Talk:Bernie Bro

Can you wiki users to expanded more information about page (Like add criticism section on page and its processor word to "Obama boys" was used in 2008 election.^[1][2][3][4]) 2606:A000:85C0:E00:18DB:BCF4:15E4:298E (talk) 07:01, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Does a Huff Po article calling the "Bernie Bro" a "myth" make the topic of Bernie Bro more notable because it's coverage, or less notable because we shouldn't have a page for a myth? – Muboshgu (talk) 16:05, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

More notable; veracity of the label or lack thereof does not factor into WP:GNG. 75.88.47.95 (talk) 19:40, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Definitely should not be an article in a serious encyclopedia. But then again, we have these gems: Death threat and Headlight flashing... Eric ^talk 02:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Clearly, this is a notable topic. Four years ago, I had doubts. Now, there are none. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:59, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

The opening sentence makes no sense:

""Bernie Bro", or sometimes "Berniebro",[1] is a pejorative term for a person (particularly one who is young, male and wealthy) who supports American politician and junior United States senator Bernie Sanders via Internet culture and social media by 'mainstream' media outlets and later Hillary Clinton supporters."

I would revise it, but I don't know what it is trying to say. Gerntrash (talk) 03:26, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

It is absurd and nonsensical. Perhaps "An alleged male who supports the Bernie Sanders campaign through sexist vitriol towards presidential candidate Hillary Clinton" 104.34.203.182 (talk) 22:33, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Bernie Bro is the caricature of a childish white man who just can’t bear the thought of a female president. It was meant to cast Bernie Sanders supporters as not just unreasonably radical but also a bit sexist and racist. They didn’t just mean the “antifa,” or anti-fascists but more an alt-left of center-based Liberalism.^[1] Let us eat lettuce (talk) 00:52, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

The article says "... state Senator Nina Turner (a former surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders) affirmed ..."

What does this mean?

Specifically, what is a "surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders" (past present, or future)? ---Dagme (talk) 03:02, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Also called a campaign surrogate, it is someone "who acts on the behalf of a candidate running for some sort of political office." When Sanders was a candidate for the 2016 Democratic nomination, Turner frequently appeared on news media and at public events on his behalf. TFD (talk) 00:09, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Preemptively opening a section on this as there appears to be a lack of consensus as to what extent Sanders condemned/distanced himself from this group. The relevant interview is here. I have attempted to WP:NPOV this article by adding direct quotes from the interview. Any further thoughts to achieve consensus?

Ping: @69.47.78.149: & @Lcodyh803: as you have both shown interest based on edit history.

Darren-M talk 20:24, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I think it's much better with the quotes, otherwise Wikipedia is defining what a Bernie Bro is as if it's a fact. —Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 06:52, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Surprised there is no mention of how the term may be inappropriately targeting working class white men, a group which has been historically discriminated against. Frankly, the term to me is as insidious as the term "welfare queen" and should be explored more from the angle of a pejorative than anything based in actual realty. Also interested in a part of the page which explores the origins of the phrase. Often these pejoratives are started by rival campaigns to exploit sexism and classism in our culture. We should not be giving Wikipedia pages to concepts developed by rival political campaigns without at least identifying the origins of the concept itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.93.102.163 (talk) 09:36, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

If anyone is interested in updating this page to represent the origins / people who are perpetuating the phrase, this article breaks down the true story behind the term / including media personalities who created and capitilized on it. For any new phrase it is important to understand exactly the motivations and origins of the phrase, as well as identify the people who have had a hand in its creation.

https://www.salon.com/2020/02/09/the-berniebro-myth-persists-because-pundits-dont-understand-how-the-internet-works/

"The Daily Dot has a long feature listing pundits who have helped perpetuate the BernieBro narrative long after demographics showed his support base to be a multiracial, working-class coalition. Hillary Clinton apparently still believes that Sanders is tailed by a horde of "online Bernie Bros" who issue "relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women," as she said in a Hollywood Reporter interview just last month." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.93.102.163 (talk) 09:40, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Adding a story about political/election advertisement claiming that it showing Bernie supporters tweets is POV and WP:UNDUE. The tweets are not confirmed to be from Bernie supporters and since this is an election ad, they are probably made up. SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 00:33, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

The second stand-alone sentence in the intro section is, in my opinion, superfluous to the article, and begs removal:

"Although in 2016 polling showed Sanders' supporters to be generally more white than the Democratic electorate as a whole, Sanders' polling base in the 2020 Democratic primaries is actually more diverse than that of most candidates."

