About

(D)ifferent (R)ules is an alternate spelling of the phrase "different rules" often used by centrists to criticize people presenting hypocritical political viewpoints, the emphasis being on the "D" for "Democrat" and "R" for "Republican." The brackets are a reference to the shorthand (D) and its counterpart (R) used to denote Democrats and Republicans on political signage, voting ballots and in the news. The slang began to pop up online around 2019 on sites like Twitter and 4chan. Over time, users mostly dropped the "(r)ules" and simply began using "(D)ifferent" to criticize Democrats presenting hypocritical viewpoints.

Origin

On January 3rd, 2019, the Mediate Twitter^[1] page shared a story about Lou Dobbs criticizing Mitt Romney after writing a negative op-ed on Trump, seeing it as a betrayal. The next day, Twitter^[2] user @johnabev responded, "If @MittRomney is treasonous for criticizing @realDonaldTrump (completely truthfully -- Trump's the worst of all Americans), then what is Dobbs and the rest of the @GOP for falsely criticizing President @BarackObama?" In response to this, Twitter^[3] user @SeanahanDotCom, aka Sean Monahan, posted the phrase, "(D)ifferent (R)ules," using the brackets to emphasize the "D" and "R," standing for "Democrat" and "Republican" to highlight the hypocrisies. This is the earliest known use of the phrase (shown below).

Spread

Monahan continued to use the phrase on Twitter throughout the year, with a few users picking up on it. On April 13th, an anonymous user of 4chan's /pol/^[4] board used the word "(D)ifferent" in response to a post on a thread about political influencers Abi Yemini and Sydney Watson being detained by the FBI.

The most popular use of the phrase that year was posted to Twitter^[5] by Monahan on November 20th in response to a Tweet discussing the impeachment of Trump reading, "He impeached Clinton for fibbing about an affair, now we know what the threshold is to impeach a Republican," garnering over 940 likes in two years (shown below).

On April 14th, 2020, Twitter^[7] user and musician @ZubyMusic posted a tweet criticizing Democrats for their silence on Joe Biden's sexual assault allegations after trying to ruin Kavanaugh over them, gaining over 3,600 likes and 570 retweets in a year. Later that day he commented under his own post, "'It's (D)iFfErent!' OK dude…," garnering over 400 likes in the same span of time (shown below).

On January 21st, 2021, Facebook^[6] meme page Liberty Memes Melt Steel Beams posted a brainlet Wojak meme criticizing the Democrats' support of Biden despite him holding many equal negative traits to Trump in their opinion, using the phrase, garnering over 1,100 reactions and 800 shares in four months (shown below).

Over the course of 2021, use of the phrase increased on Reddit, typically in politically critical subreddits. For example, on February 5th, Redditor u/Doubleg122 posted a meme to /r/libertarianmeme^[9] with the title, "So (D)ifFeREnT," garnering over 2,500 upvotes in three months (shown below).

On March 13th, Redditor u/jimmybike posted a screenshot to /r/conspiracy^[8] of a tweet from @ZubyMusic using the phrase in the post title, garnering over 1,500 upvotes in two months. The phrase has continued to spread on Twitter^[10][11] as a reaction to posts showing arguably hypocritical Democratic opinions (examples from May 2021 shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References