A Guide to Looking Like a Racist on Social Media

Illustration by Cei Willis.

Are you ready to reach a wider audience? Do you want to master the secrets of social media to help you do that? And most importantly, are you "not a racist but.."? If all three apply to you, you've come to the right place. We know that for the average bigot, social media can be an exciting yet confusing world to navigate, and a learning experience that leaves one with many questions. How can one spread their outlandish agenda on social media without getting kicked off the site in question? What are the quickest ways to let all of your 'friends' know that you're actually sort of a dick both on and offline?

Luckily for you, we'll be answering those questions and more for you today by looking to a recent, homegrown example of unabashed discrimination online. Last week, our very own MP Inger Støjberg posted this Facebook status, instantly providing us with a model example of how to offend people in record time. So without further adieu, read on for our Guide to Looking Like a Racist on Social Media: a step-by-step manual following Støjberg's example— teaching you all the tips and tricks you need to have up your sleeve so you can successfully appear bafflingly ignorant in the world of social media.

When you're first starting out on social media, it can often be challenging to express your true self to your audience using the limited arena of a Facebook status or a Tweet. However, social media is all about quality content: even one Facebook status should be enough to let your audience know just what kind of opinion you're all about—which is exactly what Inger Støjberg's post accomplished last week. For your benefit, here are just a few Støjberg-tested things you can write to instantly communicate your top-notch discrimination skills in merely a few lines.

Option A: Frame something annoying that all teenage boys do (being idiots in movie theatres) as something that only all immigrant teenage boys do.

Option B: Use your one remotely irritating experience with a group of boys who happened to not look Danish as proof that immigrants in Denmark are flawed and uncivilized compared to the rest of society.

Option C (if you're really feeling up for it): Patronize all immigrants by pseudo-generously offering to 'give them a chance'—as if immigrants are so inherently dangerous and damaged, they need to disprove the barbarism of their natures in the first place.

There are many more gold nuggets we can pull from Støjberg's example, but you really only have to utilize one of those three stellar options in order to come across as completely oblivious.

Once you've crafted your amazingly ignorant Facebook status, you can expect the outraged questions and comments to come flooding in. Now, if you were a regular person with a conscience, you would reply to some of these online inquiries from your audience so you could, you know, try to explain yourself or something. But you're not a regular person with morals now are you? You are reading this guide. So instead, you should do what Støjberg did and only respond with standardized, PR proof explanations to a handful of your many pissed off followers. Other than that, just don't reply to any comments or questions from your audience at all. Like, not even a measly 'lol' to any single comment out of 8, 441. You want to let people know you weren't kidding about coming across as that ignorant? Follow in Støjberg's steps and just ignore them. After all, nothing sends your audience a bigger 'fuck you' than pissing them off and then blatantly disregarding most of their reactions.

Screenshot via Den Korte Avis.

You've written a reasonably awkward status on social media, and you've attracted your audience by infuriating them, so what's next? Getting the media to notice you, of course. Naturally, it'll be easy to get plenty of media sources to criticize your remarkable foolishness, but you've got to make sure somebody writes about you who actually agrees with you (a tough feat, we know). Luckily for you, such a publication exists in Denmark and is all too happy to support your cause. Within a day of Støjberg posting her Facebook status, the ever-stereotyping-and-ever-ridiculous Den Korte Avis published this charming little op-ed piece—essentially taking Støjberg's comments to the next level by referring to young immigrant boys as a wild burden let loose on society, and by insinuating that Støjberg's commentaries are a much-needed slap on the wrist from civilized society (traditional 'Danes') to the uncivilized plebs (immigrants). So if you were worried that your own efforts on social media weren't enough to communicate your embarrassingly archaic thinking to your audience, don't worry. Den Korte Avis has got your back.

By now, you're well on your way to convincing your audience you lack any credibility as a public figure. So hey, might as well hammer that nail into your own coffin and give an interview that is exhaustingly ambiguous and only confuses people further. In a conversation with Politiken, Støjberg said she would have written the same statements had it been a group of Swedish boys acting like dicks in that movie theater, yet also said that in her experience, Swedish boys don't have this 'problem'. She also denied that her Facebook status is a generalization against immigrant teenagers, yet went on to remark that her comments apply to groups of immigrant teenagers outside of the ones she encountered in the movie theatre… which is, um, pretty much the definition of generalizing.

To conclude, we hope our guide has solved your questions and concerns about diving into the world of spreading bigotry and discrimination on the Internet. After all, just take a look at Støjberg's methods. By passively deflecting any pointed questions asking her to justify her comments, Støjberg managed to reveal her narrow-minded side and chip away at her reputation in one go. Because it's undeniable: the comments she inexplicably decided to blather last week are just ignorant—and unfortunately for Støjberg, there's zero credibility to ignorance.