Japanese Twitter users mock ISIS with memes

Over the weekend, ISIS - or as Amy Gray suggests we call them, "extremist bag of dicks" - claimed they had murdered security contractor Haruna Yukawa. He was one of two Japanese men, the other being journalist Kenji Goto, who were taken captive and held to ransom by the terrorist group.

The Japanese government refused to pay the $200 million demanded, and after the deadline passed, a new video announcing the threat had been carried out emerged and a new demand to exchange Goto for Sajida al-Rishawi - a woman sentenced to death in Jordan who was arrested in connection with the Amman bomb attacks last year.

But Japanese Twitter users have reacted to the news of the hostage situation in a way that many people may find odd, or even insensitive.

A "shitty photoshop contest" has sprung up under the tag #ISISクソコラグランプリ (which roughly translates to "ISIS crappy collage grand prix") turning screenshots from the initial hostage video into memes mocking ISIS and the situation itself. The pictures substitute knives for selfie sticks and bananas, transport ISIS members into space, or insert them into anime such as Attack on Titan. The hashtag has been used over 50,000 times so far.

Peter Payne @jlist
The message of #ISISクソコラグランプリ is “You can kill some of us, but Japan is a peaceful and happy land, with fast Internet. So go to hell.”
4:07 AM - 22 Jan 2015 Isesaki City, Gunma, 日本

Lone Wolf wrote:I WILL never understand just why the major governments of the world simply stood back "when the writing was already on the wall" ~ and watched groups like these build up their criminal organisations