this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
1404 points (89.9% liked)
Memes
45647 readers
1114 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You're pretty upset that I asked a question aren't you? I wonder why that is.
Government and politicians I think are pretty self explanatory and I would agree those are inherently political, no argument there.
What do you think is part of a general culture of a country, or not? How would you define culture that has conflicting opinions? Is it solely up to your discretion, or would you agree that if anyone has any disagreement about a meme that would make it automatically political?
Is this one political because it references the FBI, a governmental organization? https://startrek.website/post/1847371 I would argue that it is political.
Is this one political because it references culture related to advertising in capitalism? I would think everyone should agree that any reference to or commentary of an economic system is inherently political because of course economic systems are controversial. I don't see how anyone could argue that references to a combination of two major brands isn't a commentary on marketing: https://programming.dev/post/3200916
I mean this one references politics so it's clearly political right? https://lemm.ee/post/8502748
I'm just curious about what you and others think is political versus not. You can't have a discussion about if something should or should not be allowed if you can't clearly define the boundaries of that thing. I find the discussion around what is and isn't politics to be an interesting one, that's all.
I think can answer the memes questions for you.
Lmao. The FBI: famously non-political government organization that murders activists as easily as one can breath air.
And Microsoft: famously non-political company that ~~bribes~~ lobbies the u.s government constantly to gain monopoly over their market, works hand-in-hand with federal agencies to monitor system users, and regularly influences city, state, and national politics in the pursuit of subsidies of the American worker in order to further boost their already gross profit margins.
I'm not disagreeing that some companies can have a political impact on the world.
Those memes in particular, aren't focused on the political aspects. You have to be missing a brain in order to miss the point there.
You can't have one without the other and you'd have to have a brain smoother than melting butter in order to miss the point there
There's no point arguing with you since you can't understand the basic concept of what the point of a meme is nor can you read what I previously wrote.
There's no point arguing with you since you're detached from material reality, nor can you read what I previously wrote.
You think the basic concept of a meme is an increasingly stale chuckle you get while being in an ever-smaller bubble world because the world outside of that is scary and uncomfortable to you.
What? This is a community for memes. Political debate isn't memes. Simple as that.
Keep your head in the sand as deep and long as you like, but that doesn't change the fact that almost everything imaginable has some intersectional political context, including whining about things being too political.
You may not notice it when you're comfortable and used to it, but it's there.
The only thing simple about it is your willful ignorance and the ever-smaller bubble world you're trying to hold together because the world outside of it is scary and political.
I get what you mean, even thought I don't entirely agree.
If you go to extremes, everything can be political. That's not the reality more often than not. Also, I don't mind politics, and I enjoy different opinions. However, I don't think memes where the point is clearly to annoy or trigger any political party or political movement belong here though.
In sum, I respect and appreciate any and all political opinions, on political centric communities. I just want to look at stupid memes and unwind, I don't want to see the the usual left/right/capitalist/socialist/communist arguments.
Who decides what is "extreme?" You?
That's the problem. It's a vague arbitrary line that seems defined by "what you find uncomfortable that you don't want to think about."
Extremes are based on common sense. If you don't have common sense then I'm afraid I can't help you understand what is political and what isn't.
I'm done wasting my time with this crap.
Again, what you call your common sense as an arbitrary and selfish metric that others clearly do not agree with, including here in this thread.
That's an impressive amount of textual masturbation there.
Alas, you must go, the nonpolitical logical humans of Rationalia require your presence. Be on your way, oh nonpolitical arbiter of what is and isn't common sense.
FUCKIN LMAO and who defines what common sense is? Is there a list of criteria for something to be considered common sense that is generally accepted? I must have missed that checklist.
Guess I'm a dumbfuck.
No you have to be missing a brain to think monopolies don't have anything to do with politics.
Stealing a line from something I saw earlier. If you don't like the memes just ignore them like you do the homeless people you walk by, non-politically.
I never said they don't have anything to do with politics you dumbfuck. Re-read my post.
Ok I re read the part where you said
And interpreted that to mean you didn't think it was political.
If that wasn't the intent you should work on communicating more clearly, or not being mad when people correctly read what you posted.
Oh god. How thick can you be? I meant the MEME isn't political. Never said anything about Microsoft or other big companies.
You did not read correctly, indeed. The question was if the meme was political, not Microsoft.
Oh god. How thick can you be? You did not read correctly, indeed. The question was if the meme was political. And it clearly is, since it references political entities and distributes the ideology of whoever is OP of the meme to a bunch of unsuspecting lurkers that falsely assume it's non-political. Also the fact that you disagree about what is and what isn't political makes it political
You guys are making it political.
Remove the hexbear instance and you'll see that most of the comments agree on what is and isn't politics, even thought their feelings towards X and Y political party differ. It's seems it's just you guys creating a shit storm of nonsense and everybody else kinda getting along despite their differences.
