Covington Catholic, “Hashtag Activism”, and the Dehumanizing Effect of ‘Fake News’

What the Internet’s reaction to a misleading video clip reveals about our society in 2019

A face that a mother loves, but also a face that a grown man wants to “punch”.

I had a relatively quiet weekend. This past week, I started up my final semester of my current graduate program. After a relaxing Christmas break, I returned to the daily grind — classes, research, writing, and some Xbox. I was able to sleep in late on Saturday morning, and upon waking up at noon, I instinctively grabbed my phone to check my messages, emails, and Twitter. As I scrolled down my timeline, I saw a video from the 2019 March for Life, featuring a young, white male wearing an infamous red hat, smiling in the face of an older Native American man, who was chanting and beating his drum. The now-deleted tweet containing the video was captioned, “Students from Covington Catholic High School harass Native American protester”. I watched the video clip. Immediately, I was filled with disgust. After reading through a few of the replies (“Wow, typical #MAGA losers”, “How DARE they disrespect the indigenous population!”, “His stupid smirk is the literal definition of white privilege”), I decided to take a stand, too. I quote-tweeted the video, and furiously typed my own commentary: “This is disgusting. A group of fatherless idiots harassing a Native American…