August 5th, 2019: The Day of the Feral Hogs
August 6, 2019 10:37 AM   Subscribe

So, here's what happened: A guy on Twitter tried to make the argument that he needed an assault rifle in order to stave off the "30-50 feral hogs" that allegedly swarm his yard within 3-5 minutes every time his kids play outside. The idea that this man was fighting off upwards of 50 hogs every time his kids went outdoors sent Twitter into a meme frenzy, and just about everyone had a Feral Hog Tweet™.
posted by Etrigan (299 comments total) 81 users marked this as a favorite
 
We are all feral hogs now.
posted by srboisvert at 10:41 AM on August 6, 2019 [33 favorites]


In the hog show.
posted by JoeBlubaugh at 10:44 AM on August 6, 2019 [30 favorites]


I fucking wept about this. Maybe I just needed the laugh, but it came at the perfect time.

The Guardian is dutifully concern-trolling about the tweets. Look. I'm from a feral hog concern area, and it ... no. There are dangerous animals that can turn up in your yard. You may need to supervise your children. You may, on occasion, need to be able to shoot one of those animals. But you are not going to get feral hogs respawning like 8-bit sidescroller enemies.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:44 AM on August 6, 2019 [171 favorites]


A "feral hog" is a riderless Harley-Davidson, right? Packs of wild motorcycles that millennials refused to buy roaming the countryside.
posted by straight at 10:44 AM on August 6, 2019 [59 favorites]


I have no idea how these people got 30-50 feral hogs wedged into their yards while their small kids play, or why.
posted by ckape at 10:44 AM on August 6, 2019 [111 favorites]


Old Yeller would be alive today if Travis Coates had been able to carry an AR.
posted by Bee'sWing at 10:45 AM on August 6, 2019 [17 favorites]


I found it adorable that several British people believed that the Tweet was about hedgehogs (I guess that is the most common use of that morpheme here), and the thought of one hedgehog arriving every 6 seconds seemed pretty cute to me.
posted by ambrosen at 10:48 AM on August 6, 2019 [128 favorites]


lol any parent worth the name would just take down the boars one by one with a bowie knife. this guy’s a wimp.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:48 AM on August 6, 2019 [24 favorites]


All I could think about during this was a comment boo_radley made last week in the "Wild boars in Barcelona" thread about the BoarBuster, which can trap dozens of wild hogs in one go. I sat through all six and a half minutes of that video, transfixed.

There's even video of someone using two BoarBusters to capture, well, between 30 and 50 feral hogs, actually.
posted by Leviathant at 10:50 AM on August 6, 2019 [52 favorites]


I imagine it as sort of like living in the midst of the zombie apocalypse, but with feral hogs instead. There are so many that they will swarm in minutes, overrunning everything. Literally just billions of hogs, ruling the entire planet.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:50 AM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


On the plus side, it's a good occasion to read Ian Frazier's 2005 essay on hogs from the New Yorker.
posted by Cash4Lead at 10:50 AM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


That same Jason Isbell tweet also brought this highly shared exchange.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:50 AM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


> Literally just billions of hogs, ruling the entire planet.

That's probably how other animals perceive us.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:53 AM on August 6, 2019 [38 favorites]


Metafilter: No. Don't do it.
posted by lumpenprole at 10:55 AM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


I fucking loved this yesterday, not in the least because I do not do well with discussions of gun violence but am always up for poetry remixes.

Now enjoy this rendition of Barrett's 30 to 50 feral hogs.
posted by dinty_moore at 10:56 AM on August 6, 2019 [11 favorites]


That's probably how other animals perceive us.

four 120-200 legs good, 2 legs bad!
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:56 AM on August 6, 2019 [13 favorites]


Sounds like the plot to Razorback, except with the boar herd attack on a tape loop.
posted by benzenedream at 10:57 AM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


I feel like the makers of Plants vs. Zombies could regain cultural relevancy with a quick Rednecks vs Feral Hogs reskin.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:58 AM on August 6, 2019 [10 favorites]


I feel like a curmudgeon but I didn't find any of the riffing funny and was so annoyed that I had to mute the words 'hog' and 'feral' on my Twitter timeline because everybody was making the same jokes all day.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:59 AM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


Old Yeller would be alive today if Travis Coates had been able to carry an AR.

*shoves glasses up nose* ACTUALLY those were javelinas, a type of pig native to the New World, not feral hogs, which come from the Old World.
posted by emjaybee at 11:00 AM on August 6, 2019 [29 favorites]


If you are ever beset by feral anything, whatever you do, don't call the cops.

I once told someone that calling the cops was like inviting a vampire in to deal with your werewolf problem.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 11:01 AM on August 6, 2019 [50 favorites]


I feel like the makers of Plants vs. Zombies could regain cultural relevancy with a quick Rednecks vs Feral Hogs reskin.

The makers of PvZ were acquired and destroyed by EA in 2011 :-(

posted by Jacob G at 11:02 AM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


I once told someone that calling the cops was like inviting a vampire in to deal with your werewolf problem.

If your problem can be solved by adding the presence of a stranger with a gun, then by all means, call the police.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:03 AM on August 6, 2019 [23 favorites]


I loved (and am still loving) Twitter hogmania. And honestly, I had a lot of fun taking the guy's dumb claim at face value.

Like: pretending he's arguing in good faith, he's saying that
1) it's normal to be fucking filling the air with lead, shooting ~75 rounds into the area where his kids are playing, in order to take out rampaging animals
2) and then for his kids it's no big deal (preferred, even?) for their play space to be absolutely littered with dozens of dead and dying hogs bleeding out into the grass.
posted by COBRA! at 11:04 AM on August 6, 2019 [112 favorites]


Also the buzzfeed roundup missed the *best* feral hog tweet, which as of this writing is still pretty fresh off the assembly line.
posted by COBRA! at 11:06 AM on August 6, 2019 [21 favorites]


I feel like the reason the jokes peaked and then died so quickly is because nobody's riff could possibly be funnier than the idea of this perpetual child-seeking wave of feral boars that could only be stopped by a lone homeowner wielding an AK-47. So even more than usual in these viral incidents, what might appear to be a long, long list of jokes was actually just one joke.

One absolutely amazing joke, mind.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:06 AM on August 6, 2019 [24 favorites]


I think Lucille Bluth said it best.
posted by ckape at 11:08 AM on August 6, 2019 [25 favorites]


I'm happy I was there. This is my Woodstock.
posted by bondcliff at 11:09 AM on August 6, 2019 [41 favorites]


I've read the link and these comments and I still have no idea what the hell is going on.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:10 AM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


It's simple Empress Callipygos. William McNabb, a Twitter user, is wondering "How do I kill the 30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?"
posted by Nelson at 11:14 AM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


Cortex, as usual, has the best take: a Toynbee Tile.
posted by Nelson at 11:14 AM on August 6, 2019 [20 favorites]


Also I think the pressure of the shitty, shitty weekend where we had the same conversation we always have without any change finally broke and a bunch of people were just glad to have an excuse for some surrealist humor, plus everyone else's confusion just made it funnier.
posted by dinty_moore at 11:18 AM on August 6, 2019 [14 favorites]


30-50 feral hogs? In my yard while my small kids play?

It's more likely than you think.
posted by ckape at 11:19 AM on August 6, 2019 [22 favorites]


I've had a few tweets that caught a little attention, but I am saddened that my very first response to the Great Feral Hog Awakening of 2019 didn't catch on. Am I the only person who knows that you're supposed to kill the wild hog in the woods with a wooden knife and not an assault rifle?
posted by drlith at 11:21 AM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


Jason Isbell is a blessing
posted by sallybrown at 11:23 AM on August 6, 2019 [16 favorites]


ACTUALLY those were javelinas, a type of pig native to the New World, not feral hogs, which come from the Old World.

An excellent thread on "hogs, ferality, and race in American history."
posted by Etrigan at 11:24 AM on August 6, 2019 [29 favorites]


best:

Feral hogs, doo doo doo doo doo doo
Feral hogs, doo doo doo doo doo doo
Feral hogs, doo doo doo doo doo doo
Feral hogs!

Eat the kids, doo doo doo doo doo doo
Eat the kids, doo doo doo doo doo doo
Eat the kids, doo doo doo doo doo doo
Eat the kids!

In my yard, doo doo doo doo d

posted by supermedusa at 11:26 AM on August 6, 2019 [38 favorites]


Someone's been watching way too many 70's grindhouse flicks.
posted by gtrwolf at 11:27 AM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


What he really needs is a row of super fast action bacon slicers around his property. Once the hogs are sliced hang up the slices with clothes pegs and wait, and voila, American style prosciutto.
posted by biffa at 11:27 AM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


Im glad everyone who needed one got a little laugh, but i thought this thread's take was super insightful (click through for a very thorough build up to the argument i quote at the bottom):

Ok y'all did it: A thread about hogs, ferality, and race in American history.

Domestic hogs are not indigenous to North America. They were first introduced by the Spanish during the earliest phases of colonization. In fact, in many cases, hogs long preceded Europeans as the first wave of colonizers,

Hogs are tough, fierce, and hardy beasts. Their tusks offer ample defense against catamounts and other predators. They are thrifty breeders, producing large litters of viable offspring. And they can self-provision in forests, scrub, and grass (tho they also need shade and mud).

European colonizers seeded the landscape with small populations of hogs, knowing they would multiply quickly and, thus, would provide a ready supply of meat. Seeded so, hogs quickly advanced across the North American continent far faster than Europeans.

. . .

It is in this context that the concept of “feral” can begin to emerge as a distinct and threatening concept to white American culture: a form of unmanaged reproduction and life that exists outside and apart from property ownership and settled agriculture.

That defense of assault weapons is almost too on the nose: hordes of unmanaged life invade domesticity and managed reproduction (the daughter) and must be culled with massive and indiscriminate violence. Six hundred years of settler colonialism is speaking in that tweet.

posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:28 AM on August 6, 2019 [53 favorites]


I for one welcome the new WeRateHogs twitter account.
posted by Hypatia at 11:28 AM on August 6, 2019 [14 favorites]


I was so confused by the whole feral hogs conversation - I thought it was about escaped wild boar in central Canada, but didn't know why it would be trending this week.

Though I suppose it is all related: hogs, whether introduced in the last few decades or a couple of centuries before, can become a dangerous invasive species.

Javelinas, on the other hand, are a fascinating example of parallel evolution.
posted by jb at 11:28 AM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


*shoves glasses up nose* ACTUALLY those were javelinas, a type of pig native to the New World, not feral hogs, which come from the Old World.

