#TheDailyShowGoneTooFar

Overview

#TheDailyShowGoneTooFar is a hashtag protest started by One Direction fans against Comedy Central’s late-night TV talk show following the broadcast of a satirical news segment implicating the popular British boy band with global terrorism.

Background

On September 23rd, 2014, The Daily Show aired a segment in which they poked fun at the frequent splintering of terrorist groups into smaller, potentially more violent groups. During the segment Daily Show correspondent Jessica Williams says:

“Just as you were talking, a new terrorist group formed, with one member each from ISIS, al-Nusra, Al Qaeda, Hamas, One Direction and the Zetas drug cartel.”

Many One Direction fans interpreted^[1] this as an insult directed at One Direction member Zayn Malik, who is of Pakistani descent.

Notable Developments

Hashtag Introduction

On September 26th, Twitter user 1D_Updates_EU^[2] tweeted at The Daily Show’s official twitter feed criticizing the joke; Twitter user ihavetwoHAZ^[3] responded by introducing the hashtag #TheDailyShowGoneTooFar. In less than 24 hours the hashtag was tweeted out^[4] over 95,000 times.

Added Hashtags

Also on September 26th, Twitter user drunkl3wis^[5] introduced the hashtag #ZaynSavesNotKills, in less than 24 hours the hashtag was tweeted out^[6] over 10,000 times.

The same day Twitter user shutupKatelynn^[8] introduced the hashtag #ZaynDefenseSquad, in less than 24 hours the hashtag was tweeted out^[7] over 17,000 times.

All three hashtags were trending in the US on September 26th.

Media Coverage

On September 26th, Vulture published a post titled “One Direction Fans Can’t Even With The Daily Show Right Now.” The conflict was covered by many websites the same day including the LA Times^[10] and The Daily Dot.^[11]