Since its inception, the #MeToo movement has received copious backlash: Survivors brave enough to speak up face harassment and doxing, while the media speculates about how being outed as an abuser will impact men’s careers. But until a few days ago, #MeToo hadn’t inspired a full-on hashtag-slinging countermovement.

Now there’s #HimToo. The hashtag and its associated memes are #MeToo’s first major inversion, popularized during Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation. It’s become the #AllLivesMatter of sexual assault: The hashtag identifies accused men as victims, using the same power-in-numbers technique that made #MeToo a force to recast the movement as a widespread feminist witch hunt, forcing men to walk on eggshells.

The memes read like fear-mongering PSAs targeted at moms: “Mothers of sons should be scared. It is terrifying that at any time, any girl can make up any story about any boy that can neither be proved or disproved, and ruin any boy’s life.” Now the hashtag and its line of argument have spread, popping up on accounts that appear to be concerned mothers and Trump-supporting provocateurs, like Diamond and Silk. (They of the Facebook content moderation scandal.)

HimToo has become the #AllLivesMatter of sexual assault, using the same tools as #MeToo to portray accused men as victims

Reality check: False sexual assault claims are exceedingly rare, and sexual assault is chronically underreported. Turning victim-blaming into a meme is a very 2018 sort of problem—it’s easy for extreme arguments to find a foothold within extreme partisanship, where it’s more important to win than to be kind, or even right.

But, as a hashtag, #HimToo says a great deal about how people communicate and organize online. #HimToo has meant many things over the past three years, means several things now, and will probably mean other things in the future. Flexibility is crucial to a hashtag’s success: A tiny string of words must both mark individual thoughts and experiences and integrate them to a larger whole. That elasticity is especially important for online activism like #MeToo, where a hashtag ties together a disparate group of stories into a horrifying display of the scale of America’s sexual assault problem.

Hashtags are destined to be repurposed and expanded and, sometimes, co-opted by the ideological opposition. And maybe that’s to be expected: In periods of animosity, any two words attempting to sum up a painful and contentious human experience are going to be fraught with contradiction, and perhaps be an active battleground.

HimToo emerged innocent and unpolitical. In 2015 and earlier, #HimToo might have referred to any male who was also doing something. (For example: If you went to go get froyo with your boyfriend, you might tweet “I love Pinkberry. #HimToo.” Wholesome.) But soon, it was being used to signal your political allegiances. In the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election, tweeters used the hashtag to show support for Tim Kaine—#I’mWithHer #HimToo.

During the first few months of the Trump administration, Trump supporters flipped its meaning once again to attack Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and others in conjunction with Hillary Clinton—#LockHerUp #HimToo.

Flexibility is crucial to a hashtag’s success: A tiny, string of words must both mark individual thoughts and experiences and integrate them to a larger whole.

That was before October 15, 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano began encouraging her followers to spread the #MeToo hashtag, a movement founded by activist Tarana Burke as a tool for survivors to share stories of sexual violence. #HimToo became part of that tweet frenzy immediately, as a reminder that there are male victims of sexual assault who face similar stigmas and also suffer privately.

This #HimToo movement inspired New York Times op-eds and dedicated accounts for male victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Critics would argue that #MeToo has always been gender neutral, and high-profile men like Terry Crews are a crucial part of the movement. But reports of Italian actress Asia Argento (and erstwhile #MeToo leader) paying off a young male accuser reinforced the need for a separate, male-focused movement.

“When Asia Argento was accused, it made the rounds for a day, then disappeared. Then the founder of #MeToo claimed her movement was for men also,” says Keith P, the man behind the HeToo Twitter account. “I went to her website to look at her old tweets, and not once did she mention male victims. People don’t realize sexual assault is a two-way street.”