Utah Anti-mask Rally Video

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Part of a series on COVID-19 Pandemic. [View Related Entries]

About

Utah Anti-mask Rally refers to a viral video of a protest in St. George, Utah against the state government's law which made protective face wear mandatory during the COVID-19 pandemic. The clip was widely shared on Twitter, where it was described as "beyond parody" due to the various outlandish statements made by attendees, such as a woman comparing wearing a facemask to the killing of George Floyd and another saying that "child molesters love" face masks.

Origin

On August 21st, 2020, ABC 4, a local Utah ABC affiliate, covered an anti-mask rally in St. George, Utah.^[1] The video went viral on Twitter several weeks later. On September 11th, 2020, Twitter user @WeHateDarius posted a clip of a woman in the news segment comparing George Floyd saying "I can't breathe" to anti-mask protesters saying they can't breathe with a mask (shown below, top). On September 13th, user @Tommyxtopher tweeted the full segment, gaining over 65,000 retweets and 50,000 likes (shown below, bottom).

Spread

The segment stunned Twitter users who both expressed despair and commented that it felt like a parody. User @Jared_Carrabis^[2] tweeted the video, saying "This has to be an SNL skit," gaining over 37,000 retweets and 86,000 likes (shown below, left). User @ChrisMelberger^[3] tweeted, "This plays like a video made by The Onion. In actuality it’s the sad, depressing state of our country," gaining over 180 retweets and 1,900 likes (shown below, right).

Others were particularly stunned at the George Floyd comment. NFL player Damien Harris^[4] tweeted, "i KNOW she did not let this come out of her mouth…. no way man," gaining over 120 retweets and 700 likes (shown below, left). User @Stylishmaya^[5] tweeted the moment, saying "I know she did not," gaining over 130,000 retweets and 450,000 likes (shown below, right). The video was covered by Junkee,^[6] Buzzfeed,^[7] the Daily Dot,^[8] and others.