Need a politics-free safe space? It’s called “going for a walk”
When I go for a walk, the car-based infrastructure makes everything a nuisance until I get on a trail some distance from where I live. Turns out politics is everywhere.
Kind of meta how you’re cry posting about others complaining.
Kinda meta how you are outing yourself as the person this post is aimed at
Do you think when someone posts a meme with a guy in it, they are that guy?
Yes
How’s it feel to be inside this meme?
I don’t see any complaining. OP is ridiculing them.
Also every person who bitches about safe spaces: “ban dresses on men because it makes me feel funny”
The people that whine about safe spaces tend to have safe spaces of their own, and glaringly so, like “free speech” forums that ban people for opposing nazi shit.
Bingo Bango
for all the libs scratched by this meme, here’s a good link for you to read about how memes are a highly political medium (just like propaganda posters and pamphlets used to be)
https://thegeekanthropologist.com/2020/08/03/the-poetics-of-internet-memes/
There’s also some good scholarly works that get into this much deeper as well.
here’s a quote since libs don’t usually read from links:
I want to begin by discussing three ways I commonly see memes used: meme as revelation, meme as critique, and meme as ideation. This is not a comprehensive typology by any means, but it is a start at understanding the ways that memes are used in social life. These different ways of using memes also allows us to understand the different media ideologies associated with them. Media ideologies are, “beliefs, attitudes, and strategies about a single medium” (Gerson 2010b, 389). These ideologies show us, “the ways the medium shapes the message,” helping us to see “the communicative possibilities and the material limitations of a specific channel” (Gershon 2010, 283).
The potentially endless media ideologies associated with memes is, I believe, a product of their perceived informality as a form of communication, seen through their association with internet culture, “low” art, and post-GenXers. As Gershon (2010) explains, “media become perceived as formal or informal just as registers are perceived as formal or informal” (290). This perception has relegated memes to what Halberstam (2011) calls “the silly archive,” comprised of texts which “might offer strange and anticapitalist logics of being and acting and knowing” (20–21). This is what makes memes so deeply political—they are able to bypass the dominant cultural logics of “being and acting and knowing” that often constrain our imaginations and tie concepts and ideas to particular mediums.
Another reason memes are political is their accessibility. Not only are they simple—a user only needs to come up with a short description to fit a meme image—they can also be easily created on a number of meme generating websites. This democratization of meme production is what allows for the “subversive and transformative engagements” I referenced earlier. The accessibility of and creative engagement with memes reveal that it is not only meme images themselves that shape their message, but also the ways in which users understand memes as a medium, and the meanings they associate with or construct through specific memes.
We might also consider the production of memes through the model of the supply chain, thinking with Anna Tsing (2009) about the salience of global capitalism. While there are obvious differences in the circulation of digital media as opposed to material commodities, meme (re)production, like supply chains, “don’t merely use preexisting diversity; they also revitalize and create niche segregation through advising economic performance” (150). Here, I want to suggest that we add “social” to “economic,” which is seen through the creation of online communities and the multilayered shaping of subjectivities in local contexts. The meme economy is intimately related to media ideology, since the “beliefs, attitudes, and strategies” regarding memes influence motivations for the (re)production and circulation of certain memes, offering yet another layer for considering the importance of memes in social life.
I’m fine with politics on the internet, but why spam it on a memes community…
Because political memes are hilarious.
Haha yes! The threehundreth variation of the same joke, feels like the first time I heard it
I will always find charlie kirk with a small face hilarious and I refuse to apologize.
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We all have our guilty pleasures, I enjoy Stalin with a comically large spoon -memes but wouldn’t bother others with them.
I like posting these
I like posting these
That’s just how memes do, political or otherwise
Point me to a time/place when politics were not completely intertwined with meme communities.
Oh, right. That doesn’t actually exist.
One time, back in the 90s, a baby danced.
