This is David Hogg.
Press secretary for March for Our Lives.
He's a survivor of the Parkland massacre,
and he's become one of the most recognizable faces
in the movement for gun control.
He's also probably one of the most vilified people
in right-wing media right now.
It's literally been about six weeks,
and I'm already being compared to Hitler.
Google Hogg's name and you'll find sites accusing him
of being a crisis actor, an FBI plant,
a brainwashed hate-monger, a fascist.
I can't really even think of the top five
because there's about 50 million.
If I experienced even a fraction of that,
I would collapse into a puddle of soy milk.
But rather than crumbling under the pressure,
Hogg and his friends have flourished,
keeping their cause in the national spotlight
while repeatedly dunking on their critics.
So, David,
The guy, is it David Hogg? He started off as this balanced, nice kid.
He's just now become
a real bomb thrower.
Someone like this I think isn't helping the conversation.
To David six weeks ago, I would say
get some more coffee and get an external charger.
You're going to need it.
It's kind of hard to believe,
but just a few months ago,
David Hogg was a typical nerdy high school kid.
A debater, his school's news director,
an amateur video producer.
And like any good nerd journalist,
Hogg knew a bit about the right-wing fever swamp.
Before all of this, I did know who Alex Jones was.
I did know who Laura Ingraham was.
Well, actually, I didn't know who Laura was.
But I did know who Alex Jones was
because of all the insane things that he said
to the Sandy Hook survivors.
That background ended up coming in handy.
After the Parkland shooting, Hogg and his friends
became central figures in the debate over gun control.
And that made them prime targets
for the right-wing smear machine.
Forgive me if I don't want a lesson on
the Second Amendment from a 16-year-old.
You're too immature to carry a firearm,
you're too immature to make policy.
What a conceited, arrogant know-it-all.
It's hard not to just go after this kid.
Authoritarianism is always about youth marches.
These poor children, they have no soul.
Hogg is funded by George Soros,
a literal Nazi collaborator.
Honestly, I figured a lot more of our attacks
would be against our policies, not really against me.
The most notable of these have been
the conspiracy theories.
On social media, right-wing conspiracy theories
going viral about David Hogg.
Falsely accused survivor David Hogg of being a crisis actor.
That video was viewed more than 200,000 times
before it was taken down.
And when I ask Hogg about those,
he's visibly frustrated.
I literally interviewed people in the school
during the shooting thinking I was going to fucking die.
I don't know how else to prove to these people
that I was there, because I was.
This is how the right-wing smear machine works:
by bombarding the target with a flood
of ridiculous but inflammatory personal attacks.
Victims can either ignore the smears
and risk becoming defined by them,
or they can try to respond, burning
a ton of time and energy trying to keep up
with each new attack.
Either way, the target’s original message gets lost.
It's like a never-ending game of bullshit whack-a-mole.
No matter what I show, it's always going to be,
"Oh, that's false."
Or, "Oh, that..."
It's insane.
You can see the toll that trying to keep up
with all this stuff has taken on Hogg.
But then something happens.
Hogg catches himself.
And for the rest of the interview, he’s way more relaxed.
They've gone from saying that I wasn't at the school
at the time to saying that I'm a crisis actor
to saying that I'm a 27-year-old that has a facelift
to saying that I'm actually 135 years old and
that I'm a, like, shape-shifting lizard, essentially.
I mean, I don't know about you guys,
but last time I checked, getting a facelift
doesn't make your acting career any better.
So.
That moment, that "breathe,"
is really important.
Hogg realizes he's getting caught up in the bullshit
and decides not to take the bait.
I'm a debate kid, and I've always been made fun of
throughout my life.
I'm used to it, and a lot of us are too, sadly.
Yeah, I feel that.
If you continue to pursue whatever path
they're leading you down, which is a dead end,
it's going to end up distracting you
and draining your resources,
and you don't need that.
Instead of playing whack-a-mole,
the Parkland students have chosen to pick their battles,
engaging their trolls strategically.
One of the most notable ways they do this is through humor.
Some of them called you actors.
Well, I am an actor, actually.
I’m in Spring Awakening right now.
We just joke around a lot, and that's how
we're dealing with a lot of this and kind of coping
in some weird way.
Look at the Twitter feeds of many of the Parkland survivors
and you'll find them using humor to respond to their critics,
turning smears and conspiracy theories into jokes
that get them thousands of retweets.
At this point, it's just, it's so stupid.
It is funny for all of us to witness the ridiculousness of the situation.
Laughing it off is a coping mechanism, for sure.
But Hogg says it's also a good PR move.
Laughing it off is great because it keeps you in the news more.
Not only do you get a laugh but your followers get a laugh,
and you get a follow too.
Laughing it off also works because
it lets students respond to their critics
without giving them too much credit.
When you're laughing, you're showing that you don't care,
and it makes people realize how ridiculous these individuals are,
because they're only going to be taken seriously
if you take them seriously.
That approach works well when you're dealing
with fringe commentators like Alex Jones,
people who are already ripe for mockery.
I don't want to see him kissing goblins.
Having political succubus with goblins.
Ingratiating goblins.
But sometimes the troll isn't some fringe person you can laugh at.
Sometimes it's the host of a major television talk show,
like Fox News's Laura Ingraham,
who in March decided to mock Hogg on Twitter
for getting turned down by a few colleges.
In cases like that, Hogg responds a little differently.
I was actually sitting at dinner with my sister,
and I was thinking about it for a minute.
My friends have responded plenty; maybe I just should lay off.
And then I'm like,
"Mmm, I'm too petty for that."
Hogg responded by tweeting a list of Laura Ingraham's advertisers,
and before long, he had tens of thousands of retweets.
What's the one thing that's common in all conflict?
Economics.
What does Laura care about more than anything?
Her $4 million salary.
Within 24 hours, major advertisers had
yanked their ads from Ingraham's show.
Ingraham publicly apologized "in the spirit of Holy Week."
And Hogg got another round of earned
national media coverage for his cause.
What I want to get on from is the negativity in this situation,
and I want to focus on what's ahead for our movement.
You don't need to go after these people personally
because that's just immature,
and that's what they're trying to do to you.
Go after their advertisers and them making money.
This is a David-and-Goliath story.
It appears David has won.
Before we ended our interview,
I asked Hogg what advice he'd give to other activists,
especially students,
who might find themselves in the crosshairs
of the right-wing smear machine.
Whenever somebody calls you a dick or whatever,
just say, “I love you,” honestly.
That's what this world needs.
We don't need anybody else being super mean to each other
like Laura was to me or anybody else.
Point out the few that are just absolutely ridiculous,
and after that, people will start fighting for you
because you shouldn't have to, obviously.
Yeah, they shouldn't.
It is deeply disturbing that teenagers
who survived a mass shooting have to worry
about how to deal with this stuff.
But under the weight of intense media attention and pressure,
these students are putting on a master class
in how to deal with bullies.