A new campaign from Police Scotland features the “hate monster,” representing the feelings of “young men aged 18-30” who have “white-male entitlement” and are therefore “likely to commit [a] hate crime.”
Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act is set to go into effect act the beginning of April, creating a new offense of “stirring up hatred against protected characteristics, including age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity.”
To promote awareness of these new hate crimes, Police Scotland created the “Hate Monster” mascot, with the wider public becoming aware of it this week after an advertisement featuring the character went viral.
“The Hate Monster represents that feeling some people get when they are frustrated and angry and take it out on others, because they feel like they need to show they are better than them. In other words, they commit a hate crime,” Police Scotland say on their website.
Some people “let the Hate Monster in,” according to Police Scotland, because they’re “young men from 18-30” who have “deep-rooted feelings of being socially and economically disadvantaged, combined with ideas about white-male entitlement.”
Police Scotland also encourages those who feel they are “at risk” of committing a hate crime to stop themselves, warning of social and employment consequences.
“If you have committed or feel you are at risk of committing a hate crime, remember, it doesn’t make you feel better. Maybe for a moment, but in the end, you feel worse. The hate lingers. It can really mess up your life in other ways too, like when it comes to things like finding a job. A police record for hate crime is not a good look on anyone,” Police Scotland concluded. “Go on, be good to yourself. Don’t feed the Hate Monster.”
The cutesy messaging was swiftly ridiculed by many on X. Ben Sixsmith, editor of The Critic, joked that “this, from @PoliceScotland, could really backfire. I mean, look at this poor thing. Seeing its sweet sad face just makes me want to feed it a few slurs.”
Comedian and GB News host Leo Kearse noted that a “hate crime is targeting someone based on their race, age, gender etc,” and that “this campaign targets young white men,” so he ironically reported the campaign to Police Scotland themselves.
“Police Scotland is an ideologically driven armed organisation under the control of notorious anti-white racist Humza Yousaf,” he tweeted. “Hopefully Police Scotland will all be arrested.”
“On the whole ‘hate monster’ thing – never forget there would have been meetings, many meetings, & committees, & focus groups, & all other manner of things where this concept was born – nurtured – & finessed before being agreed for release into the world. I can visualise them now,” said Calum Steele, the former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation.
Controversy surrounding the ‘Hate Monster’ campaign comes just as Police Scotland are being slammed with criticism for establishing third party hate crime reporting centers throughout the country by training businesses to take reports.
As previously reported by the Publica, among the new authorized locations to file a report for a hate crime include a sex shop, a mosque that invited a cleric so incendiary he was banned from speaking in Pakistan, and a salmon farm.
