Hey, remember when Friday was meme-day here at We Hunted the Mammoth? We’ve missed a couple, mostly because of horrible things happening in the world, but we’re back!
Today, some of the weirdest pro-Trump and anti-Hillary memes I’ve run across lately. Most of these are from Reddit — in particular, from r/The_Donald and r/HillaryForPrison. Enjoy, I guess.
Now this last meme — which I’ve censored a little — isn’t really all that weird. It’s just kind of revealing, at least about the sort of people who sit around making anti-Hillary memes.
Yikes.
@OoglyBoggles These centipedes are adorable. I could hug those centipedes and put a picture of them in my wallet.
As for the memes, I’m amazed at how incompetent they are. Whatever meaning the creator wanted to convey is buried under both the local memetic dialect and the creator’s own incompetence, to the point where it’s indecipherable. I mean, look at the Jojo meme. Look at it. That thing requires you to have read the manga, or at least know it’s a manga so you don’t read it backwards. Really, if you don’t know who the character is and what she’s supposed to be doing you’re excluded from understanding the meme. Even that aside, the integration of photos into the manga page was done horribly. Hillary’s face is all wrong. And while memes tend to depend on simplicity, or juxtaposition of complex and simple things for comedic purposes, here we have a detailed photo of Hillary next to a page from an extremely detailed manga. It looks cluttered and terrible and completely serious, which combined with the extreme WTFery within makes for terrible memeing. Even people who know what it’s about are forced to take a step back and think “wait, no, this is ridiculous”.
I love the centipedes! We only have the little tiny ones here, I used to play with them in the garden when I was small.
As for these “memes”, oh very dear. Why is it the extreme rightwing is so devoid of humour? Or perhaps as a liberal lefty pinko commie traitor I just don’t understand the subtle wit on display here /s
I’m going back to shooting abominations with my laser pistol.
Not that anything the man does is surprising, but Trump apparently mocked a disabled reporter.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2015/11/26/trump-makes-fun-of-reporter-with-disabil?videoId=366470122&videoChannel=13421
FFS London.
– Littering is a crime
– Entire city has no trash cans
PICK ONE
A lot of litter bins in major cities in the UK were removed due to the IRA’s tendency to put bombs in them. I know Manchester didn’t get bins again until a couple of years ago, maybe London hasn’t caught up yet. The railway station bins we do have now are “bombproof” ie: they are a clear plastic sack dangling from a plastic rim so nefarious types can’t put explosives in them.
@ IP
As Varalys pointed out, a lot of major cities don’t have bins because people put bombs in them.
But we’re also reducing the number of bins for environmental reasons. Waste management is vital to protect the environment. We’re trying to discourage that lazy ‘throw it away and it becomes someone else’s problem’ attitude.
People are quite happy to carry packaging whilst it contains something useful to them, so they can jolly well carry it back home with them. Be responsible for your own mess!
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/CPFJWB/please-take-your-litter-home-sign-in-glencoe-highlands-scotland-environmental-CPFJWB.jpg
@IP:
Due to an obscure quirk in the law, all the bins in London are in fact property of the state of Luxembourg. After the Brexit vote went through, Luxembourg took all its bins back. I’m surprised you didn’t read about it in the news.
/s, of course.
How are you finding our fair city?
The heat is a bit too much for me right now. I’m enjoying it, but I didn’t get used to the smell yet. Also pretty crowded in certain areas.
@ EJ
That’s not as far fetched as you might think. There’s a hotel room that was actually ceded to Norway for certain political purposes during WW2.
It was genuinely Norwegian territory.
(Contrary to popular myth, embassies are not foreign territory, but the hotel room actually was)
ETA: Or was it Denmark? Somewhere snowy anyway.
Centipedes don’t march in armies; they crawl in compost heaps. And they’re very useful to have there, too, as they help turn waste into soil.
Also, Der Drumpf is not a lion. And his “mane” is pathetic.
And also: that “are you frustrated” one makes him look like a tapeworm. Most unfortunate comparison!
@Alan Robertshaw
Close, but not quite: Suite 212 of Claridge’s was supposedly ceded to Yugoslavia so that the Yugoslav Queen Alexandra could give birth to the Crown Prince on Yugoslav territory, but there’s no proof that this actually happened.
Here’s the BBC’s take on it: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36569675
You know those furry toy mice, very realistic looking, the cats love them? The difference between those and a live mouse is that the live mouse will stick its tail out straight when in the mouth of a cat.
