Sponsored Content




Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups

NoVaMoMe 2024: 06/08/2024
Arlington, VA
Details to follow


Texas MoMe 2024: 10/18/2024-10/19/2024 Corsicana,TX
Contact Ben Had for info





















« As Senator, Hagel Opposed Abortion In Cases of Rape | Main | Piers Morgan Continuing to Model His Career After Geraldo Rivera »
January 08, 2013

4Chan Pranks, #cutting4Bieber and #rememberAddison, Make the News

This is actually news, if you can believe it. I had written this, then thought better of it, and decided not to publish it, until I saw it was on Drudge.

The hashtag #Cut4Bieber began trending, suggesting that dedicated Beliebers engage in self-harm through cutting themselves in order to get Justin's attention in response to his recent alleged bad boy behavior.

"Lets start a cut yourself for bieber campaign," an anonymous user initially wrote before the thread was deleted, according to Billboard. "Tweet a bunch of pics of people cutting themselves and claim we did it because bieber was smoking weed. See if we can get some little girls to cut themselves."

Justin Bieber apparently got caught smoking weed, so 4chan created an astroturf prank wherein they claimed that girls were cutting themselves (CONTENT WARNING)in order to convince Bieber that weed is bad. The content warning is for imagery of cuts on girls' arms. Some of these pictures may be fake, but others, I'm guessing, are just lifted off the internet, and are thus real cutting pictures, but falsely claimed to be part of this #cutting4Bieber hoax.

I believe this one is transparently fake, though, so a lesser content warning on this one.

As a follow-up hoax, they then conspired to claim that their rivals "9gag" had actually started the hoax, and shame on them, because, they further claimed, an impressionable young girl had in fact attempted to cut herself in order to encourage Bieber to stop smoking so much weed, and had died as a result of this.

None of this is true, you understand: They're continuing to make things up. But they started a hashtag #rememberAddison (Addison supposedly being this Biebercidal girl's name) and a whole faked-up internet trail to give her existence credibility, like a YouTube channel and MySpace page and her "brother" starting a "Remember Addison" facebook page and so on.

I wasn't going to post this because it wound up occasioning Too Much Thinking about what is funny, and what other people find funny.

I find it darkly funny, rather than cruel, but only because I make the following assumptions:

1) They weren't really serious about trying to get girls to cut4Bieber.

2) The idea of someone actually cutting4Bieber is so outlandish, so absurd, and so unlikely to actually happen, that it seems harmless.

3) The actual object of the joke -- that is, the person you laugh at the end -- isn't girls who love Bieber (well, secondarily, maybe) but rather people generally, and their willingness to believe all sorts of things.

If you don't share those assumptions, then this will seem more sinister.

On 3, I thought about that some, and thought about the media and the public being part of an unwitting symbiotic relationship on things like this: The public wants to be distracted, and the media wants to write easy, distracting pieces.

I suppose I'm okay with all of this just because I don't think there was (much) evil intent beyond poking fun at people for being so gullible, and because I think it's unlikely someone would start cutting4Bieber just to let him know "Weed is bad 4 you," as one fake tweet explained. Some girls cut themselves, but... I doubt they cut themselves because they saw it on Twitter, or to let Justin Bieber know about the long-term consequences of marijuana use.

On the other hand, anyone with daughters, I imagine, will feel very protective about them, and will see very little humor in this.

See? That's why I didn't publish it. Because opinions will sharply vary depending on one's own situation and point-of-view, and it's hard to say that someone who feels a natural protectiveness about young girls is "just wrong!!!!" and should "lighten up!!!" I can't say that -- they're not "wrong." They just have a different background and situation which causes them, naturally, to react differently to the same stimulus. And that's why I wasn't going to post.

But it's on Drudge, so it's news, and I've now spent 30 minutes writing this crap, so I guess I have to publish it.

Thanks to @slublog.


digg this
posted by Ace at 02:21 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "I think it was grump928 who made an outstanding po ..."

Don Black: "is everyone over on the main page, slapping f5 lik ..."

JackStraw: ">>The long-shredded pretense to impartiality is su ..."

Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "Wakandyass it is! ..."

Don Black: "NYR 0 COL 0 end 1st p 🏒 ..."

Alberta Oil Peon: "If the Wakandians hadn't been isolationists then t ..."

Puddleglum at work: "[i]173 167 I’ve often speculated that the re ..."

Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "If the Wakandians hadn't been isolationists then t ..."

Ciampino - Bloody 'experts' again ...: "158 For being the alleged "birthplace of civilizat ..."

sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades [/b][/u][/i][/s]: "got to have a spread of alternatives, amirite? ..."

Bulgaroctonus : "167 I’ve often speculated that the reason th ..."

Hairyback Guy: "Anita Bryant > All Other Female Crooners ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64