Too Famous to Protest: Far-Right Online Community Bonding Over Collective Desecration of Colin Kaepernick,Fame,and Celebrity Activism

Abstract

In 2016, National Football League (NFL) quarterback Colin Kaepernick began a high-profile protest of police brutality and mass incarceration that prompted outrage among far-right communities and media. Given the prominence and significance of Kaepernick’s protest, it is vital to study the far-right social media backlash that propelled boycotts of the NFL, drove news cycles, and positioned celebrity athletes as too privileged to protest oppression. My research is grounded in celebrity studies theory, sport media scholarship, and critical race theory. In this article, I establish the history of systemic racism in the United States that lingers in the microcosm of the NFL and sports media’s racist treatment of players; I then explore scholarship on celebrity, race, and power that provide a foundation for analyzing Kaepernick’s protest and the effort to desecrate his celebrity. Analysis of online far-right communities shows that Kaepernick functions as a target for collective far-right outrage, a focal point around which commenters could explore and define their common values, grievances, and identities.

Keywords

activism collective identity whiteness sports and media race

Introduction

Nobody really noticed when Colin Kaepernick first sat on the San Francisco 49ers team bench while the U.S. national anthem played at the start of a preseason game in 2016. The quarterback was out of uniform and off the starting lineup, so it was not until the third game that a reporter asked Kaepernick why he was not standing for the national anthem, as was customary for players in the National Football League (NFL). His response roiled the NFL and prompted intense debates about patriotism, mass incarceration, and racial discord as it reverberated through U.S. politics.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said. “To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” Branch, September 7, 2017.

Kaepernick altered his protest to kneel on the sidelines, in uniform, after his decision to sit during the anthem was criticized as disrespectful to military families. By kneeling, Kaepernick performed a more active protest that recalled previous athletes’ protests of raising fists and taking knees. Celebrity athletes—including basketball superstar LeBron James—have recently increased their public symbolic actions of solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, garnering praise from liberal audiences and drawing the ire of conservative critics. Yet, Kaepernick’s protest is more aligned with previous generations of athletes who purposefully protested during the playing of the U.S. national anthem, most notably Tommie Smith and John Carlos, whose protest at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City catapulted them into the limelight.

Given the significance of Kaepernick’s protest, it is vital to study the far-right social media backlash against him. Celebrities have long defended their right to engage in social activism by claiming that their fame creates a platform that carries a responsibility to address social issues. Yet, to some far-right critics, athletes’ celebrity status serves as a condition for denying them a voice in the political arena. In this study, I investigate the phenomenon in which fame itself is desecrated as a function of far-right cultural identity formation. My research is grounded in celebrity studies theory, sport media scholarship, and critical race theory. The process of celebrification—whereby ordinary people become celebrities—has been the subject of significant celebrity studies scholarship (see, e.g., Turner, 2004), but analyzing the desecration of celebrities and fame also illuminates social functions of celebrity culture.¹

In the following sections, I establish how the history of systemic racism in the United States lingers in the microcosm of the NFL and sports media’s racist treatment of players; I then explore scholarship on celebrity, race, and power that provide a foundation for analyzing Kaepernick’s protest and the effort to desecrate his celebrity. After discussing the major themes in the far-right media discourses about Kaepernick, I further conceptualize how the desecration of Kaepernick is the latest example of how far-right rhetoric circulates in wider and more prominent attacks on famous women and people of color who do not conform to conservative perspectives in an effort to punish them for failing to be adequately grateful for the privilege of being famous. Although anti-Black prejudice and racist comments are by no means confined to far-right media spaces, I argue that Kaepernick functions as a target for collective far-right outrage, a focal point around which commenters could explore and define their common values, grievances, and identities.

Racism in NFL Structures and Discourses

Sport leagues are integral to the sports media industrial complex in which military, corporate, and audience interests converge to produce sport celebrity (Silk, 2012). The NFL is legally categorized as a nonprofit organization yet functions as a multibillion-dollar coalition that generates profits for owners, players, and various other stakeholders. The NFL promotes players, controls their actions through behavior policies, and therefore engineers their fame to a certain extent. Although diverse audiences do consume the NFL, women and people of color are not the target audience. Rather, the NFL cultivates and caters primarily to conservative White male audiences. Scholars have found that the NFL is rife with racism, both in the structure of the league and in the media coverage of the league, from the draft to the in-game commentary, to sport news media. Racial hierarchies are stark in the NFL, with overwhelmingly White team owners, managers, and coaches in positions of power over majority Black players (Braddock et al., 2012). Furthermore, the position of quarterback that Kaepernick played was historically held exclusively by White men and only recently have Black quarterbacks become somewhat normalized in this key leadership role. The NFL carries vestiges of U.S. slavery and segregation in the rhetoric of ownership, the actions of the league, and the representation of Black male bodies.

When athletes are drafted into the NFL, they have typically already undergone years of intense scrutiny, objectification, and commodification as high school and college players. During the intensive draft process to select professional players, “A majority of these players are African American; a majority of those who evaluate them are white” (Oates & Durham, 2004, p. 304). Likening the enumeration of physical attributes when assessing players to colonial techniques of using science to categorize and rank populations by race, Oates and Durham (2004) point out the “logic of enumeration” permeates sports journalism, fan communities, and—interestingly—the fantasy leagues “in which fans are asked to imagine themselves as managers, organizing and deploying the increasingly black labour force” (Oates & Durham, 2004, pp. 307–308). Notably, fans then participate in the discourse of evaluation and ownership that Oates and Durham argue is rooted in eugenics and slavery—just as White slave owners asserted their power to measure, own, and control Black bodies, so too do White NFL stakeholders. Thus, “the use of statistics that marks the Draft serves to transform the mostly black prospects into commodities. The largely white, middle-class audiences are encouraged to use those statistics to compare prospects and determine their relative value” (Oates & Durham, 2004, p. 318).

