Timeline of the online culture war 2019

The year before the world stopped...

2011-2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

1/10/19: Steve King goes viral for comments to the New York Times. In an interview with the New York Times, controversial Iowa congressman Steve King was quoted as saying “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” It seems likely that King was referring only to “Western Civilization” when asking how the language became offensive, but this didn’t stop him from being stripped of all of his committee assignments. Shortly after, a motion was introduced to condemn white supremacy. Everyone who voted, voted to condemn these comments (including Steve King) with the exception of Bobby Rush (who wore a hoodie to the capital after the death of Trayvon Martin) who felt that it didn’t go far enough.

1/11/19: James Watson has honorary titles revoked. After a documentary aired where Nobel Laureate James Watson reaffirmed his views that the black white IQ gap was substantially due to genes, he had his honorary titles revoked from Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory.

1/13/19: Gillette releases "The Best Men Can Be" commercial. This commercial preached against “toxic masculinity.” This led to backlash because the ad seemed to equate harmless roughhousing and grilling burgers with more concerning behavior like serious bullying and sexual assault. The ad also seemed to portray white men as the worst offenders and blacks as the bystanders who kept their worst behavior in check.

1/13/19: Vaush launches main Channel. Popular socialist streamer Vaush launches his first channel and enters the public consciousness.

1/18/19: Lincoln Memorial Confrontation. At the annual March for Life in DC a group of high school students was harassed by some Black Hebrew Israelites. After this occurred, Nathan Phillips, a Native American elder, former Skrillex music video star and Vietnam “times” veteran was filmed in a confrontation with 16 year old Nicholas Sandmann. The audacity of a white person to smirk at a Native American was too much for many people to bear. The young boys received threats of assault and death, even by many mainstream public figures. Eventually, it was revealed that the boys were not acting aggressively or racist, and that Phillips had lied about them harassing the black men when in fact it was the other way around. Sandmann settled some lawsuits with various news outlets for undisclosed sums of money.

1/29/19: Jussie Smollett Hate Crime Hoax. Empire actor Jussie Smollett claimed that two Trump supporters shouted “This is MAGA country” and poured bleach on him and while putting a noose around his neck. That this was fake was extremely obvious to anyone with basic sense, but it took a while for many politicians and media outlets to figure it out. Eventually it was revealed that Smollett had staged the attack using two Nigerian brothers who were extras on his show. Smollett had falsely claimed to the police that one of the brothers was white. People who supported Smollett were forced to eat crow, and the right used this incident to argue that racism is rare enough that people need to fake it.

2/4/19: Liam Neeson controversy. Irish actor Liam Neeson stated that after his friend was raped by a black man, he would walk around the streets hoping to be attacked by a black man so that he could get revenge. This fantasy was around 40 years ago and Neeson apologized though that did little to satisfy the usual suspects.

2/5/19: Trump state of the union. During the State of the Union Trump claimed that he wanted legal immigrants to come into the country in the largest numbers ever. During this period, many on the alt-right were losing faith in Trump and this comment helped speed things along.

2/11/19: Spread of Clown world meme. Pepe the Frog with a clown whig had been spreading among the right to symbolize that the modern world had become “clown world.” On this day, an 4Chan user posted the text below predicting that Honk Honk would be the next OK sign.

2/12/19: Esquire profiles an American boy. During black history month, Esquire had the audacity to profile a white boy from Wisconsin, and ask what it is like to grow up white, middle class and male in the age of social media. Left wing commentators described this cover and story as “tone deaf.”

3/4/19: Hate breeds art project. In this performance art piece, white men dressed in polo shirts, khaki pants and MAGA hats, were walked around the Hollywood Walk of Fame on dog leashes by women and minorities. This aesthetic of performance art was common during the first Trump administration.

3/5/19: Tim Pool goes on The Joe Rogan Experience to discuss Twitter censorship. Tim Pool attempts to hold Twitter executives feet to fire about various accounts that were banned. Social media censorship was becoming a bigger topic around this time.

3/11/19: Kevin Macdonald’s books banned from Amazon. Amazon increased its regime of censorship by banning Kevin MacDonald’s A Culture of Critique and Jared Taylor’s White Identity. This represented an escalation, because regardless of how one feels about MacDonald the book banned was an academic work written by someone with a PhD.

3/12/19: Varsity Blues scandal. On this day many celebrities, most notably Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman were charged with using fraudulent methods to get their children into elite colleges by having other people take tests in their place and fabricating sports credentials. This scandal launched a debate about the college admissions process with some on the left claiming that it demonstrated the advantage that rich whites have in the college admissions process and some on the right claimed the fact that they had to resort to crime to get their kids into college was evidence of the opposite.

