A long-circulating meme suggests that the “praying” emoji is definitively a “high five,” and a common iteration (seen above) shows a search for the term “highfive” with commentary such as “y’all be high fiving people’s deaths.” The origin of the meme is not clear, but it makes the rounds on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other …
On March 14 2019, the Facebook page “Pictures in History” shared an image (archived here) with the following status update: Unwanted babies for sale in France during World War II, 1940 This wasn’t this particular group’s first such outlandish claim. In late February 2019, the page shared a widely-reposted image purportedly showing wives engaged in a “Christmas tradition” of …
Is This a World War II Photograph of Unwanted Babies for Sale in France? Read More »
The March 2019 wide release of documentary Leaving Neverland prompted a flurry of social media activity, among the posts was a meme purportedly quoting comedian Dave Chappelle about reaction to the documentary, Michael Jackson, and the Catholic Church: Originally published via Facebook by “The Mind Unleashed” on March 11 2019 (archived here), the meme’s text was …
On March 8 2019, a text-based status update began circulating on Facebook (archived here), asserting that the passage of legislation called HR1 granted “illegal immigrants” the right to vote. The white text across a purple background read: HR1 passed . Allowing illegal immigrants (foreigners) to vote . No country allows that Two days earlier this claim …
Does Passage of HR1 Allow Undocumented Immigrants to Vote? Read More »
On March 12 2019, a Facebook user shared the image and text-based status update above (archived here) to the Facebook group “LARGEST GROUP EVER! We need 10000000 members to Make America Great Again!”, claiming that President Obama settled 70,000 Somali refugees into what later became Rep. Ilhan Omar’s district. White text against a purple background …
Late on March 12 2019, a Twitter user shared a link (archived here) to an unavailable tweet and claimed that beauty YouTuber James Charles called them a racial slur: In a follow up tweet (archived here), the user reiterated the claim. Those images continued circulating into the morning of the following day, and users described Charles …
Did James Charles Use a Racial Slur in Twitter DMs? Read More »
In January 2019, New Jersey politician Joseph Rudy Rullo shared the following meme (archived here), purportedly quoting then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama on immigration: It featured a photograph of Obama on the right, and on the left it read: “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of …
On March 10 2019, right-wing YouTube personality and conspiracy theorist Mark Dice shared the following meme to Twitter and Facebook about a purported quote by U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: First, Dice tweeted the image above with no context, in which a photograph of Ocasio-Cortez was the following text: WHEN I WAS IN GIRL SCOUTS, WE REENACTED THE …
Did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Say Her Girl Scout Troop Recreated the Challenger Launch? Read More »
In March 2019, the following meme appeared (archived here), containing a claim that Brooke Shields had been photographed suggestively for Playboy magazine when she was just ten years old: The image featured a heavily made-up small girl who looked quite a lot like Shields and an inserted image of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner covering her presumably naked …
Was Brooke Shields Photographed for ‘Playboy’ at Age 10? Read More »
On March 7 2019, pop culture and media sites published a virally popular article (archived here) claiming that pop superstar Michael Jackson’s body may be exhumed: Express.co.uk is reporting that at least 11 new people are accusing Michael Jackson of sexual abuse and the accusations could result in MJ’s body being exhumed for DNA testing. Although the …