Sportscasters, coaches, and fans reinforce power hierarchies through the language they use to describe players. Black players—in particular quarterbacks—are described primarily in terms of physical attributes and deemed to be naturally talented, but not mentally capable, while White players are described as intelligent and hardworking, with less emphasis on their bodies (Mercurio & Filak, 2010). King (2008) notes that audiences and commentators also routinely treat Black players as thugs who are undeserving of wealth and fame and incapable of middle-upper class respectability. This is indicative of the “racial logic that structures the American public’s love–hate relationship with professional Black male athletes and its often self-righteous and duplicitous critique of their supposedly brattish behavior and outlandish lifestyles” (King, 2008, pp. 531–532). With imagined possession comes what my analysis will show is a perception of being empowered to also desecrate the Black celebrity athletes who fans deem undeserving of the fame that they have been allowed to enjoy. In the following section, I situate the racialized and political aspects of the NFL within a larger far-right media ecosystem.

U.S. Far-Right Cultural Identity and Media

The NFL has long been associated with conservative politics and patriotism, most notably including the league’s decision in the 1960s to align itself with the Nixon administration by formalizing the playing of the national anthem prior to games in a show of institutional solidarity against anti-Vietnam War protests (Jenkins, 2018). In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, the NFL and U.S. government collaborated to enhance the prominence of militarized patriotism throughout all aspects of the league (Silk, 2012). The NFL “had shifted its philanthropic efforts toward militaristic and patriotic projects, some carried out in collaboration with the Bush administration,” and the mutually beneficial partnership between the U.S. military and the NFL has only increased in the years since (King, 2008, p. 528). Through special events, promotional materials, displays of military equipment, and staged demonstrations of player support for soldiers, the NFL undertook a concerted and lucrative partnership with various departments of the U.S. government that resulted in a “a neatly crafted synergy in which […] the NFL develops its markets by an association with a presidency—and a particular strand of racialized nationalism” (King, 2008, p. 538). The “synergy” between the NFL and governmental institutions continues unabated as some NFL owners are connected with the Trump administration through years-long business partnerships, donations to Trump’s inauguration events, and support for his candidacy (McCann, 2018). When Trump blamed falling viewership on Kaepernick’s protest, acquiescence to Trump was described as a business decision on the part of NFL owners (Van Bibber, 2018).

When the history of structural racism in the NFL is considered contiguous with a complex far-right media ecosystem, the lens of celebrity theory and critical race theory makes it clear that the backlash against Kaepernick’s protest was quintessential to far-right cultural identity formation (Berlant, 1997; Hawley, 2018). Through nostalgia for an idealized precivil rights era America, far-right ideologues valorize racial segregation, espouse open allegiance to White supremacy, and advocate a patriarchal world order (Blee & Creasap, 2010). Far-right ideology is one of grievance against perceived others and fear of threats to established power hierarchies (Hughey, 2012).

The far-right media ecosystem is increasingly recognized as intensely popular and profitable, as well as far more “mainstream” than previously acknowledged (Burack & Snyder-Hall, 2012). Through analyses of what they deem a “propaganda feedback loop,” Benkler et al. (2018) argue that

the American media ecosystem consists of two distinct, structurally different media ecosystems. One part is the right-wing, dominated by partisan media outlets that are densely interconnected and insular and anchored by Fox News and Breitbart. The other part spans the rest of the spectrum. (p. 75)

Fox News routinely garners the highest ratings in U.S. cable news and its hosts consistently rank as the most viewed, shaping conservative politics. Internet blogs and news outlets such as The Daily Stormer, The Independent Journal Review, and Breitbart, as well as forums and threads on reddit, Twitter, and Facebook, draw millions of clicks daily and are central to right-wing politics and culture. As Burack and Snyder-Hall (2012) point out, “Fox News and other conservative media sources not only popularize and inspire conservative activism; they also deliberately disseminate misinformation” (p. 449). Misinformation and conspiracy theories originate in the far-right blogs and social media spaces that make no claims to journalistic integrity but are then picked up and circulated in outlets such as Fox News that validate and normalize the misinformation.

The rise of the “Alt Right” is inextricably entangled with internet and meme culture (Burley, 2017). By heavily utilizing memes, trolling, and a “snarky and angry tone,” Alt Right online spaces “have been digitized in an ironic social media echo chamber” (Burley, 2017). Introduced in 2008 by Richard Spencer as a “catch-all” term for a new generation of right-wing ideology,

Starting in 2015, the Alt Right broadened out from a small intellectual circle as a much wider array of online activists embraced the term. Many of these newer Alt Rightists were based in discussion websites such as Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan. Some of them, such as Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer, brought neonazi-based politics into the movement. (Lyons, 2018).

As Lyons argues, while there is nuance among Alt Rightists, the movement coalesces around “naked bigotry,” anti-Semitism, “an intensely misogynistic ideology,” a belief that homosexuality is “immoral,” and “classical fascism’s elitist and antidemocratic views of governance” (Lyons, 2018). Far-right populism is characterized by “producerism” that opposes people who are deemed “unproductive” to society; demonization and scapegoating of perceived Others; perpetuation of conspiracy theories; and belief in apocalyptic narratives (Berlet & Lyons, 2000). Far-right populist messages privilege “ordinary” (i.e., White, masculine, rural, working-class) identities in opposition to “scapegoated out-groups” such as immigrants, women, and people of color circulate (Hameleers & Schmuck, 2017). Targeting and criticizing perceived others is central to right-wing populism as “elite and non-elite populist actors alike use online platforms to draw attention to the claims, behaviors, and alleged character of the outgroups and their members” (Kramer, 2017, p. 1298). In theorizing online right-wing populism, Kramer (2017) argues that “strategic ambiguity” both shields populists from criticism and represents a kind of folksy realism because “if their messages are then met with criticism and hostility, this is paradoxically seen as evidence that those who really speak in the name of ordinary people are being censored and attacked” (p. 1300). In fact, the trolling and ambiguity both function to rile opponents and provide cover for bigotry across numerous topics.

