Richard Spencer Punched in the Face

About

Richard Spencer's Interview is a viral video in which the American white nationalist and alt-right leader is confronted and sucker-punched by a group of masked protesters while participating in a video interview on the Inauguration Day of President Donald trump in January 2017. Upon entering circulation, the raw footage of the interview instantly went viral and spawned many jokes among the critics of the alt-right, as well as a social media debate on the ethics of assaulting a white nationalist.

Origin

On January 20th, 2017, the day of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, Richard B. Spencer, a leading figure of alt-right and the president of the white supremacist think-tank group National Policy Institute, participated in a street interview with an Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) correspondent and documentary filmmakers at the corner of 14th and K Streets in downtown Washington D.C.

In the middle of the interview, several masked protesters approach Spencer from behind the camera to confront his stance on neo-Nazism, during which he is suddenly punched in the face by a hooded assailant while trying to explain the significance of his Pepe lapel pin. Later that same day, video footage of the incident was uploaded to YouTube by RawStory reporter Sarah Burris and the ABC website.

Spread

Within hours of the incident, the video footage quickly went viral for its justice porn appeal, especially among the critics and protesters of Trump's presidency, racking up nearly a million views and spawning musical remixes on YouTube, Twitter and SoundCloud, including a handful of hip hop remixes (see video gallery) and an original piano ballad song titled "Richard Spencer" by Tim Heidecker (shown below).

Inevitably, the video also sparked a quarrelsome debate over the ethics of assaulting and celebrating violence against neo-nazism on the social media.^[4]

Second Punch to the Face

Later the same day, Spencer was punched in the face a second time.^[19] While this was reported, the punch was not caught on film and did not become popular knowledge until late in the evening on January 25th, 2017, when @babycommie666^[20] tweeted photographs of the punch taking place. The tweet quickly grew popular, amassing over 30,000 retweets in less than a day.

The photographs led to another round of celebrations on Twitter, which was covered by The Fader.^[21]

Punch a Nazi Game

On February 3rd, 2017, SuperDeluxe^[22] released a browser game allowing players to punch virtual representation of Spencer, Adolf Hitler and Milo Yiannopoulos (shown below). The game, based on the 1987 NES title Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!, requires players to sync a mobile device with their desktop to throw punches by moving their device toward their desktop screen.

The news site Cafe^[23] published a similar game titled "Pepe Punch-Out," in which players punch "Pepe the Frog":, whom the site refers to as a "Nazi frog" (shown below).

Glitter Bomb

On April 8th, Spencer held an anti-war demonstration against the United States military airstrike campaign in Syria, departing from his longtime reputation as a staunch and vocal advocate of the Trump administration. Initially led by a group of alt-rightists and white nationalists in front of the White House, the protest was subsequently met with a counter-protest from a group of ANTIFA activists, which prompted a heated exchange between the two opposing camps. As the argument escalated into a physical altercation, Instagram user @dlamontjenkins uploaded a video^[26] of the incident with the caption "Dick Spencer gets glitter bombed!"

On the following day, the glitter bombing incident was picked up by several news outlets covering the anti-war protest.^[25]

Search Interest

External References