By David Futrelle
You may have noticed a strange explosion of highly surreal memes hitting your Twitter home page of late. Blame the Artificial Intelligence-powered meme generator that you can find here, which will happily generate as many weird and baffling memes as you could ever want.
Now, the meme generator is a fairly basic thing, in principle: it takes in hundreds (thousands?) of human-generated memes in a variety of formats before pooping out something it doesn’t understand, but that we humans might.
Given that the AI-meme-generator literally doesn’t know what it’s saying, most of the memes it puts out tend to be a bit puzzling:
And sometimes it doesn’t seem to understand the meme format at all:
But alongside the surreal memes, the AI-meme-generator somehow manages to spit out others that make perfect (or at least only slightly imperfect) sense. I’ve been fiddling around with it for awhile and have been surprised and intrigued by these memes, which seem very much like the memes an actual human might produce on their own.
Indeed, these memes make a lot more sense than many if not most of the Men’s Rights memes I’ve run across (and written about) over the years — despite the fact that the MRA memes were generated by actual human beings who, at least in theory, should know what they’re saying.
Let’s look at examples from both genres — contrasting some of my, er, favorite MRA memes with memes the AI-meme-generator made for me.
Let’s start with this authentic MRA meme:
Apparently the thought process behind this, er, hilarity is: “Women are stupid! And rape is funny! Sharks!”
This AI-generated meme makes a lot more sense:
I mean, who doesn’t enjoy a nice hot dog once in a while?
Here’s an MRA meme taking aim at women in the military:
Contrast that with this cheerful and wholesome AI-generated meme:
Again, the AI hits the nail on the head. Everyone loves to see people talking about their cool stuff.
Here’s a dark and bewildering MRA meme:
I suppose the message here is supposed to be “even if she says she’s not a feminist, she might secretly be one, and falsely accuse you of rape.” But I’m not sure anyone not steeped in MRA-talk could discern that.
Also, why is “radical/white” in ironic quotes?
By contrast, this next AI-generated meme, while admittedly rude and perhaps a bit sexist, is as clear as a (school) bell.
This MRA meme may leave you scratching at your head as you try to puzzle out its strange “logic.”
This AI meme, by contrast, makes so much sense it hurts.
In the world we live in today, who has the patience to wait until you get home to get sloshed?
So why are MRA memes so illogical and incomprehensible? Part of the problem is that reality is not on their side, and so many of their memes only make sense if you’re already living in the imaginary world of the Men’s Rights movement, where black is white and mean, bitchy women rule over all. I know enough about this world from the many years I’ve spent doing this blog that I can usually make some sort of sense of most of their memes, but I still struggle with some of them. It doesn’t help much that many MRAs are bitter bastards choking on their own aggrieved entitlement; their attempts at jokes are undercut by their meanness and their barely developed sense of humor.
The AI may not have a sense of humor, but it’s also unencumbered by all this baggage, so when it pops out with something that’s funny, it’s genuinely funny.
Congratulations, MRA; it’s official now: You’ve failed the Turing test.
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@Naglfar
The GIF that keeps on giving.
@Alan
Oliver’s a good presenter, which probably explains why he’s currently working on making a living as an actor outside of YouTube.
You may enjoy this instead:
@Rabid Rabbit
Thanks for the Mithras link, it’s one I expect I shall need this and every Christmas when those memes show up again. There seems to be a particular breed of Dunning-Kruger that manifests when talking about other people’s religions.
@ Vicky P
I did! Thank you. The information is much more palatable in short song form.
(If the Ramones had done more stuff about Calculus I’d probably be better at maths)
@Allandrel
I find this is especially prevalent when it comes to the “New Atheist” movement. Most atheists I know are fine people and I get along fine, but there’s a certain breed of atheist that follows in the footsteps of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and manages to be annoying in a lot of the same ways as and sound quite similar to the religious fundamentalists they claim to hate. Plus, a lot of “New Atheists” dug deep into some very not-new phenomena like racism and misogyny.
@Alan Robertshaw
I feel like the main reason there aren’t more songs about math is to do with the difficulty of singing formulas and equations. Though I do recall that in school I was taught the quadratic formula to the tune of “All Around the Mulberry Bush”:
“X is equal to negative B, plus or minus the square root, of B squared minus 4 A C, all over 2 A”
Which is certainly easier to recall than
There is a genre called math rock, but it’s called that due to the use of odd time signatures and extended chords, not the subject matter.
@Naglfar
You realize I have to bring up this song now:
There is one excellent song about math out there. Tom Lehrer is one of my all time faves, and I’ll never not jump on an opportunity to share the joy:
http://youtu.be/UIKGV2cTgqA
Edit: Ninja’d by VP!
Side note, I kinda like Kahn’s animation style because it makes the video a little more approachable and less clinical, but the song is great no matter who made the visual aids.
I am sad that my embedding skills were lacking. Just when I think I can relax on html-ing these comments, I get proven wrong by a format fail. 🙁
@ naglfar, Vicky P & contrapangloss
Heh, thank you for those. I very much liked the Tom Lehrer one. Even if the actual maths bit just went over my head.
But you all inspired me. So I’ll start off. Anyone want to fill in the gaps?
One – Metallica
Two Little Boys – Ted Morse
Three is the magic number – De La Soul
…
99 Luftballons – Nena
@Naglfar
One thing that I have seen happen a lot, not just with New Atheists but with others who rejected their parents’ religion, is that they retain what their parents taught them to believe far more than they realize.
You know the type, who seem convinced that all Christianity (or even all religions) are exactly like what their parents believe, leading them to lecture others on their own beliefs.
I’ve had this conversation any number of times:
Atheist Asshole: All Christians believe X.