The prevelance of computers are inherently linked with the corporate desire to minimize cost and maximize productivity and profit. The origin of computers comes from military use; first seen in WW2 to calculate angles for artillery use and crack codes as with Enigma. Later, financial and educational institutions saw an ability to reduce labor cost by using computers to automate some record keeping. Why would they be interested in reducing cost? Capitalism, of course! And who were the ones programming these machines? Mostly, wealthy white men. You see, because computers were still giant, expensive machines, they required a college education to learn to use them. At this point, this was the 50s/60s, and non-white people had very little wealth due to, yknow, all that discrimination stuff. Plus, wealthy people especially back then were also very misogynistic (“i hate my wife” jokes, anyone?) And these wealthy whites were sometimes passionate for the industry, and as computers miniturized, they brought these minicomputers home, where they could use them for much more casual use. Enter the 70s, and these computer users start to make video games. Companies for this new fad start to show up. Fast forward a decade and people start making these new home computers play recorded audio and videos too, and before long, the baby dances. But not everyone had the money for home computers in the 90s, so not everyone is aware of the baby - which is where the discrimination part plays in. Most of the people who experienced the dancing baby in its prime were wealthy, majority white families, so the experience was unfortunately not universal. Or fortunately, idk lmao
Of course I’m stretching super hard, but politics are everywhere when you look into it.
Sure that’s true, but here it’s like way above 50% of the posts being just full-on propaganda, disguised as memes. IDK, I’m just comparing it to other sites/communities where the politics to meme ratio is way lower and feels less forced.
OK, fair enough.
I think the fediverse in general attracts a lot of people who are tired of capitalist assholes extracting wealth on various tech platforms, which probably explains some of it. People are very angry right now, and that’s gonna be hard to escape on Lemmy/kbin
Apologies for the sin of linking Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NonPoliticalTwitter/
Sometimes humans do stuff that are not at all related with politics. But we are masters of linking any non-political action to political arguments. (The classic ‘I like pancakes.’-‘So you hate waffles!’-problem)
Sometimes I just want to have a space to engage with funny memes without the mental strain of filtering out political comments.
just a random assortment grabbed from their top week:
yeah the american lawn is totally not a political topic
also yeah totally deriving joy from sabotaging megabillion dollar companies with collective action isn’t political
neither is trespassing as revenge for corporations eating up public areas
and what about a police force so sprawling and weaponized that we use it to reprimand children who make jokes?
sure, it may seem a little contrived to you, but when we talk about how a fish who has been in water all its life can’t actually see the water, that’s how we believe liberals are with their own politics - you believe there’s no politics there because you’ve only ever been immersed in your own politics for the entirety of your life.
I haven’t been on this sub for a while. It was once my go-to for just memes.
If this is truly the top of recent week, the the sub has gone downhill in both moderation and content, which is sad to see.
Also thanks for proving my point. You somehow forced gardening into a political topic. A childhood prank into a political topic. We are truly master of politicing the most inane things.
The other topics I cannot say. Existing in a society is political. Breathing is political.
I just wish to see a place where a meme about gardening is met with conversation how things are for others. Ex: ‘This is how I do gardening in [location], I dream of having a nice field of [local species] to support the bees.’
And not have it devolve into political us-vs-them tribalism and hostilitites. Ex: ‘Those lawns are a product of American liberal colonialism! I hate you and you should feel ashamed!’
That these images are hosted on lemmygrad.ml is very telling and just supports the general feel that users interacting from there are just interacting to create hostility and dissonance.Not everybody, sure, I had conversations that were pleasant. I even read Marx summarised work as a suggestion from one from the lemmygrad-instance. And someon corrected me on a misconception I had from it.Edit: last but crossed out. Was stuck in primary response. I recognise that threads reviewed also has a lot of inate hostility for the ‘us’-camp. And hostility breeds hostility.
I get, and largely agree with you, but the lawns and mall jewelry stores is a bit of a stretch. The first thing that comes to mind for the lawns (in the context of the meme) is people not wanting to rake. Most people don’t look at a patch of grass and conflate it with it’s political underpinnings. And the jewelry store is just about overcoming the mild discomfort from a very minor break of social etiquette. The meme and the act itself aren’t consciously political.
Sure, if you think about them for a little bit, the implications become obvious. But these images aren’t meant to be thought provoking treatises on the nature of society; they’re quippy, topical jokes meant to make you blow a little air through your nose in amusement. Fwiw I’m not bothered by the amount of clearly political posts on Lemmy, this is the first place I’ve found political memes that are actually decent (for the most part). But they’re not for everyone and even people that do like them would like non-political content on occasion. It can be a bit of a pain to find that here
If you want to understand the lawns thing, try ordinary things video about lawns. And levvitt towns… And white flight… And racism.
