Less than a month after we learned that Trapt were now on the far-right social network Gab, the band’s frontman, Chris Taylor Brown, is now openly feuding with the company’s co-founder and CEO, Andrew Torba.
The way it presents itself — a social network favored by Pittsburgh Synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, QAnon supporters, and Capital/#stopthesteal insurrectionists — can pretty much be summed up by this post on the platform:
So while it’s not entirely clear how the spat began*, the fact that Trapt and Brown were briefly blocked from Gab is, y’know, pretty bonkers. They were banned from Facebook for supporting the Proud Boys, and Gab was like “Hey, c’mon over, the water’s warm!” — what could they have possibly put up to cause problems?
To hear Torba tell it, at least, it was threats against other Gabbers. On Saturday, October 2, Torba posted:
That is clearly bullshit — Gab has PLENTY of tolerance for threats of violence.
But Torba further alleges that Trapt also owe Gab money, which is not the first time such a claim has been lobbed against the band:
Brown, of course, says this is BS. He claims he’s having problems with Gab because he is pro-MAGA but anti-white supremacy. He’s accused Torba of actively recruiting hate groups to the platform — an allegation which is very much in line with what’s been reported elsewhere.
Trapt’s Gab account currently includes this disclaimer…
…and prior to being banned on October 2, Brown wrote:
“It baffles me how white nationalists think a half Mexican dude is going to be cool with them. You hate half of me. How can I fuck with you?”
Given that Brown supported Trump, does not believe that white privilege exists, has criticized “Rich Jew[s] acting tough,” and prominently uses a white supremacist hand gesture in emoji form, it’s actually quite easy to see how white nationalists thought he could fuck with them. All this demonstrates is that white nationalists think everyone of Latin descent has a darker skin tone than they do.
Still, yesterday, October 3, Brown continued:
“The entire music industry and 99.9% of music fans think Gab is white supremacist because mainstream media points out what a few anonymous white nationalists say…. How unfortunate. I really would like to change that. But, maybe this app really is more White Nationalist than Trump supporter who believes in including all races, religions and orientations. Sad… This is truly how it looks to me over yesterday and today, even when 3200 people are following. I guess many just want to stay silent? Wish I could see the reach. I bet so many of these anonymous cowards are not real and that’s the worst part. The establishment media keeps winning and silencing opposition. When talking about religion understand many black and Hispanic are Christian too. Not just white.”
Continuing, he said of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”:
“You White Nationalists offended by this song too? You must think men and women are truly equal in all ways and women have just as much strength and aggression as men if you’re outraged at the situation in this song… You remind me of Antifa. So weird. I think you are the same people.”
Earlier today (October 4), Brown added:
“[W]e must unite under MAGA…. All races, religions, orientations who want the freedom to be such. We need to do this for each other. Anyone against this, should be shunned.”
He further says that Trapt are now being harassed by Torba’s “white nationalist minions”:
“[Andrew Torba] now has his white nationalist minions trying to troll our other pages. A half dozen anonymous cowards who are just about as close to the bottom of society’s barrel as an American can get. MAGA needs to come together and put these cowards in their place when they say some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever read… The second they had to be public with their ‘beliefs’ they would crumble… Just like with BLM/Antifa a tiny minority of extremists make large groups of people look like people they are not, anonymous white nationalists, and I say anonymous, because they are not willing to voice their beliefs publicly, so they will say anything. If there was accountability for what they said, they would not say it.”
It also goes without saying that Brown maintains that Trapt does not own Gab money…
…and, as he has done so often in the past, is threatening legal action:
To top of all of this off, in the past 24 hours, Brown has uploaded two new video rants to YouTube.
The first — and by far the more delightful of the pair — is entitled Trapt Metal sucks Liars. In it, Brown responds to our initial report about Trapt joining Gab — ‘Hate Mongering Right-Wing Social Media Platform Welcomes Trapt with Open Arms’ — and says we’re being untruthful given his current issues with the platform. He doesn’t mention that this report was published almost three weeks ago, at which time he had nothing but kind words to say about Gab. He does, however, wonder how we sleep with ourselves at night (the answer, FYI, is that Vince and I alternate being Big Spoon and Little Spoon).
In the second video, Trapt Gab is a fraud, Brown re-emphasizes his belief that “Andrew Torba really DOES wanna create a majority White Christian space for his users.” He announces this, by the way, as though it were news. I guess Brown did ZERO research on Gab before joining.
Look — two things can be true at once. You can be racist against some groups but not others. You can be a minority and still be prejudiced against other minorities. You can consider yourself not to be a racist, but you vote for racists because it’s good for your taxes or whatever, in which case I’d argue you actually are being racist by putting your own desires ahead of the greater good, but that’s a whole other discussion.
My point is this: I’m glad Brown is fighting the bigots. Really, I am!
But that doesn’t automatically mean he’s not an asshole, now, does it?
You can view both of Brown’s videos below. As of this writing, they have 824 views and 768 views, respectively. Chris, you are so welcome for the added views.
*I’m gonna be too-honest with you here… to go back further than a couple of days on any given Gab user’s account, you have to sign up for Gab. Which I don’t wanna do. For one thing, I don’t feel super-comfortable giving Gab any personal information, even if that’s just my IP and e-mail addresses. For another thing, I don’t wanna end up on a FBI list. For another another thing, I really don’t wanna find out what kind of junk mail lists you end up on after signing up for Gab.
Thanks: Ian G.