In 2013, Breitbart launched a sports site that “presents hyperpartisan hard-right agendas promoting U.S. superiority and militarism, sporting exceptionalism, the Christian right, cultural conservatism, White victimhood, and promoted Donald Trump whilst decrying opponents and rivals” (Falcous et al., 2019, p. 604). Breitbart Sports—and indeed the broader far-right media ecosystem—represent the “resilience of persistent White power,” particularly in sport (King et al., 2007, p. 4). White power persists in sport as “deeply racialized force fields shape the meaning and movement of bodies, subjectivities, commodities, pleasures, and games across playing fields—as well as classrooms, courtrooms, markets, and media spectacles” (King et al., 2007, p. 3). While Breitbart Sports’ “framing casts sport as cultural battleground, a framing that is filled with resentment and anxiety” on the part of White, far-right audiences (Falcous et al., 2019, p. 606), Carrington (1998) has argued that sport offers a site of Black masculine resistance to racism. Given the oppressive legacies of slavery and colonialism, “it is not surprising then that it is the traditionally highly masculinized arena of sports through which Black men often attempt to (re)assert their Black identity” (Carrington, 1998, p. 280).

Racialized Celebrity Achievements and Presumed Intimacy

Black celebrities in the United States have been historically marginalized from the upper echelons of celebrity status and found their fame to be highly contingent upon their willingness to conform to conservative politics or to remain apolitical. According to Sarah Jackson, “The celebrity status of African Americans is particularly tenuous given the ways it overlaps with racialized discourse that apply simplified notions of good versus bad, deserving versus undeserving, and threatening versus docile blackness in multiple public spheres” (2014, p. 9). It is vital to foreground how whiteness and institutional racism strongly influence the status of Black celebrities. Not only have White producers and stars dominated media industries, but “Celebrity culture both illuminates and obscures the reality that the history of the Black body in North America is fundamentally linked to the history of whiteness” (Yancy, 2008, p. xvi). Therefore, how White audiences and media industries articulate whiteness has bearing on how Black celebrities—in this case, Kaepernick—achieve and maintain fame.

Athletes are commonly recognized by celebrity scholars as achieving their celebrity status through measurable physical accomplishments and talents. Rojek (2001) argues that fame is more readily recognized as achieved by sport stars by virtue of their talent. However, the history of audiences denying Black athletes the recognition that they have legitimately achieved their success undercuts the rationality of sport as a celebrity meritocracy. Mediated fixations on Black athletes as animalistic, undeserving, and ungrateful subverts their claims to legitimacy on and off the field of play.

Presumed Intimacy and Ownership

Having established the histories of institutional racism in the NFL, far-right, and celebrity industries, I will now consider three tenets of celebrity theory that structure my analysis of far-right audience denigration of Colin Kaepernick. First, for at least a decade, audiences have been cultivated via social media to feel connected to celebrities who perform their charismatic personae online (Marwick & Boyd, 2011; Marshall, 2010). Second, Rojek’s conceptualization of “new relations of presumed intimacy” compels us to interrogate the connectedness of audiences and celebrities. Third, as Turner (2004) points out, celebrity is a commodity. In the case of the NFL, the athlete is owned—even as the team owners, the sponsors, the fans, all fight over ownership rights—and the league has significant power over the celebrity. To paraphrase (Dyer, 1986), the celebrity athlete is, in very tangible ways, the “property” (p. 5) of the NFL. Therefore, when the NFL turned against its property—Colin Kaepernick—it did so in large part because he threatened the revenue of owners and the sensibilities of far-right stakeholders. If, as scholars contend, celebrities and audiences exist in a purposeful mediated relationship of sorts in which the celebrity is a commodity and the audience is cultivated to feel a sense of intimacy and power over the celebrity, it is particularly instructive to examine the power that audiences may claim for themselves in desecrating fame and attempting to silence stars.

When considered through the lens of Rojek’s (2014) “presumed intimacy,” the racialized language of ownership and closeness takes on a sinister connotation. The darker side of presumed intimacy and the conceptualization of celebrities as commodities is to acknowledge that some audiences express a sense of ownership over celebrity, which, as discussed earlier, takes on the racialized language of slave plantation ownership in the context of the NFL. With presumed intimacy, audiences also may express feelings of not just being connected to celebrities but to having rights over celebrities. Paramount to examining the far-right’s desecration of Colin Kaepernick’s celebrity is questioning: Who thinks they are responsible for creating fame and feels entitled to own, control, or destroy a celebrity? Who benefits from policing the privilege of whether a person can be elevated to fame?

Method

Textual analysis is an ideal method for examining power dynamics in the complex nexus of right-wing media. By using a constant comparative approach to select a wide range of media texts, my analysis seeks to discern “latent meaning” and deconstruct subtexts through “a radical questioning of underlying assumptions of a text by exposing internal inconsistencies” (Fürsich, 2009, p. 240). Covering the time frame from Kaepernick’s first protest in 2016 until the release of the NFL protest policy in 2018, I collected approximately 100 articles and thousands of tweets and comments before narrowing down to approximately 300 items to focus on in this article.

First, through searches of news sites and databases, I collected high-profile far-right media content that featured public criticism of Kaepernick by prominent politicians, NFL team owners, celebrity athletes, and pundits. I identified and critically analyzed far-right blogs and news outlets such as The Daily Stormer, Independent Journal Review, InfoWars, and Breitbart that covered Kaepernick’s protest—collecting articles and blog posts as well as comment threads. Second, I collected Twitter content that included the hashtags #TakeAKnee and #IStand, as well as mentions of @ColinKae (Kaepernick’s verified Twitter handle) and tweets that included the words “fame” and “Kaepernick.” In the following analysis, I first discuss the ways in which Kaepernick is denigrated as a person and player before addressing how audiences who participated in conversations in far-right media spaces bond over shared animosities and values. As reported here, the decision has been made to quote representative items that are not necessarily the most obscene and violent in order not to sensationalize the discourse or distract from the substantive themes identified during analysis.

Collective Desecration of Colin Kaepernick

Far-right discourse about Kaepernick coalesced to form a collective narrative about why Kaepernick was undeserving of fame. Each of Kaepernick’s intersectional identities was fodder for desecration. Simply stated, the case against Kaepernick was that his identities—his race, masculinity, religion, politics, adoption as a baby, wealth, and appearance—were all grounds for criticism and disqualified him from being deserving of fame. Therefore, by this logic, he should be grateful for status bestowed upon him by benevolent audiences and institutions and not challenge the status quo; by challenging his audience’s expectations and the power of social institutions, he has demonstrated a misuse of his fame and a lack of gratitude and should therefore be punished by having his fame and wealth revoked. The process of granting and revoking celebrity status is a catalyst for far-right cultural identity formation and community bonding. What follows is an analysis of how each component of this case is made against Kaepernick in far-right media spaces.

Creating a Racist Race Traitor

Writers of articles, comments, and tweets routinely described Kaepernick as an anti-White racist for criticizing criminal justice institutions that are dominated by White officers and primarily incarcerate people of color. In deploying the standard argument that criticisms of institutional racism are a form of prejudice against Whites, far-right media outlets sought to portray Kaepernick as an anti-White racist. They sought to depict him as guilty by association with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which they deem a racist anti-White movement.

This was spawned by Barack Obama and his corrupt and racist Justice Department. That moron is a Black Lives Matter moonbat! Ban that racist loon for life from the NFL and put him in a lunatic asylum for the rest of his miserable racist life. @NueeArdente, 2017, InfoWars comment

Here is a black man that was raised by white people after his black family abandoned him. Gave him a life he would of never had. Then he turned around and blamed all his problems on white people and cops. @mikeandynothem, October 15, 2017, tweet

There is diversity, but we stand. We know Kaepernick’s assertations by themselves are racist and anti police officer. #MAGA. @PTFrancisco31, October 26, 2017, tweet

However, Kaepernick’s identity as a biracial man (with a White birth mother and Black birth father) who was adopted and raised by White parents complicates the effort to treat him as racist against Whites. Therefore, a related claim was deployed to ridicule him as a “race traitor” who was betraying his White identity and White adoptive parents.

Kaepernick and Obama both very angry that their own fathers blew them off, and then take it out on the rest of us #MAGA. @mikevalleyct, October 21, 2017

Kap is black? I thought he was Hispanic. All I know is Hap was raised by white parents in a suburban rich white home. His parents made sure he had good grades (reportedly he had a 4.0 in HS). He’s closer to a snowflake liberal in terms of upbringing than someone facing adversity in the inner city. He’s not the right person to be speaking out about BLM issues. @Jon, 2018

Whether emphasizing his whiteness, blackness, or ethnic ambiguity, commenters centered much of their animus toward Kaepernick on his racial identity. Although it is evident that many critics denigrated Kaepernick’s race and family as a means of protecting their notions of whiteness, they also asserted a lack of racism and relied upon dog whistles and the strategic ambiguity that Kramer (2017) identified as characteristic of far-right online communication. Thus, they assert that some types of diversity are acceptable while accusing Kaepernick of racism that targets Whites and, by proxy, American national identity.

Religious Radical

In the months leading up to his protest, Kaepernick began dating Nessa Diab, a radio and television host in San Francisco who was raised in Saudi Arabia and identifies as Muslim. Although Kaepernick did not avow a conversion to Islam, his critics deployed Islamophobic taunts to claim that he was Muslim and to then wield that presumed identity against him.

He just converted to Islam, so hating America is obligatory. Darth Durden aka Jubal, 2017

They found another sucker. I guess the black experience wasn’t working for him. The biggest slave traders in the world were and are the Arabs who are Muslim. You would think he might have considered this. @tetse, 2017

Colin Kaepernick appears to be converting to Islam which would explain the ugly beard and hatred of America. @MistralWinds, August 28, 2016

The Islamophobic line of attack against him was further conflated with accusations that he is “communist” and “Marxist,” all in a fashion that treated him as a foreign other, despite his being born in the United States to American parents and spending his entire life in the United States.

Emasculated “Thug”

In addition to using his relationship with Diab to attack him as a foreign other, her perceived influence over him was also fodder for ridiculing his masculinity. In the hypermasculine realm of NFL fandom and far-right media, denigrating Kaepernick as being weak and under the influence of a powerful woman became a common tactic for emasculating him.

