The we live in a society meme that you may (or TBH, may not have) seen floating across timelines and comment sections of the web has such a convoluted history that, 30 years from now, we’ll probably be seeing the meme dissected in textbooks. Still, if an opera-singing drag queen from Kentucky, a woman in a niqab, and a Guinean immigrant can come together and coexist peacefully on the W train, it just might be possible for the rest of us. The we live in a society meme is part of an internet culture of unapologetic absurdity which only makes sense from the inside looking out. Liberal voices have co-opted the image as a way to create a utopian vision lit by the rosy glow of President Beyoncé, Never Nude Syndrome, and lots of dogs.īut empathy? That’s a tall order for the internet in 2017. The backlash against the /pol/ News Network’s post is a rare display of a meme's redemptive power-its ability to flip a bigoted statement into one of optimism. “If we can come to have empathy for each other, we can come to a place where we can find common ground and move forward,” he says. Themer would rather the image prompt a dialogue across the political chasm and get people to see themselves in Barry's photo. “I don’t like when it’s used just as simple confirmation bias.” When two groups use the same image to prove their critiques of the other, it fosters prejudice, rather than conversation. “The perspectives that are being illustrated by this image-it worries me that the divide is so deep,” he says. After the post was shared by Instagram account subwaycreatures, the photo drifted across the internet until /pol/ News Network attached it to a tweet on Wednesday with the message “This is the future that liberals want.”īut he also recognizes the danger of using a meme to reinforce an echo chamber, no matter the political bent. The problem of utopia is that it can only be approached across a sea of blood, and you never arrive. Utopia is the process of making a better world, the name for one path history can take, a dynamic, tumultuous, agonizing process, with no end. In this special-edition episode of The Yaron Brook Show, guest host Amanda Maxham digs to the bottom of a couple of shared Facebook memes asserting that. "They sit next to each other, and no one cares."īut someone did care. Progress is the hypocrisy which refines the vices. “It’s diversity," says Barry, who says he doesn't identify as liberal or conservative but does oppose President Trump's refugee ban. Boubah Barry, a Guinean immigrant and real estate student, wanted to document what he saw as a testament to tolerance, so he took a photo of the pair and posted it to Instagram. Someone on that W car with them, though, thought otherwise. “It didn’t seem out of the ordinary that a woman in full modesty garb would sit next to me.” “I was just sitting on the train, existing,” he says. He also ended up sitting next to a woman in a niqab, a fact he initially didn’t even notice. But when he hopped on the subway to head into Manhattan on February 19, the Queens resident was in full drag-he performs as Gilda Wabbit. Samuel Themer never planned to be a symbol of everything that’s right or wrong with America.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |