ºÃÉ«tv psychologist and podcast host Jordan Peterson has a history of making controversial statements on X, formerly known as Twitter, and some of his posts got him into trouble with the College of Psychologists of Ontario last year. Recently, an image was widely circulated appearing to show Peterson quote posting a viral post from Elmo and swearing at the "Sesame Street" Muppet for "wanting to discriminate against white people." The image has been manipulated. While Peterson has previously expressed his dislike for the character, there's no evidence this particular post is real.
Elmo's official X account on Jan. 30 urging people to "ask a friend how they are doing," in a followup to a from the day before that saw thousands of people sharing their fears and anxieties with the Muppet.
An image, on Jan. 31, appears to show a screenshot of Peterson quoting Elmo's Jan. 30 post, using an expletive and accusing the children's entertainer of "wanting to discriminate against white people."
The image has been shared by other X accounts, getting more than a million views and 40,000 likes. It has also been shared on , and .
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The image, which does not include a time-stamp, appears to have originated on X, in from an account whose bio states that he posts "memes and other silly tweets."
A search for the text in the post comes up with from an account unrelated to Peterson or Elmo.
A search through Peterson's X account for the post yielded no results. A similar search through sites that can archive X also found no evidence of the post.
Peterson did mention Elmo on Jan. 31, in a of U.S. President Joe Biden's response to the Muppet, hours after the manipulated image appeared.
"I can rightly believe that those who are writing tweets for poor old @JoeBiden are admirers of that bloody horrible whiny puppet," he wrote.
"Elmo would definitely vote for @TheDemocrats."
Peterson and the account that appears to have first shared the image did not respond to requests for comment.
The screenshot was taken at face value from many social media users, several of whom pointed to other of the retired University of Toronto professor's objection to "Sesame Street" characters. However, several of those examples are also manipulated screenshots.
looks like a quote post of a Sept. 19, 2023, from Elmo, with Peterson appearing to call the Muppet a "virtue-signaling Narcissistic Fear-mongering Despiser of the peasantry." While the text is real, it was in response to a post from federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.
Peterson has been vocal for years about his dislike for Elmo, on what was then , in his book "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" and in a recent with his daughter, where he called the character a "cringing little milksop of a puppet."
X posts with the manipulated image can be found () and ()
Manipulated X post can also be found on (), () and ()
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