Well, they tried. That’s the most credit anyone can give to the presumably vitamin D-deficient, bigoted basement-dwellers of 4chan behind a failed coupon hoax riddled with racism.
Created in response to Tuesday’s announcement that Starbucks would close all of its stores next month for an entire afternoon of staff diversity training, the poorly constructed fliers promised one cup of free coffee–but only for black people.
Supposedly, free beverages for black folks was the coffee giant’s apology for the positively heinous treatment of two black men who got arrested for waiting for their white friend at a Philadelphia Starbucks on April 12.
Of course, these trolls went about it all wrong, despite uniting as one hateful hive mind to make it their best “prank” yet. In between the racial slurs, homophobic rants, and rampant anti-Semitism that pepper their thoughts, these losers crowdsourced improvements to the coupons, convinced their plan would work. Baristas everywhere would be flustered as they scanned QR codes and encountered the n-word! Black people across the nation would greedily demand they get free coffee and Starbucks would give it to them!
All that free coffee would then immediately put the coffee giant out of business...or something? Their fantasy outcomes weren’t cohesive or clear.
The hoax didn’t gain much footing, of course. If vocal misogynist and confirmed parental basement dweller Roosh V is a fan of something, chances are it’s no good.
And since the “special offer” was shared almost exclusively by Twitter handles that include the words “MAGA” or “Deplorable,” and/or feature photos of Pepe the Frog as their avatar, it was a pretty obvious troll initiative–even before checking out the fine print.
And oh, that fine print was full of almost-clever pseudo-legalese, offering a free drink of any size to “people of color” or “persons of African-American heritage only,” depending on which version of the fakery that one encountered.
The fine print on some flyers also made a not-even-slightly subtle nod to white nationalism’s favorite number, according to Think Progress.
Baristas are then told to use the discount code 1488, which combines the white nationalist 14 words phrase along with 88, which is an abbreviation for the phrase “Heil Hitler.” The QR code on the flyers also links to a website which translates the code as the n-word.
You read that right. Someone took time out of their day to build a website for this purpose. And it’s not even the first time they’ve pulled a stunt like this–they targeted DREAMers in 2017.
Starbucks quickly declared the fliers a fraud, and a simple Google search for the hashtag associated with the fakery immediately led to the 4chan “Politically Incorrect” board, where all the brainstorming and copyedits took place. Twitter users were also quick to debunk the hoax and identify the white supremacist source.
Back in the /pol/ forum, the defeated trolls reflected on their greatest tactical error–namely, using the #FreeBlackCoffee hashtag on 4chan–and soon after, this absolute failure of fakery came to its natural end: 4chan moderators archived the #FreeBlackCoffee thread, less than six hours after its creation.
It seems at least one person didn’t get the memo, though. This was one blonde demon’s response to the news that Marine Corps Col. Lorna Mahlock has been nominated (by Donald Trump) as the first black woman brigadier general in the USMC.
Then again, maybe Coulter just knows who butters her bread, and this late nod is her way of paying tribute to her 4chan flock’s flop.
We’ll never know.