The 'Chimpire'
Along with countless others with entirely different interests, Reddit increasingly is providing a home for anti-black racists — and some of the most virulent and violent propaganda around. In November 2013, a hyper-racist subreddit called "GreatApes" was formed. Users posted epithet-strewn links to "news" stories of dubious origin that riffed on long established stereotypes about the black community. GreatApes was wildly popular and grew quickly, expanding into a much larger Reddit network called "the Chimpire," which was organized by a user known only by his or her posting name of "Jewish_NeoCon2."
"We feel it's time to expand our sphere of influence and lebensraum [the Nazi term for "living space"] on reddit. Thus we have decided to create 'the Chimpire,' a network of ****** related subreddits," Jewish_NeoCon2 wrote at the time. "Want to read people's experiences with ******s? There now is an affiliated subreddit for it. Want to watch chimp nature documentaries? We got it. ****** hate facts? IT'S THERE. … Oh yes you bet we got videos of ghetto ******s fighting each other. ****** drama on reddit? There's a sub. Sheboons? Gibsmedat."
Within a year, the Chimpire network had grown to include 46 active subreddits spanning an alarming range of racist topics, including "Teenapers," "ApeWrangling," "Detoilet," and "Chicongo," along with subreddits for both "TrayvonMartin" and "ferguson," each of them dealing with the controversial and highly publicized shooting deaths of unarmed black teenagers.
Then, last November, Reddit's most racist community evolved once again, adding the subreddit called c00nTown in the aftermath of a dispute between several top moderators at GreatApes. In just four days, c00nTown had reached 1,000 subscribers. And its popularity continues to grow.
According to Reddit Metrics, as of Jan. 6, there were 552,829 subreddits. c00nTown, with its 3,287 subscribers, ranked 6,279th, placing it in the top 2% of subreddits. It is the 680th fastest-growing subreddit on the site despite — or because of — violently racist material including a large number of threads dedicated to videos of black-on-black violence.
These gruesome videos show black men being hit in the head repeatedly with a hammer, burned alive, and killed in a variety of other ways. The subreddit's banner features a cartoon of a black man hanging, complete with a Klansman in the background. One fairly typical user, "Bustatruggalo" applauded the graphic violence as "[v]ery educational and entertaining." He or she continued on a separate thread: "I almost feel bad for letting an image like this fill me with an overwhelming amount of joy. Almost…."
Others, like user "natchil," were looking for still more. "Where is watchjewsdie?" this user wondered.