Hi Liam, you might be interested in this reddit post on r/badhistory that draws upon a lot of your research. In it, the poster identifies Stefan Molyneux’s video “The Truth About Slavery” as the likely Typhoid Mary of the Irish Slaves meme. Your analysis above seems to confirm this as well as the fact that many of the tweets use the same sources (example one quotes “Rasta Live Wire blog” drawn directly from Molyneux’s source list), or in many cases, the memes repeat verbatim lines from the video, such as the comparison between the relative cost of slaves and indentured servants, which matches the transcript exactly.

So in light of this, I think it would be great if you did an article addressing the claims Molyneux made directly even though you have already addressed them indirectly by talking about their sources, i.e. “White Cargo” and “To Hell and Barbados.” This would provide an easier reference for those looking to counter Molyneux’s narrative.

Lastly, if I may, I’d like to offer some constructive feedback. Your articles are too long and general. Readers would be more likely to read them all the way through if they were broken up into much shorter components dealing with very specific claims made in memes instead of a comprehensive debunking of all at once.

The reason memes spread so fast is that they offer a lot of (dis)information in a compact shareable package so that they can be deployed easily in arguments. So the response logically should mimic this dynamic. I think the real target audience for memes is people who are averse to reading in the first place, so they’re likely to look at an article with a 41 minute estimated reading time and say “pass”

You should also consider distilling this information into counter-memes and distributing those. An example is the meme supposedly showing an Irish Slave being whipped. You could make a meme that quickly explains that the image refers to Elizabeth Brownrigg whose case directly contradicts the message that “white slaves” could be whipped with impunity.

Anyways, just some thoughts. I love your work and I think what you’re doing is very valuable, but I think there are some ways you could make it more effective.