Jackson Hinkle has cultivated an online persona so incendiary that he has been kicked off YouTube, Twitch and Instagram.
He rages on undaunted, even energized. He produces a regular podcast on Rumble, a website popular with many prominent conservatives. He writes dozens of posts a day on X, where his following has surged to 2.5 million from 417,000 in the six months since Oct. 7 — the day Hamas fighters mounted their assault on Israel.
Along the way, he has employed false or misleading content, promoted manipulated images and made comments that watchdog organizations have denounced as antisemitic. He calls himself an American patriot even as he praises American adversaries, including Vladimir V. Putin, Xi Jinping and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“DROP A LIKE if you stand with IRAN in the face of ISRAELI TERRORISM!” he wrote last week on X after an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed several Iranian military officials. A day later he addressed the Houthi leadership in Yemen over video, praising the group for its attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
It has all made Mr. Hinkle an online celebrity at age 24, a Gen Z symbol of the modern internet: a place where authenticity is no longer a necessity, and outrage offers attention and even some financial reward.
“It was a godsend for me at the time,” he said in an interview about his surge in popularity on X amid the war in Gaza. “I was very fortunate.”
