200+ things that Fox News has labeled “woke”

Andrea Austria / Media Matters

Research/Study Research/Study

Written by Helena Hind, Alicia Sadowski & Jane Lee

Research contributions from Katherine Abughazaleh & Isabella Corrao

Published 06/08/23 8:58 AM EDT

For the past three years, Fox News has been obsessed with "wokeness." Since the aftermath of George Floyd's murder by police in May 2020, Fox News personalities and guests have applied the label "woke" to a staggeringly wide array of topics. Few entities have escaped the network's demonization, from the military to M&M's, New York prep schools to NASCAR, social media to mall Santas.

The progression of "woke" from its origins in the Black community to its eventual status as a conservative dog whistle has been well-documented, yet right-wing media — including Fox News — can't seem to settle on a definition. However, the lack of a clear definition hasn't stopped Fox from indiscriminately throwing "woke" at hundreds of things.

The problem is a two-way street: Fox personalities struggle to define "woke" because they have attributed the term to nearly everything under the sun, stripping it of any meaningful definition and surrendering it to right-wing dog whistles. In doing so, Fox News has solidified the word's status as a derisive catch-all for anything involving marginalized groups or progressive policies, arguably increasing its effectiveness as a means of inspiring outrage among its audience.

Here is a list of over 200 things Fox News personalities, guests, and writers have called "woke."

A PDF of this report can be accessed here.

McFarland complained, "Gen. Milley is a political general, he's a woke general." [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 9/15/21]

America's Newsroom guest Michael Loftus said track and field athlete Gwen Berry would be one of the "villains in the woke Olympics" for protesting the national anthem. [Fox News, America's Newsroom, 8/2/21]

Guest host Mark Steyn claimed that there is "a cartel of woke billionaires controlling almost all dissemination of ideas in the public square" [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 4/8/21]

Gutfeld claimed, "It's only a matter of time before book burning becomes justifiable because now it's under the guise of woke fascism. Before, you know, if Stalinists burned books that was bad, but if it's a social justice warrior, that's okay." [Fox News, The Five, 7/6/20]

Tucker Carlson Tonight guest Thomas Corbett-Dillon accused former U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson of becoming "woke." [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 7/7/22]

America Reports guest Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) said the Chinese Community Party would "co-opt a lot of the woke anti-American narratives out there" to increase division in the United States. [Fox News, America Reports, 11/28/22]

New York Post columnist Miranda Devine criticized Joe Biden for "prioritizing woke concerns like climate change." [Fox News, America Reports, 7/14/22]

Kilmeade lamented, "Comic book characters are getting a woke makeover" and praised his guests’ new brand of anti-woke heroes. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/21/22]

Guest Michael Shellenberger claimed that "woke" efforts to destigmatize mental illness in criminal justice lead to violent crime. [Fox News, America's Newsroom, 10/24/22]

Bruce said that "so-called woke vocabulary," including terms like "systemic racism" and "voter suppression," is "infecting every corner of our culture." [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 4/27/21]

Hegseth complained that a consequence of being "woke" is that Democrats say "the patriarchy has to come down." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 11/13/20]