Thanks a lot, Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
posted by briank at 11:29 AM on August 6, 2019 [26 favorites]


Dammit Etrigan, my post was in draft when you beat me to the link. . .
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:29 AM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


This is the day I find out (from the Boarbusters link) that a pack of hogs is called a 'Sounder'. Weird.
posted by Brockles at 11:31 AM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


my name is @williemcnabb
and i am jarred
to find 30-50 feral pigs
in my front yard

i fetch my gun
fill the air with lead
don't hit the children!
i shoot pigs dead
posted by Mayor West at 11:31 AM on August 6, 2019 [19 favorites]


This is such a good example of Poe's Law. It's so easy to imagine someone mockingly concocting a scenario of one feral hog bearing down on innocent children playing every 6 seconds for 3-5 minutes as a "reason" why high-capacity automatic weapons are "necessary," but here comes this clown that genuinely seems to believe this is a likely scenario. In his replies he repeatedly references some bullshit local news story about the dangers of feral pigs, when in actuality the number of deaths attributable to wild pigs can be counted on one hand (and a majority of those were self-inflicted Baratheon-style).
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:32 AM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


Or this guy is a nazi troll: https://twitter.com/_Anunnery/status/1158576865453334528
posted by thedaniel at 11:33 AM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


Meme goes Gadarene.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:35 AM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


Or this guy is a nazi troll

[ por_qué_no_los_dos.gif ]
posted by hanov3r at 11:36 AM on August 6, 2019 [14 favorites]


I once told someone that calling the cops was like inviting a vampire in to deal with your werewolf problem.

this is profound...
posted by supermedusa at 11:36 AM on August 6, 2019 [13 favorites]


posted by Etrigan at 11:37 AM - 50 comments (30-50 new)
posted by ODiV at 11:37 AM on August 6, 2019 [38 favorites]


That Gabriel Rosenberg thread is the kind of thing where you reach the end and kind of wish there were 300 more pages.
posted by mittens at 11:38 AM on August 6, 2019 [9 favorites]


I can't help but imagine the following scene:

Dad straps up with an AR-15 and sets up a Barret 50 cal in a shooting stand on the back deck overlooking a couple of acres of grassy yard inside a wall of scrubby forest and brush, with a small sandbox and an assortment of backyard playground equipment. He checks is side arms, one .357 magnum revolver and a well tuned Glock 21.

"Get on out there and play, I mean it! You know the drill!" Dad barks at his two pre-teen kids, a boy and a girl, who wince and dutifully pick up kid-sized hearing protection from pegs on the wall near the back door, listlessly making their way to the sandbox. They begin digging in the sand idly, watching the treeline carefully. Dad takes up position behind the Barret and setting the AR-15 within easy reach up in the shooting stand built up on the deck complete with camouflage and, for some reason, sandbags.

Just as he takes the safety off on the Barrett the first two feral hogs burst through the tree line, snarling and making a beeline towards the sandbox. Dad quickly brings the Barrett to bear on the hog and fires. The hog's head nearly instantly explodes, and despite their hearing protection, both kids jump and startle at the noise and huge, bright muzzle flash right overhead, trying to focus on the sand castle they're listlessly building.

The other hog bolts sideways before resuming its charge, but Dad swiftly re-sights on it and pulls another shot, dropping the other feral hog with a wild yell.

"Keep playing! I got 'em!" Dad yells, scanning the treeline vigilantly. The kids look at each other for a moment and roll their eyes, sighing as they resume trying to build a sand castle.

A few minutes pass, then five feral hogs burst through the treeline, and Dad unloads, taking the remaining eight shots in the magazine to drop them, the last within 50 yards of the sandbox. The young boy startles so hard he knocks down part of the sand castle and he furrows his brow, staring at the slumped pile of sand morosely, biting his lip.

Dad quickly ejects the magazine, reaching for a fresh one, seating it. But before he can unlock the bolt and rack the first cartridge ten feral hogs burst through the treeline, coming from all sides. Dad leaps up and grabs his AR-15, brings it to his shoulder, aims and starts firing, nearly emptying the magazine and howling "COME ON YOU FUCKERS GET SOME GET SOME GET SOME GET SOME" before dropping them all, quickly ejecting the magazine and reloading, then taking up position behind the Barrett again, cycling the first round into the chamber.

The young girl yells something over the noise as he's firing and throws her plastic trowel, stomping off to the playground and swingset combo in irritation, hiding in the playhouse.

Eventually an hour or two of this racket and carnage passes and the yard is littered with feral hog carcasses and parts strewn everywhere. The back deck is littered with spent brass casings. Dad sits there furiously reloading magazines out of boxes of ammo piled up in the shooting stand. He pinches his finger while pushing in a round for the tenth time, curses, spits and sets it aside.

"All right, that's plenty!" Dad yells, glancing at his watch. "Get inside and wash up for dinner!"

The kids get up and rush inside, not taking off their hearing protection until inside the door, running off to their individual rooms and slamming their doors until called out for dinner.

At dinner that night they have ribs and pork chops. Again.
posted by loquacious at 11:39 AM on August 6, 2019 [112 favorites]


I needed this high level of goofiness after the weekend. Some ones I've enjoyed:

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early

Advanced D&D Monster Manual, by Gary Gygax
posted by sgranade at 11:41 AM on August 6, 2019 [35 favorites]


I was utterly confused by the jokes at first, then I found an explanation, and then I had a good laugh. It was good for some amusement on a day when I had plenty of frustrations from non-hog related reasons.

But perhaps I am whistling past the graveyard: Canada is apparently losing the war on feral pigs, so maybe the need to deal with sounders is part of my grim future.
posted by nubs at 11:42 AM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


On the one hand, having dealt with an infestation of feral bunnies, I can sort of understand how feral critters would cause you to wish you owned an AK-47. On the other hand, that is not actually an argument for the legalization of AK-47s. But seriously, those things are assholes, and I now totally sympathize with Mr. McGregor.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:42 AM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


I LOVE that thread about colonialism and feral hogs. Everything I know about wild hogs in texas, I learned on the golf course, where they tear down fences and make hog wallows on the fairways. If that isn't a metaphor for every racist fear white people have, I don't know what is.

The fact of the matter is that wild hogs are a popular sport animal and people set out feeders and hunting blinds to make the sport easier. All jokes aside if this guy has 30-50 feral hogs in his backyard, it's likely because he cultivated them to come there.
posted by muddgirl at 11:44 AM on August 6, 2019 [18 favorites]


Meme goes Gadarene

Yes?
posted by Gadarene at 11:46 AM on August 6, 2019 [15 favorites]


As I read that an AR-15's bullets aren't a match for these hogs' thick hides it made me really existentially depressed that the weapon is made specifically to kill lots and lots of squishy humans.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:46 AM on August 6, 2019 [22 favorites]


Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the Anti-Gun Lobby, 30-50 feral hogs in a trenchcoat hand over a briefcase filled with cash to corrupt Democratic congressional representatives.
posted by biogeo at 11:49 AM on August 6, 2019 [37 favorites]


Killing people is exactly what the AR-15, and any other gun that fires .223, is meant to do. Don't let any nut tell you otherwise. If you showed up at a deer hunt with an AR-15 at a minimum you'd get weird looks, if not outright laughter.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:49 AM on August 6, 2019 [24 favorites]


Can't find the original tweet, but it showed up as FeralHogFest19 was tapering off:

"That'll do, 30-50 feral hogs, that'll do."
posted by whuppy at 11:50 AM on August 6, 2019 [67 favorites]


FTA:

Please help there’s 30-50 Pharrell hogs in my yard, they won’t stop singing Happy

As usual, Google Images did not disappoint.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:51 AM on August 6, 2019 [15 favorites]


I fail to see how the "well regulated" part of the second amendment would preclude the government from issuing special permits for more hazardous firearms when they serve a justifiable purpose.

Live in a remote area where there are a lot of dangerous animals? Sure, you can get one. One. And can only have enough ammunition in your home to protect family, your livestock, or your property from the types of animals that are in the area.

Want to caress your boomstick while fantasizing about valiantly protecting your delicate property womenfolk, err.. family from hordes of suspiciously-different-than-your-color people? No such luck.
posted by tclark at 11:52 AM on August 6, 2019 [8 favorites]


As I read that an AR-15's bullets aren't a match for these hogs' thick hides it made me really existentially depressed that the weapon is made specifically to kill lots and lots of squishy humans.

From Wikipedia:
In 1956, ArmaLite designed a lightweight selective fire rifle for military use and designated it the ArmaLite Rifle model 15, or AR-15.[7][8] Due to financial problems and limitations in terms of manpower and production capacity, ArmaLite sold the design and the AR-15 trademark along with the ArmaLite AR-10 to Colt's Manufacturing Company in 1959.[9] In 1964, Colt began selling its own version with an improved semi-automatic design known as the Colt AR-15.[10] After Colt's patents expired in 1977, an active marketplace emerged for other manufacturers to produce and sell their own semi-automatic AR-15 style rifles.[1] Some versions of the AR-15 were classified as "assault weapons" and banned under the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act in 1994. This act expired in 2004.[5][11]

In 2009, the term "modern sporting rifle" was coined by the National Shooting Sports Foundation for its survey that year as a marketing term used by the firearms industry to describe modular semi-automatic rifles including AR-15s.[12][13][14][15] Today, nearly every major firearm manufacturer produces its own generic AR-15 style rifle.[16][14] As Colt continues to own and use the AR-15 trademark for its line of AR-15 variants, other manufacturers must use their own model numbers and names to market their AR-15 style rifles for commercial sale.[17]
(My emphasis.) The AR-15 is a military weapon designed specifically for killing humans. The idea that it is a "sporting rifle" is a transparent fiction, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
posted by biogeo at 12:05 PM on August 6, 2019 [27 favorites]




just about everyone had a Feral Hog Tweet™.

I was trying to come up with a good feral hog tweet, but like 30-50 of them showed up in my feed in 3-5 minutes.
posted by nubs at 12:08 PM on August 6, 2019 [35 favorites]




...he needed an assault rifle in order to stave off the "30-50 feral hogs" that allegedly swarm his yard within 3-5 minutes every time his kids play outside.

He’s using his kids as feral hog bait? Where’s CPS???
posted by Thorzdad at 12:14 PM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


Someone on Twitter pointed out that 30+50+3+5 is 88.

