Author’s Note: The fried chicken and watermelon pictures below have been removed from Reddit by its moderators at the time of writing this post.
Fried chicken, watermelon, and a shuck and jive.
It all started out when a subreddit called /r/photoshopbattles was asked to throwdown their Photoshop skills on this hilarious picture of former Kansas University bench player, Anrio Adams. Seen above mime-eating a bowl of cereal in celebration, Anrio, also known as Rio, is famous for his comical sideline celebrations and this one was his greatest ever.
However, what ensued was a little surprising and a lot racist.
Reddit user ThePurpleMenace (which is a throwaway for obvious reasons) posted this to the thread with the comment “Rio Adams eating KFC.” Now, we don’t know if this was intentionally racist. However, you would have to be pretty naive if you thought otherwise.
As if one racist stereotype wasn’t enough, the picture above submitted by Reddit user sousvide posted with the caption “Guy loves him some fruit.” Again, pretty damn racist.
This one comes as a surprise because the user has been on Reddit for at least one year and seems to be pretty active in the /r/photoshopbattles. He/she had to have known it would have been deleted by a moderator, yet, he still posted it.
This one submitted by Reddit user drillz is not as racist as it is funny. This is more of a reach here, but some could still peg this image into a racist stereotype.
Racism on the internet is nothing new. Internet trolls feed off the anger and rage of others while sitting in their mothers’ basement with no purpose in life other than to stir shit up. The empowerment one gets from eliciting a strong emotion like anger on the internet provides a sense of purpose and meaning in some peoples’ lives. And as long as there is internet, there will be trolls.
Regardless if you think these stereotypes are not relevant in today’s society, they still are stereotypes and ones that have strong racist roots.
While these were in terrible taste, the rest of the submissions were pretty incredible. Take a look below:
Here’s Rio eating a delicious bowl of cereal submitted by gumballbrain:
Here’s Rio as a pirate-Lil-Wayne trying to sell a baby tiger from jeauxoxo:
Here’s a brilliant gif of Rio blowing some bubbles from gnostic_cat:
Here he is with a cat from flyerguy28:
And there is this masterpiece from the wizard of Photoshop gnostic_cat:
BONUS: Here is the celebration that started it all. Maybe even the greatest celebration ever by a freshman bench player who eventually was granted a transfer last April.
Hilarious reaction from Anrio Adams on the Kansas bench last night. http://t.co/QL2Tqgfapu#feedhim
— Bryan Armen Graham (@BryanAGraham) March 16, 2013
