Gary Toulia

An example of Gary Toulia (in this instance, Gary Toulia is not the user's actual name).

Gary Toulia (/toʊliə/; also spelled Gary Tolia, Garrett Tolia, Gerald Tolia, orsimply Gary) is a taboo online term for a person from Garetolia or an ethnic Garetolian. It has become the subject of many memes and jokes such as the flag of garetolia. Because of its obsessive usage against Garetolian culture, and because of its meaning, the Garetolian Government and YouTube have started to take down channels and videos that use the name in a harmful way. This caused controversy when a British man whose real name was Gary Toulia had his channel taken down due to harmful content.

It is estimated that there are around 300 people with the name Gary Toulia living in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Garetolia combined, even though there are about 500-600 users on YouTube with the username "Gary Toulia". 32 people that were born with the name have changed them since the meme kicked off.

Background

The name "Gary Toulia" was coined by a Wikipedia user by the name of Yeety McYeetstuff in March 2019, while debating another user who was ethnically Garetolian. It first gained significant popularity on the online nation-simulating game NationStates, where it was posted on a region's Regional Message Board as a joke; however, the name was brought to the administrators' attentions and was taken down within a week. The name was then brought to popular social media site Reddit, where it gained nearly 6,000 upvotes in one day. After this, the meme branched out to different sites, such as Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, where it gained the most recognition.

Usage and Controversy

The name "Gary Toulia", although intended as a cheap play on words, quickly became a slur used by some anti-Garetolian internet users. After notice of the meme spreading on the internet, Garetolian prime minister George Kennel made a public statement condemning the use of the name and calling it "a horrible depiction of our beautiful nation [...] an abomination". The Garetolian Government promptly partnered with many social media sites to help tackle the usage. Though many sites took down some of the posts, YouTube was the only site that showed effort into tackling usage of the slur. A notable case was when a British man by the name of Gary Toulia had his channel taken down due to the use of far-right-wing symbols, but unassociated with Garetolia or the meme itself. He then shared a low-effort post on Facebook claiming that YouTube was trying to "cancel him without reasen[sic]". One other notable case was when a Canadian man called his wife "definitely a Gary" in reference to the slur. His wife, however, was ethnically Samoan, whereas he was born in Garetolia, but was British in heritage. One American high schooler in Kentucky named Gary Toulia committed suicide after being obsessively called the name by his classmates. When asked about their thoughts, the school board replied in a matter which seemed to blame Toulia (or his parents) for his name rather than condemn the actions taken by his classmates. The Garetolian government, after this, lodged a formal complaint to the United States embassy in Garetolia asking them to address the matter. The embassy however, had no response, perhaps out of spite or negligence, or maybe because the ambassador was unaware of the story or the meme. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Garetolian citizens have become more aware of the online usage of the name, and in response have formed a group known as Garetolian Pride, which advocates for the total removal of the usage of the slur. Most American users of the word state that the usage is backed by the first amendment.

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  the flag of garetolia