I know and understand the political history of American lawns. What I was saying is that the meme itself, while existing within that context, is not consciously political. Life and society is complex, if you think about anything for long enough you can make a political point about it. Just because there is an underlying political narrative behind things like mall jewelry stores and American lawns, does not mean every single meme or conversation about those things is or has to be political.
Look through my comment history, you’ll find I am very much not opposed to talking about politics
Back in the 2000s, most memes were just cat pictures. Longcat [is long], ceiling cat [is watching you], keyboard cat, grumpy cat etc.
Also #BrusselsLockdown hashtag was used in 2015 to ease political tension.
I would say pre 2016 political jokes was at one level, where the onion could make jokes that was not just an echo of reality.
Somewhere after that we crossed the political joke event horizon, and now we live in bizarro world, where many news items could have been the onion jokes.
And the other two thirds are politics posts.
You don’t have to make everything political. It’s okay just to have fun and like things.
Tf you say?
Anti communists can stay malding
Hexbears stay winning
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Need a politics-free safe space? It’s called “going for a walk”
Unfortunately, walks don’t last forever. Another option is to delete your lemmy/kbin account, because everything in these places is politics or related to politics or turned into politics.
Or…bear with me…you could create and moderate a politics-free meme community.
There are already, like antiquememeroadshow, adhdmemes and my_mouldy_memes. But the most generic meme communities, or the flagship meme communities if you prefer it that way, are infected.
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You literally have a political pfp.
Yes. After some self thinking about this topic, I realized that my concern is not about politics in general. My concern is about US politics and its big polarization, and about that fight between capitalism and communism. I wouldn’t mind politics focused on other countries or Europe, and without that polarization.
Your pfp is about one of the most polarizing topics. Most politics I see is relevant in Europe as well
It’s not polarizing when I don’t see tankies polarizing it :P
On Kbin, I don’t see much European politics, unfortunately.
Using the flag of a far-right regime isn’t polarizing?
I don’t see the Russian flag anywhere to talk about a far-right regime. Do you?
Okay, Nazi
Need a politics-free safe space? It’s called stop supporting people who want me dead.
Like I genuinely get mad when people say stuff like “I don’t want politics in my x” or whatever, because YEAH. ME FUCKING TOO. Do you know how much I would love not feeling on the defensive at all times due to the pending casual extermination of people like me that you are either supporting or ignoring??? If all the libs wanted me to be a lib like them they could have simply not made me life hell.
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The difference is just a scratch.
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The expression (don’t know the origin) is “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.” Basically pointing out the historical tendency of liberals to prefer a fascist-managed capitalism if their interests are threatened or it becomes clear the liberal order won’t last (and could be replaced from the left).
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tyranny of the majority
🤔
Except, sometimes they are very much liberals
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I stopped and nothing changed, please advise.
Firstly, that sounds like a shit situation to be in, so please don’t think I’m dismissing your struggles here.
I don’t live in the same country as you and I have no power to even slightly affect your political situation. I read enough bad news about stuff that I at least have a chance to get involved in that sometimes I want to read some funnies on the internet without having to read about another shit situation. It’s not because I don’t care, it’s because it’s not worth stressing out further about something I cannot do anything about.
So yeah, that’s why people don’t want so see US politics everywhere. Just because something is very important doesn’t mean it’s very important to everyone.
Trans rights are important to everyone and under threat in most of the world, so disagree
These are all global problems because they’re caused by global systems lead by a global hegemon, the United States
So yeah, that’s why people don’t want so see US politics everywhere. Just because something is very important doesn’t mean it’s very important to everyone.
You’ll be happy to know that out news megathread is truly an international one because you get to hear about stuff from around the world
How do you know what country they live in and if the issue is relavent in your country or not?
“I just don’t want to see your suffering”
Do you want to see people suffering? Because that’s fucked up.
The bare minimum you can do is listen when someone is in pain and stand witness when they are under attack. I want to see when people are suffering, so I can figure out how to help, or at very least show solidarity. Obviously I can’t take this in at all hours of every day, but that’s time I spend alone or with an IRL friend, not on an online messaging board.
Other way round for me, my IRL time contains the serious shit, I come online for escapism
I don’t know why you would go on the “people talking about events” platform and being surprised people are talking about events that aren’t happy. That’s just poor planning. I mean yeah, be there for your friends, but you should be able to have light or pleasant conversation pretty often, and steer away from troubling topics when you aren’t up for it, far easier than online.