Just in case you weren't absolutely sure this was an enormous dog whistle. Hog whistle.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:18 PM on August 6, 2019 [18 favorites]


At my age I can barely work up 20 Feral Hogs.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:18 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


I'm pretty happy that MetaFilter's favorite WCW poem got hogified:
This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the kids
that were in
the backyard

Who you
probably left for
three to
five minutes

Forgive me
I am thirty to
fifty
feral hogs
And does it still count as trolling if people missed the hidden "88" in the message, and instead riffed it to death?
posted by filthy light thief at 12:19 PM on August 6, 2019 [54 favorites]


Pretending to be stupid and then declaring victory when people start laughing at you is 4chan trolling 101.
posted by Reyturner at 12:23 PM on August 6, 2019 [10 favorites]


Dear Mr. McNabb:
I feel you should be aware that 30-50 feral hogs are signing your name to stupid letters.
posted by notsnot at 12:24 PM on August 6, 2019 [16 favorites]


sallybrown: "Jason Isbell is a blessing"

Ben Shapiro thought it was a good idea to accuse a country singer from Alabama that he knows nothing about guns.
posted by octothorpe at 12:25 PM on August 6, 2019 [10 favorites]


where did the extra 3 and 5 come from?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:28 PM on August 6, 2019


where did the extra 3 and 5 come from

"within 3-5 minutes" in the original tweet.
posted by hanov3r at 12:29 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


I guess I was too focused on the pigs, not focused enough on the minutes (or the nazis).

thanks.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:31 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


I can't find the original tweet for this one, but it went something like:

I said maybeeee
You're gonna be the one that saves meeee
And after aaallll
You're my feral hoooogs
posted by mhum at 12:34 PM on August 6, 2019 [19 favorites]


Its comforting to know kids today are able to fight of 29 feral hogs on their own.
posted by Damienmce at 12:35 PM on August 6, 2019 [12 favorites]


[Intro]
Yo, feral hogs, let's kick it

[Hook]
Feral hogs hogs baby
Feral hogs hogs baby

[Verse 1]
Alright stop, collaborate and listen
Hogs back in my yard with nefarious intention
Something grabs a hold of me tightly
30 to 50 hogs all day and nightly
"Will it ever stop?" Yo I don't know
Turn off the lights watch my AR glow
To the extreme, in combat boots or sandals
Light up a pig and wax a sounder like a candle
Bum rush the hogs and go boom
Drop 30 to 50 pigs like a poisonous mushroom
Deadly, hope the kids don't tell on me
CPS thinks it's playtime felony
Three to five minutes, you better gangway
I insist this is a fine place for children to play
If there was a problem yo I'll solve it
Kicking pigs with cocktails when I Molotov them

[Hook]
Hogs hogs baby, feral
Hogs hogs baby, feral
Hogs hogs baby, feral
Hogs hogs baby, feral

[Verse 2]
Now that the kids are all jumping
On the trampoline with my AR pumping
Rounds of lead, into pigs no fakin'
I can cook the whole family 50 strips of bacon
Burn a pork chop if I ain't quick and nimble
Then make a pigskin football with a needle and thimble
Ugly boar with a souped up tempo
Shot in the lungs, cough phlegm whoa
Rolling all 5.0
Times ten to the two pigs on the go
Thirty pigs on standby waiting just to swarm by
“Did you stop?” No, I shot and asked "Why?"
Why? Do I insist without stop?
That my children play on this pig-infested block?
This block is a zoo
Never should have bought on Porcine Avenue
But now my barrel's hot and I'm shooting like a meany
I'll sell so much bacon that I'll buy a Lamborghini
Other hunters jealous 'cause I'm out getting mine
Done in three-to-five while those chumps take nine
Ready to mount heads up on the wall
First I check Groupon then make my taxidermist call
After three to five minutes, ring the dinner bell
30-50 pork chops served with cheese and shells
Kids fall in line real fast
'Cause I cook with all gas
Taste the meat not the heat makes the dinner table packed
If there's not enough food I'll send the kids out back
Draw some feral hogs on the scene, you know what I mean
Use my family as bait for a fine dining scene
If there's a feral hog, yo I'll solve it
Fifty pigs in five while my AR revolves it

[Hook]
Hogs hogs baby, feral
Hogs hogs baby, feral
Hogs hogs baby, feral
Hogs hogs baby, feral

[Verse 3]
Take heed 'cause I'm a backyard poet
Every three to five minutes just in case you didn't know it
My town that created all the pig sounds
Oinking and squealing while they drop to the ground
'Cause my family's like a grain silo spill
Drawing all the hogs from the valleys and the hills
What am I talking, this is a hell of a concept
Bait and kill dinner just beyond the front step
With this: My AR, aimed where the kids just played
Butcher like a ninja, cut like a razor blade
So fast, other chefs say “Damn!”
If pork chops were a drug I'd sell them by the gram
Keep my composure when a boar gets loose
A child should never fear a hog where they drink juice
When the pigs come from the woods yo I solve it
Check in with my pastor, no need to absolve it

[Hook]
Hogs hogs baby, feral
Hogs hogs baby, feral
Hogs hogs baby, feral
Hogs hogs baby, feral

[Outro]
Yo man, there's thirty to fifty hogs!
Word to your mother

Hogs hogs baby (three to five minutes)
Hogs hogs baby (three to five minutes)
Hogs hogs baby (three to five minutes)
Hogs hogs baby (three to five minutes)
posted by compartment at 12:36 PM on August 6, 2019 [56 favorites]


We're sorry Mr. McNabb (oh), we are fer-al
Never meant to make your children cry
We apologize 30-50 times
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:38 PM on August 6, 2019 [20 favorites]


Around here it's black bears. Time to get that rocket launcher.
posted by Splunge at 12:39 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


All I know is 30-50-3-5 is -22

not in math, but in my heart
posted by andreaazure at 12:40 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


Seanan McGuire's wonderful take.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:43 PM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


That same Jason Isbell tweet also brought this highly shared exchange.
That same Jason Isbell writes songs that will tear your heart out. (almost topical: "Elephant")
posted by notsnot at 12:43 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


Can we just replace the giant pork factories with trained hunters who humanely and efficiently dispatch wild hogs (including Tim Allen?). These “spray and pray” bozos are going to get a lot of gut shots and just generally ruin the meat.
posted by TedW at 12:43 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


All I know is 30-50-3-5 is -22

(30-50) + (3-5) = -22

SIMULTANEOUS FERAL HOG TIME CUBE
posted by hanov3r at 12:44 PM on August 6, 2019 [23 favorites]


In his replies he repeatedly references some bullshit local news story about the dangers of feral pigs, when in actuality the number of deaths attributable to wild pigs can be counted on one hand (and a majority of those were self-inflicted Baratheon-style).

Yeah, like, feral pigs are legitimately dangerous if you go poking and looking for them, but they're not going to appear out of nowhere like ghosts and go killing your children, unless maybe you are a mighty feral pig butcherer in which case it is only just vengeance and you had it coming.
posted by corb at 12:53 PM on August 6, 2019 [9 favorites]


my name is Hog
and wen its nite
or wen the kids
come play outside
three times ten
or twenty more
of us find them
and eat them all
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:54 PM on August 6, 2019 [53 favorites]


Thanks to Etrigan for posting, as I had seen the riffs all over The Twitter but I didn't know what the source was.

Now, can someone clue me in on the source of the "My ([age/gender]) [group of people] ([age/gender]) have unionized" meme?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:11 PM on August 6, 2019 [6 favorites]


meanwhile the upstate new york runaway bison mob continues to delight
posted by poffin boffin at 1:13 PM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


The other thing is: an AR is a shitty gun for feral hogs. In its standard configuration, it shoots the 5.56 round, which is basically "itty bitty bullet going really really fast." This produces little recoil, and so allows repeated shots quickly. Candidly, it's optimized for shooting at people -- lots of them, quickly.

You can GET an AR-type rifle in a round big enough for hunting hogs, but then you've traded away the main benefits of the platform (low recoil) for negligible gain, since repeated shots shouldn't be necessary in sporting situations. No hunter wants to need a 2nd shot to put down a deer or hog or whatever.

Because I'm a giant nerd and like numbers, I actually have this information handy.

Muzzle energy for a typical 5.56 rifle is on the order of 1800J.

The venerable lever-action .30-30 -- think cowboy rifle -- comes in at about 2,600J, and even that is questionable for feral pigs in the southeast. I have, personally, put multiple .30-30 rounds into a pig and have it run off. It'll die later, but that's bad.

A reasonable choice might be .308, which clocks at 3,600J, or its big brother the .30-06 (3,800J), and your local sporting goods store will sell you lovely bolt-action versions of either all day long. You'll have to work the action after every round, and you probably can't get more than 5 or 6 bullets in it at once, but that's fine for literally any legitimate sporting purpose.

(Before someone asks: The AK-47 and variants shoot 7.62x39mm rounds. They're more massive than the AR round, but move much slower. Muzzle energy is on the order of 2,000J, so they're not a great choice either -- especially since they tend to be fairly inaccurate.)
posted by uberchet at 1:13 PM on August 6, 2019 [31 favorites]


Now, can someone clue me in on the source of the "My ([age/gender]) [group of people] ([age/gender]) have unionized" meme?

It's from a post on Reddit's "relationships" forum: "My (25M) subs (23F, 26F, 22M, 28M, 28M) have unionized."
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:15 PM on August 6, 2019 [18 favorites]


The young pigs are going
(Downtown) the young pigs are growing
Feral pigs in America (whoa)
Feral pigs in America (whoa)
Everybody needs some bacon around
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:15 PM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


i mean first of all the proper way to hunt wild pigs is in a lightly armored macedonian phalanx of hoplites
posted by poffin boffin at 1:16 PM on August 6, 2019 [16 favorites]


I saw a hog at Trader Vics
And his hair was feral
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:22 PM on August 6, 2019 [20 favorites]


so much depends
upon

30-50 feral
hogs

eating some young chil
dren

in three to five
minutes
posted by Naberius at 1:26 PM on August 6, 2019 [12 favorites]


When this shows up on Yes/Yes/No, I'm gonna get the joke from the outset.
posted by jquinby at 1:27 PM on August 6, 2019 [10 favorites]


A tragically missed opportunity to make a case for 30-50 round magazines

[close sarcasm tag]

posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 1:32 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


30 ÷ 50(3+5)

WHAT ABOUT THAT EQUATION HUH
posted by weed donkey at 1:35 PM on August 6, 2019 [11 favorites]


Alright, we’ve got to get this straight because people seem confused-
if you’re 1-17 you’re Gen Z
If you’re 17-30 you’re Millenials
If you’re 30-50 you’re feral hogs and best not touch my children
posted by Karmakaze at 1:42 PM on August 6, 2019 [47 favorites]


sorry to bring this back to my deraily current bison obsession but the wiki article for them says they can jump up to 6 feet vertically and now i have One Fear
posted by poffin boffin at 1:42 PM on August 6, 2019 [34 favorites]


I feel like a curmudgeon but I didn't find any of the riffing funny and was so annoyed that I had to mute the words 'hog' and 'feral' on my Twitter timeline because everybody was making the same jokes all day.

