Gorlock the Destroyer refers to influencer Ali C. Lopez as a nickname from when she was a guest on an episode of the Whatever Podcast. The nickname was imposed upon her in a mean-spirited manner as a comment on her appearance as a fat trans woman, especially while sitting alongside three thin, conventionally attractive women.
Lopez faced a flood of harassment and online bullying over her size, gender, and general appearance following this podcast appearance, but has stood undaunted against the haters and continues to thrive on her social media channels.
Who was the Gorlock the Destroyer girl?
Lopez is a social media influencer on TikTok and Instagram who hails from Arizona and is in her mid-twenties. Her TikTok account, where she goes by @al.weeezy, has over 450,000 followers as of June 21, 2024. She primarily posts POV, lip sync videos, and short entries centering on how awesome and gorgeous she is.
She is a transgender woman who has self-identified as fat and is most well-known for her unapologetic confidence. In the Whatever Podcast episode that resulted in her nickname, she declared herself a “bad b—h” and “baddie” as well as a “fat f—ing 10” when asked to rate herself out of 10 by the hosts.
The name “Gorlock the Destroyer” was given by Twitter user @RichardRatBoy1 on April 26, 2023, one day after the podcast episode aired. In the tweet, he listed each guest’s name incorrectly, with the other guests named things like “Ashley” and “Rachel,” while Lopez was labeled with the designation that would become the meme.
‘Gorlock the Destroyer’ meme spread
The original meme tweet gained over 14.6 million views over the months and was shared over 12,000 times. On the same day, user @TheOnlyDSC posted a video clip from the podcast episode edited to dub the voice of Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars over Lopez. The joke intended to cruelly compare her to an evil character, a giant slug alien, again taking a shot at her size.
From there, jokes about “Gorlock the Destroyer” spread across Twitter and then to TikTok, and finally to Reddit forums dedicated to whatever people considered “cringe.” The vast majority of the memes are fatphobic cracks about her weight.
Ali Weezy’s high school photo
Normally, we would never share pre-transition information and photos of a trans person, as the majority of them prefer to keep that kind of thing private and out of the public’s sight. However, Lopez responded to the leak of her pre-transition high school photo with big “who cares” energy in a TikTok video on November 11, 2023.
@al.weeezy #greenscreen ♬ original sound – al.weeezy
“So I guess this was just leaked,” she said in the green screen video showing her high school photo, “and I just have one question: Am I supposed to be embarrassed?”
“I was sexy as f— then, and I’m sexy as f— now, and what about it?”
Ali Weezy’s response to the Gorlock the Destroyer meme
Lopez understandably had some difficulty with the “Gorlock the Destroyer” nickname at first, since it was meant to insult her appearance. However, she shook it off, and at one point considered embracing the nickname.
“There are days where it still bothers me that I get called that… there was even a time I was like: ‘Should I just embrace [Gorlock the Destroyer] at this point?’ I don’t even care.”
She also expressed confusion around how the meme was mutating on an episode of the “One Night with Steiny” podcast, including how people started calling her Optimus Prime.
@onenightwithsteiny Ali Weezy on being called Gorlock the Destroyer #gorlockthedestroyer #steiny #bradleymartyn #fullsend #fyp ♬ original sound – One Night with Steiny
Fox News interview and controversy
In January of 2024, Lopez sat down with Fox News Digital for an interview in which she made some statements about masculinity that made the outlet’s audience love a trans woman for a change.
“I feel like a lot of [men] need to start being [men],” she said. “When it comes to the male world… men nowadays are expecting princess treatment.”
“I just see a lot of men expecting women in the relationship… to go above and beyond and like them to almost do nothing. …Even some of my friends… [I ask], ‘Why are you paying, covering this?’… At least be 50/50 [on paying for things].”
These comments were pretty heavily edited by Fox News, but if they’re taken at face value, Lopez seems to be repeating common right-wing sentiments about gender roles. It just goes to show you that trans women are as diverse in politics and opinions as any other population.
She even went as far as to call certain people overly sensitive.
“I feel like we live in a very sensitive society right now where it’s almost like, ‘No babe, like chill out.’ As long as people aren’t being a–holes to you, then it shouldn’t be an issue.”
Marginalized groups are more likely to broaden their social networks via the internet…and are disproportionally impacted as a result
According to a 2015 research study from Indiana University, marginalized groups use the internet to expand their communities and networks rather than reinforce their social ties. However, the lack of proper content moderation and intentionally mysterious social media algorithms have been found to disproportionally affect the marginalized, such as LGBTQ+ communities.
Meme examples
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- What is the honey badger meme?
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