It's official, right-wingers are so obsessed with boycotts they're now eating their own. First, they launched a boycott against Christian-led, outspokenly Republican chicken chain Chick-Fil-A.
Now, they're turning on Hobby Lobby, the craft store so conservative it sparked a 2014 Supreme Court case that resulted in companies being allowed to deny employees health insurance coverage for birth control as mandated in the Affordable Care Act.
Who wants to bet Viagra was exempt from that...?
There is one major distinction between conservatives' boycott of Chick-Fil-A and their new bugaboo with Hobby Lobby, however. Whereas the former was based on an actual event—the company's formation of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion department—the latter is based on a prank that they all fell for.
Someone used AI to create photos of "Satanic" crafts on sale at Hobby Lobby. Conservatives have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
And boy howdy, are they hoppin' mad about it.
@black_indigenous7 Best believe there's statues like these all across the world especially in America. Welcome to Today's Show "WICKED WAYS" I'm Your Host 👉🏾 #black_indigenous7
The images show statues of Baphomet, an occult symbol many Christians believe to be Satanic, sitting on shelves of a craft store.
The pictures first appeared on the Reddit and Facebook accounts of their creator, Jennifer Vinyard, who used AI platform Midjourney to make them.
She posted them with the perfect one-liner.
“I think we need to talk about what is going on at Hobby Lobby… won’t somebody please think of the children!?"
Unsurprisingly, that line led them right into the hands of conservative Christians, despite the photos being posted in a Facebook group literally called AI Art Universe.
\u201cChristian based company?!? \u2066@HobbyLobby\u2069 \ud83d\ude33 NEVER AGAIN!\u201d— \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8Ultra MAGA Red pilled MAGAdonian \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8Ultra MAGA Red pilled MAGAdonian \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1686689315
People have been having fun egging right-wingers on with posts about the AI images.
\u201cwent to Hobby Lobby and not only are they selling baphomet statues, but they're TRANS baphomets\u201d— Arrow S. Morgan (@Arrow S. Morgan) 1686936187
\u201cme running around hobby lobby until the employees tell me where the baphomet merch is\u201d— ok, hunty (@ok, hunty) 1687293204
\u201c@ThinkingAtheist Fact-checking never was their thing in the first place.\u201d— The Thinking Atheist (@The Thinking Atheist) 1687050015
\u201c@ThinkingAtheist\u201d— The Thinking Atheist (@The Thinking Atheist) 1687050015
\u201cCompany that won a supreme court case enforcing that the employer's religious beliefs dictate employee's health care options (the employee's religious freedom does not matter) getting trolled in this way gives me joy.\u201d— Kurt Lawson (@Kurt Lawson) 1686951999
\u201c@ThinkingAtheist PT Barnum was right...but I think it may be more than one per minute.\u201d— The Thinking Atheist (@The Thinking Atheist) 1687050015
\u201cHOWLING \ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23\u201d— Natasha S. den Dekker (@Natasha S. den Dekker) 1686934927
\u201c@motherboard Oh lord. Well, folks run around half-cocked all the time it's pretty easy to set them off.\u201d— Motherboard (@Motherboard) 1686837027
\u201cfully support this category of deepfakes\u201d— Maybe: Fred Benenson (@Maybe: Fred Benenson) 1686837181
Seems the "do your own research" crowd is bad at doing research.
Erika Lee