This is the thing with social media now. Even when it's good, it's fucking insufferable.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:44 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]



I mean clearly the best way to stop a bad group of 30-50 feral hogs that want to eat my children is with a good group of 30-50 feral hogs that want to eat my children.
posted by Ziabatsu at 1:47 PM on August 6, 2019 [40 favorites]


The venerable lever-action .30-30

Really though, for a job like this you're going to want the .30-50
posted by sfenders at 1:47 PM on August 6, 2019 [19 favorites]


On the internet, nobody knows you're 30-50 feral hogs.
posted by ckape at 1:50 PM on August 6, 2019 [10 favorites]


The other thing is: an AR is a shitty gun for feral hogs

Any gun is a crappy gun for hunting feral hogs, so an AR15 or whatever is only slightly worse than a 30.06.
They know the sound of a gun, and they learn to run after you have shot one and shooting animals on the run is hard. That's what the big traps are for. They are 1000X better than any gun for dealing with hog infestations.

Wild animals are not zombies in some cheesy movie.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:53 PM on August 6, 2019 [20 favorites]


Hogs are only as feral as you let them be. Man could have 30-50 highly trained defense pigs if he just used his noggin for 3-5 minutes.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:55 PM on August 6, 2019 [20 favorites]


Looking out my kitchen window at my kids playing, I am woefully unprepared for the impending onslaught.
posted by hilberseimer at 1:56 PM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


sorry to bring this back to my deraily current bison obsession but the wiki article for them says they can jump up to 6 feet vertically and now i have One Fear

Bison are just awful animals. Like, regular old moo cows are dumb as a box of hammers but placid about it, like really stoned hippies all the time. Bison? Bison are just as fuckin' dumb but they're really angry about it, or at least they're really angry about *something* all the time, even if they don't know what it is but fuck it you're nearby so I'll just take it out on you.

I mean, they're not geese, but they're still from Planet Asshole.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 1:56 PM on August 6, 2019 [32 favorites]


at least they're really angry about *something* all the time

i feel like it's prolly colonialism
posted by poffin boffin at 1:58 PM on August 6, 2019 [67 favorites]


Metafilter: they're not geese, but they're still from Planet Asshole.
posted by jquinby at 1:58 PM on August 6, 2019 [21 favorites]


Bison could do nothing but stab people with their giant fuck-off horns all day for the rest of the century and still not have given as much grief as we gave them over the past two, so yup.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:59 PM on August 6, 2019 [22 favorites]


I'd offer to help with the feral hog problem, but first my squire needs to fetch my breast plate stretcher.
posted by hanov3r at 2:00 PM on August 6, 2019 [6 favorites]


The whole internet loves 30-50 feral hogs, a lovely sounder that swarms in to your yard within 3-5 minutes where your small children play! *5 seconds later* we regret to inform you the hogs is a nazi dogwhistle.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:06 PM on August 6, 2019 [28 favorites]


... respawning like 8-bit sidescroller enemies.

Forevermore how I will think of mosquitoes and biting gnats when I'm outside and at their mercy.
posted by RolandOfEld at 2:07 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


OMG. I thought the original feral hog reply guy was joking. He was serious?!
posted by elvissa at 2:14 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


The “30-50 feral hogs” joking struck me as somewhat hysterical. In the sense that we are all filled with horror and fear and anger and sadness, and then something mildly absurd comes along, and because everyone is already wound to breaking point, it is way funnier than it should be. And you can’t stop laughing and then you start crying. The jokes had that feel, to me anyway.
posted by snowmentality at 2:18 PM on August 6, 2019 [30 favorites]


OMG. I thought the original feral hog reply guy was joking. He was serious?!
First I thought he was serious, but after seeing the original tweet, I'm certain it's a dogwhistle.
posted by mumimor at 2:21 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


Whatever you do, you must drive the hogs together, as if tying a line of fishes, and when they are seen to be piled up, cut them down strongly without giving them room to move. --Miyamoto Musashi - Book of thirty to fifty hogs
posted by poe at 2:27 PM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


Meme goes Gadarene

Mark 5:1-20 reports that Jesus was able to destroy 2000 pigs in six seconds. An assault rifle provides only 0.5 milliMessiahs of stopping power.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:37 PM on August 6, 2019 [16 favorites]


Ha ha, I read it as a ratio—was wondering what they were mixed with. Must get some sleep tonight!
posted by stillmoving at 2:38 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


Could someone please explain to me what the point of a dogwhistle is, in this context? I've only ever seen it used to refer to a word or phrase that's unintentional proof that the speaker holds a specific belief. What's the benefit of purposefully hiding dogwhistles like this?
posted by FirstMateKate at 2:40 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


Anything that doesn't do at least 8 HP of damage means the boar keeps being a problem. "Relentless (Recharges after a Short or Long Rest). If the boar takes 7 damage or less that would reduce it to 0 hit points, it is reduced to 1 hit point instead."

The boar is a great way to remind your new players to take the aid action.
posted by rough ashlar at 2:41 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


Which may if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,
And still rest thine.—The storm begins:—poor wretch,
That for thy mother's fault art thus expos'd
To loss and what may follow!—Weep I cannot,
But my heart bleeds: and most accurs'd am I
To be by oath enjoin'd to this.—Farewell!
The day frowns more and more:—thou'rt like to have
A lullaby too rough:—I never saw
The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour!—
Well may I get aboard!—This is the chase:
I am gone for ever.

[Exit, pursued by thirty to fifty feral hogs.]
posted by jquinby at 2:43 PM on August 6, 2019 [12 favorites]


My contribution
posted by The Whelk at 2:44 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


Could someone please explain to me what the point of a dogwhistle is, in this context? I've only ever seen it used to refer to a word or phrase that's unintentional proof that the speaker holds a specific belief. What's the benefit of purposefully hiding dogwhistles like this?

It's a joke, where 4chan/whoever gets to be like 'lolz, they think we're talking about hogs and not noticing the white supremacy'.

It's pretty dumb, but you know. 4chan.
posted by dinty_moore at 2:45 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


Could someone please explain to me what the point of a dogwhistle is, in this context? I've only ever seen it used to refer to a word or phrase that's unintentional proof that the speaker holds a specific belief. What's the benefit of purposefully hiding dogwhistles like this?

My impression is that he is mocking Jason Isbell's comment in a "sly" manner that winks at his fellow racist idiots. It doesn't work that way because he is stupid.
posted by mumimor at 2:45 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


You know what they say "Feral Hog #51 gets the kids".
posted by srboisvert at 2:45 PM on August 6, 2019 [9 favorites]


Would you rather fight one feral-hog-sized dogwhistle, or 30-50 dogwhistle-sized feral hogs?
posted by oulipian at 2:46 PM on August 6, 2019 [20 favorites]


In addition to being one of our very best singer songwriters, Jason Isbell is, in fact, one of the very most delightful people on Twitter.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:48 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


I find the lack of homophonic jocularity in this thread distressing, with no attempts to conflate 'boar' and 'bore' whatsoever. We have pictures of the assembled Freedom Caucus, people. Get on it.
posted by eclectist at 2:49 PM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


If you showed up at a deer hunt with an AR-15 at a minimum you'd get weird looks, if not outright laughter.

The .223 is too small, by law, to hunt deer where I go into the woods to scare the deer. .243 is the smallest allowed and that will leave its copper jacket on the outside of the deer where it hit the rib. (the lead did make it inside and sliced up the organs so you could see the long thin worms in the liver as a reminder to not eat deer organ meat).
posted by rough ashlar at 2:51 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


Like, regular old moo cows are dumb as a box of hammers but placid about it, like really stoned hippies all the time.

Well, yes, farm cattle. But if you run across range cattle while hiking in national forests you need to be careful. They can really mess you up. Do not mistake them for moo cows.
posted by sjswitzer at 2:51 PM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


if you don't take at least one wound while boar hunting then how will your aged nurse know many decades later that it is you who have returned home in disguise to slaughter your wife's unwanted suitors
posted by poffin boffin at 2:54 PM on August 6, 2019 [76 favorites]


BTW, I'm no fan of numerology, but the 30+50+3+5 thing is pretty obvious once pointed out. I'm sad this is getting amplified and sadder still that the guy is getting a really big chuckle out of trolling us.
posted by sjswitzer at 2:55 PM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


On the choices of weapons, if the Advanced D&D Monster Manual, by Gary Gygax linked previously is to be believed*, those pigs have an AC of 3(!) which is close to that of 1/4" mild steel plate (aka full plate medieval armour). So, while perhaps not offering significant protection to a large rifle round, could well be considered lightly armoured, especially since the pigs' flanks would be rounded and therefore likely to deflect softer "man-killer" rounds. It seems reasonable to suppose therefore that a high-grain AP Ti-C or Ti rounds be preferred for overwatch duty while the kiddies play.

I would think white P rounds should equally be considered for their "auto-roast" function, allowing for two-fer overwatch-and-bbq functionality. Something to consider.

*and why not---Gygax was nothing if not meticulous.
posted by bonehead at 2:56 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


You know who's not laughing today?

Robert Baratheon.
posted by jquinby at 2:56 PM on August 6, 2019 [29 favorites]


Though I have to say, I'm tempted to give the six-year-old a Bowie knife and see how many he can take.
posted by bonehead at 2:59 PM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


he won't have much luck until he makes a vow of chastity to artemis
posted by poffin boffin at 3:02 PM on August 6, 2019 [17 favorites]


To continue with my number fetishism, by way of context for rough ashlar's comment re: .243:

5.56 / .223 (not *technically* the same, but close enough): ~ 1800 J
The .243 Winchester mentioned by rough ashlar: 2700 J

Ballistics is all about mass of actual bullet combined with powder load, i.e. how fast you're throwing it. .243 bullets aren't much bigger (on average; there's a range available for any given caliber) than .223 bullets, but there's a LOT more powder, hence the bigger power number.
posted by uberchet at 3:20 PM on August 6, 2019


BTW, I'm no fan of numerology, but the 30+50+3+5 thing is pretty obvious once pointed out. I'm sad this is getting amplified and sadder still that the guy is getting a really big chuckle out of trolling us.

