The Weird Wide Web: ISIS Supporters Tweet About Robin Williams’ Death

Behold, ye mighty, but don’t despair. The
Internet is weird and wonderful place where you can see things once
unimaginable (and, no, I’m not talking about 4chan, you sickos). As
you almost certainly know by now, legendary comedian Robin Williams
died on Monday, likely having committed suicide.

By Tuesday, everybody found an angle to capitalize on, from
suicide awareness to indignation about the media not respecting
Williams’ privacy to critiques of celebrity worship. In the other
corner, we have supporters of the militant jihadist group ISIS,
also known as “the
Islamic State,” commenting. Many of them are glad that Williams
is dead, citing some jokes he made 12 years ago about jihad. But,
check this out (below right).

Do you see that? It’s a crack in the throat-slitting,
black-flag-waving façade. To be sure, Abdullah,
a.k.a. “@mujahid4life,” is a “19-year-old British-born fighter”
and “ISIS supporter” and he’s serious about it. He’s
anti-democracy, pro-theocracy. He’s got no time for “humanitarian
international law” because in his mind, sharia law is number one.
So, there’s not much anyone from the West, a.k.a. the Great Satan, would
normally have in common with this kid.

But right now he’s bummed about the death of an American actor
just as so many Americans are, and it became a channel for
non-ideological, civilly-conducted, cultural dialogue. Instead of
falling back on the war-ready rhetoric of his leaders or the United
States’, individuals communicated directly, asking him what other
movies he likes.

The attention seems to have made Abdullah a bit giddy. He later
tweeted:

They think i grew up somewhere in a mud hut so i never saw a
movie whereas i’ve seen most of the flicks they ask. lol.

Now I’m actually worried that people will start to follow me
because they wanna hear about my favorite movies instead of
reporting jihad.

The world would much rather hear about your favorite movies,
Abdullah. 

These Twitter talks won’t stop wars, but they could help
individuals pause, recall that the fighters on both sides of wars
are young people who grew up laughing at the same films, and catch
a glimpse of their humanity.
It’s hard to hate people up close. We’ll never agree on a lot
of things, and we don’t have to try living together in kumbaya
b.s., but if we really want to win the hearts and minds of our
enemies, maybe we should drop copies of Mad magazine or
DVDs of Disney movies instead of bombs.

Oh, and cheers to the radicals for publicly whining about
Williams’ anti-politically
correct standup, thereby introducing it to a whole new
generation of viewers.