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Conveying intent is a constant issue when communicating because language evolves over time and meanings can change based on context. Context can be the difference between saving or ruining a reputation. Unfortunately, there have been some egregious instances of selective truth and disregard for context in recent months.

Selective truth can be as destructive as a complete lie, especially when the removal of context could harm someones reputation. The Wall Street Journal used selective truth when it published an article Feb. 14 about Felix Kjellberg, also known as PewDiePie, a Swedish gamer and comedian who hosts the most subscribed channel on YouTube. The authors of the article approached Kjellbergs sponsors about alleged anti-Semitic jokes and Nazi imagery in some of his videos. Following this attempt for comment, Kjellberg was dropped by Maker Studios and lost Google Preferred advertising and his YouTube Red series Scare PewDiePie.

The main video receiving criticism, which Kjellberg has since deleted and apologized for, admitting that the joke went too far, shows him making requests on Fivver, a website where people can advertise services they are willing to provide for approximately $5. Kjellberg submitted several extreme orders to see if users were actually willing to do anything for $5. One of the services Kjellberg paid for was to have two men in a jungle hold up a sign reading Death to all Jews and say Subcribe to Keemstar, who has an infamous YouTube drama channel and a history of making racist statements.

It is not unreasonable for companies to cut ties with Kjellberg for the sake of brand image following a joke made in poor taste. The greater issue is the misrepresentation and selective truth in the article by The Wall Street Journal. Had the article focused solely on the Fivver video, which understandably crossed the line for many people, there would not be an issue with the piece. Instead the article includes other supposed evidence, most of which has been taken out of context.

One clip shows an image of Adolf Hitler used as a transition in a video, which was from a parody of drama channels, such as the one operated by the aforementioned Keemstar. Another clip shows Kjellberg viewing swastikas in fan submissions from his mobile game PewDiePies Tuber Simulator, which is behavior he condemned in the full video. Another clip shows Kjellberg wearing a Nazi uniform as a Hitler speech plays, which he did to satirize the potential fascist-like censorship that could result from the YouTube Heroes programs mass flagging ability.

Technically The Wall Street Journal is not incorrect. The article states that Kjellbergs videos contain anti-Semitic and Nazi imagery, and those images of swastikas and Hitler were used in PewDiePie videos. However, the mere presence of a symbol does not necessarily equal an endorsement of the ideas and beliefs it represents. By removing the video clips from their original context of criticism or satire, the article changes the intended message and impact, leaving only the historical implications of the images. This misrepresentation of Kjellberg presents him as a proponent of ideas he does not actually support instead of the satirist he actually is.

Context is sometimes even ignored when people are explicitly told that it shouldnt be. This disregard was seen when the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) added the Pepe the Frog meme to its hate symbol database. The database entry clearly states that the majority of the memes uses are non-bigoted and context should always be used when determining whether a particular version of the meme is racist. Despite the entrys clarification that the meme is not inherently racist, headlines and articles quickly started calling it an anti-Semitic meme and the racist frog.

Fast-food chain Wendys felt the impact of this false labeling Jan. 4 when it tweeted a Pepe meme that looked like its mascot. By the ADLs standard of evaluating within context, the meme is obviously innocuous. However, Wendys received upset replies and news articles, causing the chain to remove the tweet and apologize for the misunderstanding.

From a public relations perspective, the best course of action was for Wendys to remove the tweet and appease the people who were upset. However, since the meme was non-bigoted in context, deleting the tweet reinforced the misconception that Pepe is offensive in all circumstances. There is a campaign, #SavePepe, started by the ADL and the memes creator, Matt Furie, to reclaim it from the groups making racist variations. However, it is difficult to restore the reputation of the meme if people are attacked for using it in any context, even non-bigoted ones.

In regards to Kjellberg and Pepe the Frog, some journalists and bloggers argue that intentions and context do not matter if the outcome is negative. It is true that some racist groups praised Kjellberg and Wendys for their actions, but that praise was for the promotion of ideas that neither Kjellberg nor Wendys intended to promote. If too much reliance is placed on intention then there is no longer accountability for the consequences of actions, but if intent is disregarded entirely then self-censorship occurs out of the fear that words or actions will be misinterpreted. There must always be balance, and context will always be a necessary part of this balance if judgments of character are to be fair.

Krista enjoys long walks to the fridge and correcting grammar. She specializes in writing, video editing, and graphic design. Her greatest goal is to create interesting content for interesting people.

