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Draft:6ixBuzz

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6ixBuzz is a "news" page based out of Toronto, Canada. Originally a music page in the same vein as WorldStarHipHop, it eventually began to spread anti-vax views and racism towards South Asians. This racism is especially prevalent in the reply sections of its Instagram page. Nowadays, 6ixBuzz is seemingly a concern troll account made to spark arguments in the comment sections of their posts, and only occasionally will they actually post underground Toronto hip-hop.

History[edit]

Founded in 2017 by two George Brown College students, Sarman Esagholian and Abraham Tekabo[1], 6ixBuzz was originally made to promote Toronto's underground hip-hop scene, as well as post memes. A year later, in 2018, 6ixBuzz Entertainment was founded. 6ixbuzz Entertainment is a record label which releases compilation albums of Canadian hip-hop artists. By 2020, 6ixBuzz had reached around 1.4 million followers, and as of 2024, the account has 2.4 million followers on Instagram and 122K followers on Twitter.

Racism[edit]

Racism towards Asians[edit]

South Asians[edit]

As far back as 2018[2], 6ixBuzz was making memes ridiculing Brampton, a city just outside of Toronto with a majority South Asian population as of the 2021 Canadian Census (180,300 Indians, 57,075 Punjabis and 25,985 Pakistanis were counted, as well as other South Asian groups).[3] Posts of this style on 6ixBuzz have evolved from simple "memes" to posts deliberately made to incite xenophobic comments. Critics noticed that when a Vietnamese criminal's sentence was posted on 6ixBuzz, they did not put a mugshot in. Commenters argued that, if the criminal was Indian instead, they would have almost certainly posted his mugshot. 6ixbuzz followers are known to use fake accounts to impersonate Indian people, such as "bramptoninternationalstudent" [note 1]

Chinese[edit]

During the start of COVID-19 in Canada, 6ixBuzz was reported as causing harm to Chinese-owned restaurants and businesses. Wuhan Noodle 1950, a Chinese restaurant, reportedly lost nearly two-thirds of their customer-base, which they attributed to a post on 6ixBuzz' Instagram page. They also stated that they had been targeted by people who had been harassing the owners of the restaurant by prank-calling them.[4]

Islamophobia[edit]

That’s like legalising animal cruelty! 🤷🏻🤦🏻‍♂️
—A commenter underneath a 6ixBuzz post on KFC making Ontario locations halal. 6ixBuzz attracts only the smartest of individuals.

In July of 2024, KFC announced that all of its restaurants in Ontario (excluding locations in Thunder Bay and Ottawa) will be required to serve only halal-certified chicken. [5] This merely means that the food would be slaughtered in more ethical ways, and KFC locations will be required to stop serving pork products [note 2] Nonetheless, 6ixBuzz posted this to their social media, to their followers who proceeded to: [6]

  • Stereotype Muslims by saying that they all marry six-year olds (referring to Muhammad's wife Aisha, who he married when she was supposedly six)
  • Spread the Great Replacement conspiracy theory by claiming that Muslims are "turning Canada into their own country by not assimilating"
  • Stating that they will not eat "Muslim worship meat offered to their god"

All of this because of a post regarding fast food, of all things.

A video of a Rebel News[note 3] truck carrying Islamophobic propaganda driving through Downtown Toronto was posted on 6ixBuzz.[8] Comments claimed that this was "patriotism at its finest", and saying that trucks like this should be "in every community everywhere", clearly not caring that this would make Muslims feel unsafe leaving their houses.

Gallery[edit]

Bullying and hate[edit]

Posts on 6ixBuzz frequently cherrypick certain activists (mainly from left-wing groups, such as Pro-Palestine supporters, Just Stop Oil activists and LGBTQ+ communities) to post on their social media profiles, with obvious intent to get commenters to harass these people.

Homophobia[edit]

6ixBuzz frequently posts topics regarding LGBTQ+ people.

Other professional ventures[edit]

Making threats against journalists[edit]

Toronto Life, a magazine based out of Toronto, tasked a journalist with interviewing one of the founders of 6ixbuzz, Sarman Esagholian. Esagholian wanted to remain anonymous, however the magazine decided that it would not keep him anonymous. When Esagholian learned about this, he proceeded to call the journalist relentlessly (at one point making a dozen phone calls in a 15-minute time span), as well as making threats towards the journalist and their family. Toronto Life assigned a new journalist, this time to interview Abraham Tekabo, another founder of 6ixbuzz. Unsurprisingly, Tekabo also proceeded to make death threats against the new journalist. [9]

Notes[edit]

  1. Because every international student has "international student" in their username.
  2. KFC is a chicken-based restaurant, so it doesn't make much sense why they'd be serving pork products in the first place.
  3. Rebel News is a notorious Canadian far-right political and social commentary website that some critics have described as being a part of the alt-right in Canada[7]

References[edit]