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This Mom's #HimToo Fail Birthed Some Truly Glorious Memes

"This is MY son."
Screenshot (L) via the wayback machine, and (R) via Wikipedia.

Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation has somehow inspired a depressing, misguided, and genuinely vile backlash against the #MeToo movement. The #HimToo hashtag, which was once used to support male victims of sexual assault, was co-opted by anti-MeTooers during the Kavanaugh hearings to frame men accused of rape as the real victims here, even though, you know, false rape allegations are actually insanely rare.

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But on Monday, one mom's awful #HimToo tweet about her son accidentally had some positive consequences, because it inspired the world to commandeer the hashtag and put it to good use again—by trolling the mom with some supremely good memes.

"This is MY son," Twitter user @MarlaReynoldsc3 wrote in the now-deleted tweet, which included a photo of her son in uniform, grinning and posing by a picnic table. "He graduated #1 in boot camp. He was awarded the USO award. He was #1 in A school. He is a gentleman who respects women. He won't go on solo dates due to the current climate of false sexual accusations by radical feminists with an axe to grind. I VOTE. #HimToo."

The responses came swiftly, like a sudden and merciless meme wave, and by God, they were glorious.

Unfortunately, the birth of the incredible "this is MY son" meme wasn't exactly welcomed by one person—the son who inspired the whole thing to begin with. According to a new interview with the Washington Post, 32-year-old Pieter Hanson was, uh, less than pleased when he realized his mom had tweeted out his photo without his knowledge. Not only is he not afraid to go on "solo dates," he said, he's also a self-described ally of the #MeToo movement, and not too happy to be the face of the opposition.

“It doesn’t represent me at all,” Hanson told the Post. “I love my mom to death, but boy… I’m still trying to wrap my head around all this.”

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Hanson had his family members reach out to his mom, who quickly deleted the tweet and her entire account, to boot, but the damage was done. At least the guy can still appreciate a good meme, even if it's kind of at his own expense.

The world may be an increasingly dark and depressing place, but at least we have the memes.

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