Meme of the Week 006

I’d chosen this week’s winner even before Donald Trump’s announcement that he’d be running for president again, but it’s particularly apt in light of that. It’s a powerful meme that not only points to the truth of the former president’s narcissism and complete failure of leadership, but also effectively triggers the emotions of those who continue to support the man and those who don’t alike. The only thing that prevents it from being a perfect meme is the execution of the dialogue balloon. 9/10.

Speaking of Donald Trump’s announcement, Trouble Man and Neon Revolt helpfully summarized his speech last night.

TROUBLE MAN: I’ll give you a summary of Trump’s speech so you don’t need to waste your time: “What they’re doing to our country, rigged elections, high gas prices, southern border, wars, etc. is so sad. I did the best for black and asians and hispanics. Nobody’s done better (No mention of Whites). I did such good things for israel with the Abraham accords. Nobody’s better for israel. They’ve done nothing to fix election fraud since I walked away from a hijacked election in 2020 and your countrymen are still political prisoners… But despite that, we’re still gonna pretend we have legitimate elections and I’m gonna run again in 2024!”

NEON REVOLT: No one wants to say it, but I will. Trump doesn’t sound like he has his heart in this. There’s also the glaring issue of voter fraud. I see no evidence of anything being done to deal with this, the most important issue, affecting all our elections. Right now, with this level of energy, and with the way things are rigged, this all feels like an exercise in futility.

Don’t get me wrong. The man was a very, very good president, the best of the 20th and 21st centuries combined. But that doesn’t change the fact that Donald Trump failed in his stated objective to make America great again, he failed morally when he embraced the vaxx and subjected his countrymen to its destructive consequences, and he failed as a leader when he refused to pardon the January 6th demonstrators while pardoning con artists, scammers, and rappers.

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Meme of the Week

Despite the plethora of Boomer-tier memes and Dad-joke memes this week, there was strong competition in the Weekly Meme Review on UATV. This one was a little dark, but it is extremely powerful visual rhetoric that points toward the truth, which is precisely what makes a meme the Meme of the Week.

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Meme of the Week

The winner of this week’s Weekly Meme Review was an easy call despite some formidable competition from Jeb! and an ideologically-flexible dog. This one had it all, artwork, layout, nostalgia, emotional pull, relevance, and succinctness. And even younger viewers who don’t know who Ron Paul or the Turtles are can still feel the emotion it provides. I rated it 9/10. Don’t miss out on the next WMR, subscribe to UATV.

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Weekly Meme Review 01

Congratulations to the poster of the winning meme of the first Weekly Meme Review on the Darkstream. I believe I gave it 9/10. Effective implementation of a classic meme structure, solid art, subtle but comprehensible message, relevant, points toward truth, and definitely amusing.

Don’t send me any more memes now, as we’ve got enough for the next two weeks. When I’m ready for some new submissions, I’ll let you know. Subscribe to UATV so you won’t miss the next review; we laughed, we cried, much better than CATS.

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The Jester’s Privilege

The Big Bear has become too self-aware to be permitted to spoil Satan’s punchlines by his little minions. This is a transcript from a recent UATV video; I’ve been experimenting with some of the auto-transcription software with the idea that preserving some of the more interesting information being presented in video form in a more permanent and accessible medium might be worthwhile.

I was thinking about this recently, there’s something called the Jester’s Privilege. Jester’s Privilege is the ability and right of a jester to talk and mock freely without being punished for it, for nothing he says seems to matter. I think I lost this Jester’s Privilege when what I said started mattering. It’s super interesting to think about: if the Jester can affect the economy and politics with his jokes to people stop giving him a pass. Or is it when the jester realises his power that he loses his invisibility?

Oh, the jokester has become self aware. Yeah, it might be my self-awareness that made it so I no longer got the Jester’s Privilege. You never lost that privilege. You claimed it more fully when you chose a new king, based on the truth that the king you chose is beyond this world. Good choice. That’s very profound. You went from Jester to King because the chair was vacated, and slaves despise all the speak-rule-of-law slaves like empty chairs because it because it allows for secret kings. That’s mind blowing.

Gammas love empty chairs because it allows them to envision that they’re in the chair. That’s why we don’t have actual rulers. The Jester’s Privilege is an interesting concept in the Age of Hilarious. Your downfall is people taking your job seriously. It has been a harbinger of great success today. People look up to you as a leader and a truthsayer. They banned you because you’re too many steps ahead.

Yeah, I think that when you’re really ahead of the curve, it’s almost like when advanced technology appears to be magic. It’s similar to when you’re early adapter or you’re a trendsetter. People think you’re insane until everyone starts doing it. There were tons of people in 2018 that already knew this shit. But it wasn’t as mainstream to get chickens and gardens and shit. The wise fool teaches this.

Learning about jesters is really interesting. The art of the jester is to skillfully play on the boundary so the king has no choice but to laugh along with his subjects. Many a jester had his head lopped off for not being skilled enough to recognise the line, that’s true. I think when I took a stand against the child hormone thing is when I lost my privilege, that’s why Norm McDonald’s so great. Norm McDonald’s never done that. We can’t find a clip of Norm McDonald actually getting mad, and I know he gets mad. I know a lot of people who know him personally and Norm battled a temper.

I’m not judging. I battled that myself. But he never showed it. As a jester, he would always make it a joke. And I think that’s why, up until his death, he always had the Jester’s Privilege. I think that what I did was that I wanted to be a real boy. And so it was my choice at the end of the day. A true jester edges the line further and further erodes the power of the king and empowers the people. A bad jester insults the king and brings tyranny for all who would bring tyranny to himself. When you insult the king, the king will lash out at you but in doing so, it weakens the king if the king kills the jester. The common folk don’t respect the king because he can’t take a joke.

So maybe it’s not the humor that changes things, but the insecurity of those being mocked. There are no true jesters allowed in court anymore. Their humorous scripts are prewritten, impotent, and grovelling. And if you are spoiling Satan’s punch line, there will be none of that.

Owen Benjamin, Unauthorized, 20 February 2020

The software actually works pretty well, as relatively little post-transcription cleanup and editing was required. And the application of the concept of the historical Jester’s Privilege to the relentless policing of comedy and entertainment today is both informative and thought-provoking. Keep in mind that this is the sort of thing that you’re missing on a daily basis if you’re not subscribed to UATV.

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