By David Futrelle
So I was browsing through the #QAnon hashtag on Twitter, as one does, and admiring the amazing graphic design abilities of the Q Believers and MAGAheads in general, when I ran across a couple of memes that made me wonder if I was hallucinating.
After further investigation of the meme artist responsible for them I have concluded that, well, I’m not the one who’s hallucinating. I would try to explain further, but nothing I could write would quite capture the, er, unique vision of this sui generis genius. And so, without further ado, let me present you with some selections from the ever-growing oeuvre of the man they call BD-13 67, a.k.a. @BowsOverBoston, a.k.a. Bobby Dembow.
Here’s the meme that first caught my eye and caused me to wonder if my brain was working properly.
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1051564738738556928
But this is merely the tip of one fucking trippy iceberg.
As the meme above suggests, BD seems to have a bit of an obsession with Ivanka Trump, though his tributes to what he sees as her fierce beauty are undermined somewhat by his inability to understand how human necks work.
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1048254946943160320
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1048196155715276802
BD also seems to think Melania is hot stuff as well.
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1051533446739316742
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1048196487430230017
BD has devoted much of his energy in recent weeks to promoting the hashtag #RedOctober, a reference to a typically vague QAnon promise that something big and terrible is coming this month that will utterly ruin the Democrats before the midterms.
For someone purportedly on the side of “light” and “truth,” BD has a penchant for exceedingly dark and violent imagery; many of his #RedOctober memes look a bit like rejected posters for extremely low-budget horror films. It doesn’t help that he makes frequent use of the stylized skull logo that has come to be associated with Q.
Weirdly, most of these memes are filled with admonitions to vote, though presumably BD is aware that the midterms take place in November, not October.
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047664645874622464
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047649071895400448
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046937485975195648
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047143244054900742
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047280585016786945
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046777490566524929
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046772184188899330
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046510652444028929
The ones featuring the slogan “Make it Happen” — sometimes rendered in rather hackneyed horror movie fonts — strike me as the most ominous.
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046927080791973889
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046894144055062530
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046887826082684929
At this point it’s basically obligatory to make a reference to the Mitchell and Webb “Are we the baddies” sketch. (If you’ve already watched that one too many times, here’s a completely unrelated bit from Mr. Show that’s pretty funny. I mean, there’s really no reason for me to post it here but, hey, it’s been a pretty shitty week.)
My favorite of BD’s “are we the baddies” memes has to be this one, with the phrase “TRUST YOUR FELLOW MAN” incongruously appearing underneath a glowing, skull-faced Trump standing on what I can only assume is supposed to be a beach on the Bikini atoll shortly after the bomb tests that rendered it uninhabitable.
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046977655319539712
Some of the memes refer vaguely to the alleged “evil” that Trump and his followers are allegedly battling, but in many of them it’s not clear what exactly this evil is supposed to be. Here “evil” seems to be a child … walking on a railing?
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047249063392038912
This one seems to suggest that Trump and his eagle buddy here are themselves the evil to be vanquished.
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046966822073970690
As for this one, your guess is as good as mine:
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047611956927057920
“Vote them all out” is a rather unusual message for someone supporting the party that controls the White House and both houses of Congress to push. And indeed, more than a few of BD’s memes might at first glance appear to be anti-Trump, anti-GOP memes dreamed up by some graphic-design-deficient #Resistance fighter on a meth binge.
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047276975826632704
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047170857506885634
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046932082444984320
What has BD got against astronauts, anyway?
But BD’s memes don’t just reference horror and apocalyptic science fiction. Some of the #RedOctober memes have a distinctly western feel, having been, er, “inspired” by promo art for the video game Red Dead Redemption 2, which, much like QAnon’s assorted predictions, has been plagued by confusion and delays. (It’s supposedly shipping later this month. We’ll see. But unlike QAnon’s predictions, it’s pretty clear that it will materialize in the real world at some point.)
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047670851875819521
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047667740423737344
Then again, BD may not be able to tell west from east — as evidenced by this enigmatic meme featuring the Great Wall of China as a sort of stand-in for Trump’s as-yet-unbuilt wall on our country’s southern border.
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047525982930984960
But of all BD’s puzzling memes, I find this one perhaps the most puzzling.
https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1046479514350628864
Why an escalator? Because Trump famously rode down one on the day he announced his candidacy to a crowd of “supporters” who were mostly paid actors? In light of the revelations about Trump’s paid supporters at that event, why would any Trump fan want to remind anyone of it in a meme?
I can’t answer those questions. But there IS one question about BD-13 67 that I can answer definitively: Does he happen to have a Soundcloud where he posts exceedingly bland but basically competent self-produced instrumental tracks in a sort of Reggaeton style?
The answer is yes. Yes, he does.
I may return to BD and his memes in a later post, examining his pre-#RedOctober work. But right now, after many hours staring at these weird and baffling memes, I think I need a break and I suspect you all do too.
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One would think that anyone with half a brain, or at the very least a present and functional frontal lobe, might get just a little suspicious of what someone with such a clear obsession with horror style depictions actually considers a “better world” to fight for.
Very disturbing that there is such a sizeable demographic that just eats this insanity up. Talk about incredibly easy to control through fear mongering. What the hell is wrong with them? Were they, ironically, the ones in fact too coddled and sheltered in childhood to the point that it is this easy for them to believe that the world is that scary? Or did fire and brimstone church preaching have a hand in it?
The Left will never get these people on its side as the majority aren’t so low as to abuse people’s fears like that for votes. (Not that the Left is entirely innocent and of the highest morals all the time, but this crap from the Far Right is so abusive and manipulative that it should be illegal…) As long as the country keeps getting weaker (despite crazy people thinking this is somehow strength) and more fearful like this it may just keep heading for that hell hole these people so desperately want it to be for some reason, maybe even just to feel validated. (But hey, if you dig the hole deep enough, maybe the illegals will think it’s not worth the jump.)
At what point does it become best to split the country into two and let these people run their side as they see fit like this. And how soon do they start to become like the Mexicans they fear, trying to get into our non-crazy half.
Also, that astronaut is definitely peeing fire on that skull.
Reggaeton!! A MAGA making Reggaeton beats! My life is compete, bring on the chainsaw
@Redsilkphoenix
I mean, it’s not for nothing that The Punisher is very popular with right wing asshats. Dude is like a politically incorrect Batman knockoff whose superpower is gun fetishism. He is the kind of stony-eyed killer that comically insecure white men fantasize about becoming.
Srsly, fuck that entire genre of gun fetish antiheroes.
@Cyborgette
I remember when the Tick took the piss out of gun toting anti heroes
This is like a very badly designed Alternate Reality Game.
Also, it’s October 20th and there haven’t been any signs of whatever this cholmondeley is burbling about.
@Neurite:
I actually don’t thiiiink the Calvin imagery is intentional; the image used appears to be of the astronaut on the moon with the curvature of the Earth visible in the background, but with the contrast and red turned way up.
I want to believe that if the astronaut was intended to be whizzing on the left or whatever, that he wouldn’t be “peeing” out of his knee, and that the left would be represented in some way? As is, duder’s just peeing on either the Trumq skull or the #RedOctober hashtag. Or the moon, I guess?
That all said, it’s clear BD’s not exactly the sharpest crayon in the pack, so god knows it could be intentional because “lol pee”.
@BlueNinja:
Comments policy…
@Cyborgette: more properly, the Punisher is The Executioner for people who’d rather read comic books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Executioner_(book_series)
@Dan Kasteray
You mean this guy?
http://the-tick-animated.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Shot
OMG… just perfect. What have I been missing?
Man what astounds me is how uncreative the Qanon crowd is getting, I mean Qanon is just Pizzagate BUT BIGGER and all these memes are either stock photos of people, things, and locations, or stolen from video games. Theres the red dead stuff but I saw Saints Row, Skyrim, American Mcgee’s Alice in Wonderland (Rabbit hole I guess?) And Red Steel of all places, that famously remembered Wii game Ubisoft made. And the whole fact the skull emblem these Qtips use is just the Punisher logo, sometimes with a Trump wig, most of the time not. I wonder if they are just going to start copying each other or get even more lazy and just start making them in MS paint
https://publish.twitter.com/oembed url=https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047649071895400448/photo/1
How dare they mess with Red Steel.
https://publish.twitter.com/oembed?url=https://twitter.com/BowsOverBoston/status/1047649071895400448/photo/1
How dare they mess with Red Steel.
