Culture

This Internet Hero Found The Perfect Way To Destroy A Confederate Pride Group On Facebook

Attn: anyone keen on trolling Reclaim Australia.

by Meg Watson  31 July 2015

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With the US facing opposition against renewed calls to take down the Confederate flag, and Australia facing off against neo-Nazis and bogans dressed as Roman soldiers trying to “reclaim” it, racist fringe groups have been a bit of theme in recent weeks. But with this attention, there’s also been a huge influx of excellent people going up against them — and, instead of direct action that often results in unnecessary violence, the best responses have used humour to undercut the groups’ attempts at authority.

At home, some Melbourne comedians have been working on a Facebook group called True Australian Patriots devoted to parodying Reclaim Australia and confusing its supporters. Overseas, people have started to follow hate groups playing sousaphones — it started with this legend tailing a KKK rally in South Carolina, and was continued by Adam Hills following the UK’s conservative health secretary on The Last Leg.

Now, Brooklyn writer and general internet legend Virgil Texas has found a new way to mess with people:

After discovering he could change the cover photos of a Confederate pride group he had joined on Facebook, he soon decided to take the situation to its full potential and swiftly move up their ranks. Using the “trolls” — presumably just him — as an impetus for change, he set up fake accounts and somehow convinced the admins to give him power over the page.

For some reason, the page’s original members didn’t take kindly to the changes.

But the changes just kept coming:

And coming and coming and coming:

Eventually, his rule was cut short as the group’s actual admins caught on to what was happening, but at that point the damage was done — he’d already handed control to 50 other friends as insurance and gathered a huge following on Twitter.

As everyone else went hard to continue his great legacy, the page’s original supporters started to get pretty pissed and take off. It only took a matter of hours for the whole thing to flop.

God bless the internet.