FnF News
FNF News | Culture & Commentary
Published: June 15, 2025
By: Khadija Khan
“No Kings, No Peace”: Why June 14th Turned the Internet Into a Zoo
Saturday, June 14th, 2025 — the planets didn’t align, but Twitter timelines did. And what followed was part culture war, part conspiracy spiral, part meme inferno. It was Donald Trump’s birthday, a public holiday of sorts for MAGA nation. It was also Flag Day, a Saturday, and apparently “No Kings Day” — a loosely defined online protest-slash-celebration that no one fully understands, but everyone had an opinion about.
And like gasoline on a barbecue, this combination set the internet on fire.
The Trifecta: A Perfect Storm of Symbolism
Let’s break it down:
- Trump’s Birthday: The 79th birthday of Donald J. Trump, the man who still claims to have “won in 2020 and 2024,” marked by speeches at Mar-a-Lago and digital love-bombs from Truth Social loyalists.
- Flag Day: A patriotic but often overlooked American holiday, giving conservatives another excuse to wrap themselves in Old Glory.
- Saturday: A weekend means people are online, loud, and often wine-drunk by noon.
- No Kings Day: What even is this? Nobody really knows. It started as an anarchist meme in 2022 (“No gods, no kings, only memes”) and has since evolved into a pseudo-holiday where people post guillotine GIFs, wear crowns ironically, and argue about whether billionaires should exist.
So when all four collided, chaos was inevitable.
Animals Unleashed: The Internet Goes Ferile
“It’s a Saturday, Trump’s birthday, and No Kings Day — the animals are extra fired up,” posted one user, summing up the sentiment across platforms. Indeed, if Twitter/X, TikTok, and Reddit were any indication, no one was okay.
Here’s just a sampling of what June 14 looked like:
- MAGA supporters posted tributes to Trump using Civil War music and eagles with glowing eyes.
- Anarchists and socialists posted memes of burning flags and guillotines with the hashtag #NoKingsDay.
- Liberals mocked both sides with SpongeBob memes, while Gen Z made edits of Taylor Swift and Karl Marx.
- Crypto bros got involved somehow, claiming Bitcoin was the real king.
- A meme of George Washington fist-fighting a lion in front of a pyramid went viral — and no one knows where it came from.
What Is “No Kings Day” and Why Are People Yelling?
The origins of “No Kings Day” are unclear. Some trace it to Reddit anarchist threads in the early 2020s. Others claim it’s a TikTok protest against celebrity worship. Either way, it reached peak visibility this year — conveniently falling on the birthday of a man many on the left consider the definition of authoritarian populism.
One user wrote:
“Celebrating Trump on No Kings Day is like throwing a birthday party for King George during the Boston Tea Party.”
Another posted:
“No kings. Not in government. Not in Hollywood. Not in Silicon Valley. And definitely not in a golden tower with his name on it.”
Trump Responds: “They’re Jealous of American Greatness”
At a fundraiser in Palm Beach, Trump addressed the noise with typical flair:
“They’re out there saying ‘no kings’? I say America had a king — his name was George Washington, and now it’s me. Nobody built more. Nobody won more. Nobody got better birthday ratings.”
He also referred to “No Kings Day” as “a socialist thing from TikTok losers who don’t have jobs,” adding, “They’re mad they don’t get statues built of them.”
His supporters echoed the sentiment, with MAGA influencers labeling it “an assault on masculinity, patriotism, and birthday cake.”
Online Disinformation or Just Internet Theater?
Fact-checkers scrambled to explain what was happening. Politifact ran a piece titled: “No, Joe Biden Did Not Declare June 14 ‘No Kings Day’”. Meanwhile, Snopes confirmed that despite rumors, the day is not a Soros-funded globalist ritual.
But that didn’t stop the conspiracies. On fringe forums and Telegram channels, posts claimed that:
- AOC got married to spite Trump
- The Pentagon is “monitoring No Kings Day” as a potential uprising
- Taylor Swift was planning to release an anti-Trump single called “Crownless”
None of it was true. All of it got clicks.
What It Says About the U.S. in 2025
Dr. Lena Ferrell, a cultural historian at Stanford, says this convergence is telling.
“Trump’s birthday, an invented anti-monarchist holiday, and chaotic meme culture colliding on the same day reflects where America is: deeply tribal, terminally online, and increasingly unable to agree on what day it even is.”
She adds that “the emotional volatility of June 14th is exactly why people both love and hate the internet.”
Final Thoughts: American Identity, One Meme at a Time
So what did we learn?
That birthdays can spark culture wars. That holidays don’t need origin stories to trend. That the line between satire, protest, and fandom is blurrier than ever.
Most importantly, we learned that in 2025, every day in America is a battle over meaning — and some days, like June 14th, just bring all the battles at once.
Sources:
- Truth Social posts, June 14, 2025
- Twitter/X trending data via Trends24
- “The Meme-ification of Protest Culture,” Stanford Review, April 2025
- Snopes fact-check: “No Kings Day declared by Biden? False” (June 14, 2025)
- Reddit thread archive: r/AnarchoMemes
- C-SPAN transcript of Trump speech at Palm Beach Fundraiser (June 14, 2025)