1. The lawsuit over a pre-election selfie
This first one actually started in December with a selfie taken by Madonna's ex-boyfriend, Brahim Zaibat, of himself beside the sleeping Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the far-right National Front party in France, on a plane.The selfie took place the day before round two of regional elections and stunned many when the National Front failed to win a single region after doing well in the first round. Le Pen sued for €50,000 ($56,000) in damages for invasion of privacy and copyright. Mr. Zaibat didn't pay that much (€3000) but was ordered to take down the photo by a French court in February as le Pen did have exclusive right to his own image.
2. Robert "I'm not the joker, you are." Morrow's Twitter feed
Robert Morrow was a relative unknown until he got the Travis County, Texas GOP Chairman position in March, much to the dismay of the Texas GOP. His Twitter feed was uncensored and the likes of which even stunned Trump supporters. Content includes but is not limited to: accusations of homo- and bisexuality among dozens of politicians, anti-Zionism, cow transformation pornography, regular pornography, and various expletives. He was chairman until August, de-facto resigning by being a write-in candidate for president.
3. A Clinton SuperPAC spending one million dollars on online trolls
Correct the Record, founded in May of 2015, started a campaign to push back against anti-Hilary comments on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and Instagram this past April. Claiming to combat "misinformation and misogyny," the mission basically validated criticism coming from Sanders supporters, that Hillary's campaign wasn't clicking with millennials and used wealthy coordinators and the sexism card (Bernie Bros, Sons of Obama anyone?) to deflect from her foreign policy experience and make groups like Bernie Sanders' Dank Meme Stash (BSDMS) intolerable for months.
4. The death of Vine
Twitter, which got a hold on Vine before it even launced in 2012, made the announcement late last month. With six-second masterpieces, Vine was a staple in short-and-sweet, especially for black youth. While never really recovering from the launch of Instagram video, Vine has also had to compete with Facebook and Youtube. It's a questionable time for Twitter profits and Vine was dead weight in that regard. It's pretty hard to work advertising into such a platform, and I'm going to miss this for ages. There have been statements about making the videos available for download to creators but users are already making compilations of their personal faves on Youtube and Tumblr.
5. The rise of the Alt-Right
[Pictured above left to right: Milo Yiannopolous, Jared Taylor, Andrew Anglin, Richard Spencer, and Stephen Bannon]
Drawing from a term coined by white nationalist Richard Spencer and popularized by keyboard warriors, alt-Right membership ranges from neo-Nazis to anti-establishment Republicans. During and following the election win for Donald Trump, there have been a slew of Twitter bans of alt-Right users, including Mr. Spencer, his think tank the National Policy Institute, and his publication The Radix Journal. It of course won't stop them or this ideology that has been brewing, this is going to be a clusterf*ck for the decades.
6. In related news, Pepe being declared a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League
Pepe the Frog has come a long way since his days as "Feels Good Man" ten years ago. A favorite among veteran memers and casual normies alike, he has circulated into tens of thousands of iterations that have made their way into celebrity tweets and instagram photos. Frankly, I agree with the author in saying that this is a phase. Memes go through an extraordinary amount of evolution, as Kermit the Frog can attest to, and the rate that these infectious images are created is stronger than ever. There are more legitimate symbols of white nationalism to deal with like 1488 and (((signaling Jewish-ness))) that should make CNN headlines.
7. #thetriggering
Meant to be a pushback against political correctness, trigger warnings, and more ambitious members of the Social Justice movement (usually called SJW's or "social justice warriors"), Lauren Southern asked users to tweet politically incorrect content with the above hashtag. Why is this necessarily a mess? I included it because using a hashtag to identify sensitive content... is a trigger warning. There are also much more constructive ways to fight for free speech. (Organizations I recommend include the ACLU and FIRE.)
8. Tony the Tiger being forced to block some Twitter users for sexual comments
To be brief, Furries are a loose-knit community of people who enjoy wearing animal costumes and/or taking on animal personalities, known as "fursonas." While not inherently sexual, a sizable amount of the community online are more prominent, as tumblr and DeviantArt users are well aware. Whereas Tony the Tiger cast them out, though, Chester Cheetah is welcoming them with open arms.
There is still a month left and nothing would surprise me at this point.
