CLIMBING MEMES 2.0

Not strictly climbing related but relevant today

Franck Vee wrote:

That's a shitty thing to use in a joke.

Bill Czajkowski wrote:

That's a shitty thing to use in a joke.

Yeah agreed. That's in really poor taste. Im super hard to offend but that's over the line.  And it has 16 upvotes? This thread blew up with butthurt when someone posted a meme that had 3 guys in bed together. But a shitty post using a guy who stood up against tyranny and more than likely lost his life over it gets upvotes? Plus ive wiped on red x4 and it held fine. Double shame. 

EDIT: More seriously guys, I don't know what to tell you. If I were to guess whether the CCP would prefer a world in which memes are made with that picture, or a world in which that picture doesn't circulate at all, I'm pretty sure they'd pick the one where it doesn't circulate. The fact that it seems to be banned in China would tend to prove me right. There's no social justice component this meme, I'm not claiming to be doing anything for social justice in China or elsewhere with that meme. All I'm saying is that you being offended by that meme, on a philosophical level, seems pretty misguided, and other than it being a spontaneous knee-jerk reaction, I don't really understand it. 

 Sorry that you don't like it.

Bill Czajkowski wrote:

That's a shitty thing to use in a joke.

Have you thought about contacting MP, maybe you could get it redacted. 

Franck Vee wrote:

EDIT: More seriously guys, I don't know what to tell you. If I were to guess whether the CCP would prefer a world in which memes are made with that picture, or a world in which that picture doesn't circulate at all, I'm pretty sure they'd pick the one where it doesn't circulate. The fact that it seems to be banned in China would tend to prove me right. There's no social justice component this meme, I'm not claiming to be doing anything for social justice in China or elsewhere with that meme. All I'm saying is that you being offended by that meme, on a philosophical level, seems pretty misguided, and other than it being a spontaneous knee-jerk reaction, I don't really understand it. 

 Sorry that you don't like it.

I didn't ask you to tell me anything. I was communicating to you that I find it in poor taste so, perhaps, you could consider another perspective and how other people might perceive it. Do as you wish. I personally don't find the incident pictured there to be something remotely funny and is, in my opinion, not a good parallel to anything in climbing since what it represents to me is a struggle against tyranny and human beings trying to assert basic freedoms, not a safety factor in an entitled pass-time.

I also think your analysis of what the government of China would like is naive. They might just appreciate that you belittle the efforts of their people to change their country.

Franck if it makes you feel better, I generally don't like your memes just because I think they're poorly constructed, not because they're in poor taste

F Loyd wrote:

Frank - take note, this is funny!

Zack - take note...you're, not your. It's not my Jerry, it's Morty's Jerry.

And yes, I got it, thanks for following along. Maybe you've heard the truism that jokes aren't funny when you have to explain them.

I'm sure Kevin DeWeese follows on with some random artistic blather, to which I say:

Bill Czajkowski wrote:

Frank - take note, this is funny!

bill - take note...your jerry here

Bill Czajkowski wrote:

 I personally don't find the incident pictured there to be something remotely funny and is, in my opinion, not a good parallel to anything in climbing since what it represents to me is a struggle against tyranny and human beings trying to assert basic freedoms, not a safety factor in an entitled pass-time.

That meme is exactly what art is; using one thing to reference and expand upon something else.  A meme utilizing a photo for a different purpose (humor in this case) is not stating that the actions in the photo are humorous, it's stating that the shared concept being referenced through the use of that image are humorous. 

In this case, that shared concept being the way we all understand the feeling of sketching out above crappy gear. Yes, the imagery in the meme references a moment in history that was horrible and evokes shared extreme feelings of pride, shame, fear, etc, but that's the point, the awareness that any competent viewer may have of importance of the moment pictured in the meme is compared to the awareness that we all have of how extreme the feeling of being above crappy gear is, and guess what? Most sane people are going to realize that the two are not comparable and that the events of the students in Tiananmen Square is far worse and far more important that our opinions about being above crappy gear on a route. 

And. That. Is. Why. It's. Humorous. 

Not because we all agree they're the same, but because we all agree they're not the same, and in that, we realize that it's funny to poke at ourselves for having that sort of feelings when we're in the thick of climbing fears. It's not punching down by making light of the events in the image, it's punching up by making fun of us and the way that climbers feel like what we do actually matters in the larger scope of the world. 

Bill Czajkowski wrote:

Maybe you've heard the truism that jokes aren't funny when you have to explain them.

So close, yet so far. Jokes create a subconscious reaction in ourselves that we react to as humor. That's the funny. Often the best jokes create this reaction without us completely understanding why at first and only through deeper analysis can we actually figure out the structural reason why we had that humorous reaction. That's the understanding of the funny. Two seperate things. 

The humor can't really be argued, but the appropriateness can be argued as we delve into whether a joke is punching up or punching down (ie: whether Frank is making fun of the oppressed people represented in the image or whether he's making fun of himself and us as the context and understanding of the meme would point to), whether it's tone deaf for a particular period of time (ie: the difference in immediate reaction one might feel when comparing the Tiananmen Square image to the 9/11 image as the 9/11 image is closer in time and national culture), or a myriad of other social deconstructions. 

Tal M wrote:

Franck if it makes you feel better, I generally don't like your memes just because I think they're poorly constructed, not because they're in poor taste

Why are you singling out Franck? His are in the upper tier. Bryans' memes, talk about poorly constructed...

While I did appreciate Kevin's slam poetry piece there, going to try to get this thread back on track.