Right Trolls Keep Tricking The Mainstream Media
canadian goose jacket On one hand, it’s weird that we’re already buried in coverage of the 2020 presidential campaign. On the canada goose black friday uk other, it feels like Donald Trump has been president for 46 years. Either way, it’s clear we have precious little time to learn the stupid lessons of 2016 if we want to stop things from turning to shit. canadian goose jacket
Specifically, historians will always remember 2016 as the year that a 4chan meme burst to life and became president of the United States. Fringe right wing groups on message boards learned how to inject bullshit into the mainstream with stunning efficiency. And it’s time the rest of the world caught on to the scam. Here are three examples of how it works.
Most of the quasi celebrities occupying real estate in the alt right bastard sphere were eager to assist this trolling canada goose outlet real campaign for reasons you and I will probably never fully understand. The mentality seems to be that you can ruin the left’s credibility by baiting them into complaining about seemingly harmless things, so why not turn it up to 11? Donald Trump is especially prone to using this particular gesture, so wouldn’t it be funny to force feed the media the idea that it’s a coded message to his white supremacist audience?
canada goose uk black friday So alt right personalities and professional leeches such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Mike Cernovich, Roger Stone, and Lauren Southern took it upon themselves to throw up the hand sign whenever they could. Twitter pounced on it: canada goose uk black friday
canada goose store Then The Mainstream Media Picked It Up: canada goose store
During Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, a former employee of his, Zina Bash, was photographed behind him throwing out the supposed “white supremacy” signal. The problem is that this is an incredibly easy gesture to make, even accidentally. Imagine sitting with your arms folded naturally and suddenly your thumb itches, so without even thinking, you scratch it with your forefinger. Whoops! You just flashed a racist taunt live to the entire nation!
Media outlets such as CBS, AJC, The Daily Mail, Newsweek, and Time had their suspicions, but they didn’t go full frenzy until she did it again. When you actually watch the video, she’s pretty clearly trying to communicate with somebody on the other side of the room. And maybe I’m being optimistic, but her message seems a little more “Yes, OK” than “Let us exterminate the enemies of the white race.” In a still image that can be passed around without context, though? TOTAL Hitler.
To their credit, most media reports mentioned the Anti Defamation League’s statement urging us not to buy into 4chan’s hoax. But the problem is that this is almost always a footnote, so anyone who doesn’t bother reading the article to the bottom remains under the impression that this really is some nefarious code.
Why does the media pull this kind of shit? If they know that it’s a prank, why canada goose shop europe not put that in the headline? Why bury it under a bunch of speculation, and then be like “Gotcha! It means nothing, you worrywarts!” That’s a fucking stupid twist ending to pull when we’re dealing with actual racism.
Then The Government Got Involved:
As a result of alt right hijinks, government agencies now have a zero tolerance policy about employees being seen in public with their fingers. canada goose outlet Four canada goose trillium uk Alabama police officers were suspended without pay for apparently flashing the sign in a photo. And cheap canada goose uk a White House intern was reprimanded for flashing the sign in a group photo with the president. He claims he was merely doing a hand thing that he’d seen Trump do a million times which, I mean, c’mon dude. Pick your spots. Coast Guard employee was removed from duty after appearing to make the gesture in the background of a news report. Or maybe he was scratching his head?
canada goose uk shop We don’t know if any of these people were deliberately referencing the 4chan thing. Shit, maybe they were. Or maybe they weren’t doing anything at all. That’s the point of the prank, to get people chasing after shadows, looking to the world like we’re getting worked up over nothing. All it took was one random nobody on an anonymous message board. canada goose uk shop
Related: 5 Stupid Ways The Alt canada goose sale uk Right Is Destroying Itself From WithinThe Time A White Supremacist 4chan Slogan Was Almost Written Into Australian Law
canada goose factory sale In October 2017, users on 4chan’s white supremacist /pol/ board came up with a plan to troll the media. They would all print out the slogan “It’s Okay to Be White” and plaster it in college campuses around the world. The concept is simple: The statement sounds like something a white supremacist would post, but if you have a problem with it, I guess you think it’s NOT OK to be white, making YOU the REAL racist. Checkmate, libs. canada goose factory sale
4chan claims to have upwards of 22 million monthly visitors, and it should be noted that they’re not all or even mostly Nazis. But when you reach those kinds of numbers, even a one digit percentage of assholes makes for thousands of trolls who did their duty and posted the “It’s Okay To Be White” slogan all over their towns cheap canada goose china and colleges.
canada goose clearance Local college publications were the first to report on it, but the news spread out from there. The neo Nazi website The Daily Stormer, as well as albino reptile in a human skin suit David Duke, boosted the signal among their own legions of followers. Popular YouTube right winger Sargon of Akkad also praised the effort to his 894,000 followers. canada goose clearance
Canada Goose Online Soon it made its way to Twitter, where every conservative and their dog decided this was the slogan that was going to spark the liberals into some sort of apocalyptic triggered meltdown. Even Markus Persson, the billionaire creator of Minecraft, seems to have fallen down into some kind of depressing racist rabbit hole, leaving future pop culture analysts to try to decipher hidden white supremacist cues in his game about block placement. Canada Goose Online
Then The Mainstream Media Picked It Up:
After The Washington Post reported on the deluge of posters mysteriously appearing all over university campuses, Fox News toady Tucker Carlson dedicated a segment of his show to cluelessly falling into 4chan’s trap. With his month old pastrami https://www.fcvfrankfurt.de brain canada goose outlet in usa running at full steam, his “WHAT? IS IT NOW NOT OK TO BE WHITE?” argument made you wonder how this man is legally allowed to be within 50 feet of a camera and/or written words.
Canada Goose Jackets Meanwhile, the far right news blog Gateway Pundit decided to help the campaign by sending their White House correspondent, Lucian Wintrich, to the University of Connecticut to deliver a speech titled “It’s Okay to Be White.” Wintrich ended up arrested after getting into a physical fight, while news organizations of course mused on the freedom of speech implications. Canada Goose Jackets
Canada Goose Coats On Sale The trolling campaign was so successful that they decided to repeat it on its anniversary the next year, like it was a racism reunion tour. In November 2018, the signs appeared again, baffling CBS and driving Infowars into a frenzy about virtue signaling liberals canada goose black friday fake and probably something about Hillary too. Again, this all started with a goddamned 4chan poster who, for all we know, could be nine years old. We’ve created a world in which ideas actually spread faster if they’re childish and stupid. But we’re not done yet. Canada Goose Coats On Sale
Then The Government Got Involved:
If Australia has a political equivalent to Donald Trump, then it’s probably Pauline Hanson, a former junk food magnate who became a force in politics canada goose jacket outlet toronto through the sheer magnitude of her hatred of foreigners. In November 2018, Senator Hanson introduced a motion into the Australian Senate for the government to officially acknowledge that “It’s OK to be white.” Politicians from the ruling conservative party (which is named “the Liberal Party” . yes, I know that’s super confusing) voted almost unanimously to pass the motion, but it was narrowly defeated 28 31 by more level headed politicians.
Canada Goose sale The very next day, after it came out that a white supremacist slogan had barely avoided getting written into Australian law, the Senate asked for a re vote. They didn’t have to, but they just wanted to watch the yes voters squirm. This time, the motion was unanimously defeated. Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed that his party’s near unanimous embrace of a 4chan prank was “regrettable,” and the result of an “administrative error.” They went on to reprimand exactly nobody, and business continued as usual Canada Goose sale.
