Glowie / Glowposting

About

Glowie, also known as a *Glown*****, is a slang term popular on 4chan's /pol/ board used in reference to CIA or other governmental agents posing as ordinary 4chan users in order to bait others into sharing incriminating information. It is also used to call out potential bait posts made by agents in an insulting way. The term originates from schizophrenic computer programmer Terry Davis, who claimed in 2017 that "CIA n*****s glow in the dark" in a video. Glowposting is also used to refer to agents who post bait content.

Origin

In 2017, schizophrenic computer programmer Terry Davis, known for his TempleOS software that he claimed was dictated to him by God and meant to be God's third temple, made a video showing off various aspects of TempleOS. In the video, Terry says, "The CIA n*****s glow in the dark, you can see them if you're driving. You just run them over, that's what you do." The video was reuploaded to YouTube^[1] on March 13th, 2017, garnering over 917,000 views in four years (shown below).

That year, the term "glown*****" began spreading on 4chan's /pol/ board, where Terry is frequently praised. The term is used to call out posts that appear to be made by regular 4chan users but are suspected to be federal agents. The term "glow in the dark" refers to the obvious nature of their camouflage, leaving them exposed when they're trying to hide in the shadows.

Spread

It has been speculated before that 4chan's /pol/ board is monitored heavily and interacted with by governmental agents, who use it to bait and fish for far-right and potentially illegal activity. In 2015, a Department of Defence member who was leaking classified info to /pol/ was caught by another DoD member, offering a real-life example of agents lurking the board.^[3]

The phrase gained significant popularity on 4chan's /pol/ board in late 2017, used as an insult and call out towards people who appear to be undercover agents or have opinions that might align with agents trying to bait certain people online into revealing incriminating or illegal intent. The earliest available post on /pol/^[4] using the term "glown*****" dates back to October 26th, 2017 (shown below).

References to glowies and posts calling them out became significantly popular on the board over the course of the next four years, spawning numerous memes about them. Many users photoshop various characters or things glowing green around a dark background and use them in posts calling out glowies, for example, in a post to /pol/^[6] on March 25th, 2018 reading, "kys glown*****" attached with a photo of a green cat (shown below).

On March 19th, 2019, Urban Dictionary^[7] user NillKiggers posted a definition for "glown*****s," gaining over 1,400 likes and becoming the top definition in two years.

On August 13th, an anonymous /pol/^[8] user made a thread for glowposting memes, gaining numerous replies (examples shown below).

On July 6th, 2020, Medium^[5] writer mkULTRAWOKE posted a long-form article to the platform allegedly providing evidence of real glowposting examples. On January 25th, 2021, The Atlantic^[2] published a story describing glowposting in a piece titled, "The Far Right’s Fear of ‘Glowies.'"

On June 17th, an anonymous /pol/^[9] user made a post asking users to contact a burner Twitter account to organize a trolling attempt against Scott Cawthorn, the creator of Five Nights at Freddy's, who is allegedly a Trump supporter. The post was called out by many as a glowpost, offering an example of the term used to call out suspicious posts (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References