Leftist memes are funny 'til they're not.
Some meme accounts may be veering into boomer territory...
It’s July and I’m upset about it! I start training full-time for work next week, so these are my last few days of laying about working on my AC island and smoking weed. Today’s newsletter is more of a pick-n-mix of stuff on my mind recently. I need to bounce some things off you.
I also probably need to switch to a less frequent model because I’m going to have homework I need to balance with planning for the fall semester (which… LOL!). I’m thinking Tsismis Tuesday stays and a longer piece goes out once a month. We shall get to Trisha Paytas and my fascination with Youtubers losing relevancy soon, I promise you!
Post-Covid Lit?
I’ve been thinking about writing something set in 2015, and it is so strange to imagine writing fiction about a time just before 2020 after (hopefully) living through this life-altering year. Post-9/11 literature is A Thing, so a pandemic affecting the whole world (I know that’s redundant) will definitely have it’s own genre. But will it be like to write about the stretch of time just before 2020? It honestly all feels like the “Events Leading Up to Covid-19” part of a history textbook now. Fiction will be refracted through this lens for years to come. I’m also particularly interested in how kids right now will grow up and process this, and how this disruption in their schooling will affect them. What will their stories of this time be about?
Most importantly, what will the Remember Me of Covid-19 be?
“I Miss Tumblr,” Millennial Says to Herself After Fifth Straight Hour of Twitter Scrolling
I miss the intimacy of being vulnerable with other young women and femmes on Tumblr. Don’t you miss staying up late after your shift at whatever retail job you had at the time, scrolling and writing and (often) crying? Just spilling your fucking guts out and reblogging gifs. There was something to having at least one internet-based cathartic moment a week.
There’s still community on Twitter and Instagram for me, mostly thanks to the connections I’ve made with Tumblr-mutuals and Sad Girls Guide alum. It feels diff tho! Tumblr always felt like it was happening through quiet conversations behind a gossamer veil, tucked away from nastier and more public parts of the internet. Instagram and Twitter, especially when your account is public, feels like having a loud discussions in a bustling cafe where anyone can jump in and be annoying.
I definitely romanticize what Tumblr was. I’m sure it was many things to many things to many people, for me it was a place to be secluded with other people who loved and cared about curating beautiful things. It was a place to work out my racial identity and my grief, pop culture I liked to consume and its often problematic elements, who I wanted to be and how I wanted to be perceived in the world. I ache for nights of endless scrolling, sending and answering cheeky asks to girls I adored, and dreaming about who I would eventually become.
Leftist Meme Fuckery
Do you follow leftist/progressive meme accounts? Have they posted sketch/questionable/downright offensive shit? Please screencap and message me if you have! This week, I noticed @turnleftist share some questionable posts from an account called @another.hole. I think calling Margaret Thatcher a cunt is fine, as it is merely a fact, but the Melania one is gross.
Number one, it doesn’t really make any sense? Is her bank account her pussy? Does Trump put money in her vaj? Did the man who made this not realize she can’t actually see into her own vagina at that angle? So is her bank account her mons pubis? I understand that people refer to her as a gold digger, but that term is extremely misogynistic and not something a self-respecting leftist would go around making memes about in the year of our lord 2020. Number two, what is this trying to say about communism/socialism/general leftist ideology? Leftist memes generally teach the reader as much as they make them laugh (or, more realistically, let out a singular chuckle). There is nothing being taught in this meme. This is literally something a 55 year old neolib who cannot wait to vote for Joe Biden would repost on Facebook. “Melania is a gold digger? Hilarious! This will show Drumpf, that damn cheeto man!!!” he might say to himself before hitting post.
The last meme in the carousel speaks for itself. Trump incest jokes are awful and unfunny on their own, but the fact that someone took a picture of Melania as a MINOR and spent some of the fleeting moments they have on this earth to make this is just so so disgusting. Both Ivanka and Donald Trump are horrible people who I hope to see suffer greatly. Still, I don’t need to think about a minor being sexually assaulted by her own father to validate that these are horrible people. And again, what the fuck does this have to do with progressive ideology? What is this saying about politics besides “Leftists think it’s okay to joke about incest”? (Also, while writing this I realized the @turnleftist deleted all of the critical comments on this post. What a baby!)
As more and more move to the left, and far left, it’s important to remember that not everyone labeling themselves a leftist is a true leftist. (Especially not every fucking cis white men!) I have seen casual misogyny, homophobia, anti-sex worker ideology in online leftist memery (and in the comments), and I want to know how rampant it is. I’ve DM’ed with one person who had pretty disappointing exchanges with these leftist meme guys, and I’d be interested in speaking to more.
ACNH Screencap of the Week:
JK, it’s actually an unbelievable Jack in the Box ad I got on Reddit! They even included a letter from Mom.
Truly so bizarre. What do you think the Jack in the Box customer/ACNH player Venn diagram looks like?
Have a great weekend, and remember that America was founded as a way for British elites to get rid of impoverished “waste people”, that people shat on the streets and were forced to cannibalize each other at Jamestown, and that almost everything we know about the beginnings of this country is pure unfounded mythology. Take care of yourselves, bbs.
This is actually the first time I've read about how leftist memes/jokes like these are actually harmful and push issues that are supposed to be fought against (i.e. misogyny), so thank you for writing about it! I learned a lot, and I think it's important for other people to take on this perspective.