Yeah, that sure put a damper on it for me. And with that comes the realization that he's almost undoubtedly using feral hogs as a cipher for non-white people and then his mention of the AR-15 -- meant for killing people -- makes really nauseating sense.
posted by treepour at 3:23 PM on August 6, 2019 [18 favorites]


You know who's not laughing today?

Robert Baratheon.


Look, Robert went into the hog's yard. And the hog wasn't going for Robert's children, Robert's wife was going for Robert. So the hog was just dealing with the 0-1 drunk kings that show up every 2-4 months.
posted by nubs at 3:28 PM on August 6, 2019 [11 favorites]


TYME SEFARI INC.
SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST.
30-50 FEEREL HAWGS.
WEE TAEK YU THAIR.
YU SHOOT ITT.
posted by GuyZero at 3:38 PM on August 6, 2019 [11 favorites]


I take it we're in the post-stepped-on-butterfly aka darkest timeline. I mean, evidence seems to fit.
posted by bonehead at 3:45 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


Can't we just use "feral hogs" as a placeholder for "white males"?
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:49 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


30-50 snarks and grumkins, more like
posted by sallybrown at 3:49 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


We need to bring back/update "male chauvinist feral hog".
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:55 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


Dad straps up with an AR-15 and sets up a Barret 50 cal in a shooting stand on the back deck overlooking a couple of acres of grassy yard inside a wall of scrubby forest and brush, with a small sandbox and an assortment of backyard playground equipment.

A modern interpretation of Leiningen Versus the Ants

As I read that an AR-15's bullets aren't a match for these hogs' thick hides it made me really existentially depressed that the weapon is made specifically to kill lots and lots of squishy humans.

While the standard AR-15 is the .223 the AR-15 is an extremely popular platform that has been chambered in every thing from .17 HMR thru .50 Action Express including .25-50 Sharps and, in specialty hardware, the .50 BMG. Lots of those variants are going to be more than adequate for feral hogs.

(Before someone asks: The AK-47 and variants shoot 7.62x39mm rounds. They're more massive than the AR round, but move much slower. Muzzle energy is on the order of 2,000J, so they're not a great choice either -- especially since they tend to be fairly inaccurate.)

The AR-15 is a pretty poor platform choice for selective targeting at medium range but American gun enthusiasts treat it like the leatherman of tools. Even if one wanted to stick with a militarized weapon something like the FN-FAL would be a much better choice. Originally chamber for 7.62×51mm NATO which is essentially the same as the very common .308 Winchester hunting round. It's much more accurate than either the AR-15 or AK-47 and the extra length and weight aren't a problem for stand shooting.
posted by Mitheral at 4:01 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


he's almost undoubtedly using feral hogs as a cipher for non-white people

Well I guess that explains the "illegally" too.

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by duoshao at 4:03 PM on August 6, 2019 [7 favorites]


As a preschool teacher, I love the riff on Baby Shark.
posted by kathrynm at 4:08 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


All right, I’ll have to make sure I wear my Star of David necklace when I leave the house. Hopefully, the feral hogs will see it and know that I have no intention of eating them, and will leave me and my kids alone.
posted by Anne Neville at 4:27 PM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


also wear a big sign that says NOT ADONIS
posted by poffin boffin at 4:31 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


What's a donis?
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:34 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


This is Ground Control to feral hogs
You've really made the yard
And though you number 30 - 50 strong
It only took 3 - 5 mins, and that's not long
posted by mhum at 4:34 PM on August 6, 2019 [9 favorites]


Even the New Yorker has gotten in on the act.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:34 PM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


What's a donis?

$20, same as in town.
posted by notsnot at 5:15 PM on August 6, 2019 [23 favorites]


Yeah, that sure put a damper on it for me.

Me too. What a clusterfuck, having a laugh at the coded fascist call to genocide. Not even slightly funny.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:29 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


Pony request: a "this comment or link references a song or poem you might not know" tag.
posted by mreleganza at 5:29 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


+100 internettes for "Boar War."
+150 for "Barrett's 30 to 50 Feral Hogs."

I really needed this laugh.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:32 PM on August 6, 2019


What's a donis?

$20, same as in town.


Thank you! We'll be here all week! We should take this act on the road.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:33 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


If this guy is like, "Haha I used super difficult to understand code words for racism that literally no one outside my tiny cadre of shitdicks and some folks who monitor our shitheadedness closely understands, JOKE'S ON YOU LIBS," that's... a really bad joke. Dogwhistles kind of have to fall somewhere in between "just saying the quiet parts loud" and "speaking in impenetrable code" -- this is basically speaking in code.

Look, if we measure everything by "did a racist troll declare victory," then you'll never be able to feel a happy emotion ever again, because they always declare victory, no matter what. Enjoy the hogs.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 5:43 PM on August 6, 2019 [40 favorites]


Thank you! We'll be here all week! We should take this act on the road.

Don't go hog wild, Greg.
posted by curious nu at 5:43 PM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


At this point this is feels like beating 30-50 dead horses.
posted by Flashman at 5:45 PM on August 6, 2019 [6 favorites]


Someone on Twitter pointed out that 30+50+3+5 is 88.

Look, there is no way this goober is clever enough to run a nazi dogwhistle con

That's just a coincidence
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:54 PM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


Really.

Has no one really suggested "ask for a warrant" in this scenario?

SMH.
posted by Groundhog Week at 5:55 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


The whole neo-Nazi numerology connection thing seems super thin to me. I mean, yeah, neo-Nazis like numerology, but the whole thing about numerology is that once you start looking you'll find the patterns everywhere. Take a look at the guy's Twitter feed; he looks like a bog-standard conservative Libertarian with uninformed "both sides do it" opinions about politics, who doesn't like that Trump sounds so uncivil so much of the time.

Don't let the Nazis inside your head. That's exactly what they want. The point of terrorism is to make you afraid without them even having to act any more. Or put another way, to turn a story you heard about your neighbor's cousin's kid getting attacked by feral hogs one time into 30-50 feral hogs attacking your kids every time they go outside to play.
posted by biogeo at 5:56 PM on August 6, 2019 [12 favorites]


BTW, I'm no fan of numerology, but the 30+50+3+5 thing is pretty obvious once pointed out. I'm sad this is getting amplified and sadder still that the guy is getting a really big chuckle out of trolling us.

Honestly this interpretation seems like a huge reach to me. None of his other tweets seem troll-y in tone or even much interested in race or immigration, just run-of-the-mill, obnoxious free speech/free market absolutist Libertarian.
posted by adso at 5:57 PM on August 6, 2019 [11 favorites]


homophonic jocularity

This would be a great name for a gay a capella group.
posted by biogeo at 6:06 PM on August 6, 2019 [22 favorites]


30-50 feral hogs?!

At this time of year?

At this time of day?

In this part of the country?

Localized entirely within your backyard,

With your Aryan children?
posted by darkstar at 6:14 PM on August 6, 2019 [10 favorites]


30-50 feral hogs? In THIS economy?
posted by uberchet at 6:19 PM on August 6, 2019 [8 favorites]


My own favorite was that Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin got in on the fun:

"30-50 feral hogs. Not great, not terrible."
posted by Zonker at 6:22 PM on August 6, 2019 [11 favorites]


bröthers may i have some yärdchildren
posted by MrBadExample at 6:29 PM on August 6, 2019 [16 favorites]


a moose once bit my 30-50 feral hogs...
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:35 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


Sekrit Nazi numerology is the the "subliminal sex messages in advertising" of our time.
posted by neroli at 6:41 PM on August 6, 2019 [9 favorites]


Well you've banned the guns, hogs fill the yard
But will you keep on bringing more
'Til there's 30-50 hogs in here?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die from 30-50 hogs?

I know we've come a long way
We're changing day to day
But tell me, where do my small kids play?
posted by BungaDunga at 6:45 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


God damn it: I love/ hate the internet.
posted by photoslob at 7:02 PM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


Hogwin's Law: The more popular a feral hog posts get, eventually some guy in the comments will barge in to explain that actually feral hogs are a huge problem in some parts of the country and we should be sensitive to that
posted by octothorpe at 7:15 PM on August 6, 2019 [11 favorites]


I mean, they’re not just running around aimlessly, they have a schedule
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:21 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


On the one hand: kind of a bummer about probable nazi dogwhistle

On the other hand: the jokes are entirely at the expense of the guy making the dogwhistle anyway so I feel like I’m cool with this whole thing
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:26 PM on August 6, 2019 [22 favorites]


Up, up, the long, delirious, grassy yard
I’ve loaded up the weapon’s deadly grace
Where small kids play in a porcine Die Hard
And, as the 50 pigs began to jog
Their trespass on my sanctity of space
Put out my gun, and shot the feral hog.
posted by ilana at 7:31 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


......

Hot hogs for mother
posted by The Whelk at 7:37 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


*30-50 feral hogs in a trenchcoat*: One ticket to the Kids screening in 3-5 minutes please.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:41 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


Maybe we could all chip in and get this guy a chain link fence?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:51 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


Maybe we could all chip in and get this guy a chain link fence?
They're only rated up to 27 feral hogs. This guy would need the concertina wire add-on.
posted by stevis23 at 7:54 PM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]


the concertina wire add-on.

Instant pulled pork!
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:55 PM on August 6, 2019 [8 favorites]




I'm sorry, I'm still getting over the imagery of someone being menaced by 30-50 hedgehogs from the top of this thread.

Trundling down the hill in a distance, adorably swimming across a shallow pond, the hedgehogs come to menace this poor family. How ever will they cope?
posted by dinty_moore at 7:58 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


I knew Gabe Rosenberg from college and I am proud that he is having a well deserved twitter day in the sun
posted by dismas at 8:12 PM on August 6, 2019


The Gabe Rosenberg link redeems this thread. But riffing off an 88 post is not funny. You can't pwn these guys. It all adds to their social media scores and it's a win for them. Please stop.
posted by sjswitzer at 8:29 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


My name is Hogzymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my back lawn, ye Mighty, and despair!
posted by darkstar at 8:34 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


EmpressCallipygos: “I've read the link and these comments and I still have no idea what the hell is going on.”
I only saw the aftermath of the hog tweet yesterday and amused myself trying to piece together what the genesis was based on the jokes I was seeing.
posted by ob1quixote at 8:34 PM on August 6, 2019


okay I’ll stop
posted by darkstar at 8:34 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


This is no joke. There's live footage from this guy's backyard. It's shocking what these beasts will do.
posted by adso at 8:43 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


As someone pointed out, the hog thing made Twitter feel a bit like Mastodon for a day. Except on Mastodon they're usually referring to a different sort of "hog".

