George Takei Calls Out Anti Gay School Board Member

2010viral videoclassic

A 2010 PSA video in which Star Trek actor George Takei calmly called Arkansas school board member Clint McCance a douchebag for his homophobic Facebook posts about LGBT teen suicide. The clip went viral, fueled parodies, and preceded McCance's resignation days later.

lgbtq memescelebrity reaction memessocial justice memesbackfire memesearly 2010s memes

Overview

George Takei Calls Out Anti-Gay School Board Member is a public service video the Star Trek actor recorded for the Trevor Project in late 2010, aimed directly at Arkansas school board member Clint McCance1. Takei's flat, measured delivery of the word douchebag toward McCance became the clip's signature moment and the reason audio rips ended up floating around as standalone sound clips45.

The video works as both activism and comedy. Viewers found the mismatch between Takei's calm Sulu-era baritone and the blunt insult funny while agreeing with the point he was making about McCance being unfit to sit on a school board1. It became one of the widely shared Takei clips of that era and helped cement his second-career profile as an LGBT advocate2.

How It Spread

The clip went viral fast. Stereogum's Videogum blog wrote it up the same week, calling it the best and joking about the awkwardness of insulting a homophobe by implying he was gay1. Look to the Stars and other outlets promoted it as a defining Takei moment2. On November 8, 2010, one week after the video posted, McCance resigned his Midland School District seat3.

Remixes started almost immediately. Two days after the upload, someone spliced Takei's face and audio into Isaiah Mustafa's Old Spice The Man Your Man Could Smell Like commercial3. Standalone MP3s of the douchebag line, in short, medium, and full-length cuts, were mirrored on Michael Hanscom's blog4, and the clip landed on soundboard.com for easy playback in chats and calls5. That soundboard afterlife is how the line kept circulating long after news coverage moved on.

How to Use This Meme

The meme typically lives as an audio drop rather than a template. Common usage is pulling the douchebag clip from a soundboard and playing it as a punchline reaction to someone acting bigoted or ignorant online5. Video edits often place Takei's line at the end of another clip for a deadpan mic-drop effect4.

Frequently Asked Questions

George Takei Calls Out Anti Gay School Board Member

2010viral videoclassic

A 2010 PSA video in which Star Trek actor George Takei calmly called Arkansas school board member Clint McCance a douchebag for his homophobic Facebook posts about LGBT teen suicide. The clip went viral, fueled parodies, and preceded McCance's resignation days later.

lgbtq memes celebrity reaction memes social justice memes backfire memes early 2010s memes

Overview

George Takei Calls Out Anti-Gay School Board Member is a public service video the Star Trek actor recorded for the Trevor Project in late 2010, aimed directly at Arkansas school board member Clint McCance1. Takei's flat, measured delivery of the word douchebag toward McCance became the clip's signature moment and the reason audio rips ended up floating around as standalone sound clips45.

The video works as both activism and comedy. Viewers found the mismatch between Takei's calm Sulu-era baritone and the blunt insult funny while agreeing with the point he was making about McCance being unfit to sit on a school board1. It became one of the widely shared Takei clips of that era and helped cement his second-career profile as an LGBT advocate2.

How It Spread

The clip went viral fast. Stereogum's Videogum blog wrote it up the same week, calling it the best and joking about the awkwardness of insulting a homophobe by implying he was gay1. Look to the Stars and other outlets promoted it as a defining Takei moment2. On November 8, 2010, one week after the video posted, McCance resigned his Midland School District seat3.

Remixes started almost immediately. Two days after the upload, someone spliced Takei's face and audio into Isaiah Mustafa's Old Spice The Man Your Man Could Smell Like commercial3. Standalone MP3s of the douchebag line, in short, medium, and full-length cuts, were mirrored on Michael Hanscom's blog4, and the clip landed on soundboard.com for easy playback in chats and calls5. That soundboard afterlife is how the line kept circulating long after news coverage moved on.

How to Use This Meme

The meme typically lives as an audio drop rather than a template. Common usage is pulling the douchebag clip from a soundboard and playing it as a punchline reaction to someone acting bigoted or ignorant online5. Video edits often place Takei's line at the end of another clip for a deadpan mic-drop effect4.

Frequently Asked Questions