There is a massive degree of consensus between Democrats and Republicans with vicious disagreement on a minority of issues
I wouldn't know, I'm not from the US ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But for what little I know of US politics, I believe you are correct.
You're describing an echochamber..
Nah, I'm describing a meme focused community.
If there are no politics, there are no echo chambers to be had.
That must explain why all those meme focused communities, especially the "dank" and "edgy" ones radicalized a generation of white boys to worship Andrew tate and why we've got 10 year olds saying kill all gays and fuck women to popular "meme" streamers.
Cus of how non political those places are.
I agree with you there. I hate that little old scrutum too.
But, if those memes would start to get too edgy, yes I would still want a specific community for them
Wow what a surprise the person complaining about memes being too political also thinks that the memes that radicalized fascists should still be kept around.
You're literally the white moderate holding back progress MLK Jr described.
What drugs are you high on?
I didn't say those memes should be kept around. I said they should have their own community in the sense that I don't want them here.
Truth be told, we would have no way to ban those people from creating a community or even an entire instance if they wanted to.
Also, I'm not from the US. No fucking clue what you mean by white moderate. Also, why specifically white? Wtf
Of course you think that there are no politics, because you have a very limited understanding of politics
I'm not gonna argue with you anymore. You do you.
When you get to the size of a monopoly like that, you operate on such a massive scale that your very existence as a company, and the actions required to grow and sustain it, is orders of magnitude more politcal than say, the small-scale relationship between a restaurant owner and their employees, which is also inherently politcal.
Again, I'm not saying you guys are wrong. What I'm saying is that the point of the meme is NOT political in nature.
But I think they're political. Is my opinion on what is and is not political invalid for some objective reason?
You're entitled to your opinion. It doesn't make it less wrong though, the content of the memes is clearly not political.
Can you provide an objective reason why my thoughts on this are wrong?
Acknowledging the fact that politics exist is not inherently political. Please explain how that third meme is even remotely political?
Regardless, the lack of a clear and simple political-or-not binary is not an excuse to avoid moderation. The political nature of some things will be argued and some things will slip through the cracks. It happens with all spectrums. But on the other hand, some things are so clearly political that it's nigh impossible to argue they're not. I'm sure you can see the massive difference in a meme about Microsoft shoes and a meme about Trump or Biden bad. Those clear extremely political memes are the ones people want banned to their own communities.
And to be clear, I actually like political memes. I just find your rebuttal to be in bad taste.
So basically you want to go with "whatever the mods think in their gut is political, is political" and expect that you'll have a well moderated community with that as your rule?
I mean, you do you, but that doesn't sound like a recipe for success to me.
If you have to ask why the 3rd meme is political I encourage you to go read the thread beneath it. Look at how much discussion and conflict it caused. It's clearly political and basically that entire thread's discussion is proof positive.
They are wrong because those memes aren't politic. They are not mentioning any party or political affiliation in any way.
Do companies influence politics? Absolutely. But that's not the point of the meme.
Got it. So only memes that directly mention a political party or political party position is political.
Since there are many communist parties across the globe, that means that any post referencing capitalism is political since making any statement on capitalism is political since it's related directly to the party stance of political parties around the world, both pro and against.
So the Microsoft Nike crossover meme is political by your definition. Glad we agree!
You almost got it buddy. Keep trying though, you're very close!
"You're almost in the direction of my feelings about what is political and what isn't based upon how I feel about it!"
Not upset, just suspicious because I've seen you asking that question a lot.
Obviously what I consider political is up to my discretion, but I'm pretty sure the general definition does not include contentious memes, and mine doesn't either because I gave a clause about one side considering the other side evil because of it.
In general, if a person asks themselves "is what I'm posting political?" they can answer correctly 95% of the time, and the 5% of edge cases won't upset 95% of the complainers.
That's an awful lot of words to implicitly say "it's not political if I agree with it"
"If a person asks themselves is this political they can answer correctly 95% of the time."
Yea turns out it's easier to answer a question correctly if you're deciding I'd the answer is right or not.
Where are you getting that?
Where you said your test is asking yourself if you thought it was political and saying you were right 95% of the time.
What I meant was that anyone can ask themselves if it's political, and 95% of the time they'll get it right by the standards of 95% of the people who don't like politics.
Ohh so it's at the discretion of people who "don't like politics" if it's political or not.
Dont worry I've seen those "non political" people talk a lot so I know what you mean.
Like how there's two races. White and "political"
So as long as what you post doesn't offend straight white people it isn't political, but if it does then it is.
What a refreshing and original take.
You're kinda misconstruing what I'm saying a lot.
Everyone has their own threshold for what's political. Some people say everything is political. Some people say it's only political if it relates to conflict between politicians.
I'm saying in 95% of cases, 95% of people can agree on what is and isn't political.
When people complain about political memes, they're usually complaining about blatantly political posts, like ones making fun of the republican party, not memes that happen to feature Black people.
This is clearly not what you just said before
Unless you are suggesting that something like ~96.95% of the population "doesn't like politics