How much of the money […] will be given to Pro Terrorist Middle Eastern organizations at the bequest of his girlfriend? How much will be used to get more tattoos. @TheBigKitty, 2018

@GalGadot is more of a man than Kaepernick and she is all woman. Sher served in the militar and her work ethic makes this whiney professional victim and racist look like the spoiled mental insect he is #TakeTheKnee #MAGA #NFLboycot. @TeddyDavis4, November 13, 2017

While reducing Kaepernick to the stereotype of a tattooed “thug” may seem at first to contradict efforts to emasculate him, a close reading reveals the insidious way that Black men have been both dehumanized and emasculated in relation to powerful women of color for centuries. Casting Kaepernick as both an unruly savage on the one hand and as under the sway of his girlfriend on the other hand reinforces centuries-old stereotypes of Black men in the United States.

Transformed Appearance

Numerous posters commented on Kaepernick’s physical attributes, scrutinizing him and passing judgment on his body, face, and hair in a way that is unsurprising in the context of a sport that—as Oates and Durham (2004) illuminated in their analysis of the draft—encourages audiences to do so. Commenters scrutinized his body, face, and hair, most commonly denigrating him as animalistic, using racial stereotypes.

Kaepernick’s hair should be declared a wild life sanctuary. God only knows what lives in there.@ Dr. Rieux, aka Deplorable Duck, 2018

One of the most common criticisms—in addition to the aforementioned derision of his tattoos and nose—focused on his hair. During his college playing days, Kaepernick kept his hair close-cropped but later wore his hair plaited and had grown a full afro by the time he began protesting. The afro—as a symbol of Black pride and militancy since at least the civil rights era—rankled White critics who used it to denigrate him as uncivilized and animalistic, reinforcing centuries of stereotypes.

Self-Indulgent and Ungrateful

Commenters routinely dismissed Kaepernick’s actions as the self-indulgent behavior of a spoiled, privileged celebrity who lacked direct experiences with hardship—particularly military sacrifice.

Gold Star mom Amanda Jacobs on Colin Kaepernick: ‘Colin Kaepernick was getting paid $14 million dollars a year to throw a ball. My son died for $14,000 a year and he’s given more than any football player, any athlete, has ever given’. @realsaavedra, 2019, tweet

You are being paid $14 million dollars a year to sit on the bench and not play because you suck and no one else in the NFL wants your sorry azz. NJMan, 2016, InfoWars comment

Heard he came from the mean streets where there was a Starbucks and Gap on every corner. Iwillfindyou, 2017, InfoWars comment

The tendency to view Kaepernick as particularly fortunate for having been adopted into privilege and elevated to fame and wealth despite what critics characterized as his extensive flaws led to the common conclusion that Kaepernick was both unworthy and ungrateful. Specifically, social media commentators believed him to be inadequately grateful for his adoption, his status, and his country. Kaepernick’s lack of deference to the criminal justice institutions was treated as “shaming the country that has given him everything” (Gwinn, 2017). Very specific criticisms of being too lazy to register to vote supported denigrate him as a lesser citizen.

A pathetic vulgar ungratrful. Welp.ADOPTED BY WHITES WHO RAISED HIM WITH THEIR CULTURE AND HIS. PAID OUT THE WAZOO FOR HIS DREAMS AS GOOD PARENTS DO. AND HE BETRAYED THEM UNGRATEFUL UNWILLED PROOF. NO SOUL NO HEART ALL IN THE BAD SEED CALLED DNA. doloreseilerts, 2018, InfoWars comment

Maybe he and his bro’s should realize that their good fortune comes from a game created by Upstanding White Americans, not Unpatriotic, Non-Conformist, Hyphenated Ones. What’s going to happen when Black Muslim Athletes will have to run around holding a ‘Pig’ Skin. Heard that his mother hates what he’s doing - must be the white genes. JOEYfromIWOJIMA, 2017, InfoWars comment.

Discourses about gratitude are historically racialized, as most evident in the reference in the previous quote to “DNA.” It is unclear whether the previous tweet is using the slang “welp” in place of the word “well” to make a transition or whether it is a misspelling of “whelp” in an effort to describe Kaepernick in animalistic terms. The framing of Kaepernick and other Black sport celebrities as unworthy of fame harkens to the specific language of racial denigration that has structured centuries of oppression in the United States. Racial slurs as well as strategic deployment of terms such as “uppity” and “ungrateful” are as common as the erasure of Black athletes’ achievements compared with White athletes. It is unsurprising, then, that far-right social media, news reports, blogs, and comments are filled with a stew of explicitly racist slurs, thinly veiled racism, and White supremacy. The spewing of slurs and hate speech demonstrates visceral rage in social media and news comment threads, which contrasts with the more measured, but no less racially charged long-form blog and news pieces.

The racist treatment of Kaepernick aligns with a long history of some viewers denying Black athletes the dignity of having legitimately achieved their status. For viewers, who have been interpellated as owners by the NFL and sports media—while also being hailed as racially superior by far-right media and politicians—making racist comments about Kaepernick is not too far removed from the sanctioned discourses that NFL fans, sports commentators, athletes, coaches, and other stakeholders routinely engage in. Many critics of sport and politics have argued that Kaepernick’s fame is deserved—that he achieved it through athletic ability first and activism second. His detractors on the far-right disagree vehemently. My analysis shows that far-right audiences perceive celebrity as ascribed by fans, the NFL, and indeed the nation and therefore able to be rescinded as punishment by audiences who believe they have the right to expect Kaepernick’s silence in return for his celebrity status.

