Murdoch Murdoch — the Alt-Right’s very own sitcom

Murdoch-chan, a crudely-drawn, red-headed girl wearing an German WW2 medal, picks up and cocks a laser rifle. “The Palestinian remover 9000. The only thing I like about Jews is how good they are at removing kebabs”, she quips.

Murdoch Murdoch is an animated sitcom. Its episodes — usually around 10 minutes long — are uploaded to various video hosting sites every few weeks. They’re presented in a crude style of animation, heavily reliant on stock images and jerky movement, mildly reminiscent of South Park. The show has a long-running cast of recurring characters, a tendency to break the fourth wall and an underlying tone of self-deprecation and irony. In other words, it’s much like any other average internet comedy series.

But Murdoch Murdoch is not an average internet comedy series.

Murdoch Murdoch is Nazi propaganda.

The main characters of the show — Murdoch, Dr Murdoch, and Murdoch-chan — wear Nazi uniforms. Each episode, they battle a variety of villains, primarily Jews and black people. The 14 words (effectively the slogan of modern white supremacist and neo-nazi movements) are referenced and repeated endlessly. In the episode Nice Guy National Socialist, the main characters plainly state that they’re working to spread a rebranded, friendly and approachable form of national socialism.

Alongside the blatant endorsement of Nazism, Murdoch Murdoch has a secondary message — of unity. The three main characters, Murdoch, Dr. Murdoch and Murdoch-chan, exemplify this: Murdoch is a libertarian, Dr. Murdoch is a nationalist, and Murdoch-chan is an unapologetic, Hitler-quoting, SS-uniform-wearing Nazi. They represent three major factions within the alt-right, and the show repeatedly makes it clear that they need to stick together in the face of their enemies (communists, progressives, Jews, black people, and so on).

The show also encourages the alt-right to team up with — and educate — people they disdain. Generally, this means Trump supporters. In the show they are represented by the side character “r/the_donald”, a human incarnation of Reddit’s army of Trump fans. The contempt for Trump supporters (largely over their support for Israel) is tangible, but they are also portrayed as useful. Dr. Murdoch praises r/the_donald’s “potential”, should the correct “red pills” be delivered, saying “he could change the balance of power in this conflict.”

It’s hard to tell exactly how influential Murdoch Murdoch is. Its viewer numbers are unclear, because YouTube, where the show was originally hosted, is quick to remove the videos. Nonetheless, fans of the show doggedly re-upload copies of their favourite episodes, giving us a glimpse of the size of the show’s audience. A reupload of Episode 15: Hold Back The Night, which is little more than a six-minute music video filled with xenophobic and antisemitic scaremongering, has clocked up over 250,000 views. Those aren’t spectacular numbers by YouTube standards — but they’re nothing to sniff at. Below the video, one commenter mused “If this video hadn’t been taken down I think it would have reached a million views by now.”

When people outside the internet’s far-right communities stumble across Murdoch Murdoch, their reaction is to assume irony. On a Reddit post describing the Metamorphosis video as “alt-right propaganda”, a Redditor states “I’m so confused… This has to be parody, right? And it’s pretty funny — I giggled several times.”

Another chimes in: “Dude I’m having such a hard time understanding that video. My brain is immediately saying ‘this has to be some form of weird satire because its TOO insane’”.

These reactions aren’t surprising. Murdoch Murdoch is self-deprecating and deeply ironic. The main male characters are portrayed as pathetic, schlubby idiots. The female character’s quasi-sexual adoration of Adolf Hitler is played for laughs. Topping it all off, the atrocious animation and absurd over-use use of watermarked stock images remind the viewer to take nothing seriously.

This is entirely deliberate. Murdoch Murdoch’s irony softens the experience for first-time viewers, who might otherwise be scared away by the show’s politics. The show remains palatable — “just a joke” — right up until the point where these viewers start to genuinely sympathise with Murdoch Murdoch’s ideology. This works because bigoted jokes aren’t “just jokes” — there’s strong evidence that they’re actually highly effective tools for fostering bigoted views.

In a since-deleted Ask Me Anything on Reddit, a Redditor asked the three creators of the show “Is it better to sell your videos as satire to people? Is that the intention? That’s how I got hooked.”

In response, the MM team posted a solitary YouTube link. It led to a video of Julie Andrews performing A Spoonful of Sugar in Mary Poppins. The implication? Some sweetener — irony and satire — is needed to administer fascist ideology to the masses. Murdoch Murdoch is here to do exactly that.