3/15/19: Christchurch Shooting. Australian white nationalist Brenton Tarrant entered two different mosques in Christchurch New Zealand killing 51 people total, and livestreamed the event. Written on his gun were references to white people who had been victims of Muslims in various ways, and other white people who had killed Muslims. His manifesto “The Great Replacement” was laced with irony and memes, claiming that he was radicalized by Candice Owens. As he entered the first Mosque he shouted “subscribe to PewDiePie.” The event led to an increased focus on how meme culture could lead to violence and an increased demand for censorship including the Christchurch call to eliminate violent content from the internet.

4/6/19: Destiny, Fuentes, Sargon of Akkad and Hassan Piker debate. In this debate, Nick Fuentes and Sargon took on Destiny and Hassan Piker on various hot button issues of the time, including the recent Christchurch shooting. An interesting time capsule of the era, before Destiny and Hassan Piker had a falling out.

4/8/19: Lil Lunchbox takes back Clepe. Upset that the alt-right was appropriating clowns, clown obsessed mulatto YouTube personality Lil Lunchbox decided to take back this symbol from the alt-right.

4/15/19: Notre Dame burns. The roof at Notre Dame caught fire and collapsed. Since this is an iconic landmark, many on the right saw this as a metaphor for the decline of Western Civilization. Many on the left rejoiced and saw this as revenge for France’s colonial history.

4/27/19: Poway Shooting. Inspired by the Tree of Life Shooting and recent Christchurch shooting, white nationalist John Earnest entered a synagogue in Poway CA (just outside of San Diego), and killed one person before his gun jammed. In his manifesto he wrote, “White men will not let God’s creation be corrupted and destroyed by the Jew without a fight. Remember your honor White men.” This shooting was notable because the perpetrator seemed to be more well adjusted than most others, and was a talented piano player training to be a nurse.

5/1/19: Tommy Robinson milkshaked UK. A milkshake was thrown at British activist Tommy Robinson. Leftists saw this as a a harmless way to combat the far right while the right saw it as dangerous political violence. Over the next couple of weeks many prominent figures across the UK were milkshaked.

5/29/19: Against David French-ism. Sohrab Ahmari publishes “Against David French-ism” article arguing that the right should take a more aggressive stance in the culture war, particularly against things like Drag Queen Story Hour. This led to an in person debate months later.

6/7/19: Gibson Bakery Settlement. In 2016, three black students were arrested for stealing from Gibson’s bakery nearby Oberlin college, and assaulting one of their employees. Many in the Oberlin administration blamed racism and Dean Meredith Raimondo and Oberlin college supported protests against the bakery. In June 2019, Gibson’s received a 44 million dollar settlement from Oberlin. This was seen by conservatives as a rebuke to the campus craziness of the mid 2010s.

6/8/19: New York Times releases article about being radicalized on Youtube. This article disusses the YouTube history of Caleb Cain showing how YouTube videos shifted him right over time. His history includes videos from people like Stephan Molyneux, Ben Shapiro and Paul Joseph Watson. Around this time YouTube algorithms causing people to be right wing was a big topic of discussion.

6/17/19: Harvard rescinds admissions offer to Kyle Kashuv after messages of him using the N-word surface. After the Parkland shooting, student Kyle Kashuv worked to present himself as a foil his liberal, gun control supporting classmates, advocating strong second amendment rights, and school safety measures. Texts of Kashuv refering to one of his classmates as the the N-word surfaced, and it was revealed that he had spammed the n-word in a google doc for studying. All of these incidents occurred before the Parkland shooting and Kashuv rising to national prominence. Some on the right decried the cancellation, while others felt he never would be been given acceptance without the tragedy and didn’t deserve it anyways.

6/21/19: E Jean Caroll initial rape accusation. Trump was accused of raping E Jean Caroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 90s. In 2023 Trump was sued in civil court over these allegations and found liable.

6/25/19: Photo of drowned migrants goes viral. This photo of drowned migrants caused the immigration debate to heat up.

6/29/19: Andy Ngo attacked in Portland. Andy Ngo is a conservative journalist who at the time was making a name for himself reporting on the Antifa scene in Portland. On this day he was pelted with a milkshake allegedly filled with cement, though this part was disputed.

7/1/19: Belle Delphine sells “gamer girl” bathwater. Online personality Belle Delphine announced that she was selling her bathwater. To many men, this was an example of how some women could make large amounts of money for doing pretty much nothing.

7/9/19: Tradwife meme appears on 4chan. The infamous trad wife and her flowery dress first appeared on 4Chan on this day.

7/14/19: Trump tells “the squad” to go back to their countries. In a Tweet, Trump says that progressive Democrat congresswomen (referring to AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley) should go back to their countries if they are unhappy in America. Trump was criticized since three of the four were born in America. A few days later the crowd at Trump’s rally chanted “send her back” referring to Omar.

