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JHB

(37,158 posts)
2. Unclear, but the front man is from Kansas
Wed Oct 16, 2019, 10:31 AM
Oct 2019
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/behind-violent-trump-meme-prolific-creator-community-rooting-more-n1066051
As adulation rolled in from the community following the initial videos, TheGeekzTeam racked up almost 3 million views on YouTube. Users voted the account’s posts to the front page of the pro-Trump Reddit community, with one user suggesting TheGeekzTeam submit videos to film festivals.

It's not entirely clear whether TheGeekzTeam is one person or multiple people, though in some internet comments the team has left some autobiographical details hinting that one person is behind the account. A request for comment sent via email was not immediately returned.

By August of 2019, fully established as a staple in the pro-Trump meme-making community, TheGeekzTeam joined Memeworld, an exclusive community of pro-Trump digital creators. Memeworld was created by a person who goes by the online handle Carpe Donktum, a Kansas-based video editor who made similar — albeit nonviolent — mashups that had been tweeted from Trump’s account over the last year.

Donktum, who has become a household name in pro-Trump circles online, met with the president in The White House and was invited to the administration’s “social media summit” in July.


IIRC, "carpe donktum" is (allegedly) Latin for "seize the ass".

Botany

(70,490 posts)
3. I might be wrong but that video looks like it is from Russia w/love
Wed Oct 16, 2019, 10:34 AM
Oct 2019

Although I only watched it once.

Polybius

(15,385 posts)
4. How can a video "look like" it came from Russia?
Wed Oct 16, 2019, 10:41 AM
Oct 2019

There are lots of nuts right here that could have made it.

Botany

(70,490 posts)
5. It reminds of the video that was dumped on DU when it was hacked on election day 2016
Wed Oct 16, 2019, 11:01 AM
Oct 2019

But then again I might be wrong.

JHB

(37,158 posts)
6. I disagree (with caveats). The DU hack video had a lot of imagery that was "off"...
Wed Oct 16, 2019, 12:55 PM
Oct 2019

...for American wingnuts. There was a lot of imagery there which looked like it came from European (especially eastern European) sources (e.g., a 2-headed eagle symbol). It's the sort of stuff that wouldn't have been the "go to" imagery for American wingnuts (though alt-right groups on both continents may have had enough cross-fertilization to account for it, maybe).

The stuff edited into the Kingsman-derived video is all the stuff of domestic wingnut obsessions: US politicians, celebrities, mostly-US-based media plus a couple of their love-to-hate foreign outlets (e.g., al Jazeera).

There were no shout-outs to European groups, as far as I could tell. No symbols of European RW parties, no European pols among the victims, no NGOs, no European media for which most Americans would say "who?". It was all for US-domestic consumption. It was a wet-dream of blowing away The Enemy Within. It's certainly possible Russkies had a hand in it, but the sensibilities are pure triple-distilled American Bile.

There's nothing "Russian" about the style of editing, though. Here's a video from March 2016 using the same techniques, and it wasn't exactly on the Russian side.


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