An old 4chan meme that is frequently boosted during mass shootings is getting a new, transphobic spin in the wake of a shooting in Nashville, Tennessee today.
The shooting occurred at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday, where a 28-year-old woman killed three adults and three children, according to police.
The meme is often used to trick and dupe media members and the public, accusing every mass shooting of being committed by comedian Sam Hyde. After the news from police that the mass shooter was a woman, a number of nefarious internet users began sharing a photo and identified the perpetrator as “Samantha Hyde.”
They’ve even photoshopped longer hair and removed a beard from the image of Hyde that frequently circulates, this time trying to accuse the victim of being trans.
“Nashville Police have positively identified the corpse of the suspected Nashville Covenant School shooter as 31 year old Samantha Hyde. Social media posts indicate Samantha was a trans woman who previously went by the name Samuel,” a version of the post circulating reads.
The meme dates back to at least the San Bernandino shooting in 2015 which killed 14 people. A U.S. congressman even fell for the meme after the Sutherland Springs church massacre in 2017 and told CNN that the gunman was Sam Hyde.
This time, the meme is being used to not only spread disinformation—but blame the trans community for committing the mass shooting at Nashville Covenant School.
The newest round of the meme seems to have started on Twitter and proliferated from there.
Other accounts picked up on the fake news, tweeting out screengrabs of the photoshopped image with the false information that Samantha Hyde was the shooter.
“ANOTHER PSYCHO DEMOCRAT WOUND UP BY LEFTIST RHETORIC,” wrote one account.
The post has whipped up anti-trans conservatives on the platform, providing fuel to the other users who were already questioning whether the shooter was transgender.
Tweets either alleging the shooter was trans or questioning the gender identity of the shooter have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
Police have not officially released the name of the shooter.
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Source: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/sam-hyde-4chan-meme-nashville/