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Context is crucial - The Signal

Shia LaBeoufCreditIllustration by Tom Bachtell

A few years ago, after he starred in Transformers, the actor Shia LaBeouf seemed poised to become the next Johnny Depp; instead, he started behaving more like the next James Franco. In 2014, he showed up at the Berlin Film Festival wearing a tuxedo, with a brown paper bag over his head. This was a piece of performance art called I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE, which he had created with the artists Nastja Sde Rnkk and Luke Turner. The trio went on to produce a skywriting project, a hitchhiking project, and, most recently, HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US, a piece of anti-Trump protest art, launched on Inauguration Day. The work, according to a statement, consisted of a camera mounted on a wall outside the Museum of the Moving Image, in Queens. Members of the public were invited to recite, into the camera, the titular mantra. The statement continued, The participatory performance will be live-streamed at http://www.hewillnotdivide.us continuously for four years, or the duration of the presidency.

The project caught the attention of the hordes on 4chan, an online message board where people post anonymously. One of the most notorious parts of 4chan is called /pol/, which stands for politically incorrect, and where the ideologies range from anarchism to fascism and ironic anarcho-fascism. It was the denizens of /pol/ who, last year, turned Pepe the Frog, once a benign cartoon, into a neo-Nazi icon. Many frequent posters there could be called trollsyoung, understimulated men whose main goal is to be the chaos they wish to see in the world.

Within hours, 4chan trolls had decided to protest the protest. Or, as one poster put it, Shia Leboof and a bunch of libtards making an ass of themselves for 4 years live because Trump won. /pol/ fucks with them. At MOMI, a few trolls infiltrated the crowd, shouting about conspiracy theories and white supremacy. Six days after the live stream began, LaBeouf, who was in the crowd, confronted one of the trolls and got arrested, on camera. On February 10th, the museum cancelled the project, citing public-safety concerns.

A week later, the live stream recommenced, from a location in Albuquerque, New Mexico, across the street from a tire store. You tried to shut us down in New Yorkwere still out here, LaBeouf shouted into the camera. How is it cool to be a Nazi now? Shut the fuck up. The trolls appeared, and vandalized it with spray paint. Within five days, the Albuquerque live stream went dark.

On March 8th, the artists updated their site. The project moved to an unknown location, they wrote. A flag emblazoned with the words HE WILL NOT DIVIDE US will be flown for the duration. The live stream was back up, showing a white flag with black letters against an open sky.

Five minutes later, someone started a thread on /pol/: Can we find where the flag is?

Does the sun come into view? someone else posted. We can find angle from the sun path to the ground if we assume the pole is vertical.

We might be able to do trigonometry with shadows on the flag, another person wrote. One of the trolls quickly found a clue: a photo of LaBeouf, taken days earlier, at a diner in Greeneville, Tennessee. Another troll checked the weather in Greeneville; it matched the video. Anyone else hear the frogs croaking? someone wrote, referring to the live streams audio. This prompted a discussion, including color-coded maps, about local species of cricket frogs.

At 1:56 P.M., a plane flew by on the live stream. AIRPLANE GUYS AIRPLANE AIRPLANE! someone wrote. A troll suggested checking Flightradar24.com, a site that tracks flight paths. IF its in greeneville, well see new planes come in from the east and the north, someone posted. Seven seconds later, another plane flew by, heading south.

GREENEVILLE CONFIRMED. WE DID IT LADS.

When they had a good idea of the flags cordinates, a /pol/ poster who lives in the Greeneville area drove around and honked, hoping that the noise would be audible on the live stream. It was. Night fell, and the trolls used astronomy to further pinpoint the flag: The faint star visible next to the flag is Polarisit has to be since the other star is rotating around it in a perfect circle.

In the middle of the night, a group of trolls gathered at the exact location, a farmhouse with an open field behind it. Anyone who was watching the live stream at that time saw the white flag come down. A minute later, something was hoisted in its place: a Pepe the Frog T-shirt, and a Make America Great Again hat. On March 22nd, the artists reopened the live stream, this time from Liverpool. British trolls got to the flag the next morning. Once again, the live stream went dark.

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Trolls Protest Shia LaBeouf's Anti-Trump Protest Art - The New Yorker

Have you ever looked at popular internet meme Pepe the Frog and thought Hmm, I'm not sure I can totally agree with the views he represents, but I sure do wonder what he would look like in the style of Van Gogh? Us too. Thankfully, St Petersburg-based painter Olga Vishnevsky had just the same thought.

Enter Pipelangelo, the Etsy page where Vishnevsky sells her extraordinary oil paintings, bringing the internet meme to canvas. Here Pepe takes on the role of such iconic figures as the Mona Lisa(1503,Leonardo da Vinci), Henry VIII(15361537,Hans Holbein the Younger)and the Girl with a Pearl Earring(1665,Johannes Vermeer).

