This Meme-Filled Facebook Group Is At The Center Of A Horrific School Shooting
An anonymous Facebook group called “Holk Legion” is in the spotlight in Mexico after a teen may have used it to announce his intent to kill.
The news that broke in Mexico on Wednesday morning seemed downright foreign to most people reading it: A shooting had taken place at the Colegio Americano del Noreste in Monterrey.
A 15-year-old student at the school, which caters to children from preschool to middle school, wounded four people before turning his gun on himself in an attack that authorities called "unprecedented" for Mexico.
“This event makes us all worried and anxious about what is happening in a society where a young person dares to hurt his classmates,” Nuevo León governor Jaime Rodríguez Calderón said during a press conference, adding that the shooter’s motive was still under investigation.
Daniel Becerril / Reuters
Soon after, the hashtag #MásMasacresEnMéxico began trending as people shared grief — and began looking for answers.
Some Twitter users eventually came to the conclusion that some kind of weird sect or cult called "Legion Holk" was behind the shooting.
But the Holk Legion isn't a cult. It's not a terrorist organization. It's a Facebook community, filled with memes that eventually make their way onto the mainstream Mexican internet.
It's one of several closed groups that BuzzFeed Mexico has been following for a while now — like this one, this one, this one, this one and this one — where young people get together to share and create memes.
Legión Holk