Public Universal Friend

Submission 4,156

About

Public Universal Friend, born Jemima Wilkinson, was an American preacher known for their activism and unorthodox beliefs compared to other Quakers, including rejecting gender-specific pronouns. Wilkinson reportedly died in 1776 and said that his soul was reborn under the name "Publick Universal Friend." In December 2019, the Wikipedia entry for the preacher went viral with people praising their name and political views.

Online History

On December 6th, 2019, Tumblr ^[1] user madnessofmen posted a screenshot of the Wikipedia ^[2] article on Public Universal Friend. Within three days, the post received more than 39,000 notes (shown below, left).

Twitter ^[3] user @commandersnacks tweeted the article with the caption, "this is the coolest fucker ever and an insp to everyone that wants a cool new name." The tweet received more than 117,000 likes and 33,000 retweets in less than three days (shown below, right).

Following the spread of these images, people online began joking about the name. Twitter^[4] user @amyrmarv tweeted, "the existence of the Public Universal Friend implies the existence of a Public Universal Foe." The tweet received more than 20,000 likes and 4,000 retweets in less than two days (shown below).

Twitter^[5] user @deathpigeon tweeted a glowing eyes version of the image (shown below, left). Twitter^[6] user @thejeffreymarsh retweeted the @commandersnacks tweet and wrote, "FRIEND SAID NONBINARY RIGHTS IN THE 1700’S." The tweet received more than 46,000 likes and 10,000 retweets in less than three days (shown below, right).

On December 6th, Twitter^[7] published a Moments page on the tweets.