Moon Man

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About

Moon Man is nickname given to online depictions of the McDonald's mascot Mac Tonight, which is associated with a text-to-speech voice reciting racist parodies of various rap songs. The character is often depicted as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, who advocates using violence against non-white minorities.

Origin

Mac Tonight was created by the McDonald's fast food chain in 1986 and was portrayed as a lounge singer with a moon for a head. Commercials featuring the character originally ran from 1987 to 1990, though later commercials featuring Tonight were occasionally produced.^[1]

On November 24th, 2006, YTMND user MurdarMachene created a page titled "Murdar's Last YTMND," featuring an animated GIF of the Mac Tonight mascot paired with audio from the 1996 rap song "Gettin' It" by Too $hort (shown below).

Spread

On May 31, 2007, YTMND^[6] user Farkle posted a page titled "Moon Man Sings Best Song Ever," featuring a GIF of Mac Tonight paired with the song "Chacarron Maccaron". While the original page was removed, it has since been reuploaded to the site.^[6] On June 1st, 2007, the first Moon Man page using audio created with AT&T Labs Text To Speech was posted to YTMND.^[7] Over the next month, other text-to-speech Moon Man pages were created, some of which included the program uttering "KKK" repeatedly in the background audio.^[2] On September 3rd, 2007, YTMND user hypersaxon uploaded a Moon Man page in which he sings the 2006 rap song "Money in the Bank" by Lil Scrappy.^[3] In 2008, the Moon Crew YTMND group was created to create and spread Moon Man-themed media on the site.^[4] On July 29th, 2009, YouTuber Hey guys, its me moon man uploaded a video titled "Moon Man Origins pt. 1" (shown below).

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On October 2nd, a Moon Man page featuring a racist parody of the song "Hypnotize" by The Notorious B.I.G. was created by YTMND user MuMluxMlan, where it gained over 119,000 views over the next seven years.^[5]

In Vaporwave

On September 12th, 2014, a video for the song "Enjoy Yourself" by Vaporwave artist Saint Pepsi that featured clips from the original Mac Tonight commercial was uploaded to Youtube and gained over 2 million views in two years.

2015 Alt-Right Resurgence

Moon Man remained fairly contained to YTMND until 2015, when the character saw a revival with the rise of race-based humor such as that found on 4chan's /pol/ board. A YouTube mirror of the "Hypnotize" YTMND was uploaded on May 24, where it was viewed over 200,000 times in the following two months before being removed from the site for violating hate speech rules. On June 1st, an album of Moon Man rap parodies was released under the name WhiteTopia and a YouTube version of the album was viewed more than 130,000 times over the next two years. On September 12th, YouTuber UncleDayzy uploaded a clip from The Simpsons in which Homer Simpson presents a cardboard cutout of Mac Tonight who recites the "Hyponotize" parody (shown below, left). On December 21st, YouTuber MOTMP Backup posted a Moon Man parody album titled "KKKhristmas KKKarol Full Album" (shown below, right).

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On February 7th, 2016, the white supremacist blog Infostormer^[9] published an article about Moon Man. On February 9th, 2016, YouTuber BinkTinks uploaded a video titled "Meme Talk: Who Is The Moon Man (Mac Tonight)?," which explained the history of the Moon Man meme (shown below, left). On March 14th, 2016, YouTuber Football_And Gaming uploaded a clip of Donald Trump delivering a speech with the "Hypnotize" parody playing in the background.^[8] On April 10th, the Moon ManCentral YouTube channel uploaded a Trump-themed rap playing over a Mac Tonight McDonald's ad (shown below, right).

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On June 8th, 2016, YouTuber 1989hirokazu uploaded a video titled "Moonman 24 Questions Black 'People' Have For White People" (shown below, left). On July 8th, 2016, YouTuber Moon Man uploaded a clip of Mac Tonight with a racist parody of the song "Crank That" by Soulja Boy playing in the background (shown below, right).

[This video has been removed]

On October 4th, a campaign to purchase a pro-Trump billboard featuring variations of Pepe the Frog and Moon Man was created on the crowdfunding site WeSearchr,^[10] which raised over $5,000 in less than one month (shown below). On October 25th, Salon^[11] published an article about the character, referring to it as ''the alt-right's racist rap sensation.''