When those in the far right were kicked off Twitter, they went to Parler. When Parler died, they went to Gab, the “free speech” social media site that has become a nest of violent extremists, including the domestic terrorist responsible for the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018. By and large, though, Gab tends to not attract the same attention as Parler did. That changed on Saturday, when its main Twitter account posted an image some found to be pretty bizarre.
https://twitter.com/heIIeveeg/status/1368244596870946819
The image the Gab account dropped — an All-American (read: white and middle-class) family hanging in the backyard, surrounding a grill, all of them holding guns, even the dog — wasn’t an original. It’s actually the cover for the video game The American Dream, which is actually a satire about gun culture. Did the Gab team not know this? Or were they trying to reclaim a patently ridiculous image, one that overtly makes fun of their way of thinking? Who knows!
Whatever the case, the tweet went viral, although perhaps not in the way the Gab folks intended.
https://twitter.com/thor_benson/status/1368249917165211651
https://twitter.com/sarah_micheleg/status/1368241747034247173
A lot of people fixated on the image of the dog wielding a gun, despite its lack of opposable thumbs.
the woke left is coming for my dog's gun https://t.co/x51d3cwoVH
— GRIFT SHOP (@GRIFTSH0P) March 6, 2021
An America in which even dogs are armed… https://t.co/tqC4NCvzI8
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) March 6, 2021
Some pointed out its noted dearth of logic.
When you think about it, it makes total sense that the same person who created a buggy, d-grade social network for nazis thinks that “our way of life” includes a dog holding a gun with no opposable thumbs and a Dad using a glock as a spatula. https://t.co/mroUqzmNLh
— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) March 6, 2021
Or made Lana Del Rey jokes.
https://twitter.com/liam1969/status/1368247240557551617
Others pointed out the source of the image.
This is cover art from a playstation game making fun of you, so in that respect it's precisely your way of life: getting mocked constantly by everyone https://t.co/PnfTWyIkV5
— maple cocaine (@maplecocaine) March 6, 2021
And some pointed out this fun fact: The Twitter account for the social media service that boasts about unlimited free speech no matter what had turned off the post’s public replies.
https://twitter.com/SmilingObject/status/1368247913332154371