Hale Hortler

About

Hale Hortler is an intentional misspelling of the phrase "Hail Hitler," which is typically associated with photographs of poorly-drawn swastika symbols.

Origin

In early August 2016, Tumblr user southern-conservatism posted several pictures of a car with an incorrectly drawn swastika symbol drawn with a key next to the word "fag" on the door (shown below, left). On August 1st, Tumblr user equestrianrepublican^[5] reblogged the post along with a picture of Adolf Hitler next to the symbol with the caption "Hale Hortler" (shown below, right). Over the next six months, the post gained over 16,000 notes.

Spread

On August 9th, 2016, Redditor ATLief submitted a multi-panel image to /r/ImGoingToHellForThis,^[2] where it gathered more than 2,100 points (96% upvoted) and 40 comments prior to being archived. On August 27th, Redditor Gary26 submitted a post titled "Hail Hortler Flag," featuring the incorrectly drawn swastika on a red background within a white circle (shown below).

On November 23rd, 2016, Redditor GrandMasterSubZero submitted a photograph of a television screen displaying a notification that a video game player had been "killed by Hailhortler" (shown below). Within two months, the post garnered upwards of 21,900 points (90% upvoted) and 300 comments on /r/gaming.^[4] That day, Redditor nerd-is-the-word submitted a post asking for an explanation of the "Hail Hortler meme" to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[1] On December 25th, the Hale Hortler image was posted to a thread on 4chan's /pol/ board.^[3]

Various Examples

Sarah Silverman Tweet

On February 12th, 2017, comedian Sarah Silverman tweeted a photograph of construction markings, speculating that they were poorly-drawn swastikas (shown below).

That day, various Twitter users mocked Silverman's tweet by sarcastically referring to construction workers as "Nazis" and other innocuous symbols as swastikas (shown below).

Silverman subsequently posted tweets acknowledging the mistake, citing anti-Semitic messages directed to her and actions of the Trump administration for causing her to assume the markings were Nazi symbols (shown below).

Search Interest

External References