{"id":106981,"date":"2016-09-16T12:12:11","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T20:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=106981"},"modified":"2016-09-16T12:13:15","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T20:13:15","slug":"regression-to-the-meme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=106981","title":{"rendered":"Regression to the Meme"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Taranto of the WSJ writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign<\/a> has published a parody of Vox, the liberal news site for young adults. Headline: \u201cDonald Trump, Pepe the Frog, and White Supremacists: An Explainer.\u201d Subheadline: \u201cThat cartoon frog is more sinister than you might realize.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems that both Trump adviser Roger Stone and scion Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a \u201cmeme\u201d (a picture with a slogan) the other day. It depicts a row of gun-toting, black-clad male bodies with faces superimposed over them. They are labeled THE DEPLORABLES. Front and center is Donald Trump p\u00e8re; to his immediate right is the face of Pepe, drawn with a Trumplike mop of yellow hair.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease explain,\u201d writes Elizabeth Chan of Mrs. Clinton\u2019s campaign, in the voice of an imaginary questioner. And does she ever:<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the short version: Pepe is a cartoon frog who began his internet life as an innocent meme enjoyed by teenagers and pop stars alike.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But in recent months, Pepe\u2019s been almost entirely co-opted by the white supremacists who call themselves the \u201calt-right.\u201d They\u2019ve decided to take back Pepe by adding swastikas and other symbols of anti-semitism and white supremacy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWe basically mixed Pepe in with Nazi propaganda, etc. We built that association,\u201d one prominent white supremacist told the Daily Beast<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That Beast story, which ran in May, turns out to be \u201cmore or less a complete troll job,\u201d according to an extensive investigation by Jonah Bennett<\/a> of the Daily Caller. Its main victim was author Olivia Nuzzi\u2014but even she didn\u2019t get trolled as ridiculously as Mrs. Clinton\u2019s campaign did.<\/p>\n

The \u201cprominent white supremacist\u201d Chan describes is one \u201cJared Taylor Swift,\u201d whom even Nuzzi knew better than to describe as prominent. She called him \u201can anonymous white nationalist who claims to be 19 years old and in school someplace on the West Coast.\u201d (He told Bennett those were lies; he is neither 19 nor on the West Coast.) There is <\/em>a white-nationalist author named Jared Taylor. We wouldn\u2019t describe him as \u201cprominent,\u201d but we suppose one could argue that in the small pond of white nationalism, he is a big frog. Taylor Swift, a 26-year-old pop star, definitely is prominent.<\/p>\n

\u201cJared Taylor Swift\u201d not only is obscure; he tells Bennett he is no white nationalist:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the most ridiculous thing is that a random guy on the internet who trolled a journalist once is now a \u2018prominent white supremacist.\u2019 I mean, the only accurate part of that is the \u2018white\u2019 part,\u201d Swift told The Daily Caller News Foundation. \u201cAnd my Italian ancestry means that even that is disputed!\u201d . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cBasically, I interspersed various nuggets of truth and exaggerated a lot of things, and sometimes outright lied\u2014in the interest of making a journalist believe that online Trump supporters are largely a group of meme-jihadis who use a cartoon frog to push Nazi propaganda. Because this was funny to me,\u201d Swift told TheDCNF.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nuzzi based her stories on interviews with \u201cJared Taylor Swift\u201d and \u201canother anonymous white nationalist, @PaulTown_,\u201d who \u201cestimated the broad #FrogTwitter movement to consist of about 30 people but said 10 core members helped plot it out over drinks in late 2015.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apparently that was a hoax too. Bennett: \u201c \u2018There was no \u201cplot\u201d to take a cartoon frog and make it a symbol of white supremacy,\u2019 Paul Town told TheDCNF. \u2018That\u2019s absurd on the face of it.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

The trolls also boasted to Nuzzi that they had turned Taylor <\/em>Swift into an \u201cAryan goddess\u201d:<\/p>\n

When several publications (Broadly, Slate, and The Washington Post) this week reported on the alt-right\u2019s fixation on the pop star, #FrogTwitter was somewhat triumphant. \u201cI never thought that would work,\u201d @JaredTSwift said, \u201cbut they finally noticed.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bennett concludes on a cautious note: \u201cThe stewards of this Twitter world are notoriously capricious and trolltastic. They could even retract this mea culpa of sorts.\u201d That is, maybe the revelation that Frog Twitter was a prank is itself a prank. It also could be that some Trump supporters who actually do hold invidious views were among those fooled by the prank, so that some of the ugly Pepe memes were created unironically.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither way,\u201d Bennett writes, \u201cthis is almost certainly the case: A journalist with a clear lack of healthy skepticism and an added dose of internet dopiness got duped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Put that down to confirmation bias. As \u201cSwift\u201d tells Bennett: \u201cThe idea that every major Trump supporter online is secretly a neo-Nazi, for one. I mean, it\u2019s just not true. But it\u2019s the kind of thing that a journalist will readily believe.\u201d So too, it appears, will the most qualified man, woman or child ever to seek public office anywhere.<\/p>\n

Matt Furie, the cartoonist who created Pepe the Frog back in 2005, has a healthy perspective on the matter. \u201cI don\u2019t take it too seriously\u2014I just try to take it in stride,\u201d he tells London\u2019s Guardian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know what white nationalists were until, like, yesterday. And the alt-right or whatever? It\u2019s all very new and very strange and definitely not something that I support.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Taranto of the WSJ writes: Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign has published a parody of Vox, the liberal news site for young adults. Headline: \u201cDonald Trump, Pepe the Frog, and White Supremacists: An Explainer.\u201d Subheadline: \u201cThat cartoon frog is more sinister … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42720],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alt-right"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t