Over the last few years, at least 375 fake antifa social-media accounts have appeared, posting over-the-top comments like "THIS IS WHY THE #SolarEclipse2017 IS BIGOTED AND RACIST." The "Boston Antifa" feed greeted the news of Jerry Lewis' death with a video denouncing "Unsafe humor" and declaring that the comedian "Embraced the power of white supremacy." It doesn't take much digging to discover that these aren't actual antifa accounts, but several media outlets have mistaken them for the real thing.
In Texas, an account convinced reporters that antifa was planning to protest a statue of Sam Houston and to beat up anyone who counterdemonstrated; the news inspired hundreds of people to come to a counterprotest against a rally that was never going to happen.
The people who maintain the feeds tend not to be very good at mimicking real antifa groups' rhetoric-they sound more like generic left-wing caricatures-so they're less likely to fool leftists.
Once memesters on the right started spoofing antifa, memesters on the left took to spoofing right-wing fears of antifa.
After another account repeated the joke, the conservative site Gateway Pundit ran an article headlined "ANTIFA Leader: 'November 4th [] millions of antifa supersoldiers will behead all white parents.'".
The most puzzling antifa jape might be a document that started circulating in mid-2017 called The ANTIFA Manual.
As with The ANTIFA Manual, it's not clear whether they were supposed to trick people.
In Texas, an account convinced reporters that antifa was planning to protest a statue of Sam Houston and to beat up anyone who counterdemonstrated; the news inspired hundreds of people to come to a counterprotest against a rally that was never going to happen.
The people who maintain the feeds tend not to be very good at mimicking real antifa groups' rhetoric-they sound more like generic left-wing caricatures-so they're less likely to fool leftists.
Once memesters on the right started spoofing antifa, memesters on the left took to spoofing right-wing fears of antifa.
After another account repeated the joke, the conservative site Gateway Pundit ran an article headlined "ANTIFA Leader: 'November 4th [] millions of antifa supersoldiers will behead all white parents.'".
The most puzzling antifa jape might be a document that started circulating in mid-2017 called The ANTIFA Manual.
As with The ANTIFA Manual, it's not clear whether they were supposed to trick people.
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