What does the demographic composition of the Sanders campaign have to do with an article about "Bernie Bros"? I could understand if the sentence followed a statement about the Bernie Bros being of a certain group (in addition to being males), but this sentence almost reads like an apology or a spin or even a correction. It sits there, by itself, with no logical context. giggle (talk) 12:49, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I added that a few months ago. Many of the sources describe "Bernie Bros" as generally white and somewhat racist. The lack of diversity of Sanders' supporters was considered a problem in 2016. This does show that the composition of his supporters has changed away from what was associated with "Bernie Bros".—Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 13:00, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

@Davodd: You deleted my descriptive sentence in the lead. Can this article please include some information evaluating the accuracy of this epithet? Sources assessing its accuracy are very common. In particular, assessing the opinion that Bernie Sanders' supporters are somehow racist towards nonwhites, or sexist towards women. There are also changes from 2016 to 2020 in how the campaign is seen, with Sanders being notably more highly approved by Democrats than in 2020. The comment I am making here is editorializing, but there should be a way to put it in the article that wouldn't be. ​ —Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 01:21, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I've always considered the term to be genderless, because women in the Bernie Bro culture are just as obnoxious as the men. Are there any sources that demonstrate that? SchmuckyTheCat (talk) 23:07, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi @SchmuckyTheCat:. There are plenty of sources and surveys that prove that Bernie Sanders has a diverse coalition of supporters. Feel free to add them. Thanks VF01 (talk) 03:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

This article violates a lot of WP:NPOV as well as a smattering of other WP and MOS guidelines. The article is weighted strongly in favor of one opinion: the Reaction and Criticism sections comprise a significant majority of the article; the article is written in a style and tone that heavily favors one side - see also the use of phrases like “media elites”; and the article relies heavily on quoting or inappropriately paraphrasing proponents of Senator Sanders - one particular passage that stands out is:

“He pointed to the millions of women who supported Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton; "one has to be willing to belittle the views and erase the existence of a huge number of American women to wield this 'Bernie Bro' smear." He also pointed to the lack of evidence for the phenomenon outside of the typical vitriol associated with online forums. He summarized the narrative's purpose as follows”

The citations are mostly opinion articles or outdated sources, arguing for one side or the other, and important statements are not cited; there is use of weasel words and biased language; and there is frequent editorializing and use of ‘expressions of doubt’ as defined by MOS:ACCUSED and WP:OPED.

This article reads to me as being critically flawed based on its heavy reliance on opinion and a format and tone that violates WP:WIKIVOICE. Looking at the edit history and talk page, there seems to be a lack of consensus on the neutrality of the article, and I question whether this article should even exist in its present form and structure. There is some content that is salvageable, but better citations and a rewrite of certain sections may be necessary to remove bias and unnecessary commentary. With all that in mind, I’m tentatively tagging it with {POV} until further discussion and consensus can be had.

Rdf7 (talk) 23:46, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

is this useful? https://www.salon.com/2020/03/09/there-is-hard-data-that-shows-bernie-bros-are-a-myth/ Victor Grigas (talk) 01:58, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Possibly. Salon is quite left-wing (and doesn’t make a secret of it), but it might be worth including. The author embedded this tweet from the data scientist including a table of his results, which appears to have been the genesis of the interview.

I do find the numbers rather odd, though: there’s virtually zero variance between the values in every column. For example, Mr. Winchell coded 60 percent of Buttigieg followers’ tweets as being positive, while indicating that 59% of Sanders supporters’ tweets were positive. For Klobuchar backers, it was also 60%.