This is the point everyone misses. They forget that other people have problems even if it’s not happening to them
Just do your discussions on Pornhub then…
I’m genuinely curious what’s the difference between talking about our lives and politics?
You see, if you are white, straight and male, the answer is usually a big difference. For everyone else? Likely very little.
Singling out straight white men… so progressive!
Yo soy
I don’t know why people are down voting you when you’re right. Hell people are mad at you just for talking about it
I mean I was mildly flippant. But I am a straight white guy, so you know, I’m not really punching up or down here?
It doesn’t matter what direction you’re punching here. You’re being called out because your analysis is wrong. Yes, politics in the west is certainly dominated by straight white males, but the important common trait that these people have is their class. Politics in most of the world is dominated by capital owners. Straight white males are afforded some concessions because it creates a divide among the working class. This does not mean that they are not oppressed due to their class character. Working class straight white males can and do suffer from some of the same oppression however, at a lower rate. This oppression is still unjustifiable.
I mean it does though? If my wife died because she couldn’t get healthcare she needed, I feel like that might maybe affect me.
That’s why I wasn’t categorical. But I mean you proved my point. If your wife died she’d be the one who suffered and died. Not you.
The point is, politics being like the super bowl is a privilege for some. For others it’s life and death. It’s almost like saying “Keep politics out of my life” is a relatively lucky/conservative request or point of view.
Again, I would say if my wife died I would maybe suffer? Losing a partner is not just a nothing event…
But I would agree, politics are life and death for certain people, they don’t have the luxury of getting to ignore them.
Yes obviously you’d bother suffer.
Every boss, every landlord, every school board member, every person on your HOA committee you will ever interact with is deeply involved in politics and that has a direct impact on your life, whether you realize it or not.
Talking about inconveniences and commiserating with others is just life. Acknowledging systemic issues may be the source of your misfortune is politics.
- I had to wait aong time in traffic today.
✔️
- Public transit would be a nice alternative.
🚨🚨🚨 POLITICS DETECTED 🚨🚨🚨
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And therein lies the problem, you and a lot of people like you, genuinely can’t differentiate life and politics
the problem is precisely that for us politics has a practical effect on our daily lives. we have to worry about it, and talk about it, because if we simply let things go we get absolutely fucked
good for you that your current condition makes you immune to even moderate sways in the political environment. that is not the case for millions of people, even the majority of them
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You’re literally buying into the idea that politics can be separated from life which is what capitalist media benefits from in a roundabout way. Capitalists don’t want us to think “everything is political” because it threatens their power.
Humans are political animals, “my life isn’t political” is just denying yourself agency so you don’t have to worry about exercising a part of your consciousness that is healthy and normal to exercise.
Maybe I can’t differentiate because people make my life political. Good for you that’s not a problem but other people exist like me and have this issue. A lot of people seem to lack awareness of others and act like they’re in the right. It’s childish.
I once worked for someone who thought like you. He was a real redneck. When I walked in, he looked at the hiring manager and rolled his eyes. I ended up doing the best out of anyone on my first day and it was physically intense. He apologized to me later because he gained an awareness that other people can exist differently without him being a bitch about it. You should learn from him.
When politics imprest your life on such a level that it could mean not getting the health care you need, yeah it is part of your life, there is no difference. I think people like yourself see politics like sports, just boring talk, no one cares about your team. That’s not what it is, these are major things impacting people’s lives, and not talking about them could lead to less awareness and even more rights being taken away.
You are the textbook definition of what we refer to as the “out to brunch liberal” who gets annoyed at how the poors caring about their conditions inconveniences your entertainment and treat consumption.
The best part about this for any marxists reading is that your user history is filled with art deco posts.
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By posting the extremely apolitical art-style that venerates capitalism lmao
My main problem is that most of the memes aren’t even funny.
Make memes that are funny and thenw we can talk
Expecting memes to be funny is literally the same as voting for Trump. Memes are supposed to be brave and important, and if you don’t agree with that you’re part of the problem.
You had me at first lol
Yeah, it’s literally just circlejerking the same dumb political views with different variations of “if you don’t agree you’re stupid”
I saw one an hour or two ago, literally just a YouTube video of some guy screaming “if you have a penis you’re a boy if you have a vagina you’re a girl! Got it?!” end video
The world has become political and its not for the better, but it is what it is. You don’t get to choose to not be involved anymore. World doesn’t work that way.
