Volcanoes erupt. That is what they do. But to most people they do so instantly, when in reality it took many hundreds or even thousands of years to reach that point.
These days scientists have a much better but imperfect understanding of them. They have a better idea of when they might erupt. But most people don’t pay attention. I did, in the digital world, then I blew it off, and then 2015 came, and the lava was gurgling.
In about 2010, I started to notice something on Facebook: memes. Most memes are harmless, I love the cat ones as you know, but these were pernicious. These were propping up an ignorant side of America. These memes, rather than serving as verification of enlightenment served more as a validation of stupidity. It seemed that the people sharing this were getting these from random pages of radio stations I could never prove existed. These were almost all country, though some rock was mixed in there too.
It was 2010 when I began to understand an entire generation of Americans did not want to learn, they wanted the rest of us to dumb down.
Meme 1: The Water Hose
Yes. I did drink out of a water hose in the 1980’s. This was stupid. I did not know better. Now I do know better.
- Don’t drink water from a hose: Unless you know for sure that your hose is phthalate-free and drinking water safe, don’t drink from it. Even low levels of lead may cause health problems. Some PVC hoses labeled drinking water safe contain phthalates.
But I knew better way back in the 1990’s. As a teen I learned not to do this. But here we go again with the “tougher than your generation” nostalgia. Somehow wanting to avoid deadly or life altering lead content made one a wimp.
They believed we should not stop giving kids water from a hose. It somehow made them weak or soft, clean water is for wussies.
So all over Facebook I find this garbage. On and on it goes, usually from a middle aged white person. All proud as a peacock that they had the guts and strength to drink from a hose.
Not “Don’t do this.” Not, “I wish we would have known better.” No. Their attitude is, “Drink bottled water? Wuss.”
Meme 2: “The Kids Are Coddled”
There are many versions of this one. Some of it is jumping on the backseat in traffic, others are about monkey bars or skateboarding. But they all come down to one thing: Wounds, injuries, scars, and debilitation is not something to avoid, it is a rite of passage and necessary to develop a “real American.”
This one hints that child abuse is a key to a well adjusted child. Someone will post this and it will get a million likes.
Yes you read that correctly. To many (largely but not entirely) uneducated-blue collar Facebook degreed geniuses, if you do not engage in something dangerous, endure harm, or dole it out to others, you are a Class A Wuss who has no business running America.
If this photo turns your stomach you are like me. If you look at it then think, “This is preparing the kid to survive in the real world,” get help.
Meme 3: “Who Needs A Child Seat?”
A variation on the water hose tough kid, snowflake meme. Basic premise is that kids that get new fangled tech like “seatbelts” and “helmets” are weak, freaks, and geeks.
Meme 4: “The Red Pill”
This one is designed to make you accept “isms.” Racism, sexism, you name it. In fact one of the most shocking cultural consequences of my lifetime is how many conservatives were influenced by The Matrix.
Yet by comparison, these were good old days. As time wore on, and we got closer to the era of the Orange Blob, subtlety went out the window. Gone were the coded words of “wimps” or “Share If You.” No they began to say the quiet part out loud.
And Facebook not only allowed them, as these pages grew, they obliterated my timeline to the point where my feed was worthless.
And so did I actually gather evidence as I saw it? No. I blew it off. I chalked it up to idiots in my friend’s list and unfollowed or unfriended.
Then one day I took a look at the “likes.” Gazillions. But what do I worry about this for right? What does a water hose have to do with anything? Plenty I would find out much too late. Cambridge Analytica had a veritable blueprint of potential customers from these garbage memes. For instance, you could gather that if someone was posting these that person was 1. Against any form of political correctness or decorum. 2. A drinker. 3. An abuser. 4. Toxic. And so on. But you could also guess that if person A. was these things, then it stood to reason they were also conservative even if not voting that way now.
After a while Facebook became one of the single biggest technologies I most regretted society inventing. It is now full of cranks and conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, racists and homophobes are proudly hiding behind phrases like free speech and snowflakes.
Remember in their mind if we don’t like something we are the problem. We are the weak ones, we are the ones letting down America one safe space at a time.
We should not seek therapy over child abuse. I mean come on? How could we be a responsible adult without taking a beating as a helpless child? We need to work four jobs if needed as real Americans are not lazy. But aside from the blueprint it provided for Trump, I go back to this persistent denigration of children. What kind of self-loathing did they tap into? And what kind of self-loathing do these memes foster?
And just who are these radio stations that started it all?
What’s the frequency Kenneth?
Or should I say, Where’s?
UPDATE: Part 2 now live! The Rabbit Hole Of Russian Psyops! Read now! www.dailykos.com/...
-ROC
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-ROC