Monday, March 28, 2022

ARE THERE LIBERAL WILL SMITH MEMES?

I'm seeing a lot of apolitical memes in response to the Will Smith's (real? staged?) attack on Chris Rock during last night's Oscars -- this seems to be the most popular one:



And I'm seeing quite a few memes from right-wingers who'd clearly like to do a little assaulting themselves:



If there are left/liberal slap memes, I haven't seen them.

The right likes this sort of thing more than the left. Remember this, from 2017?



Or this one, which was shown at a pro-Trump gathering in 2019?



In a way, you can't blame Paul Gosar for thinking he could get away with an animated video in which he killed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Trump always got away with it, right?

I don't know why right-wingers like these memes more than liberals. The right thinks it's because conservatism has cleverer people who operate better on the modern Internet, but I think the right (a) likes violence more than liberals, (b) obsesses over politics to the exclusion of all else, and (c) reduces politics to simple revenge. Liberals have concrete policy goals -- a serious approach to climate change, a reduction in economic equality, universal healthcare, anti-racism, respect for LGBT people, support for reproductive rights -- while the right is just pissed off at everyone who's not right-wing and wants us all to suffer.

Right-wingers would point to Kathy Griffin and that Trump severed head, but there's nothing like that happening on our side these days. Politics seems too serious and too full of suffering -- the pandemic, George Floyd, Ukraine. To right-wingers, though, violence is a joke. So this is perfect for them.
Posted by Steve M. at 8:46 AM

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