Shia LaBeouf’s “He Will Not Divide Us”—the 24/7 live-stream, created with his usual collaborators Nastja Säde Rönkkö and Luke Turner, that invited anyone to come and repeat that mantra as a demonstration of peaceful resistance against the fractiousness that so colors our nation—has been shut down because of too many fights, The Verge reports, approximately 3 years, 11 months, and one week short of its goal of running throughout Donald Trump’s first four years in office. The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens issued a press release saying that, while the installation may have succeeded in being “engaging and thought-provoking,” it also resulted in “dozens of threats of violence and numerous arrests,” and it created “a serious and ongoing safety hazard” for everyone in the immediate area. And so, after weighing the benefits of encouraging a sociopolitical dialogue versus the risk of getting hit in the face, ultimately, museum officials decided in favor of encouraging everyone to take their important discourse about the need for peace the hell off their property.
As we’ve reported since it began, lo, these three, edifying weeks ago, LaBeouf’s art project has become a popular spot for alt-right trolls, irresistibly drawn, like thinly mustachioed moths, to the light of yet another webcam to shout their Nazi slogans and Pepe memes into. Some of these confrontations even resulted in actual scuffles with LaBeouf himself, who found himself arrested after tussling with one of these proud, strong alpha males who said LaBeouf had pulled on his scarf and scratched his face. Fortunately, the big man was able to recover from his scarf-burn and resume calling people “snowflakes” on the internet, but the mark it left on the project was slightly more permanent.