About

Bernie Sanders Glowsticks is a viral hoax image aimed at tricking supporters of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders into making chlorine bombs by providing false instructions for making homemade luminescent light sticks.

Origin

On March 8th, 2016, Tumblr^[4] user defense-of-the-gathering posted an image purportedly offering instructions to make "Bernie Sanders Glowsticks," along with a warning that it would "release chlorine gas which can kill you" (shown below). The image falsely advises readers to combine alcohol and chlorine tablets in plastic bottles to make a glowing liquid, which would actually cause an explosive reaction when mixed together. While the it is unclear where the image originally surfaced, the Tumblr post contained a tag suggesting that it was discovered on Facebook. Within two months, the post gained over 89,600 notes.

Spread

On March 10th, 2016, the image was posted on the /pol/ (politics) board on 4chan.^[2] The same day, the image was reposted on the imageboard Ponychan (shown below, left). On May 6th, another thread featuring the image titled "Feel The Literal Bern" was posted on /pol/^[3] (shown below, right).

On May 10th, Snopes^[1] published an article about the viral image titled "Bernie's Blow Sticks," which highlighted several YouTube videos demonstrating the explosive reaction between chlorine and alcohol (shown below).

Search Interest

External References