Ryan Broderick: TikTok teens aren't stanning Osama bin Laden

[Nevilledog]

https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-teens-arent-stanning-osama

By now you have, no doubt, heard all about the dangerous new TikTok trend sweeping the nation. China’s great and powerful cyber weapon has convinced the innocent teenagers of America that Osama bin Laden was actually a pretty cool guy and now they’re all sharing his 2002 “Letter To America”. Well, first, just to get it out of the way, Osama bin Laden was actually bad. Also, a nepo baby.

After spending most of yesterday digging into this, I’m pretty convinced that this was never a real thing on TikTok. Even though it has since snowballed into a full on moral panic that is beginning to feel dangerously unstable. The Biden administration released a statement about the supposed trend and alarmed big-name creators and actors also reportedly met with TikTok this week to discuss the rise of antisemitism on the app.

So I’m punting this week’s paid-only weekend edition and, instead, going to go step-by-step through how this happened, or didn’t, and hopefully set the record straight. If you want to get the normal weekend issues of Garbage Day, hit the green button below. They’ll be back next week.

TikTok deleted most of the content related to Bin Laden and his “Letter To America,” making any kind of digital forensics difficult. But according to most news articles I’ve seen and a couple X users that downloaded her videos, the influencer Lynette Adkins is as close as we’ll get to a patient zero here. That said, there has been a lot of Bin Laden interest — and revisionism — on TikTok for the last month. It’s an extremely global app and a large chunk of its most-active users were born after 9/11. So I don’t think it’s that surprising. As we all discovered in 2016, a whole bunch of young millennials spent their early 20s talking about Hitler on Reddit.

*snip*

[CurtEastPoint]

2. wtf. Stanning.

INFORMAL
verb
gerund or present participle: stanning
be an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity.
"y'all know I stan for Katy Perry, so I was excited to see the artwork for her upcoming album"

[Glorfindel]

3. Thanks, CurtEastPoint!

I had never heard the term and was about to look it up. I don't suppose I'll use it myself, but at least if other people do, I'll know what they're talking about.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

4. It comes from the Eminem song "Stan" about an obsessive fan nt

[CurtEastPoint]

14. I was like....huh? But I'm old so...that happens frequently.

[meadowlander]

12. It's a short version of "stalker fan".

Even if this was true (and suspect it's another one from the "furries asking for kitty litter at school" files) why are the eyes of the nation turned to what 12 year old are doing on their phones? Kids that age exercise poor judgment and then grow out of it a week later. People stanned the Boston Marathon bomber too. Hormones make you do stupid shit.

[Elessar Zappa]

5. Americans love their "moral panics".

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Especially the gullible poorly educated magats & the grifters preying on them. . . nt

[maxsolomon]

6. I've shared OBL's Letter to America on DU

But that was 20 years ago.

I share it because it's an insight into the way Islamic Terrorism is rationalized - that non-combatants are complicit, and therefore legitimate targets.

[redqueen]

7. K&R

[Mossfern]

8. "Influencers"

I cry for the world.
Social media will be the downfall of society.

[Beetwasher.]

10. "Stanning" in my day was rolling down the car window

And yelling “Hey Stan!!” And waving at a total stranger. If they waved back you got a “Stan” point.

[David__77]

11. I can understand right wingers wanting to ban TikTok, due to fear of ideological contamination.

[redqueen]

13. All these people, sharing information directly,

and leaving the government or MSM with less power to steer or frame the narrative? The horror!

Imo TikTok is the least harmful social media platform, and Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter are the most frightening ones. (Mainstream ones I mean - not including the ones that MAGATs and CP lovers use)

[Wingus Dingus]

16. If the information isn't true, that actually is a problem--especially

for young people.

[redqueen]

17. If we could trust the MSM it wouldn't be an issue

Misinformation is a problem on every platform, including the MSM.

[Wingus Dingus]

21. Generally we can. Blanket mistrust/rejection of MSM is a hallmark right-wing habit.

I think most major news outlets in the US report actual facts, actual news events, in a trustworthy way--it's the analysis and spin and context that is the problem (cable news/talk radio that caters to political bent or ideology in ALL of its content).

[Martin68]

15. A certain segment of young people are always attracted to revisionist theories about people like Hitler and

Osama bin Laden. It’s exciting to think you know something no one else knows, and to take the opposite view of all the geezers and old fogeys (especially one’s parents). An interest in Satanism and Satanic rock might be a milder version of the same trend.

[JI7]

19. Not sure becsuse Satan isn't an actual person but a concept

Bin laden and Hitler were actual people where we know what they did.

[Martin68]

24. You seem to fail to realize that many Satanists believe Satan is real. But you miss my point entirely.

[inthewind21]

23. How

is Bin Ladens letter to America "revisionist history"? 9/11 DID happen. Bin Laden WAS the head of Al Queda who was the Terrorist face of 9/11. He DID put out a "Letter to America" as well as MANY videos. Instead of demanding it be removed and freaking out because "young people are circulating it online" maybe, just maybe, our kids should have been taught about 9/11, Al Queda and Bin Laden . Now there's a novel idea!

Oh wait, that wouldn't fit the narrative of perfection that has been pushed for generations.

Disclaimer, my complete disdain is in no way directed at you. It's a decades long build up of the piss poor job done in this country teaching the future their TRUE history with all it's warts then the shock of why "young people" don't know what they should.

[Martin68]

25. I termed it revisionist because young Americans who accept a laundered alternate view of who Bin Laden was and

what he believed in is a revisionist view of reality.

[beaglelover]

18. Those TikTok videos are disgusting. WTF is wrong with the yonger generation in this country.

[Lancero]

20. Sad reality is that I can see this happening. We've got people already justifying 10/7, not much of a stretch...

...For them to start justifying other historical terrorist attacks as well.

[MineralMan]

22. Had to Google "stanning." Shows how ancient I am.

Thanks for giving me a word to look up. That rarely happens!