Gushers Witches And ... Mitt Romney The surprise coalition backing Black

The protests over George Floyd’s death are unprecedented for a number of reasons – their size, their duration, their impact. But what’s also unprecedented is their diversity, and not just along the lines of race or geography. The core of the protests have been black activists taking to the streets – and they are the ones to thank for the results we’ve seen so far. But in this very online age, there have also been some less expected, fringe groups and allies lending their support, sometimes in very inventive ways. For example, K-Pop stans have been derailing racist hashtag campaigns with breathtaking efficiency, drowning them out with videos of their favorite singers.“TikTok witches” (who mostly consist of teen girls with great video skills and too much time on their hands) have also been casting “protective spells”, the effectiveness of which is yet to be seen. And Elmo and his dad – yes, he has a dad – have helped explain the protests in a way children can understand. This unlikely coalition hasn’t gone unnoticed, and has ended up inspiring some viral tweets:(The part about the Amish people isn’t accurate, but is based on a viral video that misidentified Church of God members.)It’s also led to this repurposing of the Avengers Endgame final battle. But what does this all mean? What are these disparate groups actually doing? Let’s have a look. Since the protests took off far-right trolls have tried to get a number of racist hashtags trending. But K-Pop stans have leaped into action before they can take off. Posting what’s known as “fancams” – fan-edited videos of their favorite K-Pop stars – they’ve already managed to drown out #WhiteLivesMatter and #WhiteOutWednesday by posting them alongside the hashtags – allegedly with some help from the hacker collective Anonymous. And the stans haven’t stopped there – they’ve also used their fancams to swamp an app designed by Dallas police to crowdsource videos of “illegal activity from the protests”. The app soon went down due to “technical difficulties”. The stans have even managed to match BTS’s donation of $1m to Black Lives Matter. Led by One in an ARMY (OIAA) – a fundraising group set up by BTS stans – they’ve so far raised over $1.2m. As well as donating $5m in support of Black Lives Matter, Nickelodeon went off air for 8m 46s last week – the amount of time Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck in the lead-up to his death. While it was off, a video promoting the civil rights group Color of Change aired in its place. In a Sesame Street town hall hosted on CNN, Elmo’s dad explained the protests by saying “Not all streets are like Sesame Street … What we are seeing is people saying ‘enough is enough.’ They want to end racism.” Although as one person noted, “I know this isn’t the point but why is Elmo on a Zoom call with his dad?”Elmo also made a very cute sign for the protests:The jury is still out on how effective the TikTok witches have been so far. Nonetheless they’ve been sharing videos in