Members of bulletin board 4chan superimpose duck heads on to images of Isis fighters, setting off craze that has spread to Twitter and Facebook

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, could it in fact be an Islamic State militant?

As world leaders scratch their heads about the best method to defeat the terror of Isis, internet users have come up with their own way to take the sting out of the group’s feathery tail.

Members of the image-based bulletin board 4chan began superimposing rubber duck heads on to images of Isis fighters, setting off a craze that has spread to Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.



Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) ISIS fighters photoshopped as rubber ducks. Because humor beats terror. https://t.co/KnFNVXFZYl pic.twitter.com/iAs3EPG3eh

D-day (@Nicky_Devlin) Isis is way less scary when you make them rubber ducks pic.twitter.com/W3A9up5iMX

“How about castrating the image of Isis by replacing the faces on ALL the propaganda photos with bath ducks?” a 4Chan user wrote on Shit4chanSays (/s4s/) board.

Reddit users picked up on the meme when it was posted on the r/4chan subreddit, which collects content from 4chan. “This had me quacking up,” posted one Reddit user. Another asked: “Would you rather fight 1,000 duck-sized Isis members, or one Isis-sized duck?”

Since then, hundreds of images have been posted online showing fighters from the terror group with duck heads. Some creative users added toilet brushes and other bathroom paraphernalia. Some added rainbow colours. One recreated the group’s notorious black flag to fit the avian theme.

A selection of some of the best images have been posted on a photo-sharing site under the title “Creates the duck state”.

Isis has relied heavily on a skilled command of propaganda imagery to attract recruits and spread terror.This week Belgian Twitter users responded to police terror raids and pleas for a social media silence with pictures of their pet cats.

• This article was amended on 29 November 2015 because an earlier version said 4chan was a subset of Reddit. This has been corrected.