Recently there was an absolute phenomenon that happened recently on the internet that involved everyone’s favorite person, Shia Labeouf. Shia is a popular actor who had very key parts in popular movies such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as Harrison Ford’s sidekick, Mutt Williams and even has the main role in the Transformers movies as Sam Witwicky. However, the man was known most for his intense motivational speech that was uploaded on May 27, 2015, that was also known as his “Just Do It” speech. Recently, Labeouf has made a lot of people upset, including almost the whole internet!

First, the story must go back when President Donald J. Trump was elected many people were upset including one Shia Labeouf. Labeouf revolted against this “evil president” by co-creating an art exhibition outside the museum of moving image outside of Queens, New York.

Shia Labeouf also tweeted out about his new livestream saying  “Open to all, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the participatory performance will be live-streamed continuously for four years, or the duration of the presidency. In this way, the mantra “HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US” acts as a show of resistance or insistence, opposition or optimism, guided by the spirit of each individual participant and the community.” Many people shown up to this on the first day including the actor Jaden Smith.

That day, YouTuber I’m a fish began uploading highlights from the stream in which 4Chan users praise Donald Trump, hold signs with Pepe the Frog, play the song “Shadilay” and write “KEK” on the museum wall. One user even went up to Labeouf and said “Hitler did nothing wrong” in response to this, Shia Labeouf allegedly grabbed a man’s scarf and scratched his face, then pushed him to the ground.

After having “the museum abandon him” Shia and the livestream relocated a couple of times until landing themselves in Tennessee. The stream was shut down due to gunshots being heard in the local area so Labeouf decided to raise a white flag with black letters saying “HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US.” Nine days later, countless elaborate plans were foiled by an unknown person who walked up and stole the flag.

Also on March 10th, the news site Get Riced posted an article about how the location was discovered, claiming that viewers used triangulation techniques based on planes seen in the stream to determine the general area. A local then began honking their horn repeatedly while driving in the area, which were picked up by the webcam’s microphone to further narrow the location. Finally, using star maps, 4chan users were able to identify the exact location of the flag on Google Maps.

Afterwards, the stream was relocated to Liverpool, England where the flag sat upon the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology. In a press release, Labeouf, claimed that “America is simply not safe enough for this artwork to exist” and accused those who stole the flag previously as being “white supremacists.”  4chan users quickly planned ways to remove the flag from the building with drones, including cutting it down with an attached knife; however their elaborate plans were foiled by a masked man taking the stream offline and stealing the flag.

Sean Davis, the co-founder of the Federalist web magazine said “Shia Labeouf’s inability to hide a dumb flag from a bunch of nerds on the internet in my favorite story of the year and it’s not even close.”

I agree with Sean Davis, and have to say that this is so far the best story of the year. It’s a very rare event were all of the internet gets together to do something productive and this story certainly takes the cake. As the famous quote says “what is given, can and will be taken away.” This can’t be anymore true with the internet giving him immense popularity and can take it away just as easily.