I think the Cracked article is planted firmly in tongue-in-cheek territory. Not sure of the author’s intentions, but to me it feels like sort of a case study in conspiracy theory thinking: how plausibly can one reverse-engineer “evidence” to confirm a predetermined bias you want really hard to believe to make sense of the world and convince others of (pop band secretly a nazi front, in this case). Fairly plausibly, I’d say, which is why we work really hard to make sure science doesn’t work that way.
In the same vein: I found the first comment on the website, revealing THE HIDDEN TRUTH in the author’s name, amusing enough to quote in full here.
Adam: The first man alive, according to the Bible. Naturally, racist assume that he was white as new-fallen snow, and Nazis believe he was blonde haired and blue eyed. Just for the record, they believe that the other races came from Cain, who’s “mark” was supposedly black skin in the racist mind.
Tod: GERMAN for “Death”. He isn’t even subtle with this one!
Brown: The color racists believe that every non-white person has for skin.
Therefore, Adam Tod Brown’s name really means “The White Aryan Kills Brown People”. ATB’s name gives him away as the REAL Nazi! All these wild accusations at Donald and bands nobody remembers are just to throw us off his track.