No, it’s not the blows on the head … It’s just that he is a ‘flash-in-the-pan’, ‘washed-up-at-an-early-age’ punk. Never liked this clown even in his early years at Nevada. The overdone tatts, gang-banger look, and the scowl on his face always spelled … PUNK to me. @Johnnyrh, 2016, tweet

He was ‘supremely skilled at his job’? Lol he led the 49ers to their worst record in team history. These people are delusional. Kev, 2018, Brietbart comment

For far-right opponents of Kaepernick, sport is not always a functioning meritocracy—fame is earned by some—mostly White—athletes, but an ill-gotten status for those who are deemed undeserving on the basis of race, religion, sexuality, or political viewpoints. So, while Kaepernick’s celebrity is treated as a privilege of which he is undeserving, the addition of racist language clarifies that audiences believe him to be specifically unworthy of celebrity because of his skin color. Fame, therefore, is once again shown to be inadequate to protect against oppression. Business and sport celebrity are, theoretically, bound up in meritocracy, but racism breaks down that façade—merit is less important than ideology and bigotry. The power of celebrity itself is delegitimized as audiences claim power over celebrities.

Far-Right Cultural Identity Formation and Community Bonding

The criticisms hurled at Kaepernick culminate in the routine use of the term loser to render Kaepernick unworthy of his prestige/visibility and therefore disqualified from protesting. Treating Kaepernick as a “loser” is one of the most prevalent and important aspects of far-right criticism because of what it reveals about the posters. For Kaepernick’s critics, scoring victories against the “loser” Kaepernick is paramount. Even as the former player racks up wins—in the form of awards and notoriety—his detractors gloat over his absence from the NFL and the falling television ratings for games. His wins are in fact used to support their ridicule of liberals whom they believe have elevated someone unworthy of fame.

An examination of the power relations between celebrities, audiences, and institutions that accounts for centuries of racialized power dynamics reveals that the backlash to Colin Kaepernick’s protest was a complex performance of far-right cultural identity formation. As a celebrity who had stepped out of the place the far-right expected him to stay, he was a common enemy to attack; thus, his desecration contributed to their group cohesion.

Anti-Fandom

One way that the far-right performs its cultural identities is by acting as antifans of left-leaning celebrities because “anti-fandom [can be] caused and triggered by fandom” (Theodoropoulou, 2007, p. 318). So, in the context of sport, we could consider how antifans who love a rival team but oppose the 49ers might loathe Kaepernick. However, this does not fully explain the hatred expressed toward Kaepernick; this conceptualization does not tell the whole story of far-right agitators whose antifandom is triggered by love of a specific type of patriotism and hatred of a specific type of protest. (2007) posits that antifans and fans alike enjoy their rivalries—in studying the far-right response to Kaepernick, there is a seeming enjoyment of the antagonism between conservatives and liberals as well. The slippage between sport and politics is evident in the way that commenters slide quickly from discussing Kaepernick in the language of sport and celebrity into sharing their political views about immigration, conspiracy theories, racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-liberalism.

Anti-Liberal Talking Points

Many commenters are ideological opponents of Kaepernick first and then use the language of antifandom to justify their position. Or, perhaps even more accurately, they are fans of Donald Trump and antifans of his opponents, including Colin Kaepernick. The hashtag #MAGA and others like #TakeBackYourCountry are routinely used in tweets and comments to contrast hatred of Kaepernick with support of Trump. Comparisons to Obama—another biracial man reviled by the far-right—served to further solidify the narrative of Kaepernick’s unworthiness. Speculation abounded that Kaepernick was influenced by the “radical” politics of “King Barack the First.” The backlash against Kaepernick often includes unfavorable comparisons with other celebrities—especially celebrities of color—of whom the far-right does not approve.

The Left’s oppressive social engineering has young black males mass murdering each other. And they’re w Kaepernick against cops. #MAGA. @CarmineZozzora, October 9, 2017, tweet

Hanoi Jane and Colin ‘Chia Pet’ Kaepernick should start an anti-American fan club and invite Bowe Bergdahl to be its charter member. #MAGA. @stevedmiller, October 17, 2017, tweet

Don’t vote. Don’t engage your local govt to solve local problems. Wear a Fidel Castro Shirt. Wear a black panthers shirt. Wear socks depicting cops as pigs. Disrespect our flag during America’s anthem. In liberal eyes, You are CITIZEN of THE DECADE!. jollyjoker1, 2018, InfoWars comment

It’s Liberalpalooza - #Kaepernick is citizen of the year and Bruce Jenner is woman of the year. @KeelsUS, November 13, 2017, tweet

Oh, of course there will be a bit about how much krappernick has ‘suffered for the cause’ crap in there as well. @Maranatha, 2018, InfoWars comment

The corrupting of Kaepernick’s name into an obscenity of “Krapernick” also became a common shorthand for insulting him and by association any other “libs” who are deemed “idiots.” Celebrity foes become almost interchangeable as commenters vent their dislike of liberal elites generally. The commenters have successfully manipulated the message of Kaepernick’s protest by dismantling the original intent of the protest and presenting opposing information about police brutality and systemic racism.

Conspiracy Theories

Bonding over shared grievances and conspiracy theories that are only tangentially connected to Kaepernick’s protests dominates threads about him. Racist, Islamaphobic, hypermasculine language clarifies that audiences believe him to be specifically unworthy of celebrity. By analyzing long comment threads, I was able to see how the far-right also ties itself in knots trying to reconcile their extreme antipathy toward Kaepernick with their various seemingly unrelated conspiracy theories and grievances. Down thread, Kaepernick was a target for commenters to lob their existing hatreds against: Claims that with short hair he looked Jewish facilitated anti-Semitic curses, his Afro inspired anti-Black references, his wealth triggered anti-elite rants, his allegiance to socialism elicited conspiracy theories, his Muslim girlfriend sparked Islamaphobia, and his every failure was evidence of his unworthiness and cause for speculating about his position within larger social conspiracies. The variety of attacks wielded against him demonstrates how disjointed and diverse far-right media spaces can be, as Jewish identity can be attacked by some while strategic allegiance to Israel can be claimed by others.

Where is the ACLU for Kate Steinly? Her civil rights were violated by a 5 time illegal deportee and SHE IS DEAD? @Beach girl, 2018, InfoWars comment

BLM IS a racist, hate group that is highly respected by our former racist PRez Obama. NEVER have you seen them protest, march or even verbally condemn when a black kills another black EVEN when the victim is a black child. @Navy Chief (ret.), 2018, InfoWars comment

References to George Soros, Obama, #BlackLivesMatter, sanctuary cities, and the ACLU—all staples of left-wing politics—in the context of criticizing Kaepernick positions him as only one piece of a vast liberal conspiracy. Placing Kaepernick in the company of other activist athletes, one post on Breitbart noted that “the activists who fill the ranks of the mainstream sports media care far more about leftist political activism than they do sports” (Gwinn, 2017).

Across multiple sites, commenters tended to stray away from discussions of Kaepernick and toward seemingly unrelated issues of importance within far-right values. Numerous posts veered into discussions of far-right conspiracy theories—mostly that the 9/11 attacks and the mass school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school were both faked by the U.S. government. Lengthy comment threads started with posters denigrating Kaepernick but evolved into posters attempting to prove their own superior knowledge about the conspiracy theories and historical context. Attempts to define such concepts as “White racism” and “Black privilege” included references and command of the minutiae of White supremacy history and sources. Through the use of insider terms, classism, racism, and attempts to establish legitimacy of their standing within the far-right online community, they also policed community boundaries and argued over who belonged on the forums. One exchange on InfoWars in 2017 is telling:

@Gotham1883: Kaps treason and those who support it are all good reasons to stock up on ammo and food big time.

@James from Miami: To gotham 1883, it is trolls like you that want to make all of us who are supporters of Alex Jones, and Infowars.com, look like a bunch of crazy hateful racist paranoid right wing nuts. If that was your missions, then you failed, miserably. Go tell that to that witch Hitlery, or Rachel “Giraffe Neck” Madcow.

Posters tried to identify interlopers—liberals who might be invading conservative space—by tripping each other up on insider knowledge and making claims that some posters may be liberal “plants” or “bots.”

Righteousness and Patriotism

Throughout the posts and threads on Infowars, Breitbart, and other far-right websites, performing conservative Christian religion and American patriotism dominated.

Yes, and we who stand up for a culture of life and upholders of the US Constitution and MAGA also have ‘an obligation no matter the risk, and regardless of reward, to stand up for our fellow men and women who are being oppressed by the liberal, lying, vicious, violent, intolerable and racist left! @John Baxter, 2018, InfoWars comment

Evidence is Chicago where the Blacks kills each other daily & democrap mayor is a bff w/Obummer the lefts messiah. Remember TIME mags halo over Obummers head? Btw2012 DNC voted GOD out of party platform. Our GOD IS a vengeful GOD. Dems are going down. @coniljw, 2018, InfoWars comment

Spoiled rich celebrities pretending they have social agenda for attention make me ill. Tell you what Cap … Go visit somalia and africa and the middle east … better yet go meet with Kim Jung … then compare that to the US. @NueeArdente, 2016, InfoWars comment

Perhaps most explicitly, this theme constructed a stark contrast between the posters who identified as far-right patriots and the people they positioned as less worthy “others.”

THE NFL WILL GET THE shaft IT IT CONTINUES TO KISS KAEPERNICK’S AFRO ASS! !!! WHEN fans STOP PAYING TO WATCH THE IDIOT DEFAME OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM AND FLAG. TheEPClark, 2016, Infowars comment

As the NFL struggled to determine how kneeling players would be dealt with, it became the new target of far-right anger as they threatened to boycott the league. Posters claimed for themselves the power to destroy the league and individual players’ careers if their wishes were not followed and celebrated when any perceived victory was scored.

Community Bonds and Boundaries

The wide-ranging, sometimes tangential discussions in responses to news and blog postings about Kaepernick demonstrate that he functions to promote community building and support cultural identity. Turner (2004), in discussing the limitations of taxonomies that categorize but “tend to underestimate the importance of the interests of those who consume celebrity, focusing instead on elaborating the character of the celebrity itself,” notes celebrity’s “implication in the construction and definitions of cultural identity” (p. 21). By analyzing the backlash against Kaepernick and his position within broader far-right attacks on liberal celebrities, “ … the celebrity’s role as a location for the interrogation and elaboration of cultural identity” becomes clear (Turner, 2004, p. 24). The participatory act of criticizing Kaepernick’s star persona in comment threads is akin to the function of celebrity gossip as a conversational catalyst for audiences (Ralph, 2014). Although gossip is historically treated as a function of feminine relationships, men and boys also engage in the practice of gossip. Studying hypermasculine media spaces—in this case far-right forums—may offer insights into the myriad forms of social bonding that takes place through gossip about celebrity appearances, relationships, politics, and careers.

Gatekeeping Celebrity Capital

The backlash against Colin Kaepernick’s protest is pivotal to the far-right politics of gatekeeping. For far-right audiences who perpetuate the online desecration of Kaepernick’s celebrity, fame is treated as a privilege bestowed upon the quarterback through no genuine talent, but by the grace of audiences who have the right to expect his political silence in return for his status. Using the language of ownership prevalent throughout NFL culture, these antifans express the belief that by having participated in elevating athletic stars, they have a stake in that star’s persona. Driessens’ (2013) articulation of the power struggles over celebrity capital transference offers valuable insights: “The conversion of celebrity capital into another kind of capital does not always go unnoticed or without resistance since it can disrupt the relative value of the different kinds of capital and the corresponding power dynamics within social fields” (Driessens, 2013, p. 555).

Having been bestowed with celebrity and economic capital, far-right audiences seem to suggest that this should be enough, so Kaepernick should be grateful and not allowed to transfer his capital to the political realm. For these audiences who oppose Kaepernick’s action, his fame is contingent on his willingness to fulfill audience expectations and is therefore subject to their approval.

Many of the posts criticizing Kaepernick align with far-right audiences’ tendencies to target progressive celebrities who challenge a conservative worldview. Since at least the early 2000s, the far-right in the United States has cultivated a media environment in which celebrities who identify as members of marginalized groups are targeted as undeserving of their fame if they dare to espouse political views that challenge conservative audiences. The tactics used by pundits and audiences include trolling, boycotting, doxxing, and promoting conspiracy theories across multiple media platforms. First, in 2003, there was a convergence of right-wing media, politics, and grassroots activism targeted toward the country music group Dixie Chicks, then one of the most successful music acts in the world, after lead singer Natalie Maines opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The far-right’s ability to declare victory over the Dixie Chicks by causing them career damage and personal trauma was a unifying and emboldening aspect of the far-right. Audiences and media figures in the far-right beseech entertainers to “shut up and sing/play/act” or face being “Dixie Chicked,” which means to have their careers destroyed by the opposition of organized far-right audiences. Laura Ingraham, one of the most popular hosts on conservative cable news outlet Fox News, turned “shut up and sing” into a catchphrase when trying to silence the Dixie Chicks’ political speech and has wielded it to also admonish athletes to “shut up and play.”

Following the organized opposition to the Dixie Chicks, ensuing anticelebrity efforts may arguably have contributed to the solidification of the far-right into an online political force. In 2012, after almost a decade of far-right ire directed toward Barack Obama, far-right trolls and prominent media figures mobilized against celebrities who supported #BlackLivesMatter activism. Far-right media outlets and audiences further developed their oppositional rhetoric during several years of opposition to the #BlackLivesMatter movement and, in particular, Black celebrity involvement in the movement. Ingraham adapted her catchphrase to “shut up and dribble” to silence LeBron James’ support of #BlackLivesMatter and wrote a bestselling book with the premise that celebrities have “subverted” the values of the United States. By 2014, far-right trolls and pundits also targeted the female stars of a Ghostbusters film remake, in particular, Leslie Jones, for online harassment. Finally, far-right online sites and content creators were at the fore of “memedom” and the “manosphere” that evolved from harassing women gamers during the #Gamergate controversy to attacking Hilary Clinton and supporting Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 (Marwick & Lewis, 2017).

These seemingly disparate events are indicative of far-right online culture that targets women and people of color, attacks celebrities from marginalized communities, and supports conspiracy theories, misogyny, and White supremacy. A deep sense of power and ownership permeates far-right anticelebrity rhetoric of ordinary people who present themselves as power players who can elevate or destroy a celebrity. While the far-right deems conservative celebrities as deserving of achieved fame, far-right audiences perceive progressive celebrities like Kaepernick as undeserving of their fame and therefore beholden to the audiences that allow them to be celebrities. In this milieu, celebrity for women and people of color is conditional on conformity to far-right ideology. It is not just the identities and actions of progressive celebrities that are denigrated: It is their celebrity status that leaves them vulnerable to attack from audiences and is deemed to disqualify them from protesting injustice.

Far-right online spaces denigrate some celebrities while venerating others. After all, Trump is a celebrity CEO who voters revel in having elevated against all odds and norms. Trump, in turn, rallies far-right communities around opposition to Kaepernick as well—as a legitimate celebrity versus an illegitimate one. The hashtag campaign, boycotts, and other collective actions taken by far-right agitators may arguably facilitate community building by positioning far-right audiences as a powerful group able to topple celebrities. When criticism against their campaigns occur, the agitators further unify around expressions of grievance and oppression or even claims that progressives are interfering with the exercise of free speech.

By some measures, Kaepernick’s protest has been successful in placing police brutality and racism at the fore of popular discourse and propelling his fame to new heights. In fact, Boykoff and Carrington (2019) found that print news coverage tended to frame Kaepernick in a “largely favorable” light and that a focus on “Kaepernick’s actions and politics created a robust public conversation even if it did not sustain it with consistent, deep engagement” (p. 17). The goal of this article is not to detract from Kaepernick’s significance in challenging the police state but rather to contribute to greater understanding of how far-right online backlash politics functions and the “limitations of sport as a modality of resistance to racism” (Carrington, 1998, p. 291). Returning to Berlet and Lyons’ (2000) explication of right-wing populism, the backlash against Kaepernick demonstrates how in-groups develop in opposition to others. In the context of far-right cultural identity and politics, unifying around a shared attack on Kaepernick offered his opponents an opportunity to galvanize far-right political ideology and oppositional media tactics.

Footnotes

Acknowledgement

This research was presented at the Desecrating Celebrity, Fourth International Celebrity Studies Conference in 2018. The author is grateful to reviewers and attendees for feedback and inspiring conversation.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Spring-Serenity Duvall

Note

Author Biography

Spring-Serenity Duvall is an associate professor of communication and media studies at Salem College, United States. She is the editor of Celebrity & Youth: Mediated Audiences, Fame Aspirations, and Identity Formation (2018) and the coauthor, with Leigh Moscowitz, of Snatched: News Coverage of Child Abductions in U.S. Media (2016). Her research appears in Celebrity Studies; Communication, Culture, and Critique; Feminist Media Studies; and Journal of Children & Media.

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