It was kind of exciting, learning that.
Newest cat found a mouse behind the wastebasket a few weeks back. Picture a white, short-haired, somewhat gormless cat standing in front of a wastebasket, moving her head suddenly to the left – then the right – then the left, until I took pity on her and lifted the basket. She’s quick, too; she beat the orange cat, who takes his predation seriously. I took it away from her right away and put it out the door, but she got treats as payment.
That reminds me: I need to go get some fake fur at JoAnnes to put on the head of the orange cat so I can take Trump-mocking photos of him.
We have centipedes and spiders in the basement at work. I don’t know what they’re eating, apart from each other.
@Alan:
Yugoslavia. It was so the future heir to the Yugoslav throne could be born on Yugoslav soil.
Yugoslavia then became communist and abolished the monarchy, but that wasn’t in the plan at the time.
Strange coincidence, just got back from the shops and spotted a little centipede out and about having not seen one for ages.
When I started at Manchester university in 1993, my campus was based in Warrington where the IRA placed a bombs in shopping centre litter bins and it killed a couple young kids that year. So I’ve always been aware that a lack of bins has been something of a neccesary evil since then although bringing them back in bomb proof form and including a recycling one next to the one for ordinary rubbish has also taken place locally where I live in Macclesfield and Manchester where my family reside.
@Kat, Axecalibur
Kaine’s a very solid pick, how pro-corporate/wall st. he is rubs the more progressive wing of the party the wrong way, but he’s excellent on social issues and shockingly good on the environment for being from a state w/significant coal production.
Plus he’s from a decent sized swing-state.
WRT the army meme, what metric are we used for measuring the armies? Does the army of centipedes contain the same number of centipedes as the army of lions does lions? Or does the army of centipedes have the same amount of mass as the army of lions does?
If it’s an army of 100,000,000 centipedes and 100 lions, I might be more scared of the centipedes just on a gut, visceral level. Though definitively I’d not want to encounter either of those things.
Pardon me for going off-topic.
If anyone’s interested, here’s some info from the German media about the München shooting:
From the Welt article about the official police statement:
http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article157240657/Der-Ermittlungsstand-zum-Amoklauf-mit-neun-Toten.html
The shooter was 18 years old and attended school. Whether he had problems there, the police wouldn’t yet say.
The victims are: 3 14-year olds, 2 15-year olds, a 17 y.o., a 19. y.o., a 20 y.o., a 45 y.o.. Three are women. All are locals. Three of them also had citizenship/nationality of Republic of Kosovo (according to Kosovo officials).
The investigators found multiple books and newspaper articles about shooting sprees inside the shooter’s flat, including a copy of Peter Langman’s “Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters”. Data/electronic devices were also seized and are currently being analyzed.
The police assume that the killing spree was connected to Anders Breivik’s rampage, since Friday was its fifth anniversary.
Also, according to Bild (admittedly not the most reliable of sources), the shooter used Breivik’s photo as his profile pic on Facebook.
The police had stressed that both attack and attacker had absolutely no connection to either IS OR the refugees.
From a Spiegel article:
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/amoklauf-in-muenchen-im-rucksack-des-taeters-waren-noch-300-schuss-munition-a-1104415.html
From the procurator’s statement:
It seems that the shooter broke into a Facebook account to lure people to the McDonald’s restaurant. In his post, he said: “I’ll buy you whatever you want, as long as it’s not too expensive”. (Way to prey on poor/underfed kids)
It is unclear whether the shooter purposefully targeted young people.
From the president of the Bavarian Office of Criminal Investigation:
The weapon was a semi automatic 9mm pistol (Glock 17) with the numbers filed off, probably illegally acquired. The magazine was not yet empty. In the shooter’s backpack was enough ammo for over 300 more shots.
The shooter had no official permit for possesion of weapons.
Recordings of the shooting are being analyzed to determine whether the shooter was experienced at handling the weapon.
And now for some possibly iffy reporting practices:
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/amoklauf-in-muenchen-im-rucksack-des-taeters-waren-noch-300-schuss-munition-a-1104415.html
http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article157240657/Der-Ermittlungsstand-zum-Amoklauf-mit-neun-Toten.html
http://www.nordbayerischer-kurier.de/nachrichten/amoklauf-munchen-der-neue-breivik_497240
I might be slightly oversensitized to the topic, but:
1. Is it really necessary/responsible to announce that a spree killer was possibly maybe treated for something related to depression before the information is confirmed?
