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Parker's avatar

Wow, it's crazy how much of this stuff went down in 2014. It really seems like it was a pivotal year, even considering that the big shakeup of Trump arriving on the scene hadn't happened yet. Also, didn't the pepe meme start to get big in 2014?

Also one minor quibble: the Menendez brothers haven't been freed and their sentence hasn't been commuted (at least as of yet). Otherwise, great article!

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True Discipline's avatar

I edited the Menendez brothers thing, thanks for the correction, I appreciate corrections it means people are reading thoroughly. As far as pepe goes it wasn't really associated much with the right until 2015, Katy Perry tweeted this in late 2014: https://x.com/katyperry/status/531011411720151041

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Michel djerzinski's avatar

There is strong evidence that the menendez brothers were horribly abused by their father and idt its fair to group their case with other libs trying to free obviously guilty criminals

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Argos's avatar

The Pepe meme has been big on 4chan for as long as i've browsed it (since 2012), and probably earlier.

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Breaking Baddies's avatar

Quite validating; 2014 was my freshman year of college so I'm obviously biased, but it really did feel like a year zero at the time.

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The Futurist Right's avatar

What ever happened with that gal? Didn’t she end up partying with the Reason Magazine crowd that had condemned her assault on due process?

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Byzantine Chungus's avatar

Great work, 2014 was the year I really started paying attention to the world around me. Crazy how much happened in 2014. I know this is meant to cover internet events but I do think the War in Gaza, Ebola, and ISIS deserve separate entries due to how much they influenced internet culture at the time

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JES's avatar

10/16/14: Hannibal Buress repeats a stand-up bit he’s been doing for 6 months about Bill Cosby being a rapist. It goes viral, and sexual assault allegations that received modest attention a decade prior immediately re-surge with a new intensity.

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James's avatar

This really brings me back.

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João Correia's avatar

I can even pinpoint these developments through my sister.

My sister was put in a catholic school, while i went to military college (we're from Lisbon but this Thing is global), so while i was shielded from the rest of the world in a same uniform school, she was bullied by petty rich cath girls about not having the right clothes or something, so she started to adopt anti social behaviors and worldviews that caused her to miss a year of school. She went to have piercings done, dressed in a freak way, then came the big first political phase: veganism. Since humans are cruel she wouldnt participate in that way of living. She also expressed wishes for a totalitarian government to slowly kill all humans. Frankly, she had/has my sympathy to this day, but this is just you can see where a lot of young leftists come from. I remember in an animal rights protest i went with her the organizer saying their opponents should be sterilized. I doubt leftists are that bold now, that was when white people lived together, before they became surrounded by brown parasites. Moving on. The she also became addicted to atheist debating on the internet, she thought it was the gateway to convert the backwardness away from conservatives. Then at some point in college she was reading tons of feminist blogs a day and organizing with other feminists. So this in the early 2010s. One day one of her feminist facebook members was passing by and she invited her to our dad's birthday dinner in a nepali restaurant (they were everywhere here in Lisbon in the 2010s) where she demonstrated she didnt knew about anything in politics (lots of people in these things just get willingly groomed because they want a circle of friends). She meekly said she would vote for the local center right party to the dissaproving look of my sister, it was a pretty funny night.

Then, eventually living in Germany with her tall blonde german boyfriend, wich she wouldnt allow us to refer him as the/him, etc. she became an average die Linke voter, without even speaking much deutsche or even caring about news and material events.

So, thats that.

A similar series on young right wingers (specially males) would be interesting because the average groyper is wrong about many things too.

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João Correia's avatar

I'll just add, my sister is very much in a minority of leftists because coming from a shy family with very white tastes she never turned into a slut or became pro black, even during 2020.

Top genes!

Also she could detect when "betos", higher class people adopted freak/hipster/"chunga"(low class) culture, clothes and politics to jump the ship.

The implied around whites expect fights also demands a very lenghty discussion on the White Question, wich deserves more priority than the JQ since the majority of whites accept jewish power (why??) and only find honour in fighting other whites.

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clingingmars's avatar

Zoe Quinn was given positive coverage of her game, not positive reviews, by the people she was romantically involved with.

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bbbbb's avatar

Great summary, thanks for the nostalgia. Would love to see a similar article about events in 2013 or 2015.

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True Discipline's avatar

I have both on my profile

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Michel djerzinski's avatar

Very fascinating that the far more sympathetic eric garner didnt spark off BLM. Any theories as to why that is?

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Petey's avatar

Scott Alexander argued that it’s because it was too unambiguous and didn’t leave room for debate, which is what gives a movement steam: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/.

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Censored Anon's avatar

I became a fascist in this year.

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marmalade's avatar

Re: 4chan-Tumblr Wars. There was an earlier one in 2011 or maybe 2010. I remember because a school friend at the time was really into chan culture and his crush was a Tumblr girl.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/i4wj6y/4chantumblr_the_war_that_spawned_a_pairing/

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tim's avatar

gamergate was not about sjw it was about the low quality of gen 7 games and the game journalist who give 10/10 to bad games because they are friends with the devs

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Becky N's avatar

Delightful read

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