Archive for the ‘Pepe The Frog’ Category

The Dallas Ebola National Monument Is the City’s Newest Internet Inside Joke – D Magazine

It can feel like there are two Dallases these days: the physical one in which we drive around, go to work, eat our food, and go to sleep each night; and the one that exists on Facebook. Facebook Dallas is a tiny microcosm of the broader internet culture, and so it is typically a bit more fever-pitched, hyper-reactionary, conspiratorial, and vicious than physical Dallas. It is the place where seeming level-headed discourse rears off suddenly into incomprehensible discourses on the morality of state executions of the perpetrators of Target muggings, or where Dallas politics are run by a kleptocratic Illuminati, and things like that.

But just as the collective brain we call the internet spawned Pepe the Frog and Cash me Outside, Dallas Internet serves up its own brand of off-color humor. And so, behold: the Dallas Ebola National Monument.

The page, which seems to have only existed for about a week, has a tagline: Who Remembers? We do. The conceit is an imaginary and massive artistic undertaking: plans for a campus-sized sculptural monument that commemorates Dallas role in stopping the spread of Ebola into the United States. (Remember that? We do.) The joke is that the monument is really a commemoration of everything inept and idiotic about Dallas government. The unstated subtext is that Dallas is truly world class when it is at the center of some kind of national tragedy. Heres a taste that, intentionally or not, carries a whiff of Borges:

The moment you have been waiting for has arrived. It is time to unveil one of the most important monuments to be part of Dallas Ebola National Memorial at Dallas Ebola National Monument Towne Center:

The A.C. Gonzales Cenotaph, also known as the#AC400Monument of Learning!

Plano sculptor Lynda Caucasian crafted this cenotaph to symbolize empty library shelves, because it is impossible to commit to writing all the important lessons AC taught Dallas, as there are so many. Theempty bookshelves dually represent the vacancy in the hearts and minds of Dallas without AC as City Manager, as well as the vacancy of competence that was AC Gonzales.

Hardy har. Its all pretty corny, but its Dallas-specific corniness. Much of the satire is directed at southern Dallas council members, and there are some jabs at tepid, white bread public art and the culture of officialdom that spawns it. At times, its almost funny (the Dallas Parks and Recreation And Spreading RoundUp Department), other times its borderline offensive. But then, that about sums up the internet. Now Dallas has its very own silly, diversional manifestation of a broader contemporary inclination to shrink from the shock of the present via mockery.

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The Dallas Ebola National Monument Is the City's Newest Internet Inside Joke - D Magazine

Things That Are Now Off-Limits Because Of The Alt-Right – The Daily Caller

If you enjoy cartoon frogs, New Balance shoes, traditional architecture, or milk, you may just be an alt-right bigot, at least according to some prominent members of the media.

In order to help prevent readers from inadvertently expressing the wrong opinion, The Daily Caller News Foundation has assembled a list of items and activities best avoided if one wishes to remain in the good graces of the media and liberal elites.

The Movie Death Wish

The media slammed director Eli Roths film Death Wish, starring Bruce Willis, as racist and catering to the alt-right in August 2017.

In moving the setting [from New York] to Chicago, a city where gun violence is both well-documented and highly politicized, and setting the trailer to Back in Black, the remake tips its hand: 2017s Death Wish comes off as a work of cowardice and opportunism, authorJoshua Rivera said in GQ,piggybacking off hard-right fear-mongering and a government thats completely and utterly disingenuous in its rhetoric about violent crime when nationwide, crime rates despite rises in cities thanks to mass shootings like the Pulse massacre in Orlando remain historically low.

Alan Zilberman, a writer for The Washington Post and Salon, said alt righters will have an erection because of the apparently fascist nature of the film.

The Term Cosmopolitan

CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta criticized President Donald Trumps immigration proposal at a Wednesday White House briefing, suggesting that the proposal conflicted with the Statue of Libertys claim that America would take your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. In response, Stephen Miller, a policy adviser for Trump, said that Acosta had a cosmopolitan bias.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat of CNN labeled cosmopolitan the loaded word of the week,making similar fascist and communist parallels while calling Miller something of an alt-right whisperer.

Politicolinked cosmopolitan to antisemitism throughout history.