7/16/19: Richard Spencer CNN appearance. Spencer was invited on CNN to discuss Trump’s recent Tweets. He says that Trump has nothing of substance to offer for white nationalists, only racist tweets, breaking with his previous position of supporting Trump. As mentioned before, 2019 was a time when many white nationalists were increasingly disillusioned with Trump.

7/27/19: Baltimore saga. Trump gets into a fight with Elijiah Cummings and claims that Baltimore is a rodent infested mess where no human would want to live. This leads to the usual accusations of racism.

8/1/19: Yes Chad Meme First posted. The first instance of the “Yes Chad” or nordic gamer was first posted on this day on Twitter. This meme is mostly used by the right since the picture depicts a somewhat idealized Aryan form, but it has become fairly mainstream.

8/3/19: El Paso Walmart Shooting. Patrick Crusius drove to a heavily Hispanic area in El Paso and shot up a Wal-Mart store killing 23 people. He was motivated by anti-immigrant sentiments and published a manifesto called The Great Replacement lamenting whites becoming a minority in the US.

8/4/19: Dayton mass shooting. In the early hours of August 4th, Connor Betts shot up a bar in Dayton killing 9 people. Betts expressed sympathy for leftist politics, though this was not determined to be the motive for the shooting. His politics helped people on the right promote a, “both sides” narrative after the shooting that had occurred the prior day, and helped shift the focus of the El Paso shooting to guns since there were two large mass shootings within a short period of time.

8/13/19: How to be an Antiracist released. Public intellectual Ibram X. Kendi released his book about how to be an anti-racist. Kendi argued that if you aren’t anti-racist you are racist, and that all disparities between blacks and whites must be due to racism. This book would provide intellectual justification for the “Racial Reckoning” that would occur the next Summer.

8/18/19: 1619 Project comes out in NYT magazine. Nikole Hannah-Jones introduces the 1619 project a revisionist take on American history which tries to reframe the beginning of America as 1619 rather than 1776, and analyzes how slavery impacted US history. This project caused much discussion among proponents and detractors and outrage that materials from the project may be included in school curriculums.

8/21/19: Hassan Piker Says America deserved 9/11. During a Twitch stream, Piker states that America deserved 9/11, when commenting on a interview with Congressman Dan Crenshaw. Piker would apologize a few days later, but this controversy would be dragged up whenever Piker interacted with a mainstream Democrat.

8/26/19: YouTube bans Allsup, AIM, Vdare TV, TRS Radio. On this day, YouTube banned some controversial far-right accounts including James Allsup. At the time that he was banned, he had amassed more than 450k subscribers.

8/31/19: Straight pride parade. The group Super Happy Fun America founded by “based stickman” Kyle Chapman held a straight pride parade. It ended up … pretty much how you would expect it to.

10/4/19: The Joker released. Directed by Todd Phillips and staring Joaquin Phoenix, this take on the joker was seen a conduit for white male rage, to the point where theaters increased security. The Guardian suggested that viewers should see Cuck instead. In the end, the Popeyes chicken sandwich released the prior Summer ended up taking more lives than the Joker.

10/20/19: Watchmen series released. This series depicted scenes from the Tulsa race riot, which would become the Tulsa Race massacre a few months later.

11/4/19: Milo Releases Audio of Richard Spencer. To get revenge on Spencer after a falling out, Milo released some audio of Spencer freaking out and shouting racial slurs after the Charlottesville rally, yelling about “fucking octoroons” The audio can be heard at the beginning of this video. This destroyed whatever was left of Spencer’s polished persona.

11/10/19: Groypers shout down Donald Trump Jr during 1st groyper war. The Groyper war was a time in fall of 2019 when Nick Fuentes and allies would go to Turning Point events on college campuses and ask questions about areas where they claimed conservatives weren’t pro America enough mostly relating to Israel and immigration. Sean Last gives a deeper analysis of most of the issues here. The UCLA audience shouted down Donald Trump Jr at his event on this day for avoiding the Groyper army by not taking any questions.

12/19/19: JK Rowling trans controversy begins. After British activist Maya Forstater was fired for claiming that trans women are men, JK Rowling posted this Tweet standing in solidarity with her. The caused many on the left to lose respect for Rowling since Harry Potter was often used as a parable for liberal politics.

Coming in the Future:

-An article with events I missed from the 2010s (Let me know if there are any ideas!)

-Timeline of the online culture war through 12/31/24

-Prequel article with a timeline of events that led up to the period I discuss

-Final article with complete timeline

-Article with analysis of whole timeline

-Possibly an article with my personal experiences with the online culture war