And also, excuse me, but if this whole thing is a nazi thing...sorry, I'm not going to stop ridiculing nazis. You can't make me.
posted by Jimbob at 8:52 PM on August 6, 2019 [6 favorites]


The “30-50 feral hogs” joking struck me as somewhat hysterical.
Yeah, it almost read like a trauma response to me. Like, America just had two mass shootings in one day. Feral hogs are about the size of adult humans, and may take the place of humans (both literally in cases like atomic bomb testing and in medicine, and metaphorically). We are all trying to make sense of what the fuck is going on here, and it seems like one way we are attempting to do so collectively is by processing an absurdist, abstract version of it through existing memes.
posted by sockermom at 8:52 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


I saw a thread somewhere about how one might actually deal with the problem of a large number of fetal hogs. They recommended the traps.

Sekrit Nazi numerology is the the "subliminal sex messages in advertising" of our time.

I mean, it really is a thing you see alt-right types doing. But having some familiarity with those types, and looking at this guy, I don't think it's what he's doing either. For one thing those guys are usually steeped in online far-right culture, dropping lots of dog whistles, alt-right memes, etc. The feral hogs guy seems barely online enough to be using regular memes.
posted by atoxyl at 8:54 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


Folks, it's really not a dog whistle.

I read quite a way through the guy's feed, and he's just a run-of-the-mill clueless Libertarian who tweets more about sports than politics. No alt-right content or memes or Trump idolatry. He says some dumb racist shit like most older right-of-center white dudes, but there's just no evidence that points towards him being a Nazi.

Enjoy your feral pig memes in good health.
posted by YoloMortemPeccatoris at 8:56 PM on August 6, 2019 [16 favorites]


I didn't think anything could get me to click a Buzzfeed article, but this did it. And it was worth it. Damn but I love me some feral pig-thened humor.
posted by davidmsc at 9:01 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


The kids get up and rush inside, not taking off their hearing protection until inside the door, running off to their individual rooms and slamming their doors until called out for dinner.

At dinner that night they have ribs and pork chops. Again.
posted by loquacious at 3:39 AM on August 7 [33 favorites +] [!]


The Aristocrats!
posted by saysthis at 9:02 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


Literally a ton of rotting pig carcasses. Think of the cleanup!

What do you even do? I bet public works stops coming by after the fifth or sixth report of a dead pig "struck by an automobile" on your street.
posted by ryanrs at 9:05 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


checkmate, idiots
posted by boo_radley at 9:05 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


Some of you feral hogs are all right. Don't go to the yard where my kids are playing tomorrow.
posted by Phssthpok at 9:06 PM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


30-50 virile hogs??
Jeffrey Epstein wept.
posted by Chitownfats at 9:11 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


Mine:
Atlas liked to break the fence
Then run away when things got tense
Chorizo, she was just a shoat
She swam her way across my moat
Goliath was one massive boar
He ate one kid, came back for more
And Dorothy, there's a dainty sow
She got the last, I miss them now!

mmmm...

60-100 lines about 30-50 feral hogs
posted by Zed at 9:15 PM on August 6, 2019 [13 favorites]


1000 points for doing The Nails, -50 points for getting the rhyme structure wrong (it's ABCB, not AABB).
posted by cortex at 9:21 PM on August 6, 2019 [9 favorites]


When I go to hell
I know the tableaux that shall await:
shovel, 30-50 feral hogs, an open yard,
And the 3-5 minutes where
Bloody and senseless
Eyes that have no questions
William McNabb's kids.

This morning
With rural America in legit question
The twitter of blue and filled with nonsense
And kids,
With 30-50 hogs
And 3-5 minutes.

And the sweat and the sinews say that
My AR-15 is not enough
And I won't have shot enough
And there are no bullets and no explosives
No revolver nor rifle that suffices.

So when I fall again
Into unhappy sleep,
It will be here, in this yard,
With 30-50 feral hogs that I shall stand.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 9:27 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


-50 points for getting the rhyme structure wrong (it's ABCB, not AABB).

doh!
posted by Zed at 9:29 PM on August 6, 2019


-30-50 points off, surely
posted by darkstar at 9:51 PM on August 6, 2019 [14 favorites]


Man, lots of numbers add up to 88

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:01 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


@adso, weird, I just saw more live footage from that guy's yard.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 10:27 PM on August 6, 2019


Yes, we can't abandon the number 88 to the neonazis. We'd never be able to play the piano with its 88 keys. We'd never reach the 88 miles per hour that would allow our DeLorean to time travel. We'd have to abandon the vintage Oldsmobile 88. And dare I mention that Toni Morrison just died at the age of 88? You'll take 88 from me when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:42 PM on August 6, 2019 [20 favorites]


There's even video of someone using two BoarBusters to capture, well, between 30 and 50 feral hogs, actually.

If you've never seen the mosh pit at an extreme metal show, this is a pretty good representation of what it looks like.
posted by spinifex23 at 10:44 PM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


Yes, we can't abandon the number 88 to the neonazis. We'd never be able to play the piano with its 88 keys. We'd never reach the 88 miles per hour that would allow our DeLorean to time travel. We'd have to abandon the vintage Oldsmobile 88.

Li'l Dale says "Fine. Me and Dale Jarrett are gonna go have our own party by ourselves," wiping a single tear from his eye.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:55 PM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


Red, the Blood of Angry Hogs
Black, the Gun whose Time has Past
Fled, the Children Gone Inside
Black, the Hogs who leave at Last!
posted by gryftir at 10:55 PM on August 6, 2019 [12 favorites]


We'd have to abandon the vintage Oldsmobile 88.

Actually, I'm willing to let that one go. It was kind of a gas hog....
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:29 AM on August 7, 2019 [5 favorites]


Living somewhere with both gun control and feral hogs it's a bit surreal reading so many hog tweets. One of the very few reasons accepted for owning a semi-automatic rifle here is indeed shooting feral hogs.
posted by zymil at 1:19 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Thirty to forty feral hogs a-running into my yard within three to five minutes while my small kids play!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:57 AM on August 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


Here is a German hunter picking off boar with his bolt-action rifle. (CW: animals being shot)

I presume he spent his money constantly going to the range and practicing rather than hoarding semi-automatic rifles and "tactical" gear. (Or donating to a corporate welfare gun rights lobbying organization)
posted by Harald74 at 3:27 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


I tweeted to Samuel L. Jackson, hoping that he might be inspired to record himself bellowing I HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING THIRTY TO FIFTY FERAL HOGS IN THIS MOTHERFUCKING YARD!

Wisely, he ignored this.
posted by delfin at 3:56 AM on August 7, 2019 [8 favorites]


The thing about the 30+50+3+5=88 thing is that it's got the general problem of all numerology -- that there are a lot of numbers out there, and a lot of things you can do with numbers, and a lot of numbers that are meaningful. So you can take most sets of numbers and manipulate them to mean pretty much whatever you want them to mean.

In Western culture, 3 and 5 are common go-to numbers, and specifically "3-to-5" to mean "a small but significant, but not particularly precise, range of numbers" is standard. I mean, if I am told that there will be a three to five minute wait, that means "a short time", not particularly meaning anything about threes or fives, and definitely not about eights But if you're looking to generate "88", you can do it.

And, then you've got the "kennings" problem of dog whistles. If you're willing to do deep cuts and chains of logic, you can go further. "88 means HH means Heil Hitler" -- that's true and well-established. Those aren't even kennings any more -- they're established euphemisms. But how much further can we go with kenning?

Well, as far as you want, and the further you go, the more likely you are to get false positives. I mean, I don't assume that BACK TO THE FUTURE memes are white supremacist, but a white supremacist COULD make that jump -- 88 mph and all. On the other hand, a frog wearing a clown nose and rainbow wig DOES mean "Heil Hitler". So... yeah. On the OTHER other hand, there are people who see a frog wearing a clown nose and rainbow wig and thing it's funny, and AREN'T aware that it means "Heil Hitler", so people can post it by accident. Because dog whistles suck. I mean, I posted a Lizard People Living In The Hollow Earth thing once, and I'm Jewish.

And Lizard People from the Hollow Earth is an antisemitic thing. Because dog whistles suck.

Then there's context: the number 88 is also all over the place around here on Asian grocery stores, because it's a lucky number in Chinese culture, so context matters -- if you've got an 88, red shoelaces, and a swastika, you've got a Nazi; if you've got an 88 and red bean buns, you've got a wish for double happiness.

So, yeah. False positive, or neurological kenning? You look at context. And people say the guy's twitter feed was NOT generally pro-Nazi, so -- false positive. A silly gun nut, not a white supremacist. Could this argument be made by a Nazi? Sure. Could a Nazi have thrown that numerology in? Sure, why not? But did one? Naw, probably not this time.
posted by Xiphias Gladius at 4:49 AM on August 7, 2019 [17 favorites]


Thank you!

This quickly turned into "all meme, no origin" where I have never seen "Feral Hogs" before yesterday, then EVERYBODY knew 'cept me.
posted by filtergik at 4:50 AM on August 7, 2019


Someone on Twitter pointed out that 30+50+3+5 is 88. H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, so 88 becomes HH, and HH means Heil Hitler. Huzzah! We're all helping to spread Nazi messages now!

or, if you prefer...
posted by Naberius at 4:59 AM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


Oh no. Do I have to be That Person who is constantly referencing China, IL?


I do.
posted by chainsofreedom at 5:29 AM on August 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


Once there was this kid who
Got into an accident and couldn't come to school
But when he finally came back
His hair had turned from black into bright white
He said that it was from when
The feral hogs had chased him in the yard

Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:52 AM on August 7, 2019 [6 favorites]


One of the very few reasons accepted for owning a semi-automatic rifle here is indeed shooting feral hogs.
If you know what you're doing, you don't need that. You can cycle a bolt-action rifle pretty quickly.

My own position here is that semi-auto alone isn't the problem, per se. It's semi-auto plus detachable box mags. And you don't need that, either.
posted by uberchet at 6:14 AM on August 7, 2019


If you know what you're doing, you don't need that. You can cycle a bolt-action rifle pretty quickly.

Let's not forget lever-action rifles, which with bolt-action for most of a century were the go-to for actual hunters.

My big issue with ar-platform "semi-automatic" rifles is that they're defectively designed and can be used as machine guns simply by jamming the thumb of your trigger hand into your belt.
posted by mikelieman at 6:21 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


Feral hogs are the new "stranger danger."
It's just a ploy to stop the free-range kid movement.
posted by a complicated history at 6:32 AM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


It goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth
Fifty hogs
Surround my kids

Son, get my rifle--
Hogs, I'll shoot ya
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:36 AM on August 7, 2019 [9 favorites]


I think the '88' is supposed to go with '14' to make it clear it's not a coincidence.