Me: That’s not correct. I’m a Christian, and I don’t believe X, I believe Y.
Atheist Asshole: No, ALL Christians believe X. Therefore, you are lying and really believe X.
(I have also had the same conversation with any number of Christian assholes, except that they respond with “No, ALL Christians believe X. Therefore, you are lying and are not really a Christian.”)
This most often happens with the historicity of the Bible – the Evangelical claim that “Either all of it is literally true, or none of it is true. Either Lot’s wife transformed into a pillar of salt, or God does not exist.” They came down on the other conclusion than their parents did, but they never rejected the premise, and get enraged when they discover that many Christians never held that premise in the first place.
On the Dunning-Kruger aspect, whenever an Internet Atheist declares that they’ve studied my religion more than I have, I like to start off with questions like “What are your thoughts on Documentary Hypothesis versus Supplementary Hypothesis?” They generally have no idea what I’m talking about, and it gets even better when I start asking Quaker-specific questions, because usually all they know about Quakerism is… well, nothing, or errors like thinking we are extinct or Anabaptists of some sort.
(Seriously, I’ve had multiple people say “HAH! If you’re really a Quaker, why are you using a computer? Aren’t you supposed to avoid technology? I’ve caught you in a lie and thus disproved everything you have said!”)
@VP, contrapangloss
I’ll confess I wasn’t aware of that particular song. Thanks for enlightening me.
@Alan Robertshaw
The Four Horsemen – Metallica
Take Five – Dave Brubeck
Six Weeks – Of Monsters and Men
Seven Days – Bullet for my Valentine
(Can’t think of one for eight)
Sorrow Throughout the Nine Worlds – Amon Amarth (a bit of a stretch, so I also can suggest Revolution Nine by the Beatles or Figure.09 by Linkin Park)
10 Years Today – Bullet for my Valentine
…
12th Rising – Naglfar (not me, the band)
…
46 & 2 – Tool
…
One Thousand Burning Arrows – Amon Amarth
That’s what I can think of now
@ naglfar
I’ll offer this one for eleven. Still trying to think of an eight one.
I offer this for eight:
So the irrational numbers don’t feel left out.
@Allandrel
o.o … That’s a new one on me. Impressive. Ah, the ignorance of those who know best.
I mean, if I were in a silly mood and talking with a friend who was a Quaker and able to recognize my silly moods, I’d ask whether Quakers are allowed to visit Reddit, or just advised not to, given how hard that place makes pacifism. But that’s a specific case.
Anyhow, all of History for Atheists is great for dealing with New Atheists, as well as just fun in its own right. It’s written by a guy who 1) is an atheist, 2) actually knows what he’s talking about and 3) really, really doesn’t like people talking out their asses. Of course, this gets him in trouble, because a lot of what he ends up doing is pointing out that things Christians are accused of having done aren’t actually true. His eviscerations are delightful, particularly of Dr. Richard Carrier PhD (who has a doctorate, you know).
@boysvoice
You didn’t thank me on mine and my nonlooks match offspring. That’s very rude of you.
So MansVoice thinks that the lurkers are falling for his shtick when no one else is? Shocking turn of events, and offensive to lurkers.
What part of your “implicit” answers to direct questions are the lurkers most in awe of, do you think?
Personally, my favourite is the part where you said you had never called women indecent in the given context, and answered not at all when a quote of you calling women indecent was presented. Also, the instant classic of assuming that a song fitting the situation means that the song is literally about that particular situation and nothing else. Such genius in our midst, truly.
@Lainy
Be reasonable. I’m sure he’s congratulated you implicitly. You just have to go back and read more carefully.
@Masse_mysteria
I’m still waiting for him to answer my question about why he thinks lurkers on a feminist blog would be interested in what he’s trying to sell.
And this was also from the same fellow who said that metaphor can be generalized to a wide variety of things when Cyborgette pointed out that The Matrix was originally about rebelling against patriarchy and heteronormativity.
Apparently this is only the case with metaphors he likes.
@Rabid Rabbit
That site definitely looks like one that I will put a lot of time into reading.
@Naglfar:
Huh. So, like if Dave Brubeck and his Quartet had lived a generation or so later and played rock rather than jazz?
@Alan Robertshaw:
96 Tears — ? and the Mysterians (which I believe is pronounced “Question Mark and the Mysterians,” but in my head I always hear it as “Huh? And the Mysterians”)
@ moon custafer
Ooh, I didn’t know that was by ?… I always thought it was a Stranglers song!
But listening to the original now. I like it.
@Moon Custafer
Math rock is definitely related to jazz and takes varying degrees of influence, but it’s a lot more dissonant than anything Brubeck put out.
@Masse_Mysteria:
So MansVoice thinks that the lurkers are falling for his shtick when no one else is?
Well, if the lurkers are as mindkilled as you all are, probably not. But such people aren’t going to be won even by Cicero. The goal is to appeal to people who are willing to listen. (Again, I’ll remind you that this is exactly what Alan – one of your own – already said.)
Now, are there actually any winnable lurkers around here? I don’t know. But it’s not inconceivable.
(Also, look: it’s not like I made some calculated decision to contribute based on some elaborate algorithmic prediction. I mostly just read the post and wanted to participate, so I did. I’m just explaining why I’m not overly bothered that most of you aren’t convinced – because I don’t think you’re convincible.)
@Naglfar:
What do metaphors have to do with anything?
OMG he’s still here. And comparing himself to Cicero. HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH
OMG he’s still here. And comparing himself to Cicero. HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH
Nope! Again, this is the sort of thing I don’t bother to engage with, because good-faith people will understand why it’s stupid.
The MansVoice Saga in a nutshell:
“Nuh-uh! I don’t take you seriously!”