One reason why cosmopolitan is an unnerving term is that it was the key to an attempt by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to purge the culture of dissident voices. In a 1946 speech, he deplored works in which the positive Soviet hero is derided and inferior before all things foreign and cosmopolitanism that we all fought against from the time of Lenin, characteristic of the political leftovers, is many times applauded. It was part of a yearslong [sic]campaigned aimed at writers, theater critics, scientists and others who were connected with bourgeois Western influences. Not so incidentally, many of these cosmopolitans were Jewish, and official Soviet propaganda for a time devoted significant energy into unmasking the Jewish identities of writers who published under pseudonyms.

Pepe the Frog

The unwitting face of the alt-right movement, according to Vox.com, a hate symbol, according to the Anti-Defamation League, and a symbol associated with white supremacy, according to Hillary Clinton, Pepe the Frog is a widely-used meme that the left denounced as bigoted after internet trolls deliberately tied it to extremist positions.

We basically mixed Pepe in with Nazi propaganda, etc, Twitter user @JaredTSwift toldThe Daily Beastin May 2016. We built that association.(RELATED: Heres How Two Twitter Pranksters Convinced The World That Pepe The Frog Meme Is Just A Front For White Nationalism)

When writer Ian Miles Cheong defended Pepe the Frog in a 2016 Heat Street article, the websites former editor, Louise Mensch,followed up with an article of her own, entitled, Hillary Clinton is absolutely right, Pepe meme is Antisemitic An apology.

WikiLeaks unveiled that Mensch had written an advertisement for Clintons presidential campaign.

Wendys came under fire in January 2017 for tweeting out a mashup of its red-haired mascot and Pepe, with The Verge publishing an article entitled Why Wendys tweeted an anti-Semitic hate symbol dressed as its mascot.The fast-food chain later deleted the tweet and apologized, stating that the employee who tweeted it did not know the meems[sic]new meaning.

OK-Hand Gesture

Fusion journalist Emma Roller slammed the OK-hand gesture as racist in April 2017 after she spotted 2 pro-Trump media figures displaying it at the White House.

(Credit: Twitter/Emma Roller)

Others thathave displayed the sign include former President Barack Obama, comedian Hasan Minhaj, and actor Mr. T. (RELATED: The Shimshock Show Ep. 3: Meet The Newest Racist Hand Gesture [VIDEO])

Milk

Media also ran with headlines tying milk to the alt-right after a viral video from Shia LaBoeufs He Will Not Divide Us protest and alt-right figureheads Richard Spencer and Tim Treadstone added a milk emoji to their Twitter profiles.

The Forward and Metro News ran with headlines Got Nazis? Milk is new symbol of racial purity for white nationalistsand Secret Nazi code kept hidden by milk and vegan agenda.

Traditional Architecture

JournalistAmanda Kolson Hurley conflated the NRA and InfoWars commentator Paul Joseph Watson with the alt-right after the two sources published video criticizingmodern architecture and favoring traditional architecture.

Hurley suggests that elements of the far right are deliberately making architecture a front in the Trump-era culture wars in an editorial entitled Why is the alt-right so angry about architecture?

New Balance Shoes

The Obama administration turned a deaf ear to us and frankly, with President-elect Trump, we feel things are going to move in the right direction,American shoemaker New Balancesaid, referring to Trumps stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a November 2016 interview with The Wall Street Journal.

In response to this remark, people burned their New Balance shoes, trashed them, or attempted to flush them down the toilet.

Neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer hailed New Balance as the official shoes of white people, an announcement which led to New Balance feeling compelled to reject hate and bigotry.

New Balance does not tolerate bigotry or hate in any form, the company said in a statement, before proceeding to boast of its employment of individuals with diverse identities.

Investigating McMaster

CNN anchor Jake Tapper associated the alt-right with The Daily Caller and TheDCNF after the latter two outlets published pieces in which former NSC officials alleged that National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster opposed Trump on everything.

The alt-right/alt-light attacks on McMaster are joined by former NSC aides slamming him to Daily Caller, said Tapper. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Everything The President Wants To Do, McMaster Opposes, Former NSC Officials Say)

Breitbart had previously published articles detailing reports alleging that McMaster had become increasingly volatileand that the adviser was deeply hostile to Israel and Trump. Blogger Mike Cernovich also shared a cartoon depicting a hand labeled Rothschild controlling a puppet George Soros, which in turn controlled McMaster. The Anti-Defamation League described the cartoon as blatantly anti-Semitic.