Trump supporters? Also 60 percent.

Winchell also responded to a query by a skeptic of his data, wherein she asked whether “I don’t like candidate x” was rated equally negatively as “vote for candidate x or you deserve to die,” inputting both statements into the model. Rather shockingly, both were coded as neutral.

So I’d personally urge caution, but a third opinion would be useful. Encyclopedia Lu (talk) 10:04, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

This is an extremely biased page. VF01 (talk) 23:48, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Concur. It's a highly sexist page based on a fantasy creation of the media which has been debunked by every statistical analysis on the topic. It's only logical purpose is to erase the contributions of women in the Bernie Sanders coalition.--Guillermo Sanders (talk) 05:56, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

@VF01: @Guillermo Sanders: If you both feel that way, find some policies to back up its deletion and start up an AFD? otherwise, proposing that this article should be deleted without providing any improvements and labeling its existence as sexist is highly inappropriate to all the editors who have contributed to it. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 06:40, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Can you substantiate why you think noting the article's inherent sexism is "highly inappropriate"? Do you believe protecting an inherently sexist article without justification is highly appropriate?--Guillermo Sanders (talk) 08:21, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:ASPERSIONS. Are you insinuating that the person that created this article is sexist? the people who contribute to it? I wouldn't know because you've just thrown in that it is sexist, without substantiating your claim. And again, if you're so sure about it being sexist and it shouldn't be on Wikipedia: WP:AFD. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 08:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with @VF01: and @Guillermo Sanders:. I will do some digging and come back to this page if I can find anything that would be useful as evidence against it. Cheers, WBPchur (talk) 03:49, 3 April 2020 (UTC).

Thanks @WBPchur:. I would advise either finding some sources (of which there are a copious amount) that disprove the idea of a "Bernie Bro" and adding it to this supposed 'article', or nominating it for deletion. Cordially VF01 (talk) 03:54, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I have added a paragraph in the criticism section that explains why the term is of no real substance and is a media creation, but have remained as neutral as possible throughout. WBPchur (talk) 04:43, 3 April 2020 (UTC).

Firstly, @WBPchur: neutral? I imagine that may be a bit difficult considering all the userboxes on your userpage, indicating an infinity with Sanders/the progressive movement — but that's just an observation. Secondly, I'd like to point out that none of you have suggested any policies that this article contrivances for it to be deleted... so that renders this discussion pretty moot. Meanwhile, this article passes WP:SIGCOV (and then some), is fairly balanced per WP:NPOV (I notice the content in "Reaction" and "Criticism" sections would support my latter claim). —MelbourneStar☆^talk 06:38, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Responding to your first point, userpages are allowed "A small and proportionate amount of suitable unrelated material". I think you will find that I have far fewer userboxes and unrelated content than many other users - I can cite this if you want but I'm sure you are aware. Furthermore, I endeavour to not let my personal opinions influence my writing on Wikipedia, however nobody can write perfectly impartially. If you or anyone deems anything I write to be prejudiced, I am more than happy for you to edit or refine it; even remove it under extreme circumstances (that is the whole premise of Wikipedia). I believe what I have written here to be neutral. On your second point, as of now, I am attempting to constructively add to this article rather than find evidence for deletion. As mentioned in my first reply, if I find anything I will post it here. Also I must add I have never been involved in a talk page discussion this long so my apologies for any poor formatting. WBPchur (talk) 07:01, 3 April 2020 (UTC).

I am well aware of WP:USERPAGES, I was simply acknowledging that your user page contains content in support of Bernie Sanders/progressive movement, and your (initial?) opinion about whether this page should be deleted or not is noted. With that said, I'm open to critical analysis of this subject, provided there's significant coverage and it's reliable. Also your formatting is fine :). Regards, —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:19, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

In short, what I meant initially was that this page does clearly contain some biases and I am in favour of deletion (though I was never going to instigate it. Also, the section I added has been removed - though it seems to have been accidentally in a reversal that was removing other info, and nobody has commented on this talk page or edit summaries about any reason for to be deleted. Would I be able to re-add it? WBPchur ^{💬●✒️●💛} 06:30, 7 April 2020 (UTC).

