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Dear racist friend: that Martin Luther King Jr. quote you posted yesterday wasnt enough to convince me that youre not terribly racist.

Yesterday was MLK Day, the annual event where we celebrate the life of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. which was cut short by a gunshot wound on January 20th, 1968. The day marks an annual reminder that all is still not well within the United States when it comes to race and equality.

Its also my annual reminder of how even the most racist people on Earth will take one day out of the year to sheepishly acknowledge a man who was killed by an avowed racist.

I found a really good tweet about the whole thing the other day. It was from the FBI, of all places, which did exactly as you did and tweeted out a solemn and inspirational quote from the late Doctor. "The time is always right to do what is right," read the quote, which is exactly the sort of thing youd see on an inspirational poster with a black-and-white photo of Martin Lither King Jr. in the background.

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But heres the thing: the FBI HATED Martin Luther King. They were actively trying to sabotage him at every opportunity. After Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech at the National Mall in August of 1963, the FBI approved a huge surveillance operation against Dr. King, with Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan calling him "the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation."

The surveillance didn't reveal any illegal actions on MLK's part, but they did reveal a history of extramarital affairs. Later, the FBI packaged up all their "King sex tapes" and then mailed them to his home address. His wife opened the package. She wasn't pleased.

Worse, the letter inside the package made it seem like it was written by a disillusioned black former supporter and demanded the King halt his activism. To date, the FBI has never apologized.

That one nice MLK quote really doesnt cut it from them, and it certainly doesnt cut it from you. Now, stop sharing all those Pepe the Frog memes and be a civilized human being for once.

Source: Twitter, Vox

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Continued here:
Sorry Racist Friend, That MLK Quote You Posted Yesterday Meant Nothing Coming From You - Moms

Popular Korean streamer HAchubby is well-known for her love of her Pepe the Frog plush, but lately viewers have hilariously become concerned that she's holding the soft toy against his will. She took to her broadcast to clear up the claims.

HAchubby is one of the breakout stars of Twitch in 2019, as her journey to learn English and discover meme culture has made her connect with thousands of viewers.

However, the streamer's love of Pepe the Frog took a hilarious turn when a joke clip accusing her of holding the plush hostage went viral in December, and now she's responded.

The popular streamer responded to her chat saying that the plush was in danger, and said "Pepe is here!" while holding the iconic frog in her hands, and turned to him to ask "Are you okay?"

Hilariously, HAchubby hid behind Pepe, and began to talk as him. "Yes, I'm not lonely!" the doll spoke aloud. "Oh, you aren't lonely. I am so happy! Thank you, Pepe!" the Twitch personality replied.

"Don't worry about me, I'm happy!" she made the plush say, before hugging him. Her chat then erupted into some accepting the frog's response, while others still claimed he was being held against his will.

The Korean streamer's ridiculous skit was in response to a clip that went viral from her December 21 broadcast, when she watched a fan-made video that had a voice over dub with the plush claiming he was being abused.

"I used to have a happy life. I was a normal frog. Then a few days later it started. The new girl is not nice!" the comedic video said, before it cut to various clips of the streamer poking the doll, or dropping it during past broadcasts.

"She attacks me almost every time she streams. I live in constant fear," the voice said, before a clip played of the frog falling off her desk. "I was not fine. That hurt a lot!" Pepe stated, while the Korean exclaimed that it was all a misunderstanding.

HAchubby has had an incredible year, as she only had 700 followers at the start in January, and has exploded in popularity due to hilarious viral clips of her learning about meme culture with her audience.

As of the time of this article, the Korean star has amassed a staggering 148,000 followers on Twitch, making her one of the fastest growing channels on the streaming platform.

See original here:
HAchubby responds to claims she's holding Pepe the Frog hostage - Dexerto

OpinionFrom the political to the completely pointless, memes have brought unending happiness to some of the worst days on social media

Friday, 20th December 2019, 3:54 pm

The internet is a dark, dank place that has, arguably, allowed the most awful traits of human nature to thrive. While this has become markedly worse in the last 10 years, the 2010s also saw the rise of the single thing that makes this hellscape bearable: the meme.

