Big Red

2013viral videoclassic

Big Red is the online nickname for Chanty Binx, a Toronto feminist activist who went viral in April 2013 after being filmed loudly arguing against men's rights activists at a University of Toronto event. The clip circulated for years on YouTube, Reddit, and Encyclopedia Dramatica as a shorthand for confrontational campus activism.

Overview

Big Red is the internet nickname given to Chanty Binx, a Toronto resident who was filmed yelling feminist counter-arguments at a men's rights event at the University of Toronto in April 20131. The tag comes from her bright red hair in the footage, and the clip made her one of the most-circulated targets of anti-feminist YouTube commentary in the mid-2010s4.

The core video shows Binx reading arguments off a sheet of paper while confronting attendees outside the event. Her volume and gestures made the clip highly quotable, and it was reposted with hostile captions across YouTube, Reddit, and Encyclopedia Dramatica5.

How It Spread

The same day the video went up, Redditor Kamen935 crossposted it to r/videos, where it collected more than 2,600 votes at a 74% upvote ratio before being archived2. Ten days later, on April 15th, the feminist news blog Manboobz, later renamed We Hunted the Mammoth, reported that Binx had been doxxed and was getting anonymous death threats3.

On April 17th, 2013, YouTuber bane666au uploaded "Meet Chany Binx (Big Red) Reminist and hypocrite," which stitched together 2012 footage of Binx yelling at a street preacher in downtown Toronto4. A week later, on April 25th, YouTuber spector969 released an electronic dance music remix built from vocal samples of her shouting. An entry for Big Red was created on Encyclopedia Dramatica on August 20th, 20135.

The character stayed in rotation into the next year. On September 21st, 2014, Redditor tt12345x posted a photo of Binx to r/punchablefaces, pulling over 2,200 votes at a 96% upvote ratio in the first two months6.

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