This Anti-Gay Video Took Its Strategy Straight from the Buzzfeed Playbook
LatestThe Guardian reports that this is no coincidence. Anchored North’s co-founder, Greg Sukert, says using the accessible tone of popular media helps to make their hate message more digestible. Sort of like how you’ll click on a bright Buzzfeed YouTube clip and before you know it, you’ve watched a five minute video about someone trying a hardboiled egg for the first time. Except it’s about being a bigot:
“They’ve mastered content that focuses on raw, authentic, sometimes humorous stories. And the things that are shaping the next generation’s worldview are these short-form videos online, so we’re taking a page from the culture of today, but the message is staying the same.”
Anchored North is great at co-opting; they’ve even stolen the language of LGBTQ groups, and titled Emily’s story “Love Is Love.” In it, a young woman explains that she thought she was gay, but then she read some extremely scary passages in the Bible (which she Googled) about how she’d be tortured for marrying a mother of two who she met in nursing school. Now she’s straight and so, so happy.