you'. So the hammer and sickle or the red star is just not what comes to mind for shallow edgelords, and socialism is not an ideology misanthropists and sadists are likely to hold (unlike openly murderous and power-hungry ideologies like Nazism).
