“You have 72 hours to prepare two hundred million delicious Japanese melons. (yummy, yummy)”
About
ISIS-chan (Japanese: ISISちゃん, Aishisu Chan) is a moeanthropomorphized character for the jihadist rebel group Islamic State (IS) created by users of the Japanese text board site 2channel. Similar to the story behind the birth of Hinomoto Oniko in 2010, ISIS-chan was conceived as part of an online effort to counter terrorist propaganda by disrupting the search-engine optimization (SEO) profile of relevant keywords with images of a moe character.
Origin
On January 24th, 2015, a user on 2channel’s /news4vip/ board[1] submitted a thread titled “Let’s make ISIS into a moe girl and send it to them!” with the intention of Google-bombing the search engine’s image search results for “ISIS” with anime character illustrations." Soon, the physical features and personality of the proposal character were determined through “anchor designation,” a popular forum game in which the specifications of a proposed idea are randomly selected through a lottery of specific post numbers as pre-designated by the original poster. Within first three hours, the post garnered 1,000 replies.
<Profile of ISIS_chan>
Name: ISIS_chan
Clothes: Black (like ISIS’s uniforms)
Hairdo: Short hair
Hair color: black
Age: 19yo
Skin color: Brown
Bust size: Big
Height: small (about 150cm)
Eye color: Green-ish
Favorite foods: Muskmelon (from Japan)
Spread
That same day, dozens of anonymous illustrators reacted to the thread and various ISIS-chan illustrations. Meanwhile, unlike the Crappy Collage Grand Prix on Twitter, 2channel users have also drafted some basic guidelines for ISIS-chan illustrators to follow in consideration of Islam and the Muslim community at large, as well as the hostages and their families.
You make some agreements with ISIS-chan【Our rule】
Our target is only ISIS, not Muslim or Islam.
DO NOT insult Islam.
DO NOT use Quran, Allah, Muhammad and other Islamic religious symbols in illustrations.
DO give enough respect to Mr. Goto.
About Illustrations:
Reproduction allowed.
All rights reserved by the artists.
Artists have the right to prohibit reproductions.
via: 2channel[11]
Meanwhile, the hashtags #ISISイラスト化祭り (#ISIS Illustration Festival), #ISISちゃん and #ISIS_chan began circulating on Twitter,[6] with the last one racking up 9,000 mentions within the first 24 hours of the original post on 2channel. In addition, several social media accounts were created to diminish the SEO profile of ISIS-related keywords, including accounts on Twitter[2] and Tumblr[5], as well as a blog and a Wiki page[3][4]. By January 25th, the 2channel’s mission had reached 4chan’s /int/[7] and /pol/[8], reddit[9] and Krautchan.[10] As of 5 p.m. (EST), the Google search query for “ISIS_chan” yields about 18,200 results.
Notable Examples
Search Interest
[Not Available]
External References
[1]2ch.net – ISISを萌え美少女化してイスラムの奴らに送りつけようずｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗ / 01-24-2015 (Japanese)
[2]Twitter – ISISちゃん普及bot（公式） (@isisvipper) (Japanese)
[4]ISIS chan イスラム国対抗！萌で埋め尽くせISISちゃん (Japanese)
[5]Tumblr – ISIS chan イスラム国対抗！萌で埋め尽くせISISちゃん
[6]Twitter – Search results for the hashtags #ISISイラスト化祭り, #ISISちゃん and #ISIS_chan
[7]4chan – /int/ – ISIS chan was moe – International / 01-25-2015
[8]4chan – /pol/ – ISIS chan was moe – Politically Incorrect – / 01-25-2015
[9]reddit – ISIS-chan debuts from twitter mocking. : japan / 01-25-2015
[10]Krautchan – /jp/ – ISIS chan was moe / Posted on 01-25-2015
[11]2ch.net – 【ISISIちゃん】ISISの画像検索結果を萌えキャラで埋め尽くそうぜ / 01-26-2015 (Japanese)