Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Woke Mind Virus


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__ to Woke. Although clearly in some way notable, this term is not clearly separable from pejorative uses of 'woke' already discussed at our existing article and should be discussed there. —Ganesha811 (talk) 07:08, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Woke Mind Virus

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Feels entirely like WP:NEO. Half the usage section is just dedicated to Elon Musk (at the time of AFD nomination).

Look I understand Go woke, go broke exists, but that feels like WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Is every popular iteration of a phrase invoking the ideas of wokeness going to have its own article?

According to the article, "Vanity Fair has titled whole sections of stories under the "Woke Mind Virus" label." This isn't actually a label that is selectable/catagorized/tagged like "politics", but a custom label for one article.

I do not doubt the phrase's usage in popular media and by influential people, but it is essentially the same thing as woke. I could go on, but I think this can be deleted and redirected to woke. Alternatively, this content can be merged into woke as its own section with the criticism. -- Classicwiki (talk) If you reply here, please ping me. 01:53, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language, Journalism, News media, Philosophy, Conservatism, Discrimination, History,  and Politics. Classicwiki (talk) If you reply here, please ping me. 01:53, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Keep, since WP:NEO is cited, let us see what it says, Articles on neologisms that have little or no usage in reliable sources are commonly deleted, but in this case this phrase is very widely cited across an enormous variety of reliable sources. The phrase probably should also be mentioned at the woke article and other mentions should be added and included, but a page for Woke Mind Virus itself makes sense given the sources as broad and significant as they are. Iljhgtn (talk) 02:27, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Iljhgtn, yes it is popular term, this is already addressed. WP:NEO also says, Some neologisms can be in frequent use, and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or in larger society. This is not in question. I do not doubt it will be utilized in large portions of media and scholarly works. Until it is shown to be its own distinct concept, it is essentially a branch term used to criticize wokeness. There is a criticism section in woke that this neologism can direct to in my opinion. Currently, Anti-woke redirects to woke. Anti-woke is an older term than woke mind virus and used it much more media/scholarly works. WMV is just a substitute term for being against wokeness (or anti-woke). Alternatively, I think a separate article that incorporates reliable secondary sources say about the term or concept, not just sources that use the term titled something along the lines of "Criticisms of woke/wokeness" or even "anti-woke" could also be appropriate, where WMV redirects to. I do not see the point of a standalone article about Woke Mind Virus. -- Classicwiki (talk) If you reply here, please ping me. 02:57, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Delete or merge/redirect no evidence that this neologism deserves a stand-alone wikipedia article. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  07:39, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Keep. As a neologism, there are numerous treatments in secondary sources (see Isaacson, Ali, Krugman, McKeown and Wright, etc.). Dclemens1971 (talk) 15:32, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Keep: Passes WP:NEO and has coverage by reliable sources. BlakeIsHereStudios (talk &#124; contributions) 16:04, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Selectively merge and redirect to woke. There's no separate subject here -- it's the same "woke" pejorative discussed in that article. &mdash; Rhododendrites  talk \\ 16:19, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Weak Redirect, maybe i'm just biased because this is an inherently silly sounding phrase, but I don't see how it differentiates from the term "Woke" so a redirect there would be optimal. Samoht27 (talk) 16:50, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Merge/redirect to Woke, it's just a slight variation of the exact same thing. Di (they-them) (talk) 16:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment: A couple people have suggested a merge or redirect, but I would like to point out that this term "woke mind virus" actually has quite substantial coverage of its own differentiating it quite a bit from "woke" and therefore a mere mention of this term on that page seems to be inadequate. This source mentions the term as distinct but was early in coverage so does not yet mention what WMV means. This source mentions the WMV phrase in depth by itself completely independent of "woke". This source mentions the history of the term, especially as used specifically by Elon Musk since around 2021 and in reference to San Francisco and includes some of the defining language that separates and distinguishes this phrase at is popularly understood by sources, Despite his repeated use of the phrase, the precise meaning of “woke mind virus” has been difficult to pin down. Musk told Bill Maher during an interview on HBO: “I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic, and anything that … results in the suppression of free speech. Those are two aspects of the woke mind virus that I think are very dangerous.” This source speaks uniquely of the WMV by saying much about Musk's use of it from a critical perspective. This source again uses both "woke" as well as WMV and refers to them as distinct terms with their own meanings. This source predominantly focuses on just the "woke" phrase but has an important passing mention of WMV, though obviously passing mentions in general are not to carry weight towards an AfD consideration. This source covers the phrase and the Netflix mention with some detail. I believe the above, and much more can be found with fairly little work and effort actually to support an independent page for both the WMV phrase as well as woke and other phrases mentioned by other editors.Iljhgtn (talk) 19:19, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * A lot of these sources are not reliable, though. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  15:14, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This article from The Wall Street Journal leading on this subject in a very strong WP:SIGCOV manner. This article from Rolling Stone discusses the term/phrase with both Musk as well as Bill Maher's involvement and contributions. This article from fact-checking website Snopes cites the Webster dictionary definition of "woke" independent of the subsequent mention of "woke mind virus" which the article then explores in depth further on going back to its seeming origins (related to Musk at least) from 2021, The first mention of the words "woke mind virus" that we could find in Musk's feed showed up in December 2021. There is much, much, more out there on the internet as well that can be easily found. The "no evidence" claim seems to have not sufficiently considered WP:BEFORE. Iljhgtn (talk) 19:37, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Per WP:NOPAGE we also need to consider if this topic benefits from being a stand alone article rather than being covered in the woke article. Evidence for this theory is what I think is lacking. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  06:37, 29 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Delete as the phrase is not really notable and similar phrases already exist. It's just a variation of the term woke. There exists multiple variations of this same term and they do not have their own unique articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asaduzzaman Khan Shahriar (talk • contribs) 11:44, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep I understand the concerns of the UNDUE weight given to the Elon Musk section, but that's not the purpose of AfD. Further, given the deletion rational of NEO, I think it's easy to examine the references provided in the article and in an independent search that the term woke mind virus meets notability independently from woke and is an appropriate topic split. microbiology Marcus [petri dish·growths] 14:57, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:NEO does seem to apply here - avoid making pages for terms in order to increase usage of the term. SportingFlyer  T · C  04:30, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep This term is very widely used by reliable sources, so WP:NEO doesn't seem to apply. Because of the wide range of reliable sourcing, the term does deserve its own page beyond just something like "woke." Doctorstrange617 (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Keep - Easily passes GNG from sources showing in the footnotes. The fact that it is an epithet popularized by a crackpot billionaire is neither here nor there. Carrite (talk) 07:02, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Merge back. This is as forky as they come. Bearian (talk) 01:13, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
 * You must of course mean WP:CFORK and not WP:FORK as FORK is defined in the first line of the link you made as Mirrors and forks of Wikipedia are publications that mirror (copy exactly) or fork (copy, but change parts of the material of) Wikipedia, no? microbiology Marcus [petri dish·growths] 02:39, 3 May 2024 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.