Batfort

Style reveals substance

Tag: memes (page 2 of 3)

Image of the Week: Everything is appalling edition

I am appalled. I will continue being appalled. This week has reveled some truly horrific behavior. You’d think by now I would understand that most of the time humans are fallen, cowardly, and stupid.

Despite this meme’s insistence on conflating the “alt-rieich” branch of the alt-right with the rest of us (that’s okay, pretty much everyone does), it’s pretty ding dang dong correct.

I lost interest in that faction of the alt-right when most of its podcast hosts blithely declared that they would be democrats if we lived in an all-white society. Basically they wanted to live in pre-migration Sweden. Let’s ignore the fact that the people in pre-migration Sweden were the ones who let in the migrants.

Many of these same people insist on reacting like emotional teenage girls when they’re criticized by anyone on the actual right.

And then, of course, the alt-right’s favorite candidate for congress doxxed one of the most influential meme figures of the Great Meme Wars (RIP Ricky Vaughn).

It’s weeks like these that we’re reminded that there’s left and fake-right in the mainstream of every movement. Just like the democrats and republicans are really two different flavors of the same ruling party, you got your communists and your neo-nazi flavors of the “new right.”

And then there are the rest of us who actually believe in individual liberty, and with it, responsibility.

Most people don’t understand this. It’s why (I believe) that the voting franchise was so limited at first.

There is a very small minority of people who care about doing things right. The rest just go through the motions.

The mental breakdown of my generation

Today I learned that a guy I knew in college came out as trans. Or rather, he followed me on Instagram with his–her–new identity.

What a millennial way to find out something like that, right?

The gender-mania that’s going around right now seems to me most often associated with the younger generation, the ones who are young enough to be unduly influenced by adults with agendas. But it’s a meme that spreads insidiously, and even the older generation aren’t immune. My generation certainly isn’t.

It’s not just gender issues. So many people I know struggle with depression, some friends a while back struggled mightily with suicidal thoughts (and prevailed against them), and girls I know are plagued with hormonal imbalances that greatly impact their mental health and menstrual cycle.

I met up with a friend a handful of years ago who was trying out a high-powered neurotransmitter to augment her therapy. She said it made her feel the best she had in years (she had been studying out of the country so I hadn’t seen her face-to-face in a while) but I felt like I was talking to a robot version of my friend. The conversations that we used to have, so fluid and far-ranging, were stilted and small talky. It was like meeting someone completely new.

Maybe that was my fault. Maybe I was the distant one. It’s more than possible.

I’m not perfect and I certainly don’t have perfect mental health.

It’s been an emotionally exhausting couple of years–if you let yourself get overly engaged–with the meme wars and how the spiritual battle that we are fighting breached the surface of the water of reality. (If you have eyes to see. If you don’t, are you just really confused?)

Maybe the confusion explains why so many people I know are succumbing to the darkness, to the insanity.

I don’t understand it. I fight like hell to keep my grip on reality.

And yet I see my friends being pulled under. I don’t know how to help them–how does a person in rightside-up world throw a lifeline to someone in upside-down world?

All my touchstones, my footholds, are repulsive to them. My anchors are their cement shoes. What lifts me up drags them down.

I don’t know how to help them see clearly.

All I am is sad.

Spotted: Aristotle vs Plato

I like the meme that the script for 2018 has already jumped the shark, even if I don’t believe in the idea that someone is scripting our days. I do, however, believe in #NOCOINCIDENCES even when they are less important and more amusing.

This one falls mostly under amusing–but that might depend on how you view Ben Shapiro.

Given that:

A. Vox Day and Ben Shapiro have a history. (Hint: they don’t like each other.)

and

B. Vox recently posted this observation:

At its core, the left-right divide all comes down to the most basic principles.

Left = Plato. Anti-Christian. Anti-family. Imperialist.
Right = Aristotle. Christian. Pro-family. Nationalist.

 

I find it incredibly amusing that Shapiro himself brings up the fact that he plays Plato to Jordan B Peterson’s Aristotle on the Rubin Report.

“What’s fascinating about this is Jordan may be closer to Aristotle than I am to Plato, but we almost have a Platonic versus Aristotelian argument going on here.”

Since we seem to be still in the process of choosing teams, now that the battle lines have been drawn, I figured that this would be worth pointing out.

Image of the week: Spread the JBP word edition

In honor of sitting my parents down and making them watch the interview, here’s a meme for you.

There’s plenty of examples that can illustrate the clash between old media and new media, but this one is especially satisfying.

Not that it was a straight-up victory–because it wasn’t–but it was incredibly obvious what the interviewer was up to. Part of that was the skill that Jordan B Peterson turns the interview back around on Cathy Newman.

It’s getting more and more obvious that the media has an agenda. They can’t help themselves anymore.

The cracks are getting wider, and it will be glorious when the dam bursts.

Image of the week: Barron Trump edition

This kid has basically always been a meme. The low key kind, that you always find funny because they don’t burn themselves out.

Time traveling aside, he always seems to show up, never say anything, and yet sticks in out memories.

