Batfort

Style reveals substance

Tag: memes (page 3 of 3)

Milo* actually does something funny: The Antifa Handbook

While I’m becoming less of a fan of Milo and his antics (the schtick is becoming too rehearsed for my taste; I hope he’s still reaching people but I’m so far down the rabbit hole to really connect with many of his ideas anymore), I’m a big fan of taxonomy-type illustrations and character sketches.

For instance, I’m delighted to find that Your Scene Sucks is still online, which I highly recommend if you want to relive the scene kid glory days of the 2006-2011 era. One of the featured types is even what I view to be a precursor to the topic of today’s post, the straight-edge mosher. I had a few friends in college who were like this, with the bandana-masked protest and the veganism.

Oh, and crustpunks. Never forget the crustpunk (not that you could if you smelled one).

Anyway, in honor of the Free Speech Week that may or may not be happening at Berkeley, Milo has released The Guide to Antifa. It’s a tongue-in-cheek taxonomy that in 10 years will send this year’s crop of college graduates into a nostalgic reverie about their college years, much like Your Scene Sucks did for me just now.

 

AIDS Skrillex is my favorite of the bunch, first broadcast by Owen Shroyer, named by /pol/ and lovingly depicted by the artist Vey. “AIDS Skrillex” is the most stupidly funny name; I hope that the channer who created it is proud of himself.

The SOY meme has been the best thing to come along for a while now (you know it’s good when you can use it offhand in a conversation with your parents and the track with it). Anything that can spread the word further is a good thing.

The more we can deride and laugh at Antifa types, the better. They tend to be incredibly self-important, so laughter gets to them in ways that “free speech” or self-defense moves at a legal public gathering never will.


* The handbook was written by Allum Bokhari, not Milo. Surprise, surprise.

For the Love of Pepe

This week, man.

Between the DACA debacle, the #contentemmys, and Gab.ai’s meltdown, I didn’t think much more craziness could happen in a week.

I was wrong. Of course!

Matt Furie, the original creator of our beloved Pepe the Frog, is suing and DMCAing (it’s like SWATing, but with DMCA takedown notices) alt-righters who have used Pepe.

From the article:

“[Furie] was very serious when he said that we wanted to make clear that Pepe was not the property of the alt-right and couldn’t be used by the alt-right,” Louis Tompros, one of Furie’s intellectual property lawyers, told me.

Gee, where have I heard that before?

Oh, right:

One would think that, if one were serious about influencing the popular consciousness (as one supposes that a person in the public eye doing something like comics or comedy does), one would be absolutely ecstatic for one’s meme (read: thought virus) going viral. Wiggling its way into the brains of people everywhere. Being plastered on every mobile phone, tablet, and computer from San Francisco to Barcelona.

But alas, this is not to be. These people are so petty and small-minded that they can’t even set their jokes free.

This is why the left can’t meme. You can’t direct a meme. You can’t centrally plan a meme. You can’t copyright a meme and then DMCA takedown everyone who doesn’t follow the rules.

Memes are wild, memes are free. And if a meme loves you, it’ll come back around.

In conclusion:


Also from the Motherboard article: the laughable idea that r/The_Donald is “one of the the alt-right’s most popular gathering places.”

Applying for jobs is a sick, twisted form of fantasy

I updated my resume today.

One of my least favorite things to do — ever — but I’m fairly satisfied with the results. I used to think that “summary” and “highlights” sections were stupid, but today I realized they are essentially the resume equivalent of this meme:

Nothing *really* has to make sense, you just jam a bunch of words into bullet points that both describe you and fit the position description of the job you’re applying to. Who cares if the syntax matches or if it’s echoed in another part of your resume.

I kind of want to put an “Ivanka” bullet point on my next resume and see what happens.

If you want to be EXTRA, you could translate those bullet points into the cover letter. You know, synchronicity. Repetition. I’m sure it would help (HA, PSYCHE!).

Job applications are frustrating to me because they’re such an asymmetrical distribution of work. In order to put in the effort that it takes to blast past most of the other applicants, you have to take up way more time and energy than the person reviewing your application will give it. I understand the purpose of winnowing out applications, and that the “right” candidate will have put in the work for the job, but it seems so unnecessary.

That’s just the logistical side of it.

What’s worse, to me, is when I fall into the fantasy daydream trap. I start thinking about the life that could be possible if I got this job.

What would life be like if I got this job?

What would my budget be on that pay scale?

Let’s look at housing on Craigslist in that area…

Oooh, that’s a cute place. How would I decorate it?

On one hand, I get that a certain amount of daydreaming is what keeps life liveable, especially when you’re seeking to change things but haven’t yet gotten that far. That’s called “hope.”

On the other hand, I’m sinking all this time (time that I could have spent applying for another job) thinking about the coulds and mights and maybes of this new hypothetical life. Which, most of the time, don’t work out because you never get a callback for the position.

That’s one of my own personal cognitive traps, the “could.”

If I’m the equivalent of Bernie right now, what is one possible version/vision of Pepe?

It’s fun to think about, but not productive.

The trick is to decide when you need to be productive, and when it’s okay to dream a little. At least wait until you have an interview.

James Damore and the Neverending Meme War

When I first heard that the guy who wrote the Google Memo was fired, I was not surprised. I work in a very similar psychological environment; if I ever hinted that I thought facts like that were true, I would immediately become a pariah.