2. Does being possibly maybe treated for something related to depression really ‘fit the mold’ of a shooting spree killer better than collecting books and articles about shooting sprees and using a shooting spree killer’s mug as your goddamn facebook profile pic?
What’s even sillier, Centipedes don’t congregate. Centipedes by natures are territorial. It’s millipedes that often end up in groups, but they are harmless herbivores that help in producing compost.
Trying to have an army of centipedes is like taming a Zebra or having a pride of tigers. They just don’t that way.
“CLEVELAND — We have always been at war with Eurasia. Snowball the Pig is responsible for everything that is wrong on the farm. How fortunate we are to have Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is the miracle product that will fix everything that is wrong in your home. He is also your father figure (put your little hand in his), who will be your preacher, teacher (everything you had in mind). He’ll be your dream, your wish, your fantasy, your hope, your love, everything that you need. Truly, madly, deeply, he loves you.
He is the way, the truth and the life. None shall be saved except through him.
He will protect you. He will fix your aching bones and your bad hearing and when you walk home at night you will know that nothing can harm you, because Trump is there. You will get a good-paying job. The thing in the shadows that frightens you will melt away as if it were never real to begin with. (And perhaps it wasn’t.)
Praise Trump from whom all blessings flow. Believe him.
He will also build a wall. It will be as tall as you want it to be. If you want the moon (Newt Gingrich does!) he will throw a lasso around it and pull it down for you. He will solve all your problems.
Why should you believe that he will do this? Listen, you’re awful nosy, aren’t you? Isn’t the word of Donald Trump’s children enough for you? (I would say, “And the words of his wife, Melania,” but those turned out not to be her words.) They have spent the last four days praising him to the skies.”
-From Donald Trump’s Creepy Facist Informercial
The whole thing is my favorite part OMG.
*I should say read the rest of the article as the whole thing is amazing OMG.
@msexceptiontotherule
Let’s be honest here, we’re talking about actively interfering with the use and transmission of the memes of others which is justifiable given the fact that they are being used to attack others. As long as they are useful and there is no cost for the people using them and they will be used.
So this needs to be approached as a situation where we will be interfering in the memes normal assimilation, retention, expression, and transmission. Each of those can be strategically utilized.
The only real difference between a word and a meme to me is that what we call “memes” casually are like a collection of “social-visual legos” that can be disassembled by the different symbolic elements and associated meanings and recombined into new combinations, whereas a word and it’s meaning (definition) is more static (word-pieces do the same thing but slower, “truthiness”). This lets memes evolve much faster than words.
One thing that can be done is to take a meme, modify it, and use it ourselves in a literal act of justifiable cultural appropriation (because again, they are attacking with them). This is what I do with “SJW”. As there are so many it’s better to stick to the most used ones.
Another thing that can be done is to mess up the retention and transmission by having good ways of mocking and twisting the meaning when they are used in troll-like fashion (like the way “cuck” gets mocked and twisted).
Another way is increasing the negative feedback such that it impacts on the long-term reputation of the people and groups using it.
Still another is by having and using our own memes, which requires preemptively preparing for them interfering with them I’m similar ways. Knowing how cultural appropriation works is again useful here.
I’m sure there are many more things.
While the shooting was still ongoing, my local news site’s article on it had two paragraphs about recent ISIS attacks and zero mentions of any other possibility (especially not the most likely – and, now, seemingly correct – possibility, that he was yet another aggrieved white male with far-right racist/misogynist ties).
And it’s a Murdoch rag, so they weren’t even jumping the gun so much as poisoning the well.
I’m sure alt-righters are already calling it a coverup of terrorism since he was supposedly of Iranian descent (nvm he was born and raised in Germany).
@space garbage
You’re not oversensitized. It’s irresponsible to imply causation, as both “experts” and media outlets often do, when discussing mental illness and criminals. The last thing we need is more stigma. Violent crime like this can usually be traced back to a sense of entitlement, which has no relation to mental illness.
Really sick of that bullshit. But casual ableism is so pervasive, including among health professionals, that I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. Ugh.
@ ariblester & EJ
Aww, but it’s such a wonderful story I’ve decided to assume there was a Communist plot to hide all the evidence. I’ve emailed Dan Brown to get to the bottom of it 🙂
(Thanks for the link though)