File this one to "random": a mob of social media users in Brazil is spamming Tyler James Williams, the former star of the sitcom Everybody Hates Chris, by posting quotes from the show on the actor's Instagram account — for no discernible reason whatsoever.
As reported by BuzzFeed, lines from the show, a comedy based on the life of comedian and creator Chris Rock that premiered in 2006 and went off the air in 2009, have been popping up en masse on almost every single 'gram Williams has posted.
While the pairing of some quotes with certain pictures might make a modicum of sense (for instance, the one-liner "Quem é toda essa gente branca??" which means "who are all these white people?") has been repeatedly posted alongside a picture of Williams with his fellow (mostly white) cast members from the Criminal Minds spin-off Beyond Borders — despite the fact that fellow castmate Daniel Henney is of Korean and Irish descent. Other photos are plastered with phrases like "essa calça custou 100 dólares e 10 centavos" ("these jeans cost $100 and 10 cents") and "você não precisa disso, seu pai tem dois empregos" ("you do not need it, your father has two jobs").
Yesterday's TCA #missingalana #oneshyofafulldeck #CMBB #criminalmindsbeyondborders
A photo posted by Tyler James Williams (@willtylerjames) on Jan 13, 2016 at 12:00pm PST
Whenever I'm in the south, specifically GA, people always walk by me and say "Smile!". So today I opened my front camera to see why they say that. This was the result. #NewYorkerSmile #donttellmehowtolivemylife #itis7amandcoldashell #yousmile A photo posted by Tyler James Williams (@willtylerjames) on Jan 20, 2016 at 6:30am PST
Goodmorning. #backtowork A photo posted by Tyler James Williams (@willtylerjames) on Jan 14, 2016 at 7:00am PST
(The last line in question is in reference to a quote repeated by the character Rochelle, played by Tichina Arnold, the protagonist Chris' mother).
According to the blog Black Women of Brazil, the show is incredibly popular in the South American country due to the fact that it's one of the only shows with a mostly-POC cast that has aired there in recent memory.
"This is of particular interest in a city like Salvador where 80 percent of the population is Afro-Brazilian," the site purported.
The Brazilian census also reported that the majority of the country identifies as such, with 50.7 percent of the population declaring themselves as POC — either Afro-Brazilian or mixed-race — in 2010.
While this fact doesn't necessitate a good reason — or any reason — for the influx of spam on Williams' account, it does explain why the target is seemingly random to North American Instagram users.
Williams, who starred in 2015's critical darling Dear White People, was understandably unhappy with the sudden torrential downpour of trolling, and decided to combat it with a message of his own. Using Google Translate, Williams posted a warning in Portuguese, informing followers that he would block them if they continued to post.
A photo posted by Tyler James Williams (@willtylerjames) on Feb 15, 2016 at 4:22pm PST
... which only prompted spammers to fire back with another line from the show: "comprou o tradutor no perigo," another quote from the show, which means, "used a Translator from Risky?"
While there seems to be no end in sight for Williams, the question still remains as to what began the flood of spam — and it looks like we won't be getting an answer anytime soon.
Source: Instagram
