I Pledge to Work For Free

Submission 12,272

Part of a series on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting. [View Related Entries]

About

I Pledge to Work for Free is a copypasta image macro in which people pair a tweet about armed guards in schools with humorous pictures of those who would be serving as the guard.

Origin

On February 23rd, 2018, in a since-deleted tweet (shown below),^[1] Twitter user @CarlosCruz2016 responded to a tweet by Jack Posobiec about gun control with a picture of a man in a tactical uniform. He captioned the photo, "I PLEDGE TO WORK FOR FREE for any school to help secure the children. I am a 29 year retired veteran, Infantry Sergeant Major, U.S. Army Ranger with combat experience. I have a conceal carry, Primary and Alternate side arms, an AR-15, and all necessary tactical gear." Before deleting, the tweet received more than 400 retweets and 490 likes.

Spread

Several days later on February 26th, Twitter^[2] user @KrangTNelson shared the tweet with the caption, "hey check out this totally normal person u would definitely want hanging out with ur children." The post (shown below, left) received more than 2,500 retweets and 10,000 likes in 24 hours.

Over the next few hours, more people posted variations, replacing the image found on @CarlosCruz2016's initial tweet. Twitter^[3] user @pixelatedboat tweeted the caption with a picture of the cartoon character Garfield wearing a camouflage helmet and boots. The post (shown below, center) received more than 190 retweets and 1,500 likes in 24 hours. Later that day, @KrangTNelson tweeted^[4] a variation of his own, captioning a picture from the television series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The post (shown below, right) received more than 1,600 retweets and 7,300 likes in 24 hours.

Several media outlets covered the tweet, including BuzzFeed, ^[5] Inverse,^[6] Mediaite^[7] and more.