Japan Mocks ISIS Hostage Video with Photoshop Hashtag Contest on Twitter

AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko
AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko
Adelle Nazarian

Twitter users in Japan have taken to social media in a show of defiance to mock a recent hostage video released by ISIS using photoshopped images, which poke fun at the Islamic terrorists and their ransom request.

This week, ISIS released a video featuring the notorious “Jihad John” demanding the Japanese government provide them with a ransom sum of $200 million to spare the lives of freelance journalist Kenji Goto Jogo and private security contractor Haruna Yukawa. The sum is the same amount Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to provide to countries in the Middle East in their fight against ISIS.

Circulating around Twitter are photoshopped images with the following hashtag #ISISクソコラグランプリ which translates to “#ISIS crappy collage grand prix” or “photoshop grand prix.”

One tweet mocks the ISIS captors by comparing them to Dr. Evil from the film Austin Powers:

Here is a tweet containing a screenshot of the original ISIS video:

Another person drew attention to a meme that brought to light the strained relations between Japan and North Korea’s communist dictatorship:

The space parodies were in no short supply:

Prime Minister Abe has stated that Japan would not give in to terrorism nor would he retract his pledge of support for the anti-ISIS coalition:

I strongly demand that they not be harmed and that they be immediately released. The international community will not give in to terrorism and we have to make sure that we work together.

The 72-hour deadline has since passed, and it is not clear whether Japan will collaborate with the terrorist organization and pay them for the release of their citizens.

In short, one tweeter summarized the message behind the hashtag directed at ISIS, namely telling them to “go to hell”:

Follow Adelle on Twitter @AdelleNaz.

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