Pepper Rally (Updated) 2
At Philly dot com, John Timpane considers the “meme-mification” of the pepper spraying of protestors at the University of California at Davis, examining theories about why images and pastiches of that indicident spread so rapidly.
A nugget:
“That image was just too striking not to stick with people,” Wolford says.
Nonchalant cruelty towards the defenseless does tend to catch the eye, as Xeni Jardin points out at the Guardian:
Addendum:
We laugh because otherwise we cry.
November 23, 2011 at 11:01 am
I dunno. A meme Pike may now be but that’s just parallel — massively coincidental — to the spread of the naked photo all the pastiches are made from. The photo, the time and conditions was enough to immortalize him in the way other horrifying/nasty photos have over the decades. The Internet made its spread instantaneous. But the endless photoshopping is a bit nauseating and speaks to a lack of sense and just a little absence of decency, maybe, in the people doing it — making a joke, gallow’s humor and a bit of superfluous content out of something that’s not funny at all. The Philly news writer refers to pepper spraying as just a few sore throats and eyes. Perhaps we should have a requirement all journalists or pundits who like to describe it as a type of trivial inconvenience get an ounce or two of 20 percent capsaicin squirted into their eyes and down their throats so they could write from authority on what such ‘just sore throats and eyes’ are all about. Resistance to pain differs for everyone but it always hurts more when you’re scared.
November 23, 2011 at 11:04 am
You probably couldn’t have missed Megyn Kelly on Fox also going on about pepper spray on Fox about how it was a “food product.” One that would really mess up her daily hundred dollar tv make-up job, I imagine.