How a Reddit Meme Birthed a Nationwide Anti-Trump Movement
When 5 million demonstrators flooded the streets for the national “Hands Off!” on April 5 — demonstrating against the unconstitutional actions and authoritarian aims of the Trump administration — a large fraction were mobilized by a leaderless grassroots collective that didn’t even exist at the start of 2025.
It’s hard to speak of — pronounced: fifty, fifty, one — like a normal activist organization. That’s because it’s more like a meme that morphed into a movement. And while 50501 may be the upstart on the block, its first steps resemble those of a juggernaut.
The coming out party for 50501 was a national anti-Trump rally on Feb. 5. The organizing concept for the protest popped up on Reddit in late January — as a call for 50 protests, in 50 states, on one day. It was introduced by an anonymous Redditor with the handle Evolved_Fungi, who posted that 50501 was intended as a “simple, self-replicating instruction set” and “something hashtaggable” that “organizes everyone regardless of their state and their location.”
This viral organizing concept took off amid public revulsion against Trump and his billionaire DOGE hatchetman Elon Musk, as well as frustration at the feckless opposition of Democratic politicians. Under the 50501 banner, groups of activists self-organized at state capitol buildings, and in big cities, across the country. As the founding Redditor reflected, “The idea of 50501 simply gave people permission to empower themselves at a time when everyone seemed to be struggling and asking, ‘What can we do?’”
But these protests — collectively dubbed the “Decentralized Self-Organizing Community Action Event” — turned out to be more than a one-off. The activists who mobilized for Feb. 2 quickly found a groove, and returned to the streets two weeks later with an even more-vigorous “No Kings” protest on President’s Day. By early April, 50501 activists had become a driving force behind the national “Hands Off” protests, in coalition with established activist groups like the ACLU, Indivisible, MoveOn, Color of Change, and the Women’s March. (Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin touted 50501 to Rolling Stone as a “very legitimate, organic, grassroots group of folks” with remarkable “energy.”)
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The snowball is still rolling. 50501 is organizing a new “National Day of Action,” combining protest and community building, this Saturday (April 19).
The originator of 50501 remains a cipher. Evolved_Fungi did not respond to an interview request and remains anonymous. But in other Reddit posts he’s described himself as an engineer by day who also has a degree in marketing, and a fascination with virality. Calling himself “just a normal guy” who is “a little bit autistic,” the Redditor writes that he’d been kicking around the 50501 concept for about a decade (originally, when trying to build momentum around a far more niche cause, opposing infant-circumcision).
Evolved_Fungi writes that he loves the “hive” intelligence of bees, as well as the ways mushrooms can spread effortlessly via spores, but remain connected through a “mycelial network” (think a root system, but for fungus). “50501 is an IDEA that spreads much like mushrooms,” he’s written. “The IDEA can spread by telling friends about the IDEA. The IDEA can spread completely independent of any other person or group!”
As 50501 has flourished, Evolved_Fungi has eschewed any formal role. “I don’t want to be the leader…. I stepped back and I’ve done very little to direct people. Intentionally,” he posted. “So the people could do it.”
With that spirit of self-empowerment, 50501 has evolved into a loosely organized coalition, with multiple grassroots groups and independent activists leaders operating under the same 50501 brand. There is no formal 50501 group,no 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 organization with board members or the ability to accept donations. Instead, several existing activist groups have stepped up to play support roles for grassroots activists, whether it’s Political Revolution, which hosts an event finder for 50501 protests, or other nonprofits that offer activist training.
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Rolling Stone spoke with two representatives of 50501: Sarah Parker, a 32-year-old Black organizer who is executive director of Voices of Florida, a reproductive rights group, and now mentors new 50501 activists; and Hunter Dunn, a 22-year-old, soon-to-be political science graduate at Pepperdine University, who is acting as 50501’s “national media liaison.”
Parker says her group got involved during the buildup to the original Feb. 5 action by providing guidance to a flood of young activists leading their first protests, including strategies for conflict de-escalation. “We’re building the airplane while flying it,” she says. “It’s amazing to see new people building this amazing infrastructure. It’s bottom up, not top down.”
There’s no barrier to entry for 50501. The network is not based on formal enrollment, rather mutual recognition, and shared principles, says Dunn. “If you’re pro-democracy, if you’re in favor of preserving the Constitution, if you’re against executive overreach, and you’re nonviolent — you’re 50501, if you say you are. Congratulations, you just got yourself involved.”
Dunn describes the many “hubs” or “nodes” of local 50501 activists as being informally united. “Federated might be a good term,” he says, invoking a concept from decentralized social media platforms, where communication flows freely thanks to shared protocols, but no single entity is in charge. The people involved at the national level, Dunn says, think of themselves like a pantry, offering resources to support and sustain the local chapters.
“I’ve been a part of multiple movements — Black Lives Matter and Occupy,” Parker says. “This is the first time I’ve seen what I’d call a living ecosystem. There are no leaders. We have different working groups. People are owning their lane, owning their state, and owning their city.”
50501 is still rooted on Reddit, where its subreddit r/50501 now counts nearly 280,000 members. But the reach is amplified via Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and even NextDoor, a site more notable for neighborhood snitching than community organizing. “People are seeing what’s happening to their country, and they want to take a stand too. We welcome them, even if they’re on NextDoor,” Dunn says with a laugh.
50501 activists communicate and coordinate through channels on the Discord platform, which are grouped by state and city, as well as group chats on the encrypted communication app Signal. Grassroots activism can be messy and fractious. Rolling Stone observed that much of the chatter on the Portland, Oregon, Discord channel was about the acrimonious departure of a splinter group.
But the threat posed by this authoritarian administration is a greater unifying force. “We’re seeing Trump literally rip apart our Constitution with a stroke of his executive orders,” Parker says. 50501 represents “pushback against executive overreach” as well as “pushback against Project 2025.” This defense of democracy is resonating far outside of big cities and reaching into rural towns. “There were multiple locations in Wyoming where hundreds of people gathered on 4/5,” says Dunn referring to the “Hands Off!” protests. “We’re reaching every state in the country. Even in deeply red areas, there are nodes.”
The April 19 day of action is billed as a community-building opportunity as well as a protest. This is a reflection, Parker says, that past movements like Occupy fizzled out because they failed to organize for sustained action. “There was no interconnectedness. It was just protest, protest, protest, sleep outside,” she recalls. “They weren’t involved in their community.”
By contrast, Parker says of 50501, “we’re putting roots down immediately.” She insists: “This is a marathon. Not only do we have four more years [of Trump], but hopefully the movement will be around for eight or 10 or 12 years, as we continue to push forward for more equal, equitable America. That’s why 4/19 is happening — in order for us to reserve the energy and continue to push forward.”
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People who want to launch their own 50501 node don’t need permission, Dunn insists. They just need to grab some friends and neighbors and plan an event. “You can either just go for it,” he says, “or you can let us know beforehand and ask for help to get signal boosted” to bring out other activists in the area.
Parker insists this movement’s strength is in empowering every individual to keep building. “50501 lives in every one of us. It’s in our heart. It’s in our energy. It’s in the sad moments. It’s in the angry moments. We are fighting against fascism,” she says. “We’re definitely David to Goliath in this fight, right? But David won.”