You, the reader, now have 30 seconds to delete your offending tweets, disavow, and swear fealty to the almighty MSM before you end up the nextHanA**holeSolo. (RELATED: Extremely Unethical CNN Draws Backlash After Threatening To ID Reddit User Behind Trumps WWE Video)

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Things That Are Now Off-Limits Because Of The Alt-Right - The Daily Caller

Fidget Spinner Simulator Adds $30 Vape Pen DLC – GameSpot

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Fidget Spinner Simulator, an absurd $1 Steam game that lets you virtually experience the joys of fidget spinners, has added a new piece of DLC that is 30 times more expensive than the game itself.

The "Premium Member DLC," as it's called unlocks the "Premium Member" achievement and gives you a "Premium Gold Plated" fidget spinner and a gold plated vape pen. Here's what those items look like in the game (via NeoGAF):

In the comments of the DLC announcement post, a developer responded to criticism of the content, saying, "Why? It's easy not to buy the DLC right? Nobody is forcing anybody." A emoticon of President Donald Trump's face was attached to the comment.

The Premium Member DLC is listed at $30 after a price drop from $50. In announcing the DLC, the developer said, "Ayyyy lmao," with a pepe the frog emoticon.

In Fidget Spinner Simulator, you use the arrow keys or W A S D to move around on a hoverboard. Pressing the Space bar activates/deactivates the fidget spinner.

Fidget Spinner Simulator was released at the end of July. It has a "Mostly Positive" critical reception on Steam after more than 240 reviews. For more, head to the game's Steam page here.

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Fidget Spinner Simulator Adds $30 Vape Pen DLC - GameSpot

As Portland Police Stand By, Alt-Right and Antifa Protesters Beat Each Other Bloody – Willamette Week

The latest far-right march in Portland quickly staked a claim as the most violent.

The gathering of alt-right and white nationalist groups in Tom McCall Waterfront Park today immediately descended into brawling with antifascist counter-protesters that left several men bleeding and soaked in pepper spray.

Brawls at Tom McCall WAterfront Park on Aug. 6, 2017. (Daniel Stindt)

Joey Gibson, the Vancouver, Wash. video blogger who has led the far-right movement's forays into Portland, told his crew that the antifa attention showed how serious and powerful his movement remains.

"You have the right of free speech, the right of assembly," Gibson said in a speech. "When they show up beating their drums and yelling, do you know what that means? It means we're winning."

Protests at Tom McCall Waterfront Park on Aug. 6, 2017. (Daniel Stindt)

Oath Keepers, members of a militia group that often attends right-wing protests, attacked antifa with pepper spray. Left-wing counter-protesters burned flags. Several frequent participants in Patriot Prayer protests, including a man named Tusitala "Tiny" Toese, were bloodied in the fight that kicked off the march.

Tiny later offered to give a counter-protesters wounds of their own. Flashing the thick silver rings adorning his fist, he pointed to his bloody nose. "Do you want one to match?" he asked. "I can give you one."

Portland police allowed the melee to go largely unchecked, belatedly threatening over loudspeaker to arrest brawlers. By then, the fights had mostly stopped.

Brawls at Tom McCall Waterfront Park on Aug. 6, 2017. (Daniel Stindt)

Police announced that any illegal activity would get the protesters kicked out of the park. But officers didn't intervene when antifa members started throwing small projectiles at protesters wearing Make America Great Again hats.

Counterprotesters sprayed the far-right activists with silly string and threw glitter in their faces. The ultra-conservative group waved a flag of Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the national "alt-right" movement.

After more than half a year of squaring off, an air of familiarity runs between these groups. But a current of rage still feels fresh.

"Trump is burning this country to the ground," one masked antifa protester screamed at the marchers, "and you're letting it happen."

Protests at Tom McCall Waterfront Park on Aug. 6, 2017. (Daniel Stindt)

Protests at Tom McCall Waterfront Park on Aug. 6, 2017. (Daniel Stindt)

Protests at Tom McCall Waterfront Park on Aug. 6, 2017. (Daniel Stindt)

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As Portland Police Stand By, Alt-Right and Antifa Protesters Beat Each Other Bloody - Willamette Week

The Products and Brands We’ve Lost This Year – Entrepreneur

Rose Leadem

Online Editorial Assistant

We've said goodbye to a number of well-known products and brands this year. At the end of 2016, Twitter announced it was shutting down its video service Vine -- devastating thousands of users. YouTube personality and filmmaker Casey Neistat closed the gates of his social video app Beme too when he sold it to CNN in the fall of 2016.