British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins first defined a "meme" in 1976 as a behaviour or idea passed from one animal to another through imitation. In online culture this word has come to mean an image, phrase or video - often humourous - that is rapidly copied and re-shared on social media with slight variations.

i's opinion newsletter: talking points from today

From the political to the completely pointless, memes have brought unending happiness to some of the worst days on social media. Among the fractures of disparate online cultures, memes are one of the few things that connect us. It is the most community-like medium we have, uniting us through shares and lols.

A shorthand language

One of the most joyous things about memes is that they are essentially a constantly evolving modern language, shared and understood by people around the world, regardless of what language they speak.

Scott Wark, an associate researcher at the University of Warwick, agrees. Internet memes are undoubtedly the most important popular culture medium online, he tells i.

One key example of this was 2012's "Grumpy Cat" - an animal, and meme, so popular it subsequently sparked merchandise, a film and multiple consumer endorsements. The picture featured a cat named Tardar Sauce with an extremely unhappy expression caused by an underbite and feline dwarfism.

At this time, the main format of memes were pictures with text above and below the image, and "Grumpy Cat" took this form, with people adding pessimistic captions as if the cat were speaking.

Wark explains that this format continued to reign in meme culture for a few years, up until the emergence of the "Doge" meme in 2013 which was developed from images of a Japanese photographers dog found on a blog.

In the meme, a Shiba Inu dog is seen in various poses, but there is brightly coloured text in the Comic Sans font plastered all over the picture. The idea is that the text represents the innermost thoughts of the dog (or person posting).

This style was far more abstract than "Grumpy Cat", and the image looks more chaotic as the text and image interact with one another.

This was a big moment. From then the style of memes radically shifted, marking the beginning of our creative approach to them and a more abstract way of presenting thoughts and opinions.

Moreover, the way Twitter and Instagram users can immediately understand a memes message with very little context is extraordinary, especially when they are constantly changing.

There's something incredibly powerful about how online communities have created a smart, witty way to converse with and understand one another, wherever they are in the world.

Mental health

While memes can unite the masses, they also appeal to specific groups. For instance, the rise of mental health memes in the mid-2010s allowed people with mental health conditions to identify and confide in one another while partaking in some cathartic dark humour.

After this came the rise of astrological memes which, in the same way, became a sub-culture for people wanting to self-deprecate and laugh about their negative characteristics.

These were particularly happy moments in internet culture as they offered a vessel to self-reflect and laugh at yourself. Amid trolling, online cancel culture and general negativity online, these memes offered a positive alternative.

The image began recirculating on bulletin site 4chan in 2015, as Donald Trump gained popularity on the site. It also featured on Reddit and a year later, The Daily Beast published a piece entitled "How Pepe the Frog Became a Nazi Trump Supporter and Alt-Right Symbol" outlining how an otherwise harmless figure had been turned into a symbol of monstrosity and vitriol.

It's fair to say this was one of the lowest points in meme history, demonstrating how innocent imagery can be adopted by the alt-right to perpetuate their messaging.

Next decade and the impact of TikTok

Looking into the next decade, it's clear that memes won't disappear - they will always adapt alongside online culture.

Wark believes TikTok, a video-sharing social network, has already laid the groundwork for this transition, and said it is essentially "memetic culture in overdrive".

Were seeing multiple versions of the same video but some go viral and others do not, and they have really slight differences separating them, he says.

We have already seen the crossover between Twitter and TikTok this year with the huge popularity of "Trying Kombucha for the First Time", in which stills taken from a video by TikTok user Brittany Tomlinson went viral and became a template for other memes. The first image showed her looking disgusted, while the other showed her looking more convinced, and the images paired together were used to highlight a pivot of opinion. It was an example of how users can take elements of videos and create a whole generation of new memes.

Wark adds that on TikTok, we're seeing users become even more creative with music and rhythm in a way the image format never afforded.