These memes remind me of the subliminal messages from the movie ‘They live’
These guys are taking “It’s hip to be square” to its absurd extreme. Yeah, let’s show we’re slick, rebels and ahead of the curve by cheerleading for the party of old money and entrenched privilege!
how the fuck does anyone say something like “The Great Meme War of 2018” SINCERELY???
Buttercup Q. Skullpants –
😛
The quote’s from the Bible, but that doesn’t get me any closer to understanding the picture. White clothes = spiritual, maybe? The language fits with his other military metaphors, but the helmet in the picture isn’t even an army helmet.
dustydeste:
*looks back at image* *squints* It sure is. Don’t I have egg on my face. Apparently I engaged in some spectacular overthinking based on misreading an image. Dangit, and here I thought I understood at least one of his images!
tim gueguen: That’s… actually scarily plausible for the Qanon crowd.
That incantatory “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!” refrain, particularly given the context of high WhatTheFuckery, reminds me of nothing so much as the Conniptin battle cry from Cerebus the Aardvark:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_MiGfW7bDuE/WoCzX97PYEI/AAAAAAAACMg/g66lvN6l-SsHn6aJMEz5ffIheR_TrAtYwCLcBGAs/s1600/FightFightFight.jpeg
The shot of Trump with the eagle makes sense if you construe “THIS EVIL MUST BE DESTROYED” as Uncle Sam the Eagle’s response to Trump in that infamous photo session gone wrong. (Any self-respecting Roman augur could’ve told you what it means when your nation’s emblematic bird attacks an aspiring head of state.)
I don’t have time to interface with the comments here properly, sorry. I don’t know if anyone has posted this, but it should be said: McInnes’s “proud boys” were recently seen making fetishistic reference to a political assassination in Japan in the early 20th century that is widely seen as having helped the ascendance of right wing nationalism there, and is seen by these creeps as a good idea.
That incident was televised live and the perpetrator was a young unmoored man manipulated by creepy fascists into throwing his life away, captured and hung himself in his cell.
The idea an incident can have the same effect here should be taken seriously in this way: They believe it. They think they can sway the election with a showy terrorist incident. So they may try it.
Again, sorry to allude to something without posting the relevant links history. Saw a tumblr post screen capping a twitter feed of someone named Naomi something? Sounds sketch but it looked strongly legit, well supported.
A person with too much free time and too little free thought.
….sooooo, they’re using references to Red Dead Redemption, along with a Punisher logo… but what they come up with is the name given to the Russian October Revolution in 1917 and popularized through a Tom Clancy novel about a fictional ballistic missile submarine?
I mean, how do you come up with that and now work Sean Connery into it?
Isn’t the Punisher logo trademarked?
I mean, I know Edgelord McIt’sNotAPhaseMom doesn’t care about the law, but Marvel just might.
The logo is undoubtedly trademarked, but, what these asshats are doing with it doesn’t appear to be a “use in commerce” that would fall under the regulations of the Lanham Act. I suppose a case might be made that the way they’re using it is defaming the brand, but it’s an obscure corner of the chans that 99.999% of the planet’s population remain (blissfully) oblivious to, and Marvel is probably happy to leave it that way rather than gift them with the oodles of publicity a lawsuit would bring along with it.
@Full Metal Ox,
Which photo shoot are you referring to? I don’t immediately recall where that happened at.
@Great American Satan,
Thanks for that info. I clicked through to the original Guardian report of that assassination from someone else’s link to that Republican / Proud Boys dinner, but had no idea why something that happened in 1950’s Japan had any relevance to 2018 USA politics. That these guys seem to think that a similar assassination would get them their desired results is quite worrisome, to say the least. Though that does bring up the thought of who they think would be the best target for such an attack would be. Another Republican politician? Someone who’s a lot more progressive than that?
As for the Punisher logo being used in these memes, I get the sense that if someone were to ask this guy “what is the Punisher ‘s real name, and who and why is he shooting people up?” that he’d not be able to answer that. (The answer is Frank Castle, and he’s waging a one-man war on the Mafia over them killing his wife and kids during a Mob war shoot-out. Unless they’ve changed that since I last read comics ages ago.)
I mean seriously, the way this guy uses that skull emblem, it’s like all he knows about it is that it’s a cool-looking skull, not that it’s part of a character’s backstory or anything. Otherwise he’d put it on the shirts of the people he uses in the memes, instead of as a background element.
At least, in my opinion anyway. YMMV, and all that.