Calling out TEAM AWESOME group on facebook: Sexist, Racist, Ableist, Homophobic, Ageist Imagery

Hate-based groups on facebook are not new. There's a long list of woman-hating garbage that seems to attach the younger, teenage crowd, both male and female as well as various other forms of hate speech. The groups look a bit like this, and feel free to report these groups after searching them *report button located bottom of page*: Slapping Women in Public (25 members, shows image of a man smacking a woman across the face during the 1940s or 1950s) Punching Old Women (344 likes, shows images of old women in a folder called "old bitches"), Ban Islam (nearly 4,000 members claiming that Islam needs to be stopped), "If your a lesbian..why are you attracted to women that look like men?" (155,974 members, image of muscular women and heteronormative girl on girl photographs), "If you force sex upon a prostitute, is it rape or shoplifting?" (nearly 1500 "likes" on this page)

I think you get the point!

There is a very popular group on facebook called TEAM AWESOME, it has 4,736 members, most of them being dudes. The group is meant to show awesome photos that members found online, but they must meet apparent “awesome” standards detailed by group administrators.

I belonged to the group several years ago, thinking it was for ‘funny’ photos. A lot of the photos were harmless jokes, or cool digital photography. The group started to get larger and eventually the jokes mostly surrounded race, people living with disabilities, racial/cultural stereotypes and most prevalently, jokes about violence against women.

Now, the group has thousands of photos, most of which are incredibly offensive and hateful. There is also a whole lot of pornography being spread throughout the group, which is aimed at young men and teenage boys. Comments left on the photos are just as awful as the photos themselves.

Since I am completely against spreading hateful propaganda, particularly propaganda that targets groups of people like the queer community, women and feminists, people of colour, people with disabilities and fatness, I was outraged that this site stayed active.

Facebook claims that they care about what is shown on their website, including the display of hateful imagery and pornography. I try to get on this group to report photos as much as I can. The photos I report are violent, degrading, pornographic, hateful and go against the Facebook guidelines. The photos, some of which have been pictures of drunk women exposing their breasts in bars, gonzo style shots of women’s vulvas and rape imagery typically seen in advertisements, blatantly go against Facebook’s supposed rules.

The purpose of this post is to raise awareness about the various hate-promoting groups active on facebook and call for action to get this hateful material taken down. This is not censorship, this is merely following the supposed guidelines and keeping a website that people of all ages access safe and free of hateful, degrading and sexist materials. Various groups exist on facebook that are dedicated to joking about rape, child sexual abuse and domestic violence. For example, feminists have been attempting to get groups and fan pages like “It’s not rape, it’s surprise sex!” taken off facebook.

Facebook sometimes complies, but fails to recognize the seriousness as well as the continued termination of these groups and pages. The groups keep re-spawning on facebook, usually by the same kind of people. Instead of banning their membership, the website allows them to continue to make hateful groups.

[Edit] After a reader pointed out the damage of re posting the imagery found on the site. I agree that the imagery is best left unseen as it is damaging to those in the photographs as well as everyone else.

On a particular photo of a young woman passed out with her purse spilling her belongings, a user stated: "O.E., smoke, nip, 2 assortments of random pills, and what appears to be a hefty amount of blow. this girl was ready to go"


some dude on TEAM AWESOME said this about Hitler under a photograph that put hitler's face with text "YES WE CAN", he stated: "there is nothing more awesome than having the brain power, determination, and ability to convince an entire nation to do whatever you say, subsequently resulting in the conquering of Europe. Albeit the whole Jew thing was unfortunate, but regardless, what he did was incredible."

There are thousands of racist, sexist, bigoted photos and 'art' on this group. Please PLEASE spread the word to get this shit taken down. It isn't funny or hip to promote hate, violence and ignorance towards specific groups of people. You would think that because of the recent bullying cases in the media, huge networking sites like Facebook would be tougher on this sort of material. Let facebook know that this is unacceptable.