Don’t wanna play the game? Go touch grass.
Imean, it was always that way… The perception that it wasn’t is exactly why we’re having so many problems today.
The system is very much not self-correcting.
has become political
Always has been
Eh it wasn’t before about 100,000 BC
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Exactly! “Why are you making everything about politics?”
I’m a gay person in a red state with first-gen immigrants and trans people in my family. I don’t have the luxury not to “make everything political.” The fact that I exist is political to these people!
I do use woke unironically, but in a prideful way. Eg, Brooklyn 99; “He means he was arrested for being black! Get woke, Scully!!”
Fair enough! I always thought that “woke” should be a good thing.
Same with SJW – it’s actually a positive thing to fight for social justice! Like, thanks for the compliment, I guess…
They also have a real affinity for the time-tested “BOTH SIDES ARE BAD” argument, the absolute most sure-fire tell of a right-winger.
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Lmao yes, arbitrary generational divides are exactly the same as political divides over who should be allowed to live and thrive in a society. It’s easy to say “let’s all chill and live as a community” if you’re not among the people that the right wants to remove from existence. And even if you’re not, how could you bring yourself to hang out with hateful fucks who would put you on a kill list without a second thought if you were a little darker or a little more neurodivergent?
Trust, nobody wants to just chill and live as a community more than leftists. That’s our whole deal. But as long as capitalism and it’s immune response called fascism exist, everyone outside it (and those of us inside it too) must fight for their survival or be subsumed.
What you’re talking about are extremists. Nobody in their right mind would live in a community with them. What I was trying to say is, that labeling people “leftist”, “right-wing” and any of the other names does more harm than good.
No it doesn’t. Ideology is real. Pretending it doesn’t exist is also Ideology.
Increasingly rare W.
true. His political tajes always seem to be garbage. Perhaps from a trash can
how can you identify extremists if you’re not supposed to talk about people’s politics? how can you even tell what constitutes extremism? this is such a “let’s get back to brunch” take.
Just consume product and get excited about next product.
What you’re talking about are extremists.
There are currently around a hundred thoudand people in concentration camps at the souther border. As of 2018, the DHS reported that they had “lost” 1,488 children. The FBI itself, years ago, published concerns about nazi inflliltration of police and federal organizations. US police forces contain an entire ecosystem of cop gangs, many of which are nazi. These same police forces operate blacksites and execute civil rights organizers. We are currently sending another several billion dollars of weaponry to arm guys with sonnenrad and swastika tattoos. What the fuck have you been smoking if you think the mainstream isn’t extremist.
I bet this person drinks skim milk too lmao
Yes! Let’s put stickers on people
Yes, because more often than not, the sticker fits, like right now for smug bootlicking centrists like yourself.
Here, have this sticker.
Great to know there are ignorant people here :)
The smiley doesn’t hide your reactionary rage.
Careful. Hexbear caught your scent.
Now you’ll get a whole bunch of them replying to you nonstop for a couple of days.this fucking lib again. Go lick your landlords boot
Lmao either stop having shitty opinions or shut up and stop sharing them with everyone.
It’s that simple.
Edit: this comment was meant to say that labeling people does more harm than good. Great to know there are ignorant people here
Like the person who made the above comment
lmao
bad take
Let’s live like a community.
Unless you’re gay or trans or non-religious. While you’re doing community activities with me, I’m going to spend every other waking moment trying to get your human rights taken away.
But when I have time, we’ll schedule some of those community things.
They also have a real affinity for the time-tested “BOTH SIDES ARE BAD” argument, the absolute most sure-fire tell of a right-winger.
South Park “centrist” ideology. Not even once.
Who talks about politics on the internet? Round here we yell and fight about politics.
No we don’t you fascist swine!
The truth is somewhere in the middle, like always
Edit: apparently I should have put /s at the end
You absolutely should, since there is crapton of people out there which really prefer to throw that line completely seriously instead of moving their grey matter for a while.
…what?
You made a joke, I played on it further. Should I have put “/s” at the end?
I just had no idea what those words in that order even meant lol
Maybe they have no meaning or maybe they do. Maybe my wording was poor since I’m not a native speaker.
Or, like always, maybe the truth is somewhere in between.