A photo of YouTuber JoeySalads wearing a swastika armband was widely circulated
after the Charlottesville rally, but JoeySalads says it's fake news. I'm Adam
Bozarth and welcome back to What's Trending. Please be sure to hit LIKE and SUBSCRIBE
for more. On August 12, white supremacist groups from around the country gathered
in Charlottesville, Virginia for the "Unite the Right" rally. The groups chanted
old Nazi slogans through the night. One photo from the rally went viral mocking
the racist mob. "Open mic night at the Whitesplain Improv." "When you're just
super-concerned about jobs." "When you have to use a Polynesian cultural product to
defend and assert white supremacy." "When you think salt is a spice." But by the
morning hate groups and the counter- protesters clashed in the streets of
Charlottesville. Heather Heyer, 32, a paralegal from Charlottesville who fought for
equality in her community, died in a ramming attack. Hours afterward, two
Virginia state troopers, Jay Cullen and Berke Bates, died in a helicopter crash
monitoring the protests. The world watched Charlottesville unfold and the
world wanted to know who these white supremacists were. But another photo that
went viral was an old photo of YouTuber JoeySalads. @Standplaats_KRK tweeted,
"Next time someone tells you not to treat Trump supporters as if they are Nazis,
show them this:" That photo is of JoeySalads, but that photo was also taken at a Trump
rally in California in March.
Joey's social experiment shows that Trump supporters aren't white
supremacists. But the photo of Joey in a Nazi armband
at a Trump rally undid the point that he was trying to make. And many defended JoeySalads
when the photo went viral. Tim Pool tweets, "Joey did this is a prank/
social experiment. This kind of mischaracterization is fueling the
partisan split." Lauren Duca of Teen Vogue responds, "The sincerity debate is
total nonsense. Swastikas represent the murder of six million Jewish people. I
don't really care if Joey was kidding." A swastika armband is very symbolic and of
nothing good. Wearing one even as a joke has consequences.
JoeySalads, however, claims he's a victim of fake news.
Another one of Joey's "social experiments" involved holding up signs
that said "Black Lives Matter," and "All Lives Matter."
Another one
of Joey's "social experiments" involved him staging a video where a car was
vandalized because it was covered in Trump stickers. In an article from last
October about fake election news, JoeySalads was profiled first for his "Trump
Car Video." Joey says that the idea was to park it in a "black neighborhood" and
film it. The video went viral on conservative blogs like Drudge Report
with the headline "WATCH THEM SMASH 'TRUMP CAR.'" In the video, JoeySalads signs
off by saying, "As you can see from this video, the black community is very
violent towards Trump and his supporters." But, it was completely fake. Twitter user
@xtorres filmed this footage of Joey staging the shoot with the hired actors
clearly visible standing behind the camera. So Joey created a fake video of
young African-American men vandalizing a car covered in Trump stickers just to
get views from conservative blogs. That's pretty disgusting and also propaganda.
But is Joey a Nazi? No. His photo was taken completely out of
context. And even in the video you can tell he doesn't even want to pretend to
be a Nazi. That's not how Nazis talk, Joey. But is wearing
a swastika in public okay? Absolutely not. In response to the criticism, Joey
tweeted these photos of Sarah Silverman as Hitler on Conan and Chelsea Handler
posing with an actor in costume as Hitler. He says, "The same people who have a
problem with me wearing a swastika for a social experiment are okay with this?"
Well there's differences, Joey. Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler are
performing in comedy shows. You are going into public and lying about what
you believe. Also these photos were taken out of context as well, Joey. Sarah
Silverman dressed up as Hitler to prove a point. And as for the idea that
everybody's okay with it... Silverman was widely denounced by the Simon Wiesenthal
Center, a major Jewish group, for using Nazi imagery for mockery.
Joey isn't marching in the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville and
you shouldn't think of him as a white supremacist in any way. It's unfair that
his photo got shared, but wearing a swastika in public has consequences even
if it's a joke. Also, if you create fake news you don't
get to complain about being taken out of context. So what did the social
experiment teach Joey about dressing up like a Nazi?
Well said, Joey. So what do you think of this whole situation let us
know in the COMMENTS section below, and please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE for more of
What's Trending.