Watch 15 videos of LGBTQ+ and ally protestors making clowns of ICE

One swipe later, you may find yourself watching someone leading chants and rallying the community dressed in a blow-up frog suit.

And those are just individual people. It isn’t hard to come across shots of thousands of people in crowds, at games, concerts, or proper protests, waving “Abolish ICE” banners as they take a stand against what has become tyranny at its worst and the manifestation of Project 2025 that Democrats tried in vain to warn the world about just one short year ago.

Each moment feels absurd, joyful, and defiant all at once. Together, they tell a bigger story: in 2025, protest has become a performance medium. The camera isn’t a bystander—it’s part of the movement. The result is a kind of queer-coded resistance that turns rage into pageantry.

The joyful noise of resistance 

If the old protest anthem was a bullhorn, 2025’s is a choir rehearsal.

In Portland, a senior chorus belts protest songs to a crowd of cheering onlookers, harmonizing with the precision of a Broadway closer.

The videos went viral not because they were shocking, but because they were wholesome.

Then there are people like Fred Pereira, an 82-year-old veteran who appears in another clip, quietly explaining that he still shows up to these types of protests because he knows what it’s like to work with real soldiers, and ICE is not that. His words cut through the chaos like a verse between choruses.

It’s tempting to call these “peaceful protests,” but that undersells them. They’re participatory art that turns crowd solidarity into a spectacle.

Frogs, furries, and firefighters, oh, my!

Queer activism has always known that humor is a survival skill.

So when the furry community showed up to protest ICE, tails wagging beside handmade signs, it wasn’t random; it was a strategy, much like the guy twerking in front of the barricade like it’s his runway.

Same with a viral clip of firefighters literally chasing ICE agents out of town.

These moments hit because they flip the script.

ICE embodies fear and control; queers answer with camp and chaos. Laughter becomes resistance. It’s giving, “If they’re gonna surveil us, they might as well get a show.”

Drag queens, Dora, and the power of persona

Drag has always been protest, and 2025 proves it’s still the sharpest weapon in the queer arsenal.

In West Hollywood, a drag queen named Pickle organized a street-side protest in full glam, shouting into a mic while her wig threatens to take flight.

And then there’s Dora the Explorer—or at least someone cosplaying her—leading chants about borders and belonging. It’s satire with a side of sincerity.

Allies and amplifiers

Not every viral hero is queer, but plenty are in on the remix.

At a community event, actor Matthew Lillard delivered an impassioned speech about immigration justice. When Shaggy says to abolish ICE, you listen.

In Chicago, union ironworkers march beside activists.

And if you thought ICE was safe from their own, you’re wrong. Plenty of police officers, in uniform, go off, and not on protestors, but on ICE. The officers who actually follow the law have no qualms about calling out the abuses from within.

Each clip feels like a different verse in the same song: outrage as collaboration. The coalition keeps widening, proof that empathy is still contagious online.

When activism goes viral, who wins?

Of course, there’s debate. Does turning deportation policy into meme material trivialize it? Maybe. But virality is visibility, and visibility is pressure. For younger viewers, these videos are often a first lesson in how power operates and how humor can puncture it.

The messy spectacle is the point. The internet rewards emotion, and these clips deliver it in full color: joy, anger, absurdity, hope. They make activism look like what it’s always been—a collective improvisation.

The feed is the front line

Protest in 2025 doesn’t end when the chants fade. It lives on through loops, stitches, and duets; it morphs into memes, remixes, and drag numbers. ICE may still represent state power, but online, its image gets rewritten daily by the people it tries to silence.

The new activism isn’t quiet or polished. It’s frogs in body paint, seniors in harmony, firefighters in revolt. It’s queer, communal, and camera-ready, because justice doesn’t march quietly. It dances, lip-syncs, and sometimes twerks in front of a government van.