I restored a lot of your edit and moved it to the “analysis” section, but feel free to tinker with it. -Rdf7 (talk) 09:29, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

TL;DR: The material provided in the lead by user:VF01 is potentially useful, but the data referenced is severely out of date and not clearly marked as such, violating WP:V. Additionally, the statement is written in a way that directly suggests a "motive" behind the use of the term without citation, is worded to suggest conflict within the article ("worth noting", see WP:NOTED and MOS:OPED) and contains an assertion that is improper WP:SYNTHESIS without a current secondary source to corroborate its validity. Because of these flaws, I have reverted the edit.

The assertion made in the lead is, in my view, improper synthesis and editorializing because it does more than state information factually from within the primary sources, instead coming to a conclusion:

"Bernie Sanders has more support among people of color than white people, and multiple studies have corroborated the claim that Bernie Sanders has more support from women than men"

that is not supported by recent secondary sources or even by the cited primary sources - the Morning Consult polls measure candidate favorability, not support, among various groups, and the Harvard/Harris poll doesn't mention Sanders at all. There is one cited secondary source, a Vox article, but it's from early 2019, well before any primary elections, before many candidates declared their intention to run, before any debates or dropouts, and definitely before any significant or meaningful polling took place.

Because there are no reliable secondary sources cited that corroborate the conclusion drawn from the primary sources, and there is no immediate and obvious conclusion that can be drawn from the primary sources, the statement is in violation of WP:SYNTH and WP:V, as well as being in violation of MOS:OPED for making unreferenced statements and using suggestive wording: "the motives behind" and "it is worth noting".

Without recent secondary sources (from at least later than early March, after which a well-documented shift^[1][2] occurred in the Democratic primary landscape) and relevant primary sources, this statement is improper and unsourced synthesis and should be removed from the lead (but could potentially be significantly rewritten and properly cited to fit in the "analysis" sections).

Please DO NOT restore the reverted material to the article without first attaining editorial consensus to do so here on the talk page.

Rdf7 (talk) 05:06, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Rdf7 -- thanks for your comprehensive and well-written response to my edits. For the meantime, I will leave this page as is, as you have pointed out the Wikipedia policies I am in violation of. I will attempt to re-create a similar sentence at a later date in accordance with the policies you have cited. Cordially VF01 (talk) 07:42, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your good-faith work in editing this page! Rdf7 (talk) 08:36, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I suggest that the "Use in elections" section be deleted under WP:BLP, which requires a higher standard than merely citing people making accusations, but proof of the veracity of allegations that could constitute defamation. Many of the citations in this section rely on hearsay and involve a lack of proof of the legitimate identities of people on the other end of the Internet connection. WP:BLP says to immediately remove it without waiting for discussion, so I removed it and opened a request for consensus.

Additionally, the "definition" section would be better if more of its content were based on specific allegations that are actually made against known people, such as the paragraph "Meyer included the disclaimers that the “Berniebro is not every Bernie Sanders supporter” and that though “Sanders’s support skews young” it’s “not particularly male.” His meditation was buttressed, though, by a series of tone-deaf pieces that served as a Bernie Bro proof of concept, essays by Sanders boosters like Walker Bragman (“Hillary’s personality repels me”); Michael Sainato (“Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, and Hillary Clinton all share a common insincere, yet polished, demeanor inherent with an affluent lifestyle”); and Ben Norton, who dismissed feminist identification with a female candidate as “high-school clique drama.", with the wording altered for NPOV. For example, clicking through to the Norton essay, the exact wording is "Clinging to your identity group “regardless of its policies” is not politics; it is high-school clique drama." Typeprint (talk) 15:09, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Should this be Benie Bro or Bernie Bro without the italics? Other virtual communities like Black Girl Gamers don't have italics. Atlanticatticus (talk) 03:03, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

This article is about the term – the community doesn't tend to use it themselves. See MOS:WAW. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 03:50, 29 April 2021 (UTC)