But if it is Nazi propaganda, I think this is probably the best-case scenario for Nazi propaganda: it might be "spreading it", but in the same way that Springtime for Hitler normalises Nazis.

There's a thing where depicting Nazis as dangerous ends up feeding into their rhetoric. Nazis love American History X because it makes them look tough and scary. Springtime for Hitler makes them look ridiculous. They can't repurpose that scene to make them look like they're the cool ones, because everything in that scene cuts against their own self-image.

These days, Nazis use incomprehensible memes to make them feel like they're insiders and give themselves an ironic, trollish sheen. They might be able to repurpose this meme, but the whole point of it is that the scenario they're presenting is so ridiculous that everyone has a joke about it. If it's a coded reference, it's just become self-defeating, because whatever scenario it's really about is exactly as unlikely as the feral hogs.
posted by Merus at 6:57 AM on August 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


And meanwhile Jack Mayer of the Savannah River National Lab is all THIS IS MY MOMENT TO SHINE!
posted by radwolf76 at 7:08 AM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


Poffin Boffin: now i have One Fear.

Don't mess with Bison. Also I thought the best way to hunt feral hogs was to drink some potion and punch them?
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:16 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


Savannah River National Lab

I got unreasonably excited when I saw that because I got the SRNL mixed up with the Savannah River Ecology Lab which hosts those "touch a baby animal!" things around here, and hoped for a chance to pet (30-50) rescued feral piglets.

But no, wrong lab. Now I'm just worried about plutonium-enriched feral hogs.
posted by mittens at 7:24 AM on August 7, 2019 [6 favorites]


This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a feral hog.
posted by nubs at 7:29 AM on August 7, 2019 [3 favorites]



> Pretending to be stupid and then declaring victory when people start laughing at you is 4chan trolling 101.

As classically illustrated by the comic strip LOL I TROL U.
posted by automatronic at 7:34 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


I thought I was clever, coming up with Aporkalypse Now but it's been done.
posted by jquinby at 7:41 AM on August 7, 2019


here come the feral hogs
your children aren't defended

30 to 50 hogs
your yard they have attended
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:58 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


On the 30th–50th days of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
posted by mbrubeck at 8:08 AM on August 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


how many are out there?

3.6 hogs, not great, not terrible
posted by adrianhon at 8:25 AM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


Red, the Blood of Angry Hogs
Black, the Gun whose Time has Past
Fled, the Children Gone Inside
Black, the Hogs who leave at Last!


anyone else read this to the tune of 88 Lines for 44 Women after the rhyme scheme discussion upthread?
posted by taquito sunrise at 8:50 AM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


> A "feral hog" is a riderless Harley-Davidson, right? Packs of wild motorcycles that millennials refused to buy roaming the countryside.
After Christine and Maximum Overdrive, the third installment in Steven King's trilogy appears.
> sorry to bring this back to my deraily current bison obsession but the wiki article for them says they can jump up to 6 feet vertically and now i have One Fear
And I'd be up for that take on Space Jam II: White Buffalo Can't Jump.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 9:05 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


I got unreasonably excited when I saw that because I got the SRNL mixed up with the Savannah River Ecology Lab

Well, he does work closely with the Ecology Lab on his research, alongside fellow researcher Jim Beasley.
posted by radwolf76 at 9:16 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


I mean, I'm on the board of Tin Foil Haberdashery Inc., and I really think trying to make this a Nazi meme is too crazy.

Is it possible the nazi's have claimed it? Sure, but they also claimed a frog in a wig, so... Numbers in a base 10 system are going to have repeats, and patterns, even when no pattern is intended.

The guy who originally posted it, does not seem to be a nazi. The people who spread it, with poems and art, and song lyrics, also don't seem to be nazis. It is illogical to wag fingers at everyone and condemn them for having light fun, a break in this otherwise horrible, terrible, no good, very bad universe, because coincidentally, if you do some magic, you get 88.

In hog related news, I have had wild Texas boars chase me on horseback. Those things are huge, (like seriously 4 feet tall at the shoulder, weighing almost as much as a domestic cow) terrifying, and smelly, and will kill you if they get half a chance. Especially if you make the mistake of riding into their area when there are babies, and there are ALWAYS babies. Horses are terrified of them. Coyotes are afraid of them, and coyotes aren't afraid of much. They've become such a nuisance in the rural areas. They destroy crops, they destroy fences, they destroy streams and stock tanks. They are armored tanks of stinky destruction. I don't hunt. My friend has a 600 acre cattle ranch, and they don't allow hunting leases on any of it, and they've had to move the cattle, and let hunters come out there to take out some of the boars, because they're not native and they are destroying everything in their path. If we (Texas) don't start culling them at a rate of 70% or more, we will be literally overrun.

But they're still not nazis.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 10:08 AM on August 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


MAYBE THE REAL NAZIS ARE THE FERAL HOGS WE MET ALONG THE WAY
posted by medusa at 10:13 AM on August 7, 2019 [13 favorites]


And meanwhile Jack Mayer of the Savannah River National Lab is all THIS IS MY MOMENT TO SHINE!

I have, no joke, watched a webinar delivered by Dr. Mayer! It was several years ago now but I recall it being good. (More wild pig webinars here and here.) This is the second time in about a week that I've had a chance to mention my experience with wild pig webinars; the opportunity does not often come along and I'm really excited about it. Wow!

I was once attacked by a wild pig. The pig attack super-duper messed me up; on successive charges he lacerated both of my legs and one of my ankles pretty severely. I didn't realize how severe the damage was until I finally rolled my injured ankle, fell on my ass, looked at my blood-soaked pant legs, lifted up the cuffs of my pant legs, and observed that most of my shinbones were exposed. The lacerations were deep. The surgeon who put me back together reported that the injuries were about an inch and a half from my femoral artery and within a centimeter of my popliteal vein. I spent several days in the hospital and I am currently missing part of a quadricep and a little tiny chunk of tibia.

Pigs can fuuuuck youuuuu uuuuup. But pigs can also leave you alone, and that's what they'll do, most of the time. I got between my dog and an angry pig in a totally preventable encounter, and in an attempt to protect my dog, I wound up getting seriously injured. In the end, my dog probably saved me. When I rolled my ankle, I fell on the ground. Most pig attack fatalities occur after the victim has been felled; the pig charges the downed victim again and fatally injures their head or abdomen. (Google Scholar will take you to some truly horrifying images.) Thankfully my dog was holding off the pig when I fell, and I was able to get up and GTFO. My dog was severely injured after I made my escape, but she survived. She now lacks venous return on one side of her neck.

I bring all this up to say that I know a thing or two about being attacked by pigs. I want to impress upon you that I have what I think is pretty well-founded fear of pigs.

A couple years ago, while backpacking in Hawaii, I noticed extensive pig tracks and disturbed soil in the vicinity of our campsite. That night, while falling asleep in my tent, the peaceful nighttime forest sounds were interrupted by some huffing noises (okay) and then a series of terrifying squeals (less okay). It sounded like a bunch of pigs were all murdering each other. None of the tracks were all that big, but FYI you should know that the biggest and most dangerous pigs have allegedly been smuggled into Hawaii. (This link will take you to the greatest letter to the editor ever written. I make no apologies for linking to it in two consecutive threads on wild pigs, and you are missing out if you don't click. Yes, I am trying to engender FOMOOPI, the fear of missing out on pig info.)

What did I do? Did I bug out? Did I grab a gun?

No. I played the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas on my phone at full volume. (Not the whole album, of course. Probably only three to five minutes.) It seemed like a non-threatening way of announcing my presence so that they didn't stumble into my tent, freak out, and rip me up.

On further reflection, I should confess that I may have initially reacted with a string of expletives before kicking my holiday jams.

Pigs are dangerous and picking a fight with 30 to 50 of them is a bad idea. So my advice to Twitter guy is to stay cool, try not to escalate, and have some Vince Guaraldi tunes on standby.
posted by compartment at 10:27 AM on August 7, 2019 [20 favorites]


Thanks to this thread, I have been singing this in my head to the tune of "16 Military Wives" ALL DAY:

(30 to) 50 feral hogs
wearing one-twenty to two hundred little clogs
tearing up your yard in a mass
will you get out your rifle or just let them pass

Guess it's going to be rifles
'cause America can and America can't say no
if they're eating your kids
then these pigs you just can't let go, let go
and the anchorperson on TV says: grunty grunty grunt-y grunty grunty grunt
posted by ilana at 10:29 AM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


30-50 feral høgs once bit my children within 3-5 minutes... No realli! They were Karving their initials on a høg with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given one of them by Svenge - my brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"...
posted by hanov3r at 10:37 AM on August 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


> Pigs are dangerous and picking a fight with 30 to 50 of them is a bad idea. So my advice to Twitter guy is to stay cool, try not to escalate, and have some Vince Guaraldi tunes on standby.

this is perhaps an appropriate time to remind everyone to never talk to the cops. never, ever, ever. don't talk to the cops.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:40 AM on August 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


If you play the game RimWorld someone has released a scenario where you start with one assault rifle, 4 under 19 pawns to defend, and 30 to 50 feral hogs set to manhunter. Now you too can see how it works!
posted by sotonohito at 11:11 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


Oops, forgot the link: HOGS
posted by sotonohito at 11:12 AM on August 7, 2019


tbh i’d rather play as the 30-50 feral hogs.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:54 AM on August 7, 2019


Here is a German hunter picking off boar with his bolt-action rifle.

My f-i-l as a sort of gentry farmer (former farm boy who went and started/ran a high tech company for a few decades then retired to a few acres in a very conservative rural area) loves to poke fun at the local cammo-enthusiast hunter community who are all about the semi-automatic AR style rifles as The Best Rifle Ever for deer hunting. F-i-L grew up with bolt- and single action weapons mostly for pest control and small game, though he did some moose hunting too. He grew up as the oldest boy on a subsistence farm, who needed to hunt so his large family could get thorough the winter.

One of his favourte things with these new hunters is to start in on how real shootists don't need semi-automatic weapons, and how those that claim to really just need more practice and range time. If their hands are too shaky to take down a bill moose without more than one shot, they shouldn't be out there, in his opinion. Automatic rifles are fine for soldiering, but for the feeble and bad hunters in the back country, where you're only after a single animal at a time and they're not shooting back.

