The US military has created a meme army on Twitter that trolls Russians and collects donations for Ukraine
The US military on Twitter created a meme army of Shiba Inu dogs that troll the Russians and collect donations for Ukraine, writes Vice. Created by the American military, the army of cartoon shiba-inu dogs known as NAFO (North Atlantic Fellas Organization) is making fun of the propagandists. And behind the cartoon characters are real military men — Jack McCain, helicopter pilot and son of John McCain, CNN analyst and retired US Army officer Mark Hertling and US Army Major General Patrick Donahoe.
We tell the most interesting facts about the memo-army of the USA.
How NAFO appeared
In May, artist Kama, who thought Shiba Inu dogs were dumb, began drawing future Memo Army soldiers and superimposing them on random images from Ukraine.
Around the same time, the Georgian Legion in Ukraine was collecting donations for equipment. And the artist decided to help — he created Fella avatars for people who donated to the Legion.
Here, by the way, is Mark’s avatar created by Koma.
Stars of fame
NAFO began to gain popularity in June, when Russian diplomat Mykhailo Ulyanov was trolled. He quarreled with ‘dudes’ and lost because of his pro-Kremlin narratives.
On June 18, Ulyanov wrote: “The most popular Western narrative: Russia made an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Not provoked by anything? Shelling of the civilian population in Donbas by the Ukrainian army began in 2014 and continues until now.’
NAFO member @LiveFaustDieJung replied to the diplomat. ‘You: ‘We must bomb all the civilians of Ukraine because Ukraine was fighting an internal war and some civilians were shelled.’ Then Ulyanov replied to his troll. ‘You said that nonsense yourself, not me,’ he wrote.
Ulyanov’s response became a meme among Fellas, a rallying cry against the obvious nonsense of Russian disinformation propaganda. Answers and quotes from other ‘dude’s’ tweets poured in.
Ulyanov suspected that Fellas might be bots. He then disappeared from Twitter for a week, returning on July 1 with an explanation, allegedly after a vacation.
Aid to Ukraine
Ulyanov meme turned into merch. Now you can buy a t-shirt from the charity organization St. Javelin, which donates money to Ukraine. There is currently a whole page of Fellas merchandise and has already raised over $47,000 just for the needs of the Legion and at least $10,000 for other causes.
In addition to the St. Javelin and avatars Shiba, Fellas created a Discord server where they organize charity events, debunk Russian propaganda and share news from Ukraine from verified sources. A former US Marine named Matthew @IamtheWarax is one of the moderators on the Discord server.
“These are funny drawings… and they’ve grown organically, and they’re connected to a good cause. Helping Ukrainians to protect themselves had broad appeal,’ – the publication quotes Matthew.
Nowadays, every thread from a Russian official has Fellas memes. ‘The Russians are good at disinformation. They control and handle it well, but are not used to any operations of this magnitude. So now they’re trying to control up to 100,000 soldiers just doing their soldier shit,” Matthew explains.
He likes to make fun of Russian officials, also collecting bribes. ‘I’m not going to sit here and pretend that we’re beating Russia like that. That was never the goal. The goal was simply to do everything in our power to help,’ says the soldier.
Here are just a few examples of ‘dude’ jokes.
