On April 13, 2016, a war happened. A serious online "shitposting" war on Reddit between r/the_donald and r/sweden. Because of this war, my faith in American politics has been restored.
I have a routine. Every morning, I wake up, make myself a cup of Earl Grey tea with milk and sugar, cook some bacon and eggs, throw on an episode of "The West Wing" and scroll through r/all, the main feed on Reddit, with the BaconFeader app on my iPhone. For the past few months, the r/all feed has been bombarded with posts about the current presidential race. Reddit is a pro-Bernie media outlet, and there are several subreddits (where users submit content that pertains to a particular conversation or theme) that get voted to the r/all feed, discussing what Bernie is doing well and what else he needs to succeed. Whether that be donations or phone banking, people are pulling for Bernie, and he gets more attention there than any other media platform that I have seen. Then there is a smaller (but still strong) community that supports Donald Trump. The “Trumpeters,” as they are called, have been bashing Bernie for quite some time. Calling him a “cuck” and "economically inept." Most of this banter has been somewhat friendly, but recently it has taken a drastic turn. People who post on r/the_donald can be pretty cruel. This all changed on April 13 when the "Trumpeters" decided to take a shot at Sweden.
It started how a lot of online wars start: with a meme. Redditors on r/the_donald posted a meme saying that Sweden looked like a flaccid penis and that Finland was its testicles. As you can imagine, the folks over on r/sweden didn’t find this to be all that funny. They responded with the most acceptable means possible, which meant embarrassing Donald Trump with online content. I, like a majority of the world’s population, do not speak or read Swedish. However, that did not stop me from understanding and enjoying the content posted on that subreddit. The posts called Donald Trump out on every flaw that he has had during his presidential race, and every flaw that his followers have, as well. This ranges from extreme racism and bigotry to having a poor understanding of foreign and domestic policies.
The Swedes were taking shots at the idea of building a wall on the Mexican border, fighting against immigration, and the idea that "Making America Great Again" cannot be done through such hateful means. None of the content was new, but it was refreshing to see it posted by non-Americans. As I stated earlier, there had been some banter between the Bernie supporters and the Donald supporters on Reddit, but having an outside source really added to the embarrassment of the “Trumpeters.” This is evidenced by the massive rise of subscribers to the r/sweden subreddit. Before, it had a few thousand subscribers, but the subreddit has now jumped to over 100,000.
And I am not the only one who has thoroughly appreciated by what the redditors on r/sweden have done. Many posts commending them on their efforts have been acknowledged from Americans and other redditors alike.
Hopefully, the trend will continue and the people of the Reddit community will continue to support the valiant efforts of those at r/sweden. I know that I am truly grateful for everything that has happened, and I am more driven now than ever to focus on the presidential race and to participate as much as I can.
