A woman shot and injured three people before killing herself inside YouTube’s California headquarters yesterday afternoon. In the hours following the attack, it was reported that the shooter, identified as Nasim Aghdam, had posted content online expressing frustration that YouTube had cut off ad revenue from her channel.
Right-wing pundits, many of whom have spent the last few months intensifying their rhetoric against YouTube’s enforcement of community guideline policies, claimed that the shooter was a “left-wing” activist because she had reportedly posted about animal rights and veganism on social media. CRTV host Steven Crowder claimed in a since-deleted tweet that the shooter was a “militant leftist PETA activist.” The Gateway Pundit identified her as a “far left protester.” The white nationalist outlet Red Ice dedicated an entire video to claiming that the shooter was a “very advanced, interesting version of an SJW.”
While some right-wing outlets were working to portray the shooter as anything but conservative, the fringes of far-right were using the shooting to reinforce their ongoing narrative that media outlets reporting on the shooting had a secret agenda to negatively portray white people.
Conservative firebrand Ann Coulter said that she expected that The New York Times would identify the shooter as a “white Iranian,” keeping in line with her accusations of anti-white bias in mainstream news coverage:
I guess the NYT will identify YouTube shooter as a "white Iranian."https://t.co/4c2ccWoZ9c
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 4, 2018
Far-right YouTube pundit Mark Dice claimed that the “mainstream media” would stop covering the shooting at YouTube’s headquarters because "she's an Iranian immigrant, not a white male.’” The tweet was shared by Fox News pundit Tomi Lahren:
Mainstream media will drop the YouTube HQ shooter story after today because she's an Iranian immigrant, not a white male.
— Mark Dice (@MarkDice) April 4, 2018
Similarly, anti-Semitic podcast host Nick Fuentes remarked that the shooter didn’t “sound like all those ‘problematic white males’ we’ve been hearing so much about”:
That doesn’t sound like all those “problematic white males” we’ve been hearing so much about ??? https://t.co/fokUBTN1bt
— Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes) April 4, 2018
Alt-right video blogger Paul Ray Ramsey –known to fans as “Ramzpaul”—said that a stock image that some media used to accompany stories about the shooter was chosen because “they initially wanted to spin this as a ‘white supremacist’ shooting”:
Right But they chose a photoshopped photo of her that made her look more White for political reasons. They initially wanted to spin this as a "white sumpremacist" shooting. https://t.co/Xp5KpqrtJz
— RAMZPAUL (@ramzpaul) April 4, 2018
Alt-right activists Matt Colligan, Faith Goldy and Lauren Rose seemed to blame YouTube for the attack, promoting the hashtag “#CensorshipKills” in response to the shooting:
The #YouTube Shooters motive was #censorship #CensorshipKills
— ??Meme America?? (@Millenniel_Matt) April 4, 2018
#CensorshipKills pic.twitter.com/mJKNV59DZR
— Lauren Rose (@LaurenRoseUltra) April 4, 2018
YouTube just got shot up by a YouTuber (thankfully with shite aim) whose motive was her being censored by the company. Perhaps NOW is the appropriate time for a national conversation about @YouTube censorship? #censorshipkills pic.twitter.com/eWEjADxWwt
— ☩ Faith J Goldy ☩ ?? (@FaithGoldy) April 4, 2018
Unhinged conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer urged her followers to archive the shooter’s personal profiles, claiming that the shooter “is a Jihadi and they want to cover it up”:
BREAKING: #YOUTUBE just DELETED Nasim Aghdam's Youtube channel!
Hurry up and take screenshots of everything!!!! She is a Jihadi and they want to cover it up.
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) April 4, 2018
Liz Crokin, a conspiracy theorist who specializes in claims about a massive conspiracy of elite pedophiles, claimed that the whole event screamed “MKULTRA,” referring to the CIA’s experiments involving mind control and psychedelic drugs in the 1950s:
This screams MKULTRA! #QAnon https://t.co/Qywe7s3HmT
— LIZ ThesePeopleRSick (@LizCrokin) April 4, 2018
Crokin also suggested that the shooter’s YouTube videos were “probably used on sex trafficked kids”:
These videos strike me as mind control videos probably used on sex trafficked kids! #QAnon #ProjectMonarch #MKUltra #NasimAghdam https://t.co/EKMoCtIalI
— LIZ ThesePeopleRSick (@LizCrokin) April 4, 2018
There was also a sector of right-wing media pundits—including the president’s son—who spun the shooting to provide cover for the National Rifle Association, which has faced criticism for its opposition to the Parkland, Florida, school shooting survivors who have become activists for gun law reform.
Donald Trump Jr. asked his followers whether they thought “there’s any chance whatsoever that a mass shooters hateful Instagram and YouTube channels would be pulled immediately if they were NRA members as opposed to liberal Vegan PETA activists”:
You think there’s any chance whatsoever that a mass shooters hateful Instagram and YouTube channels would be pulled immediately if they were NRA members as opposed to liberal Vegan PETA activists? Asking for a few million friends in the @NRA
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 4, 2018
Candace Owens, communications director for Turning Point USA, used the shooting to mock people who have criticized the National Rifle Association:
The YouTube shooter was a @peta activist.
PETA IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION!
PETA IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION!
PETA IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION!
(That’s how this works now, right?)
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) April 4, 2018
Turning Point USA president Charlie Kirk said that YouTube HQ was “likely a gun free zone”:
A left wing, vegan, PETA protestor shot up YouTube yesterday in what was most likely was a gun free zone
I’m sure the media will quickly move past this one
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) April 4, 2018
Pro-Trump pundit and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec tweeted that there were still no mass shooters who held NRA memberships:
Number of mass shooters who were NRA members:
Still 0
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) April 4, 2018
But the most cringe-worthy reaction may have come from criminally unfunny comedian turned right-wing pundit Owen Benjamin, who wrote a song about the shooter:
This song is for the vegan YouTube shooter. It’s time to ban soy beans. #unBEARables pic.twitter.com/TwlFJLKVGs
— Owen Benjamin ? (@OwenBenjamin) April 4, 2018
That vegan shot my foot,
I need my foot to walk,
What a stupid bitch,
A vegan stupid bitchSPOKEN: Soy kills and it’s time we did something about it. Talk to your legislators. Ban soybeans because they make women into crazy bitches.