Most of this is just pure contrarianism and baiting on his part, but there's enough truth there to really get under the skin of the many modern AR-15-ophiles he sits around church basement tables with. When he really gets going, he's of the opinion that semi-automatics should be banned to prevent all these school shootings, and that complaints by the hunting community should be dismissed as coming from soft boys who really just need to learn to shoot properly.
posted by bonehead at 12:05 PM on August 7, 2019 [19 favorites]


Yeah, I'm glad for the serious feral hog stories here. Pigs are intelligent, strong, and dangerous, and the Twitter guy is not wrong to be worried about them. People who live in rural areas with a feral pig problem should be able to carry appropriate defensive weapons that they're trained to use. Of course that's a band-aid, not a real solution, which would be appropriate wildlife control measures. (Not that feral pigs are wildlife, but you get the idea.) The reason this is funny is not because the guy is worried about feral hogs, it's because of the ridiculously overwrought way he expressed it, and how transparently it reveals the bad-faith non sequitur that the argument is when talking about gun violence. Like, dude, if you've really got 30-50 of them showing up within 3-5 minutes every time your kids go outside, you need more than an AR-15. Call for some fucking help so your kids can be safe instead of inserting yourself into unrelated discussions on Twitter. That's what a functioning government is supposed to be for, to help you with shit like that, you Libertarian boob.
posted by biogeo at 12:35 PM on August 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


Also I'm now waiting for the StarCraft mod that replaces the Zerg with 30-50 feral hogs.
posted by biogeo at 12:35 PM on August 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


3-5 minutes in and my small children run like they're killing hogs WITH the hogs. 3 minutes plus and 30-50 wild/untamed/feral hogs still k1ll my yard
Sorry.
posted by rhizome at 1:30 PM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


Heck in Texas, call your neighbor, he'll herd them into his hunting stand, feed them, and sell the right to hunt them to northerners for $200 + $100 per head.
posted by muddgirl at 1:37 PM on August 7, 2019


I'm a bit confused (apologies if this is mentioned upthread) but it seems like people are... joking about this in a sense of ... mocking the OP of the tweet/question as if it were a valid question and not laughing WITH what seems to me an attempt at an ironic joke about the need for fully automatic hunting weapons?

People don't think this guy is actually asking this are they?

I hate this new reality sometimes.
posted by symbioid at 1:44 PM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


I’m assuming he is asking this as a “legitimate” question, but grossly exaggerated in order to own the dumb libruls who know nothing of hogs and guns and small children. And also that he is not a card-carrying 88-Nazi. Just a standard-issue dickhead.
posted by Jimbob at 1:54 PM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


I think the consensus is that he seems to be serious, but I most think people are less laughing at him than riffing on a ridiculous phrase. He's not really the target of the humor.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:55 PM on August 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


Also, some intrepid journalist called up the Arkansas Department of Fish and Wildlife, who said that feral hogs are a problem there, but they seldom travel in packs of over 20. He also said that you should take your kids inside and by no means shoot the feral hogs with an assault weapon. He recommended calling their office, and they will come deal with the hogs.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:56 PM on August 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


Piano players are the real Nazis. Them with their 88 keys...
posted by Naberius at 2:31 PM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


1-877-HOGS-4-KIDS
posted by BungaDunga at 2:44 PM on August 7, 2019 [7 favorites]


> He recommended calling their office

Feral hogs got offices
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:47 PM on August 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


You can complain about the feral hogs all you want, but they will continue to vote exactly as Mitch McConnell instructs them to.
posted by delfin at 3:05 PM on August 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


Feral hogs got offices

No no, that's only federal hogs.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:07 PM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


What’s the conversion rate of a feral hog? If we put some child-related posts on the front page the site’s money problems might be solved.
posted by um at 3:38 PM on August 7, 2019


I would gladly concede that the gun nut who started the meme is NOT an active neonazi, but there are probably some in his circle of associates who were and who used variations of the dogwhistle numbers so it's most likely he had them in the back of his mind and thought "I can't say 80 hogs, but maybe 30-50 hogs and 3-5 minutes".

Also interesting that the majority of pigs/hogs that are pictured in linked memes are WHITE pigs.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:42 PM on August 7, 2019


Slaters Gonna Slate(pitch)
posted by tonycpsu at 3:43 PM on August 7, 2019


MetaFilter: I did laugh my ass off before I did the math.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:56 PM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]




Feral hogs got offices

Where else do you think the boss hog works?
posted by drlith at 8:02 PM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


From its office in the back of the Boar's Nest, ofc.
posted by bonehead at 8:17 PM on August 7, 2019


They destroy crops, they destroy fences, they destroy streams and stock tanks. They are armored tanks of stinky destruction.

So . . . basically like feral cows. But smart.* Have I ever told y'all about getting chased by feral cows? By far the scariest thing I've ever run into in the "wilderness."* There literally were 30-50 of them, plus a bull and a couple steers. Unbranded, on BLM land, way the fuck out in the bush.

And we had a gun.

Which got fired, exactly once. Into the ground. To try to scare them. Which it didn't. And neither would shooting a bunch of them have scared them. Because that's not really how herd megafauna operate.

*Even a wily feral cow is dumber than a pig. Pigs are effing smart. Wild cattle are still by far a worse environmental disaster in the Western US though, including TX. Now industrial pork, I'm not so sure.
**Rural WY really is about as rural as you get in the lower 48. These cows get fucked with by bears and wolves and cougars.

posted by aspersioncast at 8:19 PM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


Anyway this whole thing just makes me think of Margaret Atwood's pigoons.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:19 PM on August 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


complaints by the hunting community should be dismissed as coming from soft boys who really just need to learn to shoot properly.

I'll shut up now but I totally know dudes like this and they sorta give me hope for rational conversation around guns until I turn on the news again.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:28 PM on August 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


I feel strongly that we should refer to feral cows as 'aurochs' because the word is sadly vacated and feral cows are probably the closest we'll ever get to getting them back.
posted by Merus at 9:17 PM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]




we should refer to feral cows as 'aurochs' because the word is sadly vacated

I see what you did there
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:54 PM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


‘No, the feral hogs tweet isn’t a Nazi dog whistle.’

Glad Rebecca Watson's still out there, fighting the good fight.
posted by biogeo at 10:12 PM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


I have had wild Texas boars chase me on horseback.

Good Lord, they're fearsome enough on their own four legs, but if they've mastered equestrianism, we're all doomed!
posted by Chitownfats at 10:16 PM on August 7, 2019 [24 favorites]


OK, so you guys have pests of both feral hogs and feral cows, and you have a cruel and destructive food industry that needs to be shut down. I see a simple solution.
BTW, I was looking in a cookbook from 1880, and the drawing of a pig in it looked exactly like a modern day feral hog. I wasn't aware of how much breeding has happened only within the last 100-something years.
posted by mumimor at 12:18 AM on August 8, 2019


We do also have "native" peccaries, as noted above somewhere. They call 'em javelinas in Arizona.

For that matter, feral horses are among the worst offenders.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:48 AM on August 8, 2019


There literally were 30-50 of them, plus a bull and a couple steers. Unbranded, on BLM land, way the fuck out in the bush.

With this mix, especially the steers, they probably weren't feral; just free range. The lack of a brand doesn't mean much, cattle can be tracked/identified by implantable/injestable microchips.
posted by Mitheral at 8:51 AM on August 8, 2019


There was an apparently ownerless horse who used to wander around our neighborhood, but he was a very mild-mannered sort of beast. I think he was stray rather than feral.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:51 AM on August 8, 2019


Maybe it was 30-50 cats in a horse suit.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:10 AM on August 8, 2019 [1 favorite]


feral / free range

Tomato tomahto in Wyoming (and parts of MT and UT) - some are definitely tagged and some aren't, but they basically turn them loose on BLM land and in theory eventually collect them. Once they overwinter and especially if they calve up there, they stop thinking of humans as where the food comes from and are therefore perfectly happy to kill you.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:58 PM on August 8, 2019 [1 favorite]




Wow, even Manitoban Mennonite humour site the Daily Bonnet got in on the act:

Mennonite Farmer Sausage Recipe Calls for 30 to 50 Feral Hogs
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:24 PM on August 8, 2019 [2 favorites]


HogBound
posted by curious nu at 6:06 PM on August 8, 2019


I picked my daughter up from sleepaway camp today and on the ride home she asked me if there were any new memes. Because of this thread I was able to tell her about 30 - 50 feral pigs before her friends did and for a brief glorious moment I was cool. Thank you, Metafilter.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:22 PM on August 9, 2019 [8 favorites]


Feral hog man speaks. He wants you to know that feral hogs are an actual problem where he lives, he does not actually shoot them with assault rifles although he knows people who do, and he is not opposed to all gun control.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:31 PM on August 9, 2019 [2 favorites]


I've been fascinated by how McNabb has handled all this publicity. Usually when someone says something stupid on Twitter and it goes viral they react one of two ways. Either they immediately delete the tweet and mark their account private and go dark. Or they angrily defend themselves repeatedly, dig a deeper hole for a day or two, and then delete all their tweets and mark their account private and go dark.

McNabb did neither. He defended himself some, but relatively calmly and mostly in direct replies. He did double down on the "feral hogs are a real problem" but in a vaguely reasonable way, without really defending his core stupid statement about shooting an AR-15 towards his kids as a way to protect them. And he didn't do any press. Just sat it out. Until this statement, written carefully and published verbatim on a totally unknown guy's newsletter/blog site.

The whole kerfuffle is still absurd, delightfully so in some ways. I admire McNabb's restraint in his reaction to it.
posted by Nelson at 7:46 AM on August 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


The whole kerfuffle is still absurd, delightfully so in some ways. I admire McNabb's restraint in his reaction to it.

Dude already has feral hogs in the yard; doesn’t need to get 3,000-5,000 Internet trolls.
posted by nubs at 8:31 AM on August 10, 2019 [4 favorites]


Well, he did at least walk back his silly bit about 30 to 50 coming by every time his kids went out to play. That's good. But he didn't really acknowledge the hyperbole he went for, and that's not so great. Oh well, good on him at least for not going totally bugfuck when he faced a twitter mockery avalanche.
posted by sotonohito at 8:46 AM on August 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


The whole numerology has you looking for things is problematic. What message IS being sent?
posted by rough ashlar at 11:36 AM on August 10, 2019


I haven't found any coded Nazi messages in McNabb's response yet, but give me some time, I'm sure I'll find something.
posted by biogeo at 11:46 AM on August 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


I mean it's fairly simple: 3 mirrored is 8, and a 5 rotated 90 degrees and overlaid on itself is a swastika.
posted by rhizome at 12:25 PM on August 10, 2019 [1 favorite]


« Older I am becoming what she wanted me to be: myself.   |   The Paradox at the Heart of Abbas Kiarostami’s... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments