Trolling for dollars

Kaitlin Bennett and other right-wing YouTube celebrities are making careers on staging outrage and spreading deliberate hate on college campuses.

Imagine one day walking through campus and seeing a woman with an M-4 rifle strapped to her back. Strange, right? Well, that’s what Kaitlin Bennett did after she graduated from Kent State University to protest their gun-free campus policies. After going viral on Twitter and being forever dubbed the “Kent State Gun Girl,” Bennett continued to express her disapproval for liberal politics by joining the infamous Alex Jones and his team at InfoWars. 

Bennett once again started trending on Twitter for talking to random students on college campuses. In a video titled “College students have no morals” for her Youtube channel called Liberty Hangout, Bennett is seen going up to college students and asking questions like “Should we take money out of the school budget to put tampons in the men’s bathroom for men who have periods?” or “Should we put urinals in the women’s bathrooms for women who have penises?” referring to issues some people have with trans men and women using whichever bathroom matches their identity. 

Knowing that she was obviously trying to get a reaction out of them, many of the students replied with comments like “yes, absolutely,” and “if there’s money in the budget, I don’t see why not.”

Shocked that a lot of people didn’t seem to be phased by the idea of being inclusive towards people in the LGBTQ+ community, Bennett decided to switch up her tactics and claimed, “We don’t live in a racist society. I see different colors of people all around me, everyday.” 

After that comment, a bewildered student responded by stating that “mass incarceration, the prison industrial complex and the military industrial complex are perpetuated on the notion that black and brown bodies are less than white bodies.” 

That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Bennett being disrespectful and hateful toward certain people. But it begs the question: are Bennett and other right-wing YouTube stars really making a living off of staging outrage and spreading hate on college campuses?

Why hasn’t Bennett brought her tour over to the West Coast? How would students react if one day she decided to come and walk around Portland State asking homophobic and racist questions? 

One could only imagine what Bennett’s reaction would be when she saw the 70 all-gender bathrooms located throughout campus. 

The only real goal on her agenda is to try and spark a reaction out of liberal students to get content for her YouTube channel so she can make more money. She has moved past using her questions as a means for genuine discussion and has turned into a full on internet troll.