Sorry to be a downer, but this is a really good point.
Sorry to be a downer, but this is a really good point.
With this lie escalating to violent threats against the Haitian community, we perhaps need to put a pause on joking about this insidious hoax. They are trying to start a race war, and memes likely aren't helping.
The person who kills a Haitian person in Springfield isn't going to do it because we made fun of JD and the orange bad for saying it. They're going to kill them because JD and the orange bad and about a thousand other serious people in their echo-chamber said it.
175Right? I don't think satire pointing out how utterly fucking ridiculous the cat eating allegations are is being part of the problem. This almost seems like "won't someone appease the racists by not making fun of them?"
83The point of the post is that if Trump had said that he wanted to kill every immigrant at gun point, there wouldn’t be any jokes or memes about it, because it’s a dangerous statement that would be taken seriously by anyone.
By making memes about him saying immigrants are eating dogs and cats, then we are “signaling” that what he said isn’t terrifyingly dangerous, we’re taking it as ridiculous and funny and not to be worried about. And that plays a role in normalizing all the stupid shit he has been saying.
As a disclaimer, Trump is a piece of shit and I am DEFINITELY NOT saying both sides are bad (I fucking hate that argument). But the argument in the post is a valid one. Of course there are also some upsides to the memes. First they are funny but they also cause those words to reach out to more people which hopefully has an effect in terms of voting against him
8
Right, and ridicule is an effective way to shut down fascists. Its why calling them weird is so effective.
In saying that, mocking them does give fuel to the fire. Its a necessary evil.
43Yep!
The person who starts a terrorist attack was looking for a reason. And last I checked, jokes aren't what's setting them off.
21How fucking arrogant do you have to be? You have no idea what sets off someone deranged enough to go on a killing spree. It could be anything, from prodding by asshats like Trump, to the “evil far-left” making fun of their demigod.
And to suggest that you know better because it sounds ludicrous to you is just as bad, because you aren’t taking them seriously and they will hate that even more.
-20You might have just triggered someone to kill someone. How dare you say those aggressive triggering words.
You see how dumb that sounds?
18You have no idea what sets off someone deranged enough to go on a killing spree.
I'm kinda curious if you have access to rifles and/or clock towers..
-2
"And when someone is actually killed you're gonna feel real fuckin dumb for joking about it."
Oh, like all the other Trump policies and insanity that have literally got people killed and we joke about?
Fuck's sake. Mockery is the only language these cretins even partially comprehend. We've tried the "They go low, we go high" route. Telling them "P-p-please, you're going to kill minorities talking like this..." just gives these Nazi fucks a hard-on. Only relentless mockery can make them tuck their tails and quiet down for a little bit, reducing the harm their insanity causes.
99Or the policy where they separated children from their parents and then didn't keep track of who was family of whom, so that it was very hard and sometimes even impossible to reunite the family again in the future. Pure evil.
11I agree with you, but none of the cat jokes I've seen really struck me as making fun of the Trump supporters/Nazis. They mostly seem to put the immigrants at the butt of the joke.
Maybe I'm just not taking the jokes in the spirit they're intended in. But I don't think that's the case.
2
The cat jokes call out the bullshit. Calling out the bullshit is good. Fuck it: here's Alf again.
28Yes the jokes keep his stupidity front and center to remind voters
3
So we can't point out racism and make jokes about how pathetic these racists are because other racists might get violent?
... I'm not with you on this one. It's a weak stance.
81Sarcasm only works if the person actually understands what sarcasm is.
Most Americans are too stupid to do that when it's spoken much less read.
9Yeah, people are dancing on TikTok to techno remixes of Trump saying that Haitians eat cats and dogs. People are normalizing it because they think it's funny.
No, he's saying racist shit about immigrants. It's worth ridicule, but it's not a joke...
5
Glad to see this guy found the real villain in this situation, liberals.
41They never care when lives are lost though...
5We should
2Thoughts are prayers
2
This might upset people but when we joke about things I think a lot of times we normalize it. We do it as a means of coping with the insanity in front of us but in turn we often deescalate the overall seriousness of the issue. I don't think this is particularly good for voter turnout. I feel like this was partly how Trump managed to win the presidency in 2016. People memed and laughed about the idea of it occurring, didn't take it seriously and well it happened.
I apologize for being a stick in the mud, it's not my intention to be the meme police or take away your joy but I agree with the sentiment that we shouldn't trivialize what's at stake by laughing it off.
8Did this person just now realize that people were dying because of these actions the entire time?
24Honestly this is where my headspace is at. I see all the memes and jokes and they just make me sadder.
27There are way too many jokes and way too little counter-narratives to this racist hoax.
7The jokes are the counter narrative by showing how fucking stupid the racism is.
51There's both humor and serious responses to this, both doing the same job of saying it's stupid lies. The alternative is to ignore it, which means it only circulates in the circles where it's meant to drum up real action instead of just a meme. Do you have another solution instead of countering it with how ridiculous it is?
19What possible counter narrative could you have to "those people over there are eating cats!" that hasn't been said?
Its flagrantly wrong at a factual level, incredibly racist in a predictable way, and utterly stupid. All three of these points have been argued and repeated and made national headlines over and over again, counter to the evil things that are being said by the racists in the GOP.
What else is there? What "counter narrative" is missing?
13and WAY too many of the "jokes" are just context-free memes that are only satirical if you ALREADY KNOW the fucking allegations are false! it's 2024, we should know better.
9Define "counter-narrative". It's what you wanted, right? But you didn't. Instead you're blaming is for mocking absurd racist claims because ... checks notes ... other racists might or might not get violent.
And look, I've already read a handful of articles on the hoax just from whatever shows up in my subscriptions here or on RSS or whatever. People are addressing it head-on. That is happening, even if you don't see it. So, do you have any data to back up your claim.
5RFK jr in shambles
1
Reducto ad absurdum is a valid, logical argument.
19Trump has already gotten millions of Americans killed..
14Rookie number. I hear some other presidents got 10-15% of their country killed off.
3You know, some of the best scholars are saying, and believe me folks, these people are saying, our numbers should be better folks, people are telling me, people are honestly saying to me that our numbers should be better, and I mean we have the, you know, we have the concept of a plan with the best people on it to get those numbers better folks.
2Shout out to any one or two in oarticular?
1
Also, how extremists shouting the quiet part out loud is just assimilated now into the liberals sense of "status quo," so they just leave them to their fascism and bigotry then go off on you instead for "rocking the boat" when you point out the racist call for violence is bad.
Yes, I'm tired of hearing it too, that's WHY IM TRYING TO GET YOU TO GIVE A SHIT AND TELL THEM TO FUCK OFF WITH ME
3I haven't seen anyone making "cat jokes."
1I've been making cat jokes. Taylor Swift's endorsement of Harris was accompanied by a photo of her with her dinner.
I fundamentally disagree with OP on this. Ignore it, and the Republicans become the only ones talking about it. They aren't saying it's bullshit. We can't control the message without talking about it; the best way to defuse it is to use it to attack dementia don and the Couchfucker in Chief.
1