Posted on 04/06/2019 6:54:23 AM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark
Online personalities in far-right and white nationalist online circles are attempting to attribute racism and anti-Semitism to an image of cartoon character Pepe the Frog depicted poorly drawn and as a clown, and that effort has gained notable traction in recent months. Far-right proponents want the broader internet to believe the character directly represents their worldview, but the situation in whole represents an attitude shift in far-right circles online and a slow inching toward even more radical elements of the movement.
The clown render of Pepe the Frog, which KnowYourMeme researchers have identified as being known as “Honk Honk” or “Honkler,” began spreading across the internet last year. In recent months, the meme has gained a foothold in the far-right and is bleeding into racist propaganda. Pepe the Frog, originally from the comic series “Boy’s Club,” was co-opted by an iteration of the white nationalist movement that emerged in 2015 and dubbed itself the “alt-right”—a term created as part of a strategy to obscure the inherent racism and antisemitism of the movement in hopes of making its agenda more palatable among conservatives.
On 4chan, there is an abundance of memes depicting the character lynching black people (depicted in stereotypically racist ways), operating gas chambers, and deploying racial slurs. On February 11, users on 4chan’s “politically incorrect” forum board launched “operation honk,” a campaign with the mission of spreading the character across the internet and boosting its popularity, and then returning the character back to 4chan where it could be associated with racism. The “Operation Honkler” post cited by KnowYourMeme reads: “They will adopt our child, and post Honkler on social media under mainstream memes already in circulation.
(Excerpt) Read more at rightwingwatch.org ...
Even the headline can’t take itself seriously but the article does try.
Such sites are also commonly laced with porn and racist posts, which some people think are deliberately salted there to discredit the forums.
I wouldn’t put it past the deep state and cronies to undertake such actions.
After all, we are all better off with only twitter, facebook, and google...(sarc/)
What a pile of crap!
They took the bait and are running with it!
The clowns come from the neologism “Clown World” which was a term used to describe the absurdities of our current society, like the only person who went to prison for any significant period with the Rotherham scandal was a father who tried to free his daughter from her rapist captors.
This isn’t even a new term, and all Right Wing Watch’s hysterics do is empathize the point being made.
I challenge 4chan to make Barbie and Ken the next “symbol” of white supremacy
..no, clowns are the other side—as in Clowns In America...
Steven King needs a new profession.
Just...no. Not going there. Pressing the ignore button.
So if you’re white and love the USA, you’re a white nationalist.Count me in!
How long before Whitey is arrested for putting on a clown suit?
Jared Holt wets his bed and has for a long time.
What an assclown.
BTW, isn’t RightWingWatch a project of PFAW, whose founder, Morris Dees, recently had to resign because of ‘improprieties’?
This reminds me of an editorial writer for the local city newspaper getting all torn up and fretted about “Hipublicans” back in the late 90’s, he saw it as practically an existential threat to Democrats for Republicans to make themselves “cool.” Nevermind that the whole thing was akin to an early 4Chan hoax, he was all in a blather about it. He had an office in the same building as mine and I razzed him mercilessly for months asking if he’d seen any Hipublicans lately.
Homophobia, White nationalism, right wing populism, transphobia, neoreactionary movement etc etc.
All made up words that have been assigned a meaning by the left rarely if ever manifested and often don’t even exist.
Basically concocted words that can be applied to anyone that disagrees or potentially gets in the way of the extreme Lib/Prog world view and corresponding agenda.
I support rounding up the clowns and deporting them back to Clowntown.
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