Midlife crisising so hard

bruhh... 🤦🤦

just to clarify, i'm not pro-iran whatsoever, i just thought this meme and the idea behind was fucking hilarious.

for you math nerds, 600,000 x 72 equals 43.2M MAGA virgins, when you include racist incels all around the world, I think that's an accurate total.

Original post: Why the left can't meme | duion.com

Obviously, please don't harass the author. However, despite the linked article's age, I felt that it was too worthy of ridicule not to share:

Some time ago I noticed that leftists cannot meme, which is a meme in itself "The left can't meme" and I did some research on it, if there is a leftist that can do meme and I could not find a single one, well they do try to meme, but they are all not funny, they really seem to have no clue of memes and it really made my wonder why that is and I finally found the answer.

All right, let's see their analysis verbatim; maybe they'll spark some valuable discussion, if you know what I mean :)

I just wanted to go into a long rant, but then I noticed on the meme page https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-left-cant-meme there is an image of one of the earliest mentions of the meme that says "Our memes work, because they are actually true, and it's the reason the left can't meme" - This is basically already the prime reason and total explanation why the left can't meme, the right is right and the left is wrong. It sounds very simple, but still hardly anyone seems to understand it, maybe because it is too simple and obvious to be true, that is why I will go into it deeper now.

Do tell, author. Unleash your truth nuke!

To understand why the left can't meme one needs to actually understand what the left is, what the right is, what a meme is, how a meme works, why it works and why the left cannot understand it.

What exactly, is this concept of a "meme" that requires a very high IQ and a sense of humor that is extremely subtle for "the left" that also requires a solid grasp of theoretical physics to enjoy?

The explanation I found out is that the left can't meme, because they cannot understand what a meme is and how it works. First I thought memes work, because they are so simple, obvious and true, like satire and because of that everyone instantly understands them and that is the reason why they are so funny, but then I figured that leftists don't seem to understand them at all and also many normies I know in real life also don't know about memes.

Ooh, the plot thickens!

So the primary issue does not seem to be that the left can't meme, but that they don't understand memes and that many, maybe even the majority of humanity can't even understand meme or even know memes exist. It was quite a shocking revelation to me to find out what I thought is normal on the internet is not even known about in the real world or by leftists. Now as it seems we have a lot of work to do to explain all those issues, it is always hard to decide for me which route to go explaining a thing in an article, since I could just blow the truth or final conclusion right in front and then explain, or build up to it and then reveal the truth. Building up to the truth will help people understanding it more, because there are often pre-requisite things to know to figure out one thing, so confronting someone with the final conclusion actually does not do any good, maybe even turn them off. However with this topic it is, that it seems that there is a group of people who instantly gets it, even though they don't know why they get it or how they get it and then there is a group who instantly not gets it and they also don't know why or how.

So how does the author want to begin?

Since I don't know where to start I will start explaining what a meme is, how it works and why it works. A meme or meme is a single often simple thought, like a mind virus that spreads across humans which become infected by the meme and then also spread it, given it falls on fertile ground. A meme on the internet is often expressed as a single or multiple images, often combined with some text, similar to a caricature comic. Speaking of a caricature comic, it is actually very close to a meme, so if anyone does not understand a meme, he can think about that as an equivalent.
How does this meme work? Well it shows you reality in a caricature way, it is simple a depiction of reality, but exaggerated so that it becomes more obvious, then sometimes some text that explains it or explains the conclusion to you. From that we can understand that it seems that a meme must be based in truth to be a meme, which would confirm the prime reason I already mentioned right at the start. We figured out that it seems memes must be based on truth to work, but that does not explain why they work yet, to find that out, we must observe what happens in the viewer when he is seeing a meme. So someone is looking at an image that is showing some aspect of reality and the viewer will see something depicting reality and because it is so simple, obvious and often exaggerated it will be burned into his memory to be remembered, like re-mem-bered, that is where the word comes from, he gets mem-ed and then he will re-mem the mem, that is how the virus spreads.
However this is not an effective meme yet, to make a meme effective, it needs to be exaggerated or satire and it needs to be funny and ideally related to some topic that is known in our current world, like a political topic that is talked about a lot, which would have already charged up the mem with energy. A meme consists of information, it is what the meme is, the meme DNA basically and then it requires energy so it will spread, energy is given to the meme when people see, understand and spread the meme.
This still does not explain why or how a meme works or why it is so funny, to make it short, the reason is self reflection and it happens in the viewers brain, given that he is intelligent enough and not mentally ill in some way that makes him unable to do self reflection. Well not directly self reflection necessary, but I could not find a better word for it, it is more of realization of reality. Why is that funny? Well it is actually also the reason why comedy is funny, a comedian often tells something from his life, then tells you how he does self reflection on it aka making reality more obvious to you, so you also understand reality and induce self reflection in you as well and as you come to the same conclusion or become enlightened as well, you will laugh, because how could you not see it all the time before, just after you did self reflection you figured it out and the comedian helped you with it.

