Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe has gained thousands of social media followers in the last 24 hours following his controversial joke about Puerto Rico.
At a Donald Trump rally in New York over the weekend, Hinchcliffe called the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” The comments sparked backlash from both sides, with the Trump campaign also taking pains to distance themselves from the comment.
However, Hinchcliffe has not faced the mass exodus of online support that would be expected. On the contrary, his online fan base has boomed.
US comedian Tony Hinchcliffe speaks during a campaign rally for former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27, 2024. Despite extreme backlash over his comments about Puerto Rico, Hinchcliffe’s online followers have swelled in numbers.
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
According to social media statistics channel Social Blade, on October 27—the day Hinchcliffe made the joke—he gained over 36,000 new X, formerly Twitter, followers.
This takes Hinchcliffe’s total number of followers on X to 307,406, at the time of writing.
Similarly, Hinchcliffe’s Instagram followers rose by 23,763 on October 27.
Newsweek has emailed Tony Hinchcliffe’s representatives for comment
At the Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, Hinchcliffe said: “There’s a lot going on. I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
Following the joke, Republican Representative Maria Elvira Salazar wrote on X that she was “disgusted” by the comments and said they did not reflect “GOP values.”
Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott also said the joke was “not funny” and “not true.”
The Trump campaign also distanced themselves from Hinchcliffe’s joke, with senior adviser Danielle Alvarez telling Newsweek in an email: “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
The Harris campaign also jumped on the joke with an X post promising that as president, Kamala Harris would invest in Puerto Rico’s future.
Hours after Hinchcliffe’s appearance at the rally, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny endorsed Harris in an Instagram story shared to his 45 million followers.
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), who is of Puerto Rican descent, watched the clip online with vice president nominee Governor Tim Walz and said the jokes was “super upsetting.”
Walz also called for Puerto Ricans living in battleground states to watch the clip.
Far from apologizing for the joke, Hinchcliffe only doubled down.
In an X post that responded to AOC and Walz’s comments, the comedian defended his joke, saying: “These people have no sense of humor. Wild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist. I love Puerto Rico and vacation there. I made fun of everyone…watch the whole set. I’m a comedian Tim…might be time to change your tampon.”
At the time of writing, Hinchcliffe’s post had 26.8 million views.
