NAFO / North Atlantic Fella Organization

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Part of a series on 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. [View Related Entries]

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About

NAFO, an acronym for North Atlantic Fella Organization, is a collective of Twitter posters set on fundraising for the Georgian Legion in Ukraine amidst the Russian invasion of the country, as well as combatting Russian propaganda on the site, largely through memes involving photoshops of the Shiba Inu and meme character Cheems.

History

While it's unclear when exactly NAFO began, the first known appearance of the "North Atlantic Fellas Organization" appeared on May 24th, 2022, in a tweet by Twitter user @Kama_Kamilia^[1] that received over 300 likes in roughly one month (shown below).

Kama @Kama_Kamilia NORTH ATLANTIC FELLA ORGANIZATION Translate Tweet 7:32 AM May 24, 2022. Twitter for iPhone : NAFO OFAN

The organization's stated goals are to combat Russian disinformation and propaganda on Twitter and to raise money for the Georgian Legion of Ukraine, which they do through the Saint Javelin ^[5] charity by donating proceeds from merchandise to Ukraine. In a separate drive, they raised over $50,000 for the Georgian Legion.^[7]

Nicola @quine_watson , returns for I don’t know which time, fifth maybe sixth? And with her very generous donation, we have crossed the FIDDY K line, and we’re now at $50016/$18959. You gotta watch the clip thousand times, sorry https://t.co/DxqeXmeDn0 pic.twitter.com/Eb6HpT7Sh2

— Kama (@Kama_Kamilia) July 7, 2022

Through June and July 2022, the group became known on social media due to its propensity for memes involving photoshopped Shiba Inus, primarily an alternate image of the Dogelore character Cheems. These are often made in celebration of Ukrainian military achievements or to antagonize Russian sympathizers on Twitter (examples shown below).

Special delivery from the fellas.Kama_Kamilia</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/LivFaustDieJung?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">LivFaustDieJung mr_gh0stly</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/iAmTheWarax?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">iAmTheWarax #WeAreNAFO #M777 #Ukraine #UkraineRussianWar pic.twitter.com/pXxt9FzzF8

— jebby (@jebbbby) June 10, 2022

THE FELLAS WATCH "HIMARS – THE OPERA" pic.twitter.com/mfdepNMSBI

— jabuttee – luxurious memes and takes (@jabuttee) July 4, 2022

In particular, the group has a combative relationship with Russian ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov and will often accuse him of spreading propaganda and lies about the country's invasion of Ukraine. In response to tweets from the group, Ulyanov once said, "You pronounced this nonsense, not me," which has become a slogan for NAFO supporters (seen below).^[6]

As of July 7th, 2022, some of the main Twitter accounts associated with NAFO are @Kama_Kamilia, @LivFaustDieJung,^[2] @mr_gh0stly,^[3] @iAmTheWarax^[4] and others.

The group began seeing more widespread attention and praise in early July 2022. On July 3rd, Twitter user @OzKaterji^[8] expressed appreciation of how the group was able to effectively combat Russian disinformation through what amounted to shitposting (shown below, left). On July 6th, user @SimonOlofsson89^[9] tweeted they appreciated the work the group was doing (shown below, right).

RT Bot Army Allegations

Russian state media outlet RT published an article on September 10th, 2022, alleging that NAFO was a "bot army" and citing data from an Australian study.^[10] The lead author of the study (seen below) and others countered the RT story, claiming the data had been misleadingly interpreted.^[11]

Josh Watt @josh_watt_ Follow : Replying to @RevStatus I am a lead author on this paper and I would like to point out that you have misinterpreted our results. We found that approximately 90% of ALL accounts contributing to the online discussion surrounding the war are pro-Ukrainian, not 90% of the bot accounts. 6:47 09 Sept 22. Twitter Web App 57 Retweets 14 Quote Tweets 229 Likes

NAFO itself replied to news of the RT exposé with self-congratulatory memes, and following the exposé there was an increase in media attention devoted to the organization, ,with articles in publications like the Byline Times^[12] and other outlets. Some NAFO memes included these two, posted in the replies to the original tweet by RT containing the article link. The one at bottom left was posted by @SpaghettiKozak on September 11th, 2022 and received over 420 likes (accomplishing a ratio of the original RT tweet, which received 410) ^[13] and the one at bottom right was posted by @wonderercat on September 11th, 2022 and received just over 30 likes.^[14]