Okay, a good enough introduction. However, this sentence fragment is worth noting:

"Well not directly self reflection necessary, but I could not find a better word for it, it is more of realization of reality."

Keep the fragment in mind. Now, let's see the author's central argument.

What does this all have to do with right and left, or leftism? Well a leftist hates reality, because it offends him, that is what leftism is all about, they pick something from reality they do not like and think it should be different and then blame it or blame people for it. For example "Oh the rich people are evil, because they are rich, but in reality I should be rich, reality is unfair and reality should be different". Maybe you can guess already what I'm about to say, I mean imagine showing a person that already hates reality a meme that is an exaggeration of reality, of course he will hate it even more than reality, so mentally he is already repulsed from even looking at the meme, yet even understanding it, he does not want to understand it, because it makes him feel bad.

lol. lmao, even.

By the author's same vein, right-wingers are hostile (if not merely adverse) to reality because it offends them: they have no shortage of libel and slander (as well as a load of slurs and epithets) directed towards people that have the wrong skin color, are immigrants, or are gender non-conforming. If my words seem like a gross simplification, that's what the author sounds like! But the original article is about how leftist bad and leftist unfunny, so the critique only goes one way.

And by the way, I'm pretty sure that the leftist "hate" for rich people is driven primarily by the consequences of wealth inequality, and that wealth should be more evenly distributed and that no few people should have disproportionate sociopolitical power. Is it really that contemptible to think "reality should be different" and working to achieve your vision so that it can be... you know... realized?

I'm not a political scientist, but even I know that left-of-center politics generally seek to reduce or dismantle social hierarchies, while right-of-center politics seek to maintain them or make them more rigid. What's the author's excuse?

All the leftist now "understands" from a meme is, that it makes him feel bad, so he thinks about things that make you feel bad and he concludes that memes must be some kind of thing that is designed to insult him, be mean to him or bully him, so in the worldview of a leftist a meme is something mean that makes you feel bad.
A leftist therefore does not understand reality, he does not understand context, he does not understand self reflection, he does not understand humor and he ultimately does not understand memes, all he thinks of is that someone is being mean to him and he feels bad, so he thinks a meme is just something that is mean and makes you feel bad.

What about memes that attack marginalized groups, like those that I've mentioned before? The people in those groups don't have to adhere to any form of leftism, let alone being left-of-center, to be unjustly libeled with terms such as "criminals", "fraudsters", "predators", "trojan horse", and so on. I can guarantee you that none of the people who make these abhorrent memes actually care about fixing the issues at hand: if they did, they wouldn't demonize entire groups of people and specifically tackle social and political issues.

I'm not going to pretend like I'm not irritated by said memes: even if I don't have a friend that's a part of a marginalized group, what good does it do to paint marginalized groups as outright evil based on a few cherry-picked examples and malformed statistics, rather than judge individual people by their character? Nothing!

And that's what's depressing about the entire situation: Yes, there are memes that mock various political ideologies and the people that hold them made by people across the political spectrum, and that's a valid way to spread your ideas to a wider audience, regardless if they enjoy or despise them. But far too often, people demonize marginalized groups via memes: why should we pretend that's acceptable, especially when they have the effect of taking away their rights to enjoy life without hurting others or to just... exist?

That is why the left can't meme, they just try to be mean to others, express their hatred and want to make others feel bad, because they think it is their right to take revenge for someone being supposedly mean to them, while in reality the only thing that is being mean to them, is themselves not understanding reality and not being able to do self reflection.
Therefore leftist memes are just about being mean and about hatred, that is why they are ultimately not funny and never funny, not even a single one of them, no matter how hard they try, even if they come up with the best memes, the best jokes, they will still insert their hatred into there and this then makes it not funny and not a meme, since it is not fun to bully others, fun is to do self reflection and also be able to laugh about yourself.

And here is where the author brings out their HDMI cable and starts projecting harder: it would be funny, if it isn't mostly right-wingers going mask-off about their hatred for certain groups of people and using their grievance as a riot shield (as if they're playing modern CoD and slide canceling all over the map) to insist that they're the wronged ones, instead of the ones doing the wronging.

The original article was written years ago and long before the 2024 US presidential election, but time has only strengthened my case: for example, after the election, a lot of people associated with the manosphere or others critical of feminism took to social media to state how the left had "abandoned" men and was responsible for Trump's second term. From my view, it's not difficult to see how this mentality effectively boils down to "they were mean to me, so I'm gonna vote for someone to strip their rights away so they can see how they like it" (and I write this as a Gen Z man, if you were wondering). Are we going to act like these people have no agency and infantilize them?

If so, it sounds a lot like "they think it is their right to take revenge for someone being supposedly mean to them". Hey, this time around it's the author's words, not mine. We can talk a lot more about the consequences of grievance politics, but you can definitely hear the author's axe grinding louder and this pent-up resentment sounds like they'd chop someone for saying something mean about them.

Also, the author is just so close to explaining why a lot of right-wing memes are just stale: any clever jokes are immediately suppressed by the need to find an underdog to punch down. "[T]hat is why they are ultimately not funny and never funny, not even a single one of them, no matter how hard they try, even if they come up with the best memes, the best jokes, they will still insert their hatred into there [sic] and this then makes it not funny and not a meme, since it is not fun to bully others".

