Billy Corgan Compares Social Media Keyboard Warriors To Ku Klux Klan

The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan has slammed young people who he’s dubbed the “hashtag generation” and compared “social justice warriors” to the Ku Klux Klan due to their oppression of free speech.

The singer took part in a discussion on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ radio show and said he’s “horrified” at the youth of today who want to log on to social media to be offended by every opinion that contradicts their own and insists they have created a world he doesn’t “want to live in”.

When Jones suggested “young people lash out at everyone because they’re just looking to get offended”, Corgan replied: “It’s a cult… I’m horrified as somebody who believes in free speech and is an artist, because those people are gonna be coming for me. Let’s face it. It may not be tomorrow, but it’s soon enough because I said the wrong thing on the wrong day because I was tired.

“It’s like, to live like that, to live where every word is a landmine – you know what I’m saying – it’s not the world I want to live in. I grew up a liberal. I grew up a liberal, so it’s odd to me.”

Corgan continued his rant against “social justice warriors” who he compared to the Ku Klux Klan, pictured below at one of their cross-burning gatherings during the ’60s, when Jones gave an example of a group of youngsters who spat at reporters at a political rally.

Jones added: “There’s little arrogant 20 year olds spitting in their faces screaming at ’em, ‘You hate me ’cause I’m a tranny’, and it’s just this made-up thing in their head when we don’t hate them. I mean - how do you transcend this?”

Corgan responded by comparing the exchange was comparable to the KKK.

He said: “The Klan member spitting in some person of colour’s face, don’t you think that guy thought he was right, too?”

Pictures Getty Images/REX Features