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Never say fans can’t change the world; or at the very least, change the internet.
Donald Glover’s biggest fans have staged a mass takeover of a popular Donald Trump subreddit, simply referred to as The Donald. Note this isn’t the same subreddit as the massively popular, extremely problematic and notorious forum, The_Donald. Unlike The_Donald, which has more than 600,000 community members, The Donald boasts just over 16,000 members.
It’s also gone through a couple of major changes since it was first created.
The Donald started as an offshoot of The_Donald, creating a smaller community for people to join and, as many subreddits often do, acted as a backup just in case The_Donald went down. The Donald was then turned into a meme posting subreddit, often targeting Trump himself. In the past day or so, however, the subreddit has turned into a Donald Glover shrine. People post Glover related topics, memes or stories, and use the title of the post to get in a dig at the current president.
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“The Sub has embraced its true purpose, celebrating the best Donald there is,” one person wrote on the sub. “He’s beautiful. He’s talented. He don’t talk soft (that’s that other guy). He’s crass. He says whats on his mind. He rose from practically nothing. The great Don Glover. Amen.”
When another person asked what happened to the subreddit, another Redditor suggested that because of the sub’s distinct lack of moderation, the subreddit is allowed to become whatever the majority of people choose it to be.
Not everyone is as happy with the subreddit’s takeover, though. Trump supporters — or those who align themselves with Trump on Reddit — have flung common terms meant as insults at the subreddit’s newcomers. “SJW,” “libtard” and other phrases have started to appear in threads. The protest isn’t driving Glover fans away, however, and many are trying to figure out how to actually request a takeover for good — once the forum’s sole moderator takes a look at what’s happening.
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“The single mod has basically abandoned this sub, I doubt he’ll ever be back to do any actual moderating,” one Redditor said. “I’m just hoping he’s inactive for another 40 days (he’s been inactive for 20 so far) so we can request a subreddit takeover, but that will likely not happen.”
These things happen from time-to-time on Reddit, and they’re usually like little gifts of joy while we have them. Who could have predicted that we’d be suggesting moseying over to The Donald (remember: not The_Donald) and submitting your own Glover meme. The time has come.