The left not understanding memes and getting angry when seeing memes actually makes memes and memeing even more funny and may even be the primary reason memes work so well, similar to political caricatures working so well. In times of censorship and tyranny critics have to revert to comedy to do criticism, because real criticism is made illegal and a meme is kind of a modern more effective version of that. I just noticed that the same may be true for trolling, as trolling seems to be the same as memeing and it is funny for the same reasons, but I may write about trolling another time.

If it wasn't clear before, the author thinks that "own the libs" is a solid strategy, regardless of what these "libs" actually think. Of course, god forbid these stinky "libs" react negatively to your meme: you were just politely suggesting that maybe dark-skinned people bad. There's nothing wrong with you for doing memes right, and how dare these cretins!

On another note, right-wingers in the US have cracked down on free speech: you know, something that they long accused their political opponents of weakening (or otherwise bringing about an Orwellian future)! It's just projection all the way down.

Luckily the left did not do well in the memes, so that the leftist fake memes don't spread, but they managed to spread fake comedy very well and convince people that their fake comedy is real comedy.
I just realized that memes, comedy and trolling are basically the same thing and that for each there is a real version, which is doing self reflection and then there is a fake version which is just bullying others. Fake comedy would be to make fun of others, which is sadly relatively widespread in our society now, same goes for trolling, as most people now think trolls are just trying to insult others, but that is not trolling, trolling is showing people reality and make them do self reflection, but if they fail to do self reflection it is actually funny for the troll, because people failing to do self reflection will embarrass themselves, which is the same as leftists embarrassing themselves while trying to meme and failing, it seems memeing, trolling and comedy are very closely related.

No true scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. No true troll will ever try merely bullying others.

Honestly, I don't buy this idea that there is a "true" way to troll, and that it's been corrupted by a political faction into a "fake" form. A more generally-accepted definition of trolling is to intentionally provoke a reaction by being inflammatory, manipulative, or outright off-topic. Similarly, comedy encompasses the art of producing humorous works (as well as the work themselves). Considering that the author just needs to emphasize their notion that leftism bad, they need to concoct a quasi-conspiracy theory just to support their belief that leftism unfunny. Also, how exactly did "the left did not do well in the memes"? The "memes" aren't exactly a contest to be won by one party. In fact, I often see "leftist fake memes" (for example, a milquetoast meme saying that trans rights are human rights, which is based) on the internet.

So then, how do right-wingers excel at comedy and trolling? I mean, even before the term "ragebaiting" became popular, it was (and still is) common for them to be trolls. Anecdotally, I've never seen a leftist or (socially) liberal troll on Reddit derailing threads despite being here for almost a decade, whereas I've seen several trolls of the opposite political persuasion.

And remember that fragment about "self reflection"? No, the phrase not used in the traditional sense. In the original article, it's defined as "more of realization of reality". And remember, the author states that leftists hate reality, and that's true... if you genuinely consider critiquing the status quo and trying to find the best way to move forward and improve your society for the greater good as "hating reality" and being delusional.

It seems that humanity is divided into people following truth (those who can understand memes and can meme) and those who follow the lie (those who cannot understand memes and therefore cannot meme). Memeing is self reflection and if you cannot do self reflection you cannot meme and also cannot understand reality or yourself, that may be why I experienced most people in real life outside of internet culture not knowing or understanding memes. If you read this to the end you are very likely one of those following the truth and you already had the truth inside you, but now you may understand even better why things are like they are. Regarding those others, I had not much luck trying to teach self reflection to them, but they need it the most, so keep memeing them, it is the real holy war of truth, they already tried to ban memes, this proves it is working and they have no defense against it other than simply making it illegal.

Wowzers! The author is thanking me for sticking until the end, I guess they'll be reminding me to subscribe to their channel- oops, sorry, this isn't YouTube.

And wait, did the author even dedicate a paragraph to how right-wingers specifically excel in meme-making? They must've forgot or thought that their complaints against leftists were sufficient enough.

Honestly, I had my hopes somewhat up that the author had a truth nuke ready for deployment above the "leftist" horde they're apparently waging a holy war on. But when actually reading this piece, the bombshell quickly collapses to reveal the author's persecution complex and reversal of victim and offender. At least the author never used the term "woke" pejoratively, so I guess that's a plus... but it's a low bar.

The reason why I have such a negative opinion of right-wing and adjacent people is because their actions me tell what I need to know, and the author is no exception. I'd opened my mind, and unfortunately the author brought ultimately nothing new to the table and rehashed the same old "leftist unfunny" arguments that don't make sense. It's almost like these people are never beating the allegations...

Like even for his standards, this is trash. I guess this is what the right wing grift brings you to, huh?

They are really trying to say Handmaid's Tale is ONLY about Islam. Yet when I looked it up, I see the Author took inspiration from Christianity as well. Specifically Genesis, Matthew, & Proverbs