Anatomy of an Inauthentically Organized Campaign Disinformation campaigns depend on real-world events to offer an illusion of popularity for unpopular ideas, but they're easy to spot when you know what to look for.
Alleged Billboard Renews Interest in Online Campaign to ‘Bring Back Tony Stark to Life’ The campaign can be traced back to a French fan's online petition from 2019.
Rap Legend DMX’s Death Confirmed Hours After Confusion Online A "streetwear" Twitter account posted -- and then retracted -- a post reporting his death prematurely.
Twisted Tea Circle K Fight Video Spreads Virally On December 24 2020, “Twisted Tea” became a popular trending term in the wake of footage showing an altercation at an Ohio Circle-K. Footage of the incident, which involved racial slurs and a can of Twisted Tea, was shared to r/PublicFreakout alongside a concise but comprehensive title — “Drunk guy yells N Word and gets SMACKED with […]
‘Debat’ Trends After Rudy Giuliani Tweets, Deletes a Cryptic Comment A cryptic two-word tweet from the former New York mayor resulted in an anachronistic term trending on social media.
Did WitchTok ‘Baby Witches’ Hex the Moon? Unpacking a viral TikTok rumor that "baby witches" banded together to "hex" the moon (and "the fae.")
Dave Chappelle Releases ‘8:46’ via YouTube, Netflix, Discusses Death of George Floyd and Protests "This is the streets talking for themselves, they don't need me right now," Chappelle said.
‘Dear Georgia IDGAF’ Meme On April 21 2020, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp made the controversial decision to “re-open” some of his states non-essential businesses in spite of a spreading COVID-19 pandemic; that night, a meme addressed to Georgia residents advised, “IDGAFWKSYBSYBAITMFH”: That iteration of the “IDGAFWKSYBSYBAITMFH” meme clearly originated on Facebook, as evidenced by its status update image format. Commonly, […]
Prolific Web Artist Qinni Dies at 29 Qing Han, better known to fans as Qinni, died on February 10 2020.
NikkieTutorials (Nikkie de Jager) Comes Out as Transgender Nikkie de Jager (known to "beautube" fans as Nikkie Tutorials) revealed that she is transgender and said that others had influenced her decision to disclose that information.
