Bowling Green Massacre
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Part of a series on Kellyanne Conway. [View Related Entries]
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About
Bowling Green Massacre is a fictional terror attack described by Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway during a televised interview, which was widely mocked on social media in early February 2017.
Origin
On February 2nd, 2017, Conway appeared as a guest on Hardball with Chris Matthews, where she asserted that an attack known as the "Bowling Green Massacre" occurred in 2009 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, leading President Barack Obama to impose a six-month ban on Iraqi refugees (shown below).
"I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized and they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered."
Shortly after the interview was broadcast, Twitter user @joesonka published a clip of Conway referring to the fictional event, which gained over 14,000 retweets and 13,000 likes within 24 hours (shown below).
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KellyannePolls</a> says that 2 Iraqi refugees "were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre."<br>(There was no such massacre.) <a href="https://t.co/sD3Nnb5xfE">pic.twitter.com/sD3Nnb5xfE</a></p>— Joe Sonka (joesonka) February 3, 2017
Spread
That evening, Twitter users began posting jokes about Conway's statements, many of which consisted of other unsubstantiated claims (shown below).[8]
On February 3rd, Conway tweeted that she "meant to say 'Bowling Green terrorists," linking to a 2013 ABC News[6] article about two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky.[7]
That day, Snopes[1] published an article about Conway's interview, noting that no massacre ever took place. Also on February 3rd, the parody site BowlingGreenMassacreFund[2] was launched to help victims of the fictional terror attack, containing a "Donate Now" button which links to a donation page for the American Civil Liberties Union (shown below).
Meanwhile, two posts about Conway's interview reached the front page of /r/politics.[3][4] The same day, Redditor netoholic submitted a post speculating that Conway was playing "5D chess by manipulating the media to report on the story of Iraq terrorists who came to the United States as refugees to "https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/r-the_donald">/r/The_Donald.[5] In the coming days, several news sites published articles about NY Mag,[9] The Daily Beast,[10] The Washington Post,[11] UpRoxx[12] and The Daily Dot.[13]
Search Interest
External References
[1] Snopes – Kellyanne Conway References Non-Existent Bowling Green Massacre
[2] BowlingGreenMassacreFund – BowlingGreenMassacreFund
[3] Reddit – Kellyanne Conway Appears to Invent Fake Bowling Green Massacre
[4] Reddit – Kellyanne Conway Refers to Fake Bowling Green Massacre
[5] Reddit – Kellyanne plays 5d chess
[6] ABC – US May Have Let Dozens of Terrorists into Country as Refugees
[7] Twitter – @KellyannePolls
[8] Twitter – Bowling Green Massacre
[9] NY Mag – Kellyanne Conway Cites Made-u Bowling Green Massacre=
[10] The Daily Beast – Kellyanne Conway Cites Fake Bowling Green Massacre
[11] The Washington Post – Kellyanne Conway cites Bowling Green massacre
[12] UpRoxx – Kellyanne Conways Fake Bowling Green Massacre
[13] The Daily Dot – Kellyanne Conway cites fictitious massacre
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