ViralWorld

Project Chanology

You might remember it as Message to Scientology, Anonymous versus Scientology

This spread through many posts rather than one canonical upload.

2008·Early YouTube·informative

The month an imageboard turned into a movement and put masks on in the street.

At a glanceThe facts

Remembered as
Message to Scientology
Spread in
2008
Format
Event
Era
Early YouTube
Made by
Anonymous, organised by users of 4chan and related boards
Who or what it shows
A protest against the Church of Scientology
Origin
No single original
Available
Not held by ViralWorld

What this wasThe story

In January 2008 the Church of Scientology tried to remove a leaked internal interview with Tom Cruise from the internet. Users of 4chan took this as censorship and responded — first with a video posted to YouTube on 21 January stating an intent to expel the church from the internet, then with denial-of-service attacks and prank calls, and then, from February, with organised street protests in dozens of cities by people in Guy Fawkes masks.

The protests continued for years and shifted from disruption to legal and regulatory pressure. Anonymous went on to a long and contested career in hacktivism, and the shape it took here — anonymous, distributed, iconographic — became the template for a great deal of what followed, some of it admirable and some of it not.

Why it matteredWhat changed

A campaign planned on anonymous message boards brought about seven thousand people on to the streets of a hundred cities on one day, many of them in Guy Fawkes masks.

TimelineIn order

  1. Made

    A Scientology video of Tom Cruise is posted to YouTube, and removed after a copyright claim.1

  2. Made

    Users of 4chan and other boards plan a response.1

  3. Posted

    A video titled Message to Scientology is posted.1

  4. Later

    The first street protest, by about 150 people in Orlando.1

  5. Took off

    About 7,000 people protest in at least 100 cities, many in Guy Fawkes masks from the film V for Vendetta.1

  6. Later

    A second worldwide protest draws a similar number.1

RelatedMore like this

Records this one is explicitly related to — a copy, a remake, a parody, the same meme or the same maker.

Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later

Where it came fromWhat we know

This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. No copy is held here — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is what this page can tell you.

Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

More from 2008You were there

ConnectedFollow it further

SourcesWhat was read

  1. Wikipedia — Project Chanology

Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things

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