Whatever shape or form they're presented in, it's clear their ongoing transitions and transformations are a sign of their unwavering influence in modern communication. They don't disappear - they adapt. The 2020s will undoubtedly be a revolutionary and progressive time for them.

Ruchira Sharma is a staff writer at i

Read more here:
From Grumpy Cat to TikTok, this decade belonged to memes and their ability to unite the masses - iNews

I only recently noticed that the advice column of Dr. Robert Wallace is no longer in the paper. It last appeared on Nov. 30. I assume it was discontinued either due to lack of reader interest or to cut costs. While I understand both motivations, please, I beg you: reconsider! Dr. Wallaces was a voice of reason in a world gone mad.

Dr. Wallaces column is or was vital to promoting understanding between generations. Young readers may apply his advice to their own lives, and their elders may gain otherwise unobtainable insight into the inner thoughts of young people without trying to promote a rap session that only embarrasses everyone involved. His zero-tolerance policy toward underage drinking is extremely valuable, especially in a world where such a simple point seems hard to understand, judging from the number of ways children find to ask him about it. He is very patient in reiterating that and other kinds of good advice.

Without Dr. Wallace, I truly believe, as W.B. Yeats wrote, Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ...

Think Im exaggerating? Check the Dec. 11 edition of The Star and think again. In the Dear Abby column on that date, Abby advises a septuagenarian woman to give in to her husbands wish to cavort in the buff at a nudist colony. Im no spring chicken myself, but let me just say, Ew. I know the current Dear Abby is a second-generation advice columnist and is more with it than her mother was, but I dont recall this kind of advice appearing before Dr. Wallace disappeared from the page.

Need more? In the same edition, Dennis the Menace pokes his head out of his dads home office and gleefully tattles to his mom about his dad talking to his buddies about some magazine swimsuit stuff online. Lest we not get the mental picture, in the background we actually see his dad at his desk, his one visible hand holding a phone to his grinning face, and a picture of a swimsuit gal on his computer screen. We see the mom in profile, receiving this news and taking in this tableau with a stony expression. With Dr. Wallace on hand, Dennis generally ran his mouth and bugged dear old Mr. Wilson; within two weeks of Dr. Wallaces departure, the column is covering a subject I hesitate to name in a family paper, but it starts with a p and it rhymes with cornography.

Whats next? Family Circus covering polyamory, or Dolly and Jeffy getting into a switchblade fight while wearing Pepe the Frog tee shirts? Good luck trying to blame ol I Dont Know and Not Me when youre in front of a juvie judge, kids.

Only a few weeks with no Dr. Wallace, and the centre has not held. Its anarchy in the pages of The Star. God help us all.

Chris Jones

Anniston

More:
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Paging Doctor Wallace | Free - Anniston Star

The neighbors got together for drinks and carols at the weekend. As an English Jew, I love the carols all those old-time bangers from the time when midwinter really was bleak, all those Zionist lyrics about royal Davids city and kings in Israel. I consider it a mitzvah, a religious obligation, to spread the joy, because theres not enough joy to the world these days, so I play the piano, this year in an impromptu trio with an Irish American fiddler and an English literary critic who, it transpires, toots a mean descant on the trumpet. We spread the joy as a farmer spreads muck, but its the spirit that counts. Without rehearsal or premeditation, we turned Silent Night into a Dean Martin drunk song.

Two nights later, it was the first night of Chanukah. My three daughters lit three menorahs and we sangMaoz Tzur (Rock of Ages):

Furiously they assailed usBut Thine arm availed usAnd Thy word broke their swordWhen our strength failed us

The song has become associated with the Maccabean Revolt of 167 BC the first nationalist movement in history but it was written, like many of the carols, in the Middle Ages. Its impossible not to read those words without thinking of those who fought for their religious freedom against the Syrian tyrant Antiochus IV and those who died for it in medieval and modern Europe as in a kosher market in Jersey City.