I read people speculating about his motives and his plan.

“He knows what he’s doing — he totally knew he would get fired”

“Such a poor sacrificial lamb — he clearly had no idea this would happen”

“He wrote an open letter for other companies to hire him for upper management”

At this point, I became worried for him. It was becoming clearer and clearer that he’s not an alt-right scrapper, but a niceguy nerd with an unwavering commitment to the facts. I thought he might get eaten alive.

I’m not worried anymore.

via Peter Duke

James Damore, whether he likes it or not, is going to become a figurehead for the fight against ingrained leftist groupthink in the workplace. And it’s very clear that he has some heavy hitters on his side.

Already, he has some weapons-grade memetic photographs out, courtesy of our friend Peter Duke.

His brand-new Twitter handle is @Fired4Truth, a punchy battlecry that sums up his symbolic martyrdom. It’s the 30 second elevator speech version of him — “Who are you again?” “I’m the guy who got fired from Google because I told the truth.”

Some of his first post-firing conversations online were with Jordan B Peterson and Stefan Molyneux, both solidly committed to reason and evidence.

Wesearchr is taking care of his fundraising. (And I suspect Chuck C Johnson is behind his Twitter and periscope dealings, as well.)

Cernovich has started referring to the battle against the “Diversity Industrial Complex.”

Even congressman Dana Rohrabacher is stirring the waters of Twitter on this issue.

I hope James is ready for his crash course in memetic warfare. It’s clear from his memo that he’s a very logical guy; now we see if an intelligent coder can learn how rhetoric works.

This is shaping up to be a very interesting next set of battles in the meme war. We’ve moved from the streets of Berkeley to the boardrooms of Mountain View.

Deus Vult in the wild

Spotted: memes bleeding into real life, somewhere in Seattle.

Deus Vult. God wills it. One of the battle cries of the alt-west faction of the alt-right. Nearly inevitable, considering the amount of Islamic terrorism that takes place on Western soil. The jokes will surely happen; jury’s still out on an actual crusade.

What’s heartening to me about this photo is that 1. the graffiti doesn’t suck too badly, and that 2. its very existence means that there are people who are young and dumb enough to go out tagging (albeit in a designated tagging zone) but who are familiar with and like the concept enough to put it on a wall.

Leftists get so comfortable in their claimed territory–the cities–that they assume that none of their fellow city dwellers think out of lock-step with them. The alt-right is still fairly obscure, and Deus Vult even more so, but I hope that a few leftists walk by and get the shudders seeing a reminder that not everyone thinks like them. (And some of those people might be their neighbors–gasp!)

The Chalkening was a lot of fun, but Deus Vult gets a lot closer to the heart of the matter. Trump can’t, and won’t, fix our fallen world.

I also love how there is “pork” all over this wall. Reminds me of that joke–eating 2 strips of bacon every morning reduces your possibility of becoming a terrorist by 100%.

Moochin’ the White House

I love this photo. It says so much.

Scaramucci perfectly framed by the door: symmetrical. The lines around his body are clean and strong, and square to the camera. Direct. Bold. His dark suit contrasts with the overexposed background. He breaks the symmetry with his body language, that stare at Priebus.

Thumbs tucked into his belt loops, like an old-west gunslinger ready to draw.

He’s wearing his badge.

There’s a new sheriff in town.

Priebus, on the other hand, he bleeds right into the background. His suit, white shirt, and tie make stripes that are an extension of the flag behind him. He’s turned to the side, away from the camera. His hand looks limp. And the couch is obscuring half his body; he is literally half the size of Scaramucci.

Even their hair tells a story. Scaramucci’s is robust and dark. Salt and pepper temples make some men look distinguished, but not Priebus.

Without saying a word, Scaramucci has established dominance over Priebus, and by extension, the entire GOP establishment. And since this photo has been all over twitter today (I think it scrolled past in my feed 3 times), he’s essentially marked his territory all over the Trump base.

You know it’s a beautifully communicative photograph when it transforms perfectly into a meme. Just add Pepe.

If this is the initial thesis statement for the Mooch-era White House, I think we’re in for a heckuva lot of fun.

Scaramucci has started out with a bang. I hope his follow-through is just as intense. (And with an endorsement from Nassim Taleb, I suspect it is.)

rite????

When memes attack

The whole “paste someone famous’s face into a well-known scenario” meme has been around since…probably the dawn of photoshop.

It’s funny.

I have a feeling that the Trump era will be measured by his Twitter timeline, and the major milestones are when he tweets memes. This reminds me of the time he tweeted Presidential Pepe during the primaries–although there’s a bit of a difference. Back then, the media was covering him, but not in full-blown Victorian fainting couch vapors over him.

The people that saw and understood the Presidential Pepe tweet back in the day were energized because they knew (I personally wasn’t a Trump at that point) at that point that he was paying attention, that he knew how to nod-and-wink TO THE INTERNET. There was no media pushback.

Now, though, the media is a band of screeching harpies who don’t seem to be able to grasp the fact that memes are funny. Memes express concepts in a visual form, which often loses some nuance in the process. Now, we get extra energy from our God Emperor with the added bonus of Fake News freaking out in return.

The energy levels are like shooting a laser into a hall of mirrors.

PEW PEW PEW

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