About two weeks ago, Donald Trump caused outrage when he refused to condemn the white supremacist group Proud Boys during his first presidential debate. Instead, he told them to “stand back and stand by.” The internet reacted immediately, and the hashtag #ProudBoys started trending for all the right reasons after LGBT people on Twitter hijacked the hashtag to show who the real proud boys are. See the #proudboys posts with men happily embracing, kissing, and celebrating love in our previous article.
But the presidential debates are far from over. And while Trump and Biden are gearing up for their last debate tomorrow, a group of friends from an advertising agency decided that they'd had enough of white supremacist BS. Thus, they came up with a comeback advertising campaign that celebrates what real men are proud of.
In a series of posters, the men were photographed in their natural settings with the all-telling slogan "The World Doesn’t Need Another Proud Boy. Be A Man." Posted on Imgur by the user @proudman, the ads created a real stir with 7.6k upvotes and were awarded with "mind-blowing accolade." And they surely deserved it.
After the first Biden and Trump debate, a group of friends had enough and produced this fictional ad campaign to shame white supremacists
Image credits: proudman
Image credits: proudman
Bored Panda reached out to the Imgur user @proudman who posted the ad campaign that his friends made. The post amassed 7,772 upvotes and received almost 300 comments from people praising the idea.
@proudman told us that the group of friends who created the posters “are trying to avoid any focus on any single person.” But he assured us that the idea “was definitely sparked by the comments made during the first presidential debate.”
He also said the team behind the posters received such a positive response that they decided on getting the “Proud To Be” website up. “We're gonna make the photos available as well as the assets for people to create their own,” the @proudman said. So stay tuned for more information at ProudToBe.xyz, and hopefully we’ll be seeing more posters like this soon!
Image credits: proudman
Image credits: proudman
The Proud Boys first made headlines when, during a presidential debate, Donald Trump was asked to condemn the white supremacist group. Instead, Trump blamed the left for violence and even addressed the Proud Boys, asking them to “stand back and stand by."
It didn’t go unnoticed, as people on the internet decided to drown out the posts and content related to the far-right and anti-immigrant group that goes by the name.
Initially, the idea came from Star Trek’s George Takei, an avid LGBT rights activist, who suggested gay guys take pics of themselves making out with each other, and then tag themselves with #ProudBoys. “I bet it would mess them up real bad. #ReclaimingMyShine,” Takei tweeted.
The post received 11.4K retweets and 56K likes, and the idea started spreading. In no time, the LGBT community had "hijacked" the hashtag and #ProudBoys was finally trending for very right reasons.
Image credits: proudman
Image credits: proudman
Meanwhile, Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys group, told US broadcaster CNN he wasn’t sure what social media users were trying to achieve. "I think it's hysterical. This isn't something that's offensive to us. It's not an insult. We aren't homophobic. We don't care who people sleep with.”
But the FBI classifies the Proud Boys, founded in 2016 by right-wing activist Gavin McInnes, as an extremist group, and the US research and advocacy organization SPLC lists them as a hate group.
And people loved the idea