Stay tunedfor more paintings in the works soon Pepe will appear in an interpretation of Petrov-Vodkin's Bathing of a Red Horse (1912). But will Pepe be riding the horse or the horse itself? Only time will tell.

If any of these sound to your liking but you dont have a few hundred dollars spare, you can catch Pepe on Instagram here.

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Russian artist paints Pepe the Frog like you've never seen him before - The Calvert Journal

Despite the widespread belief that meme-warriors won the election through tactical shitposting of photoshopped Pepe the Frogs in Nazi arm-bands, the reality is a lot more complicated.

A trio of troll scholars, including the oft-cited-here Gabriella Coleman (previously), who literally wrote the book on Anonymous, take on the narrative of memetic superiority of the Trump camp, laying out a powerful case that even calling the alt-right's self-described meme-warriors as "trolls" does a disservice to trolling.

It is certainly true that the alt-right's pro-Trump "shitposting"the act of flooding social media with memes and commentary designed to bolster their "God Emperor" Trumpraised the public visibility of the alt-right and its memetic handiwork. And it is also true that this uptick in public visibility forced people to focus on Trump more than they would have otherwise. The shitpost connection reached critical mass in August 2016, when Hillary Clinton held a press conference (precipitated, in part, by Pepe the Frog) denouncing Trump's ties to the white nationalist groupmuch to the delight of precisely those white nationalists. Without a doubt, this speech and all the alt-right activity that preceded and followed it contributed to the overall momentum of Trump's campaign.

But that activity didn't happen in a vacuum, and wasn't self-propelling. "Trolls" and the alt-right may have played a prominent role in the 2016 election, but that fact is dependent upon and cannot be untangled from journalistic coverage that amplified their messagingshitpost memes very much included. Phillips describes how media coverageeven coverage condemning alt-right antagonismshelped conjure this monster, and how that conjuring, in turn, helped amplify Trump's overall platform (which itself was a series of memes).

The fact that alt-right participants received so much coverage speaks to an even deeper issue, perhaps the weightiest issue, influencing Donald Trump's rise. More than fake news, more than filter bubbles, more than insane conspiracy theories about child sex rings operating out of the backs of Washington DC pizza shops, the biggest media story to emerge from the 2016 election was the degree to which far-right media were able to set the narrative agenda for mainstream media outlets. (This point is ably argued by internet scholars Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts, and Ethan Zuckerman).

Trolling Scholars Debunk the Idea That the Alt-Rights Shitposters Have Magic Powers [Whitney Phillips, Jessica Beyer and Gabriella Coleman/Motherboard]

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A ruling about a DC university held that posting course videos to the open web without subtitling them violated the Americans With Disabilities Act (while keeping them private to students did not) (I know: weird), and this prompted UC Berkeley to announce the impending removal of 20,000 open courseware videos from Youtube.

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No, the meme-slinging alt-right Pepe worshippers didn't win the ... - Boing Boing

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Venezuelas economy is so awful, its citizens are increasingly turning alternative currencies, including Bitcoin and even internet memes.

Software developers use Bitcoin and Rare Pepe trading cards to mask their transactions. Such crypto-currencies grant anonymity, meaning its harder for Venezuelas socialist government to control the tech industry. Others have noticed and started using digital money in place of paper money.

Were based in Venezuela, and our business has been saved by bitcoin many times,a Venezuelan developer, who wished to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation,told Crypto Insider Wednesday. In that timeframe, thanks to bitcoin related business, weve grown our employee base from just 5 to 10. Weve air-conditioned our office. Year-over-year weve been improving, so were banking big on bitcoin and now over Counterparty assets.

Tech companies can issue Rare Pepe trading cards, based on the popular internet meme of a green frog, on the Bitcoin-linked Counterparty platform. The system began as a joke, but now Pepe cards are exchanged for the equivalent of thousands of dollars. Each Rare Pepe is linked to the value of a bitcoin, creating scarcity thats lacking in paper money.

The unnamed developer told Crypto Insider their success stood in sharp contrast to the roughly 80 percent of nearby offices forced to shut down over the past year. His company plans to release 60 new Rare Pepes and create a new video game based on the cards, similar to Pokemon.

Venezuelans inflation rate is expected to top 1,640 percent in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Venezuelans are living with the consequences of decades of socialist economic policies. Price controls, for example, forced businesses to sell food at low prices, encouraging farmers to sell on the black market or outside the country.

Venezuela has some of the worlds largest petroleum reserves, but the collapse in crude oil prices is cutting into state coffers. The country cant afford to pump oil at current prices, and as recently as February was forced to accept shipments of U.S. crude oil. The country suffers from rolling blackouts that can last for days.

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Venezuelan Currency Slowly Getting Replaced By 'Pepe' Memes ... - Daily Caller