Bush Did 9/11

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Part of a series on September 11th, 2001 Attacks. [View Related Entries]

About

"Bush Did 9/11" is a catchphrase often used in jest to implicate the former United States president George W. Bush as the perpetrator behind the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. While it has long been used to mock the adherents of 9/11 conspiracy theories and the infamous slogan "9/11 Was an Inside Job", the phrase saw a notable resurgence of popularity in 2015, including subliminal inclusion in the music video for "Where Are Ü Now," a Skrillex-Diplo collaboration, starring pop star Justin Bieber.

Origin

The exact origin of the phrase is unknown, however one of the earliest examples of its discussion online dates to 2006, when American actor Charlie Sheen stated it in an interview with InfoWars founder Alex Jones.^[1]

Spread

The phrase has been in wide use since the mid-2000s, especially by people discussing the 9/11 Truth Movement in a sincere way. However, in spring of 2015, it became popular among Vine users to create posts with the phrase as the title and the subject.^[2] On April 7th, 2015, user WTF Von posted one of the most popular videos of this genre, titled "HE PAUSED SO HARD OMG BUSH DID IT GUYS I KNEW IT" in which he uses the phrase in conversation with his teacher (below left). As of September 9th, 2015, the video has over 4.2 million loops, 44,000 likes, 22,900 revines, and 2,300 comments. In addition, an older clip of an interview with George W. Bush, in which he addresses the threat of terrorism cavalierly and then asks journalists to watch him take a shot in golf, also became popular; that video has been posted by many different users, but one popular YouTube version (below right) has over 50,000 views as of September 2015. This video was also used as part of the Unexpected Jihad YouTube editing trend in early 2015, although it does not feature any Arabic elements.

On Instagram, the hashtag #BushDid911 has been used on over 20,000 posts as of September 2015, many of which are photographs of teenagers (often selfies) that are otherwise unrelated to the September 11th attacks.^[3] This trend is often mirrored on Vine, where there are thousands of results for each permutation of the phrase, with the most popular hashtag being #BushDid911.^[4] The phrase is frequently used on Tumblr and Reddit, especially in comments, and often in tandem with dank memes or illuminati confirmed. ^[5]^[6] On YouTube, 43,700 results are returned for the phrase Bush Did 9/11, which are a mix of parody and legitimate 9/11 Truther videos.^[7]

Justin Bieber's "Where Are Ü Now" Video

On June 29th, 2015, Skrillex and Diplo released the video for "Where Are Ü Now" featuring Justin Bieber on YouTube. The video had been created partially by inviting fans to draw on animation cells in a gallery exhibition at the Seventh Letter Gallery in Los Angeles, and then composing the cells into a video.^[8] Soon after its release, fans began to notice that of the video's stills contained the phrase "Bush did 9/11." While several popular Vines and YouTube videos were made, slowing the video down so that people could see the frame clearly, the most measurable impact was in people searching for the phrase "Bush Did 9/11"; as seen in the search interest below, users Googling the phrase peaked in July of 2015.^[9]

The full video is above right; the phrase can be seen around 1:41. Above left: a slowed-down version.