Related:The 9 Things You Need to Let Go of For Success in2017

From the iPod Nano to Coke Zero, the list of now-lost products and brands goes on. Take a stroll down memory lane and check out these companies and products that have made their departure this year.

After 15 years, Apple has decided to discontinue the iPod Nano and Shuffle, leaving only the Touch left in the iPod family. "We are simplifying our iPod lineup," the company told Bloomberg in a statement.

These two items were of the least expensive among the iPod lineup -- the Shuffle cost only $49 and the Nano $149.

In July, Coca-Cola announced that it would be killing off the beloved Coke Zero. Having come to the market in 2005 as a Diet Coke alternative, the drink also boasted itself as a sugar- and calorie-free product that looked and tasted more like classic Coca-Cola, while Diet Coke has a completely different blend of flavors.

The company will replace the product with Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. "We've made the great taste of Coke Zero even better by optimizing the unique blend of flavors that gave Coke Zero its real Coca-Cola taste," the company announced in a statement.

Adios, Pepe. Cartoonist and Pepe the frog creator Matt Furie has officially killed one of the world's most popular memes, which saw a boost in its infamy as a white supremacist symbol during the U.S. election.

In Celebration of Free Comic Book Day on Saturday, May 6, Furie published a one-page piece of his "Boys' Club" series -- where Pepe ultimately got its start in 2005 -- that shows Pepe in a casket surrounded by mourning friends.

Last year, when an alt-right version of Pepe the frog went viral, Furie said Pepe's political association was just a "phase." However, after the Anti-Defamation League labeled Pepe as an anti-Semitic hate symbol, Furie made efforts to clean up Pepe's image, even launching a campaign #SavePepe to encourage people to create positive Pepe memes.

Unfortunately, Furie's efforts weren't enough and the cartoon has continued to be an alt-right meme (most recently it was "Pepe Le Pen"), so Furie has decided to bow out. Although, you'll likely see Pepe on the internet, its creator is no longer behind it.

In late April, Yik Yak, the mobile chat app that let people post anonymously -- mostly for catty gossip in schools and social circles -- announced its plans to close up shop. At one point being valued at $400 million, the app began to lose traction among young users when other apps such as Snapchat began to emerge.

"We were so lucky to have the most passionate users on the planet. It's you who made this journey possible," Yik Yak's young founders Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington wrote in a blog post. "The time has come, however, for our paths to part ways, as we've decided to make our next moves as a company."

Although no date is set, the app will officially close down at the end of the school year.

Whether you knew it existed or not, Microsoft will shut down its social network, So.cl, on March 15. The platform, which launched in May 2012, was a content-sharing website primarily used by students and young people.

Microsoft's Fuse Labs, which spearheaded the project, wrote in a blog post: "In supporting you, Socl's unique community of creators, we have learned invaluable lessons in what it takes to establish and maintain community as well as introduce novel new ways to make, share and collect digital stuff we love."

YouTube personality, filmmaker and entrepreneur Casey Neistat closed a deal with CNN late last year, selling his video app Beme. Following the acquisition, Beme officially shut down on Jan. 31. What made Beme different than other social video apps was its ability to record short clips simply by putting your phone to your chest.

With Neistat's name attached to the app, it picked up some traction, although it was short-lived, having only launched in July 2015. And with competitors such as Snapchat and Instagram, the industry was a little too tough to crack.

People were devastated when Twitter announced it was pulling the plug on its 6-second-looping video app Vine. The company announced the news in Oct. 2016, but it wasn't until Jan. 17 that the app was officially taken down.

Initially launched in 2012, Vine had a good run. In fact, it even birthed some pretty hilarious Vine stars -- who today have found themselves distraught over the loss. The website is still up -- although just for archival purposes.

Jawbone, once a leader in fitness trackers and Bluetooth speakers, is closing up shop this year and liquidating its assets. Having once been valued at $3 billion by private market investors, the company has since struggled to keep up. In fact, late last year, it reportedly stopped sellings its fitness trackers and instead sold them to third-party retailers.

However, this isn't a final goodbye -- Jawbone CEO and founder Hosain Rahman has launched a new medical software and hardware company called Jawbone Health Hub.

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The Products and Brands We've Lost This Year - Entrepreneur