30-50 Feral Hogs

Confirmed 546,170

About

30-50 Feral Hogs, refers to a hypothetical argument made on Twitter defending the ownership of assault rifles which posited that such weaponry would be necessary to combat the "30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play." After the tweet was posted in early August 2019, it was widely mocked on the platform, spawning parody lyrics, image macros and photoshops.

Origin

On August 4th, 2019, musician Jason Isbell tweeted "If you’re on here arguing the definition of “assault weapon” today you are part of the problem. You know what an assault weapon is, and you know you don’t need one."^[1] In response, user @WillieMcNabb^[2] tweeted "Legit question for rural Americans – How do I kill the 30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?"

Spread

The tweet began to spread the following day as other Twitter users began to make fun of it. User @lib_crusher^[3] tweeted sarcastically, "Hate when 30-50 feral hogs run into my yard as my kids play, forcing me to dual wield AR-15s as I mow them down," gaining over 730 retweets and 4,200 likes (shown below, left). User @UweBollocks made a similar joke, writing "Exactly! Last week my sons Brandtford and Hyland were out drinking Busch heavy on the back deck (they're 13 and 11) when a pack of 76 feral hogs came running up. I only had a bolt action rifle and by the time I took out number 76, Brandtford was already gone. I miss him dearly," gaining over 18 retweets and 440 likes (shown below, right).

Other Twitter users began to make jokes about the tweet by writing song lyric parodies about the feral hogs. User @dylanmatt tweeted the lyrics to "500 Miles" by The Proclaimers, gaining over 40 retweets (shown below, left). User @videodante inserted it into the lyrics of Milkshake by Kelis, gaining over 170 retweets (shown below, right).

Feral Hog Invasion

On September 8th, 2019, the Daily Inter Lake^[4] reported that large roving packs of feral hogs were approaching the U.S.-Canada border at Montana. Dale Nolte of the USDA’s National Feral Swine Program said that if the hogs were to invade the U.S., it would "be a disaster". As the news spread, Twitter commenters connected the story to the "30-50 Feral Hogs" tweet. User @NatlSecCounselors wrote "OH MY GOD HE WAS RIGHT" in reference to the story (shown below, left). User @TrevorWoggon tweeted "He tried to warn us!" (shown below, right).

February 2024 Resurgence

On February 24th, 2024, X^[5] (Twitter) user @centx_diesel posted an image of an extremely large hog loaded in the back of a pickup truck with the caption, "This is what happens when domestic hogs interbreed with wild hogs . The get larger each generation." The post gathered over 14,000 likes in three days.

On February 25th, 2024, X^[6] user @nathanallebach quoted the image and wrote, "We as a society owe an apology to the 30-50 feral hogs guy," gathering over 3,000 likes in two days.