It may come as a surprise, but Jews dont spend most of their time thinking about anti-Semitism. Or rather, we spend as little time as safely possible thinking about it. We are obliged to choose life, and life and the making of joy and children mean we must refuse to be defined by a morbid shadow-play of other peoples projections. The tide of hate and violence is rising, however.

It has become acceptable to say appalling things about Jews some of them calumnies carrying the stale flavor of the Middle Ages, some of them more recent and carrying the Germanic taste of blood and iron things that remain unsayable about any other people. Especially online, which for reasons that elude me is considered to be a Casablancaof the media, where anything goes and no one is accountable.

It also appears to have become acceptable, in New York City in particular, for Orthodox Jews to be assaulted without the police or mayor doing much about it. And it appears that the strength of many Jewish organizations, the Anti-Defamation League among them, is more devoted to sustaining the Democratic partys coalition than to doing their job of defending Jews. The same goes for many assimilated Jews, who keep their own heads down and complain that religious Jews make it hard for themselves and everyone else. But there are also many, including many people who are not Jewish, who do stand up for what is right and fair, and who fight against lies and incitement.

Furiously they assail us. This year was the first year I received anti-Semitic tweets, anonymous physical threats, notifications that my name was on a list for future punishment, Holocaust denial (on one impressively sick occasion in rhyming couplets) and, in an unneeded further proof of the collapse of our public discourse, images of the alt-right fetish object Pepe the Frog. This year, while the dimwitted online world argued about tropes, my younger daughters learnt to read trope, the ancient cantillation that they will perform when the elder of them has herbat mitzvahin May. Rock of Ages, let our song / Praise thy saving power.

So I refuse to give up hope, and I know that we will be here, and there too, for as long as we have the faith to do so. In many ways, we are living in an age of miracles. The United States, despite its balkanized society and demented politics, remains an island of tolerance between religions, despite the perverse hostility of the Democratic left, street thugs and a few college professors. The state of Israel, which did not exist when my grandparents families were murdered, is thriving and has never had such good diplomatic relations with some many states and peoples. This year, work began on the Abrahamic Family House, in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi, a development whose centerpiece is a common religious space, with a mosque, a church and a synagogue.

The year ended with what, for an English Jew living in the United States, was an almost overwhelming double gift. On December 11, President Trump extended the protections of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (1964) to Jews, as the George W. Bush administrations Department of Education had decreed in 2004 for Sikhs, Muslims and Jews, and the Obama administrations Department of Justice had confirmed in 2010.

On December 12, Jeremy Corbyn and a hard-left Labour party were demolished in Britains general elections. The elections were about many things Brexit, the National Health Service, the prospect of punitive taxation but a crucial factor was Corbyns foul politics, including his defense of the murderers of the IRA, Hamas and Hezbollah, and his seeking out of the company of Holocaust deniers and those who rationalize a selective and obsessive hatred as anti-Zionism.

On the first night of Chanukah, Britains prime minister Boris Johnson sent amessage to Britains Jews: When the Maccabees drove the forces of darkness out of Jerusalem, they had to do so on their own. Today, as Britains Jews seek to drive back the darkness of resurgent anti-Semitism, you have every decent person in this country fighting by your side.

From darkness to light: from the prospect of a Labour government that promised to drive Zionists almost all Jews, in fact from public life, to a Conservative government whose leader sends a clear and moral message, albeit one in which Johnson, an Oxford-educated Classicist, mixed Antiochus III with Antiochus IV.

President Trumps Executive Order and the British publics rejection of Corbyn show that the Jews are not alone in these difficult times. They show that, for all the experts who complain about populism, decency is not inimical to democracy. They show that, despite everything, we should look forward in hope.

I pray that the coming year will be a better one for all of us, including the Kurds of Syria, the Muslims of China and thepeople of Iran, hundreds of whom have beenkilled in recent weeks for demanding their freedom. The Abrahamic family house has many mansions.I wish all my friends and readers a Happy Christmas and aChag Chanukah Sameach.

Dominic Green is Life & Arts editor of Spectator USA.

Link:
The hope of Chanukah - The Spectator USA