ISIS-chan

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"You have 72 hours to prepare two hundred million delicious Japanese melons. (yummy, yummy)"

About

ISIS-chan (Japanese: ISISちゃん, Aishisu Chan) is a moe anthropomorphized character for the jihadist rebel group Islamic State (IS) created by users of the Japanese text board site 2channel. Similar to the story behind the birth of Hinomoto Oniko in 2010, ISIS-chan was conceived as part of an online effort to counter terrorist propaganda by disrupting the search-engine optimization (SEO) profile of relevant keywords with images of a moe character.

Origin

On January 24th, 2015, a user on 2channel's /news4vip/ board^[1] submitted a thread titled "Let's make ISIS into a moe girl and send it to them!" with the intention of Google-bombing the search engine's image search results for "ISIS" with anime character illustrations." Soon, the physical features and personality of the proposal character were determined through "anchor designation," a popular forum game in which the specifications of a proposed idea are randomly selected through a lottery of specific post numbers as pre-designated by the original poster. Within first three hours, the post garnered 1,000 replies.

<Profile of ISIS_chan>
Name: ISIS_chan
Clothes: Black (like ISIS’s uniforms)
Hairdo: Short hair
Hair color: black
Age: 19yo
Skin color: Brown
Bust size: Big
Height: small (about 150cm)
Eye color: Green-ish
Favorite foods: Muskmelon (from Japan)

Precursor

Prior to 2channel's ISIS-chan, a Tumblr user kdaash has been posting dozens of illustrations of an anime-like character tagged under "#ISIS chan" since December 2014.^[2]

This pure fan art for the terrorist group was discovered after the birth of ISIS-chan, and 2channel users don't recognize his works as related. ISIS-chan official twitter account also warned people not to mix up his works with 2channel's ISIS-chan.^[3]

Spread

That same day, dozens of anonymous illustrators reacted to the thread and various ISIS-chan illustrations.^[4] Meanwhile, unlike the Crappy Collage Grand Prix on Twitter, 2channel users have also drafted some basic guidelines for ISIS-chan illustrators to follow in consideration of Islam and the Muslim community at large, as well as the hostages and their families.

You make some agreements with ISIS-chan【Our rule】

Guidelines for ISIS-chan Illustrations

DO NOT insult Islam
DO NOT use Quran, Allah, Muhammad and other Islamic religious symbols in illustrations
DO give enough respect to hostages
No Gore, No Porn

The main aim of the ISIS_chan is not to be violent, sexual, or insulting to the ISIS.
We should totally respect Muslim and their beliefs.
If you draw violent, sexual, or insulting ISIS_chan, it is absolutely out of our official ISIS_chan.

via: ISIS-chan Official Wiki^[5]

Meanwhile, the hashtags #ISISイラスト化祭り (#ISIS Illustration Festival), #ISISちゃん and #ISIS_chan began circulating on Twitter,^[6] with the last one racking up 9,000 mentions within the first 24 hours of the original post on 2channel. In addition, several social media accounts were created to diminish the SEO profile of ISIS-related keywords, including accounts on Twitter^[7] and Tumblr^[8], as well as a blog and a Wiki page^[9]^[10]. By January 25th, the 2channel's mission had reached 4chan's /int/^[11] and /pol/^[12], reddit^[13] and Krautchan.^[14] As of 5 p.m. (EST), the Google search query for "ISIS_chan" yields about 18,200 results.