The kid has presence.

Literally.

Twice so vaporwave

I thought that the vaporwave trend would be wrapping up soon, but judging from the amount of K-pop groups who are using vaporwave stylistic influences to promote in Korea and Japan, I’m not so sure. EXO was the last that I noticed using vaporwave, especially in their upcoming promotion in Japan (but also in the “Power” video).

Twice is the latest group to go full vaporwave.

Glitchy video: check.

Pink and/or purple color scheme, heavy on the gradients: check.

Gratuitous backlighting and neon: check.

Random unrelated geometric shapes: also check.

Google and wiki tell me that vaporwave was born of the online indie music scene in the early 2010’s, which means in internet year’s it has probably outspent its welcome.

But if K-pop is pulling vaporwave influences–and more than one entertainment company, Twice is with JYP and EXO is with SM–and other groups pull influence from K-pop (citation needed), it stands to reason that eventually vaporwave will show back up in the “traditionally” produced media. About 8 years too late. Whatever “late” means these days.

Please note: I know that I am late to the vaporwave party.

I’m just interested to see how much Korean pop music is going to influence everything else, especially now that it’s “officially” out of the bubble. (Thanks, BTS. I think.)

St. Nick the badass

Urban legend or no, good ol’ Saint Nicholas certainly made the Council of Nicaea a more exciting place to be:

It happened that saint Nicholas, now an old man, was present at the Council of Nicaea,  and out of jealousy of faith struck a certain Arian in the jaw, on account of which it is recorded that he was deprived of his mitre and pallium; on account of which he is often depicted without a mitre.

Gotta love a guy who will follow in the footsteps of the Christ flipped tables in the temple.

In this age that conflates Christianity and pacifism, it’s refreshing to come across examples of Christians in history who were not hesitant to stand up for their faith, including a kiss with a fist.

It also occurs to me that saints are basically memes. In the link above, the evolution of the Nicholas story reminds me a lot of the evolution of a meme, and how they tend to get to become a taller and taller of a tale over time. I always dismissed the iconography of saints out of hand, being the headstrong protestant that I am, but this deserves further thought.

Stay tuned, and Merry Christmas Eve.

The memetics of milk and cereal

First, it was milk. (Thank you for that, Shia.)

Now, it’s cereal.

What’s next, cookies?

 

There are literal Hitlers under every bed and inside every closet, it seems.

Memes are becoming reality at an increasingly rapid pace.

The line between mindset and meatspace is becoming increasingly blurred.

 

Earlier this week, I was checking out kids books for a friend’s daughter.

There was a whole section of Berenstein Bears.

I couldn’t bear to check the spelling.

 

Think it, and it will exist.

Terrifying or exhilarating?

You get to decide.

You need more sexy sax man in your life

Sometimes, you just need a laff:

Something about this gently transgressive and absurdist humor is my favorite. The first time I saw Remi Gaillard‘s Pac Man, I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe.

Sexy Sax Man is no different.

More colleges shut down memery

Breaking: college-age kids like spicy memes.

I’m sure you’re shocked. /s

I’ve avoided talking about higher ed on this blog because my day job involves way too much of it, and I really didn’t want to bring work into this space where I talk about what I want. However. The left continues to wreak its hive-mind onto everything it touches (including higher ed) and since I can’t always speak my mind in the workplace (I’d still like to have a job), I’ll speak it here.

Today I read the second news that college officials are discovering that their student body is made up of Gen Z savages:

A private Facebook group used by Pomona students, known as “U PC BREAUX” — pronounced like “[Are] you PC, bro?” with “PC” standing in for “politically correct” — was filled with “images and comments so vile that they would be right at home in the comments section of The Daily Stormer,” a neo-Nazi website. That was how the page was described by Ross Steinberg, the student journalist who broke the story in an opinion piece titled “The Dark Underbelly of Claremont’s Meme Culture.” Examples of the memes are available here, on another student news outlet’s website.

The college has launched an investigation into the matter, and officials said the posts fit under the college’s guidelines for a “bias-related incident.”

Guess what, everybody: students have a point of view! And sometimes, it’s not even the same one as your own! That means its biased and they have to go in for reeducation! Because K-12 brainwashing clearly wasn’t enough!

And it gets worse. Some of those despicable free thinkers might even ACT on their convictions!

Memes were posted about rape, genocide and, in one example, calling Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport undocumented immigrants because they were being too loud, Steinberg told Inside Higher Ed. He said he had been randomly invited to the group, which contained about 300 members. Pomona enrolls about 1,650 students.

Bahahahahahaha. Such deviancy, calling ICE.

Truly, upholding the law is the new counterculture. Back 10 years ago, I imagined something like that would have to happen but I could not conceptualize at all what that might look like.

Who knew that being the law-abiding rebels would also be bringers of mirth?

You laughed, don’t lie.

Kids, keep having fun. Don’t worry about the no-fun police. Your memes are funny. You might even do some good and change some minds. Maybe not on the administration, but definitely in the student body and maybe even the peon-level staff.

Your biggest mistake was using Facebook.

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