MAGA's weird, horny obsession with Alysa Liu
The far-right can only see a young woman as "goonbait"
Every once in a while, the malignant horniness festering on Elon Musk’s X boils over so spectacularly it feels like it might drown the entire country. That’s exactly what happened after Team USA champion Alysa Liu’s winning performance at the Milano Cortina Olympic Games on Thursday.
Liu won gold in the women’s singles free skate — the first Olympic figure skating gold for American women since 2002. Her disco-inspired routine was so precise and fluid it seemed effortless:
Liu’s family story is both inspiring and quintessentially American. In 1989, her father fled China after participating in the Tiananmen Square protests, eventually settling in the Bay Area and becoming a lawyer. Liu and her siblings were born via a shared surrogate mother. She competed in the 2022 Olympics at 16, placing sixth, before announcing her retirement — only to return to competitive skating in 2024.
In a sport obsessed with the looks of young female skaters, Liu stands out. At 20, her smiley piercing and halo hair scream Gen Z, offering a refreshing twist on the regal Nancy Kerrigan–esque “ice princess” archetype that has long visited harsh judgment on figure skating champions.
MAGA tries to claim Liu as one of their own
Before obsessing over Liu, reactionaries dominating Elon Musk’s X spent much of the Olympics attacking Team USA athletes who criticized Trump and his administration. That all changed after Liu skated her way into overnight celebrity status. Some posters tried to claim her as MAGA, while others were less subtle in turning her into fodder for depraved fantasies.
Liu hasn’t revealed her political leanings, but her actions suggest she doesn’t share the views of these newfound admirers. On February 10, figure skater Amber Glenn posted TikTok photos of herself and Liu with their gold medals, captioning them: “They hate to see two woke bitches winning. If ‘woke’ means using your platform to advocate for marginalized communities in the country you’re actively representing… then yeah, sure.”
When Glenn tagged Liu, the gold medalist responded with a simple, playful: “HAAA 😝😝”.
Social media follows aren’t always a sign of endorsement, but it’s worth noting that Liu follows several progressive figures on Instagram, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Vivian Wilson, Elon Musk’s outspoken transgender daughter.
MAGA posters blew right past these details to try to claim her as their own. Turning Point USA hypeman Jack Posobiec, who the female-centered dating app Bumble banned in 2018, has been posting about her for the last several days. Posobiec even meme’d Liu’s face into a story about Trump’s response to the Supreme Court’s tariff decision in what looks like an attempt to positively associate her with the president.
Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet has followed his friend’s lead, posting similarly about Liu’s background. Both Turning Point USA leaders highlighted her family’s departure from China, weaving it into the organization’s hardline nationalist propaganda.
Mainstream Republicans have tried this too, but it hasn’t gone well. Democrats dunked on the House Republican Caucus for celebrating Liu’s win and attempting to use her patriotism as fodder for their agenda. In response, MAGA posters circulated a meme portraying themselves as looking like Pedro Pascal and Democrats as resembling Dale Gribble with a degenerative disease.
Mein Cringe
By now, you know that X is a cesspool of racism, misogyny, and antisemitism. Overt Nazism isn’t uncommon either. Well, the Mos Eisley Cantina of posters who traffic in that type of thing abruptly started getting horny following Liu’s victory on Thursday.
“Someone edit a spinning swastika or sonnenrod behind her with some hyperborea music instead, please,” wrote @chaotichermes, an account that calls itself a “Seeker of Truth” and “journalist” but mostly posts about drama between racist influencers.
Someone answered the call and put a swastika behind a video of Liu skating and backed it with the Eurodance song “L’amour Toujours” by Gigi D’Agostino on Friday, which @chaotichermes reposted. The post racked up over 8,000 likes in four hours.
@Newsbarron, an account that presents itself as a news source but mainly fixates on drama between far-right influencers, posted a photo of Liu with her tongue out late Thursday night. The image went viral throughout Friday, racking up over 18,000 likes by nightfall.
“So we’re just not supposed to call this goonbait??” @Newsbarron wrote, adding two crying-face emojis.
“Goonbait” is crass internet slang for masturbation material, while “mid” is a term of disparagement meaning only average attractiveness. @Newsbarron may have been alluding to a post from Wednesday by @jt0hny, an internet drama-focused account tied to a nicotine pouch company, who wrote: “why have they the [sic] turned winter games into the goonbait Olympics,” referring to photos of four young female athletes. On Friday, @jt0hny wrote that “this type of mid will be the greatest 2 months of your life,” specifically referring to Liu.
On Friday, @TheRoyalSerf—an account that posts racist memes constantly—uploaded a video of Liu sticking her tongue out at the camera. The video was posted in response to another account, @1thousandfaces_, which wrote: “I’ve known about Alysa Liu for like a week but I would lay down my life for her in an instant.”
@TheRoyalSerf and @Newsbarron both promoted a memecoin called $Goonbait on Friday, whose value fell sharply as the calendar turned to Saturday.
Michael Edison Hayden’s first book, Strange People on the Hill, publishes on April 7 with Hachette. You can pre-order it here and receive 20% off with the promo code STRANGE20.
Madeline Peltz’s first book is set to publish in early 2027 with Sourcebooks.
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Did no one point out to white supremacist MAGA that she isn't white?
Her family story is literally the story of every migrant and resident alien that ICE and CBP have abused, sexually assaulted, and deported
Right wing white men going gaga for Asian women (or in Liu's case, Wasian) is nothing new.
But she's from Oakland and talks in that vaguely AAVE way that all kids do in the Bay Area. Woke adjacent at least. Is the hair and piercings not enough of a clue?